22Mohawks is accepting applications for our 5-Week Virtual Writing & Speaking Workshop as well as 10 Veteran Speaker Spots at our November 22 Veterans Speaks event, or both.
Writing Workshop Sign Up:
Open to civilians, veterans, active-duty military, and first responders. Led by Ayman Kafel, this 5-week virtual workshop will help you develop your ideas into a structured and engaging 10-minute speech.
Writing workshop held on Sundays at 7 PM | October 18 – November 15
Veteran Speaker Application:
10 veterans will be selected to share a 10-minute story at our community event on November 22, 2026, from 10 AM–12:30 PM at the Italian American Club in Walpole, MA. Friends, Family and the community are welcomed to attend. This will be a free event.
* This event was inspired by Sebastian Junger's Vets Town Halls.
* Selected speakers will be notified on September 16.
Please indicate below whether you are applying for the workshop, speaker spot, or both.
Contact: Stacey@22Mohawks.com
Ayman Bio:
Ayman Kafel, M.S.
Ayman Kafel is a police sergeant, combat veteran, SWAT operator, instructor, writer, and founder of Project Sapient. His life and work have been shaped by a simple belief, leadership begins with the ability to govern yourself before attempting to lead others.
Born in Monrovia, Liberia, and raised between Lebanon, Liberia, and eventually the United States, Kafel’s earliest memories were shaped by war, displacement, and uncertainty. As a child, he experienced the Lebanese Civil War and later escaped the violence surrounding Liberia’s civil war. Those experiences exposed him early to both the destructive nature of conflict and the resilience of ordinary people caught inside it. They would eventually influence how he came to understand human behavior, fear, identity, violence, compassion, and service.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Kafel joined the United States Army and served for eight years. During his military service, he deployed to Iraq, where he served as a young NCO and used his fluency in Arabic while operating in an environment shaped by insurgency and Al Qaeda in Iraq. His military experience reinforced something he had already learned as a child, understanding people matters just as much as understanding the threat in front of you.
Kafel later entered law enforcement, where his career has included uniformed patrol, plainclothes operations, narcotics investigations, interdiction, and federal task force work. He previously served as a DEA Task Force Officer and was selected to serve with the DEA Special Response Team as an Assistant Team Leader. He has served as a SWAT operator since 2013 and currently serves as a patrol sergeant with the Attleboro Police Department.
His approach to policing and leadership has increasingly centered on the human being behind the uniform. He believes tactical competence matters, but competence alone is not enough. Officers must also understand stress, decision making, human behavior, physiology, emotional regulation, and the effect leadership has on the people entrusted to it. Training should prepare people to think and perform under pressure, not simply satisfy a requirement on paper.
Kafel holds an Associate degree with studies in Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology, a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, and a Master of Science in Counter Terrorism. His academic work, combined with decades of military, law enforcement, tactical, and instructional experience, has led him toward the study of human performance under stress and the intersection between behavioral science, decision making, leadership, and tactical performance.
He is the founder of Project Sapient, an initiative focused on improving how military personnel, law enforcement officers, first responders, and others understand performance, stress, recovery, decision making, and human behavior. The word Sapient reflects the foundation of that mission, the capacity to think, understand, adapt, and apply wisdom.
Kafel is also a longtime contributor to The Havok Journal, where he writes about leadership, policing, military service, human performance, trauma, extremism, training, and the lessons that emerge from a life spent around conflict and service. He is also the author of The Resolute Path.
His philosophy of leadership has evolved beyond rank, authority, and command. He believes we manage situations, but we lead people. Leadership begins with self command. Self command creates awareness. Awareness guides character. Character builds trust. Trust strengthens service. Service develops people. Competence earns confidence. Purpose sustains it all.
For Kafel, the measure of leadership is ultimately not how much authority a person accumulates, but what happens to the people around them. Good leaders teach what they know, hold people accountable without stripping them of their dignity, create environments where people can think and speak honestly, and develop others until they are capable of standing confidently on their own.
His work continues to explore the same question that has followed him from childhood, through war, military service, policing, tactical operations, education, and leadership.
How do we become more capable without losing our humanity?
For him, that is the path. Awareness, discipline, service, and the lifelong work of becoming.