A husband, father, local politician, public speaker, writer, U.S. Army combat veteran of Afghanistan, and advisor and trainer in Ukraine.

About Adrian Bonenberger

Bonenberger and his wife hugging each other, smiling at the camera. Iryna has reddish-brown hair and is wearing a light-colored jacket. Adrian has dark hair graying at the temples and is wearing a blue sweater over a light blue collared shirt.
Adrian Bonenberger holds a nameplate from his time on the Branford RTM that reads 'ADRIAN BONENBERGER 3rd District'.
Bonenberger wearing camouflage and a tactical helmet with a mount for night vision goggles during his second deployment to Afghanistan.
Adrian Bonenberger in a charcoal suit by J Press speaking at New Haven's Veterans Day ceremony in 2022..

Adrian Bonenberger was born at Yale New Haven Hospital in 1977. He was educated at Pine Orchard Nursery School, Whitewood, Branford Intermediate School (now Francis Walsh Intermediate School), and Hopkins School where he played lacrosse and ran cross country.

After finishing his undergraduate studies at Yale and graduating with a B.A. in English, he taught English in Japan for a year in Osaka. He then joined the U.S. Army, where he served as an infantry officer for nearly seven years, graduating from the U.S. Army’s Airborne, Ranger, and Reconnaissance schools before deploying twice to combat in Afghanistan, once as the Executive Officer of C/1-503rd, 173rd Airborne Brigade out of Italy, and once as the commander of A/1-87 ,1st Brigade 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York, a deployment that was covered by The New York Times in their “At War” series.

Honorably concluding his obligation to the Army, Bonenberger left the service and earned a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from SUNY Stony Brook Southampton. Since then he has spent most of his time since as a journalist and writer looking at issues of national security and foreign affairs, with a focus on military and veteran issues. He has published two books (Afghan Post and The Disappointed Soldier and Other Stories From War), co-edited a third (The Road Ahead), and written dozens of Op-Eds and articles for various publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Forbes, The Hill, and Military.com. He co-founded a literary publication, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, which publishes primarily veterans and people in the military community, and Citizens to Soldiers International, a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness about alternate forms of military service and advocating for changes in how the U.S. and other democratic societies mobilize citizens for war.

He met his wife Iryna during a trip to Kyiv. After living in Ukraine between 2016-17, he spent two and a half months between 2022-23 training civilians and soldiers on small unit tactics and leadership. He served two terms on Branford’s RTM, between 2021-2025. He’s worked at Yale and American Red Cross, and currently teaches a course on Introductory College Writing at Springfield College in Springfield, MA.