[2] In an incident Schroen called "a bad start" in an unpublished short story, a beer bottle he had left on top of his barracks mailbox spilled on outgoing Christmas correspondence, enraging his commanding officer who threatened to court-martial him for tampering with the U.S. mail.

[3] After receiving an honorable discharge in 1962, Schroen attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, working as a janitor and unloading trucks for UPS during college, and graduating with a degree in English in 1968.

[2] Schroen worked in the Directorate of Operations for 32 years, rising from a case officer to deputy chief of the Near East Division in 1999, a post he held through 2001.

As Schroen walked home from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran one night in September 1975, "two Iranian men in suits" attempted to assassinate him in the street, an incident he escaped by pulling a gun on the would-be killers and sprinting away.

[3] On November 21, 1979, Pakistani student protesters who were erroneously led to believe that the U.S. was responsible for the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca, stormed and set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, trapping Schroen and others inside.

[2] He was asked by Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Cofer Black, to lead a team into the country to kill Bin Laden and top al-Qaeda leaders.

[2] The CIA's review of the book in Studies in Intelligence called it a "mostly straightforward account" of his role which "does a good job getting much of the story out to the American public.

Schroen was also one of several inspirations for the 2006 two-part miniseries The Path to 9/11 character CIA Operative "Kirk", who writers said was a compilation based on several actual people.