Warrior Training: The Making of an Australian SAS Soldier

Description

Acclaimed SAS soldier Keith Fennell takes the reader on a journey through his development as a soldier and as a man, revealing the challenges that the warrior must overcome in order to perform at the highest level. At just 21 years of age, Fennell became one of the youngest soldiers to have passed the SAS selection course, which is widely (and accurately) recognised as one of the most demanding challenges a soldier will ever face. Designed to separate the true warriors from wannabe action heroes, the gruelling three-week course requires extreme fitness, mental excellence and total commitment. Successful soldiers then have to successfully handle 'resistance to interrogation' training, as well as a prisoner-of-war camp and other punishing ordeals. Yet the hardest challenge Fennell ever faced was leaving the SAS behind to become a stay-at-home dad.

Keith Fennell was born in 1973. At the age of 21 he joined the elite Australian Special Air Service Regiment. He was deployed on many operations, including missions to Afghanistan, East Timor, the Solomon Islands and the southern Indian Ocean. Fennell also served on a medical deployment to East Africa, was a member of the boarding party in the controversial MV Tampa incident, and supported counter-terrorist operations for the 2002 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Brisbane and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Fennell left the SAS in late 2002 and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he was employed as a special operations adviser. In January 2004, Fennell accepted a position in Iraq, and he spent the next 30 months running operations there, in Afghanistan and in Banda Aceh. In June 2006 Fennell returned to Australia. He published his first book, Warrior Brothers, in 2008 and it quickly became a bestseller. He is now completing a double degree in Creative Arts and Arts at the University of Wollongong. Fennell is married and lives with his wife and three children on the South Coast of New South Wales.