[2] He was the victim of several violent encounters in his youth, which involved having a gun pointed at him and being attacked by two separate people, which inspired him to learn self-defense.
As well as teaching Krav Maga to civilians and military personnel, Whitman helped to develop training programs to be utilised by other instructors of the martial art.
The series was inspired by the success of Goosebumps, and was originally planned to last for six books, before Lucasfilm asked Whitman to expand it to twelve.
[10] Other Star Wars books written by Whitman include A Droid's Tale, Luke Skywalker's Race Against Time, and The Greatest Battles, and he wrote dialogue for the Droid Works video game.
[11] He has also written various books based on the 24 television series, as well as adaptations of Digimon and The Mummy Returns.