Uncommon Soldier
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley November 26, 2014
Author Chris Masters
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ISBN: 978-1-74175-971-6
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
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Website: http://www.allenandunwin.com
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Chris Masters is one of Australia’s best known investigative reporters having spent much of the past decades covering one War or another in parts of the world such as Africa, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Along the way he began to wonder just who was the Aussie Digger: was he the soldier of history, of the brave and fearless myth or was he a soldier who had morphed into an intelligent, thinking, highly skilled member of a team trying to make a difference in a world gone mad!
In this unprecedented look at the life of a modern day combat soldier Masters has created a deeply insightful look at just what goes into making up the men and women who selflessly take on the task of fighting a war not of their making.
Investigating and creating documentaries on various war efforts involving Australian Forces since World War 1 led Masters into the field of the modern soldier. After six years of research, much of it based in Afghanistan, making documentaries for 60 Minutes and others, he began to better understand what makes up the men and women of Australia’s Defence Forces.
We join a team on a late night mission in Afghanistan , move through the ranks beginning at Puckapunyal and then onto Officer training, and on completion of their training join the men and women who daily undertake missions on the front line in a country that is barren, inhospitable and unwelcoming.
We discover just what drives these people to take pride in what they do all the while trying to make a difference to the local people of Uruzgan province in a war gone on too long and claimed far too much.
Masters has also given details of some of the many missions carried out on regular rotations dealing with missions gone terribly wrong, those completed extremely successfully and also gives an insight into the daily grind that living away from home and family for long periods of time is all about.
The book comes to be a considerably more personal as several of the families of those lost in the line of duty have shared their thoughts, feeling and lives, fleshing out even more the reality that is War and the loss it can cause.
When he started out to write this story and investigate modern soldiering Masters was unsure who the much acclaimed Aussie Digger was: a man of much historic acclaim or a man who was just doing his job and not being too fussy about it.
By the end of the research and the end of the book Masters has firmly decided the modern Aussie Digger is a man or woman who can stand tall in the knowledge they are and should be classed as the best in the world.
This is a fascinating, deeply interesting, factual account of the war in Afghanistan and also one that helps the lay person understand better just what it is that makes up the men and women who go out from this country to try to make a difference somewhere else in the world.