I Am a Secret Service Agent: My Life Spent Protecting the President

Gr 6–8—What would it be like to ask a retired Secret Service agent about serving a president of the United States? In this memoir, readers learn how after John F. Kennedy's assassination, an eight-year-old Emmett decided to one day become a Secret Service agent, a dream later actualized after a career in the Marine Corps. A member of the dauntless Counter Assault Team and elite Presidential Protection Division, Emmett distinguished himself while working for the Secret Service. The book is a series of action-packed anecdotes, as one would expect from the title. However, repeated descriptions of training, typical jobs, and expectations bog down the narrative in places. This is an abridged version of the author's 2014 Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President, edited for length and appropriateness for middle school readers. A time line of the history of the Secret Service concludes the work.