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==Military career==
Gant grew up in [[Las Cruces, New Mexico|Las Cruces]], [[New Mexico]].<ref name="Tyson2010"/> He enlisted in the Army after high school and became a Special Forces communications sergeant,<ref name="Tyson2010"/> participating in the [[Gulf War]] as an advisor to Egyptian forces.<ref name="Morgan 2021 p. 26">{{cite book | last=Morgan | first=Wesley | title=The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley | publisher=Random House Publishing Group | year=2021 | isbn=978-0-8129-9506-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YuUbEAAAQBAJ | access-date=14 January 2022 | page=26}}</ref>
He later became an officer and deployed as a captain to Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 and Iraq in 2006–7.<ref name="Tyson2010"/> Leading Operational Detachment Alpha 316, Gant In October 2009,<ref>Edwards 2020, p. 422.</ref> he wrote an influential paper titled ''One Tribe at a Time: A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan''.<ref name="Time">{{Cite web| title = The Fall of the Green Berets' Lawrence of Afghanistan|website=Time|last=Thompson|first=Mark|date=25 June 2014|accessdate = April 22, 2020| url = https://time.com/2921469/the-fall-of-the-green-berets-lawrence-of-afghanistan/}}</ref> Gant first published the paper on the website of [[Stephen Pressfield]], a historical fiction novelist who is popular in military circles.<ref name="Edwards424">{{Cite journal|last=Edwards|first=David| title = 'The perfect counterinsurgent': reconsidering the case of Major Jim Gant|journal=Small Wars & Insurgencies|volume=31|issue=2| accessdate = April 23, 2020| url = https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09592318.2020.1713554|year=2020|doi=10.1080/09592318.2020.1713554|page=424|s2cid=214296335}}</ref> The paper reached a wider audience after its publication on the ''Small Wars Journal'' website.<ref name="Edwards424"/> In ''One Tribe at a Time'', Gant argued that the United States should leverage the [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] tribal system in Afghanistan by creating "Tribal Engagement Teams" who would embed at the village level and work with locals to build security.<ref name="Murtazashvili2016">{{cite book|author=Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili|title=Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SO-7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|date=April 21, 2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-11399-2|pages=192}}</ref><ref name="Tyson2010">{{Cite news| issn = 0190-8286| last = Tyson| first = Ann Scott| title = Jim Gant, the Green Beret who could win the war in Afghanistan| newspaper = [[The Washington Post]]| accessdate = April 22, 2020| date = January 17, 2010| url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011502203.html}}</ref>
General [[David Petraeus]] called the paper "very impressive," and General [[Stanley McChrystal]] distributed it to all commanders in Afghanistan.<ref name="Tyson2010"/> Admiral [[Eric T. Olson]], the commander of [[United States Special Operations Command]], supported Gant's concept as well, and in November 2009 Lieutenant General [[John F. Mulholland Jr.|John
===Final deployment===
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