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| Maverick
Soldier ~ an Infantryman's Story' |
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'Served
within four nation's armies - branded
by none. Maverick Soldier is the
forthright, nuts-and-bolts account
of John Essex-Clark's unmatched
experience as a warrior, leader
and teacher. Its telling is all
of a piece with the man himself
- bluff, astute, no-nonsense.
In the course of stumbling, as he
puts it, from the rank of private
to brigadier, Essex-Clark has fought
in wars with the Australian, British,
United States and Rhodesian armies,
and has led in battle Malay, South
African, Rhodesian, Vietnamese,
British, New Zealand, United States
and Australian soldiers. In peacetime
came tours of duty in North America
and Western Europe. |
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Nicknamed
'Digger' by the Rhodesian Army and
'The Big E' in the Australian, he
led by force of personality, drive,
common sense and self-confidence.
Military readers and armchair witnesses
to war will be challenged by his
trenchant and timely views on army
obsession with technology and the
paucity of subtle tactical thinking.
Various controversies are aired:
whether we were 'pussyfooters' in
Vietnam; bastardization at Duntroon;
how best to conduct counter-terrorism.
He is angered by what he sees as
a 'surfeit of military dilettantes
and budding bureaucrats and a dearth
of warrior-chiefs'.
Always one to lead from the front
and to trust the courage and good
sense of the ordinary infantryman,
his interest have been strategy
and battle tactics, leadership and
training. He writes particularly
for today's young soldier whom he
loves with an old fashioned generosity
and to whom he can declare with
conviction, 'I have no angst about
being a soldier'.
Chapter 4 - Congo Cauldron, describes
the complicated and independent
operations of A Company of the Rhodesian
Light Infantry on the Northern Rhodesia
(Zambia) - Congo border during the
crisis in September 1951after the
Congo was abandoned by the Belgian
Government to the United Nations
and the Katangese attempted secession. |
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