‘So Here Is My True Story’: Australian Military Memoirs and the Construction of Public Understanding of Australia’s War in Afghanistan

Abstract

Australia’s war in Afghanistan has led to the production of a number of military memoirs, published commercially and reaching a diverse readership. These memoirs shape public understandings of the experience of the war and how it was fought. This article analyses a selection of these military memoirs, focusing on how soldier-authors frame their reasons for joining the military and for being deployed to war. The article pays attention to descriptions of combat, mateship, and the enemy, and to the ways in which these books convey the costs of war.