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Exit Wounds

Exit Wounds 2

One Australian's War on Terror

by John Cantwell And Greg Bearup
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/10/2012
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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As a country boy from Queensland, John Cantwell signed up to the army as a private and rose to the rank of major general. He was on the front line in 1991 as Coalition forces fitted bulldozer blades to tanks and buried alive Iraqi troops in their trenches. He fought in Baghdad in 2006 and saw what a car bomb does to a marketplace crowded with women and children. In 2010 he commanded the Australian forces in Afghanistan when ten of his soldiers were killed. He returned to Australia in 2011 to be considered for the job of chief of the Australian Army. Instead, he ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
Exit Wounds is the compassionate and deeply human account of one man's tour of the War on Terror, the moving story of life on a modern battlefield- from the nightmare of cheating death in a minefield, to the poignancy of calling home while under rocket fire in Baghdad, to the utter despair of looking into the face of a dead soldier before sending him home to his mother. He has hidden his post traumatic stress disorder for decades, fearing it will affect his career.
Australia has been at war for the past twenty years and yet there has been no stand-out account from the
ISBN:
9780522861785
9780522861785
Category:
Memoirs
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-10-2012
Publisher:
Melbourne University Press
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
388
Dimensions (mm):
233x154x28mm
Weight:
0.53kg

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2 Reviews

The one sentence from Exit Wounds that sums up retired Major General John Cantwell as a commander is: As much as possible I shield the unit commanders in Afghanistan from the deadening touch of defence bureaucrats and political wrangling, but not always successfully. John has demystified, in my view, one star rank and above. The Australian generals of the 70s and 80s who influenced my early army career, and dare I say Johns, still mostly displayed the British stiff upper lip attitude of show no emotion. John has shattered that myth forever. He has also reminded me about the positive aspects of army mate ship and camaraderie, which have been and will be evident for time immemorial. John has provided a fascinating insight into the policy and decision making at senior officer level, and shown that even at his level, an army general on leave is still at the mercy of policies of the muted defence public affairs machinery. While every combat death is sad, the saddest incident for me was the one involving the two soldiers who detonated a buried improvised explosive device while doing pushups in their platoon over watch position. As I finished Johns story I was left with a strong wish that his mates from the first gulf war, Steve and Pete, who John said he has not been able to reconnect with, will get to read this moving account of the unique experience they shared together on the battlefield.

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The one sentence from Exit Wounds that sums up retired Major General John Cantwell as a commander is: "As much as possible I shield the unit commanders in Afghanistan from the deadening touch of defence bureaucrats and political wrangling, but not always successfully". John as demystified, in my view, one star rank and above. The Australian generals of the 70s and 80s who influenced my early army career, and dare I say John's, still mostly displayed the British "stiff upper lip" attitude of show no emotion. John has shattered that myth forever. He has also reminded me about the positive aspects of army mate ship and camaraderie, which have been and will be evident for time immemorial. John has provided a fascinating insight into the policy and decision making at senior officer level, and shown that even at his level, an army general on leave is still at the mercy of policies of "the muted defence public affairs machinery." While every combat death is sad, the saddest incident for me was the one involving the two soldiers who detonated a buried improvised explosive device while doing pushups in their platoon over watch position. As I finished John's story I was left with a strong wish that his mates from the first gulf war, Steve and Pete, who John said he has not been able to reconnect with, will get to read this moving account of the unique experience they shared together on the battlefield.

Contains Spoilers No
Report Abuse