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 these conflicts—Exit Wounds is it. Raw, candid and eye-opening, no one who reads this book will be unmoved, nor forget its imagery or words. Speaking with Geraldine Doogue on ABC Radio National, Cantwell revealed that whilst he felt that going into Afghanistan was the right thing to do at the time, his feelings now are that the cost is too high for Australia's service men and women, in fighting for a country that has too many issues that will prevent a successful democracy emerging any time soon, if at all.

By:   John Cantwell with Greg Bearup
Imprint:   Victory Books
Country of Publication:   Australia
Dimensions:   Width: 234mm,  Spine: 153mm
Weight:   524g
ISBN:  

9780522861785

ISBN 10:   0522861784
Publication Date:   October 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock at Abbey's Bookshop
This is in stock in our store and available now.