Soldiering On: An Unofficial Portrait Of The British Army (1981) By Dennis Barker
 
 Portrait of the men and women who make up the Army of the eighties, the way they work, and their role in today's society.
 
Like most of us Dennis Barker had preconceptions about the Army, half expecting a tightly-knit world populated with stock figures out of old war films and recruiting advertisements, a caste with its own values and beliefs. But, equipped with a writer's curiosity about people and a journalist's appetite for facts, he set out to discover the reality behind these cliched images. What he has brought back is a fascinating and important account of the men and women who make up the Army of the eighties people who are at once part of our society and yet separated from the rest of us by the simple fact that they are trained and expected to fight, and if need be die, in our name.
 
Mr Barker's investigation took him from the tropical jungles of Belize to the 'bandit country' of Ulster, from the formality of the officers mess to the mechanized nightmare of a realistic major NATO exercise. He was able to witness the Army at work and at play and to talk to everyone, from Generals to raw recruits. The questions he asked are those which any civilian might pose. Does the ethos of the regiment still work in a technological age? Is a public school education still a passport to a commission? Is the social life of army wives determined by their husbands' rank? Can women be promoted to top positions? Could the Army ever be tempted to mount a coup in Britain? The answers he found are both surprising and encouraging;
 
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
256 pages
In Good condition