Review - the Junior Officers' Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey
Apparently guarding the Queen is very dull. You get dressed up in a posh uniform, walk from your barracks across the road to Buckingham Palace, shout a few orders and then stand around for a bit. Certainly the way that the author describes it makes you wonder if he, and all the tourists who go wild with excitement, pressing themselves up against the bars of the Palace like desperate refugees trying to get into the embassy compound when word has got out that the helicopter on the roof is the last one out of town, but with video cameras, were actually at the same ceremony? What it hints at is a certain emotional distance from the mundane aspects of real life that is something of a drawback, but ultimately the key to the success of this book.
Other authors may have caved to the temptation of poking fun at the mundane aspects of army life and in particular officer training, perhaps turning the polishing of a boot into a five page anecdote that culminates in the author desperately trying to scrub boot polish off of his groin while trying hard to not give the appearance of masturbating wildly. Not Patrick Hennessey. Army life is dull routine, officer training is dull and hard and very physically demanding. And then, hey, in the last term it's suddenly not so painful because you are in your early twenties and have been exercising every day for nine months - no wonder you're born again fit and able to run up a hill in Wales in the rain with the equivalent of a small village in your backpack. Army life and officer training is dull, then painful, then dull and painful, then painful and dull. This is conveyed excellently.
Some of the detail of army life is fun. Rehearsing for the changing of the guard in the wee small hours - I've been in the centre of London at three in the morning and the sight of a troop of guardsmen in dress uniform silently going through their paces is one of the less weird sights you can come across, believe me.
Also interesting is the focus on food. It's not the done thing to get pissed and then drive your tank or let rip with the GPMG and so active soldiers fixate on food the same way the civilians fixate on booze. Soldiers eat large helpings of cake as often as possible. What came as a surprise is just how much Haribo the British Army gets through. It was an incongruous image, some squaddie tipping back some sweets from a jolly packet with a grinning cartoon child on the front before letting rip and ventilating some child-raping, teacher-murdering Taliban shitbag.
And in the second half of the book there is ventilation aplenty. The dull routine that characterised the author's army career before Afghanistan in brutally shredded and the reader gets the payoff of Hennessey being able to give an unvarnished account of events. He brings the same honesty to the battlefield that he brought to polishing kit in the barracks and the result is one of the most compelling and, to be uncomfortably honest, exciting accounts of modern warfare I've ever read. Bullets fly, people die, women sigh. Okay, maybe not that last bit but bullets and indeed munitions of just about every type do fly, in all directions, often at once, and people do die. When it's the enemy that's good, when it's a British soldier that's bad. When it's a dog it's...WTF...dogs?
That's right, dogs. Terry use them to guard compounds and the best way to silence them is not with a juicy bone but instead a pistol round to the head. Other authors may have chosen to omit their regular dispatching of man's best friend to doggie heaven. Not Hennessey.
The reality of war is raw, traumatic and exhilarating. Raw in that it's never fun to be shot at, traumatic when comrades are lost or injured by enemy fire or cowardly bomb attacks and exhilarating because in comparison to fighting for twelve hours straight, being in firefights, calling down fire like the wrath of God on the enemy and, at the end of it all, still standing, you can stick heli-skiing right up your arse.
And the author knows the sort of figure he cuts, a grizzled veteran standing before unblooded troops, a figure of awe in faded fatigues and battered gear, like a car-boot action man, a figure to be respected and feared.
This is a compelling and immediate account not of men at war, or even of the British Army at war, but of one man at war. The battles are bloody, the stories about troops trying to deal with the return to normality afterwards are thought provoking and, this being a Brit, there is humour among all the blood, sand, horror and haribo.
Hennessey may come across as arrogant and unlikable in peace, but in war he unflinchingly accepts that it's his job to kill other men (and dogs), and he's unflinching in his descriptions of that experience. That's the book's saving grace and what makes it worth reading.
He does love his TLA, FLAs or LOLAs, some pages read like a transcription of a particularly tense edition of 'Countdown'. It adds to the feeling of authenticity but has you flipping to the glossary at the back of the book because it's important not to confuse a FLA (a donkey) with an FMA (an assault helicopter) as this would derail the narrative somewhat.
FLA - Four Legged Animal
FLA - Four Letter Acronym
FMA - flying machine (armoured)
Terry - Terry Taliban, not a person but actually army slang. Then again, might be a real name of a really unfortunate sod.
GPMG - General Purpose Machine Gun
LOLA - just like cherry cola, also Lots Of Letters Acronym
TLA - Three Letter Acronym
Other authors may have caved to the temptation of poking fun at the mundane aspects of army life and in particular officer training, perhaps turning the polishing of a boot into a five page anecdote that culminates in the author desperately trying to scrub boot polish off of his groin while trying hard to not give the appearance of masturbating wildly. Not Patrick Hennessey. Army life is dull routine, officer training is dull and hard and very physically demanding. And then, hey, in the last term it's suddenly not so painful because you are in your early twenties and have been exercising every day for nine months - no wonder you're born again fit and able to run up a hill in Wales in the rain with the equivalent of a small village in your backpack. Army life and officer training is dull, then painful, then dull and painful, then painful and dull. This is conveyed excellently.
Some of the detail of army life is fun. Rehearsing for the changing of the guard in the wee small hours - I've been in the centre of London at three in the morning and the sight of a troop of guardsmen in dress uniform silently going through their paces is one of the less weird sights you can come across, believe me.
Also interesting is the focus on food. It's not the done thing to get pissed and then drive your tank or let rip with the GPMG and so active soldiers fixate on food the same way the civilians fixate on booze. Soldiers eat large helpings of cake as often as possible. What came as a surprise is just how much Haribo the British Army gets through. It was an incongruous image, some squaddie tipping back some sweets from a jolly packet with a grinning cartoon child on the front before letting rip and ventilating some child-raping, teacher-murdering Taliban shitbag.
And in the second half of the book there is ventilation aplenty. The dull routine that characterised the author's army career before Afghanistan in brutally shredded and the reader gets the payoff of Hennessey being able to give an unvarnished account of events. He brings the same honesty to the battlefield that he brought to polishing kit in the barracks and the result is one of the most compelling and, to be uncomfortably honest, exciting accounts of modern warfare I've ever read. Bullets fly, people die, women sigh. Okay, maybe not that last bit but bullets and indeed munitions of just about every type do fly, in all directions, often at once, and people do die. When it's the enemy that's good, when it's a British soldier that's bad. When it's a dog it's...WTF...dogs?
That's right, dogs. Terry use them to guard compounds and the best way to silence them is not with a juicy bone but instead a pistol round to the head. Other authors may have chosen to omit their regular dispatching of man's best friend to doggie heaven. Not Hennessey.
The reality of war is raw, traumatic and exhilarating. Raw in that it's never fun to be shot at, traumatic when comrades are lost or injured by enemy fire or cowardly bomb attacks and exhilarating because in comparison to fighting for twelve hours straight, being in firefights, calling down fire like the wrath of God on the enemy and, at the end of it all, still standing, you can stick heli-skiing right up your arse.
And the author knows the sort of figure he cuts, a grizzled veteran standing before unblooded troops, a figure of awe in faded fatigues and battered gear, like a car-boot action man, a figure to be respected and feared.
This is a compelling and immediate account not of men at war, or even of the British Army at war, but of one man at war. The battles are bloody, the stories about troops trying to deal with the return to normality afterwards are thought provoking and, this being a Brit, there is humour among all the blood, sand, horror and haribo.
Hennessey may come across as arrogant and unlikable in peace, but in war he unflinchingly accepts that it's his job to kill other men (and dogs), and he's unflinching in his descriptions of that experience. That's the book's saving grace and what makes it worth reading.
He does love his TLA, FLAs or LOLAs, some pages read like a transcription of a particularly tense edition of 'Countdown'. It adds to the feeling of authenticity but has you flipping to the glossary at the back of the book because it's important not to confuse a FLA (a donkey) with an FMA (an assault helicopter) as this would derail the narrative somewhat.
FLA - Four Legged Animal
FLA - Four Letter Acronym
FMA - flying machine (armoured)
Terry - Terry Taliban, not a person but actually army slang. Then again, might be a real name of a really unfortunate sod.
GPMG - General Purpose Machine Gun
LOLA - just like cherry cola, also Lots Of Letters Acronym
TLA - Three Letter Acronym
1 Comments:
My mother's name is Terry. Great.
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