Customer Reviews

Contact

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Contact is the best account of military service in North Ireland during the latest eruption of terrorism. It gives us a fresh view of the "Troubles" from a British paratrooper who served in Belfast and Crossmaglen. It discusses lessons that might apply to the violence now taking place in Isreal.

I have this book, havent read it, but browsing it, looks promising, Ill provide the spiel/foreword inside the d/j of the edition I have, as this is pretty-good & will probably help other people considering buying it...

' A.F.N Clarke served as a paratroop officer in Belfast and in Crossmaglen, place-names recognized on the mainland only through their recurrence in the grim headlines and the grimmer newsreel images.most observers are insulated from reality by the media: what does it really feel like to be part of an army of occupation on home soil. ? What are the private attitudes of trained soldiers, operating in conditions of extreme stress, fatigue, and squalor ordered to hold the lines in an ancient quarrel -- a quarrel whose causes may be blindingly irrelevant, but whose consequences are deadly.?

Here is a report from the front line, a documentary account of the emotions, and the reactions, of one of the men we pay to kill. This is an account that spurns compromise: this, precisely is how that sad land feels, reported by a professional. It makes disconcerting reading: A.F.N Clarke, works with unpalatable fact, : the vision that frames his story has an unwelcome clarity-and he brings to this account the unquestionable talents of a gifted writer..

Capt AFN Clarke served in the Parachute regiment as a private, NCO, and commisioned officer, from 1971 to 1978. '