There and Back Again (Soldier: The Autobiography - General Sir Mike Jackson)

Member Name: Templar19

Product:	Soldier: The Autobiography - General Sir Mike Jackson
Date:	15/01/09 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A meticulous account of a soldier's career

Disadvantages: Short on 'dirt', drags in parts

I don't suppose that there has been a soldier more identifiable as the face of the British Army over the last few years than General Sir Mike Jackson, he of the gravely voice and mug like an unmade bed. Whenever he appeared in front of the TV cameras, either as Commander of KFOR in Kosovo or as Chief of the General Staff a few years later dealing with the problems of Iraq and Afghanistan, he seemed to encapsulate the austere no-nonsense ethos of the British Army, with his calm matter-of-fact approach and his perennial red beret, symbol of his first love, the Parachute Regiment.

Jackson retired from the Army in 2006 and 'Soldier' is his inevitable memoir, an account of a career that spanned more than four decades and saw him rise from teenage cadet to four-star general. It's an interesting examination of not just the man by the man but also of the army he loves, its makeup and how it has changed and evolved due to both domestic fashions and international necessity. Jackson also recounts his personal experiences of key military moments since the 1960s, from 'the Troubles' in Northern Ireland to the Falklands campaign, right through to the Balkan violence of the 90s and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Soldier' is not a deep psychological study. Jackson, while occasionally exhibiting the flamboyance of a leader of men, is not the navel-gazing type. In the preface he declares that his book "focuses more on [his] life in the Army than on [his] personal life", and that is no understatement; he barely skims over his childhood, and his first marriage is simply described as taking place in 1966 and ending in 1981. He mentions his two children from that marriage but his first wife is not even named. To be fair, he talks with affection of his children and his second wife, but 'personal' this book ain't. 'Soldier' is primarily about the modern British Army and Jackson's place in it.

Mike Jackson was a typical child of the military. His father was a career soldier, constantly being posted here and there, and the young Mike was soon shipped off to a minor public school in order to ensure a stable education. He was athletic and bright and by his mid teens, due mainly to his enthusiastic membership of the school cadet force, had decided to become a soldier. He sailed into Sandhurst, breezed through the two-year course and in December 1963 graduated in the top five of his year. Then followed three years at Birmingham University where he studied Russian. He thought it might be useful to "know thine enemy".

His first field posting was in early 1968 when after the requisite courses and training (and first promotion) he became a platoon commander in the 2nd battalion of the Parachute Regiment (2 Para) in Hong Kong. This was the start of both a love affair with the regiment that continues to this day and a seamless rise through the ranks that ultimately ended with him becoming Britain's top soldier in 2003.

There are essentially two themes in the narrative that elevate this book above the mundane. The first is the (sometime) fascinating account of the workings of the British Army, a system that is both traditional and modern, simple and labyrinthine. We get a feeling for an organisation that has slowly evolved over centuries and that willingly changes with the times, yet also holds tenaciously on to its core traditions. It is basically an organisation that one needs to belong to in order to fully understand, a very particular club. Jackson was privy to its workings for forty odd years and is skilled at describing its curious customs for us.

The second and most fundamental theme in the book, though, and the reason most will buy it, is Jackson's recollections of his most memorable engagements as a soldier, from his fraught life as a junior officer on the violent streets of Belfast in the early 70s right through to his assuming command of the entire British Army on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Yet it is in such accounts that the book falls down somewhat.

For example, Jackson was 'on the ground' in Londonderry on January 31st 1972 when British paras shot dead fourteen civilians during a Nationalist march-cum-demonstration, an incident that quickly became known as 'Bloody Sunday'. On the day, Captain Jackson was acting as an assistant to the battalion CO who in turn was overseeing an operation by his men (1 Para) to round up 'hooligan' elements. Yet despite a lengthy and detailed minute-by-minute account of the circumstances leading up to the notorious incident Jackson's conclusion is something of a let down: he didn't see any soldiers firing or being fired at and couldn't imagine any reason for highly-trained paras to lose their heads and shoot randomly. That they fired at all means that they must have been fired upon first. And that's that. This is all very well and understandable but it hardly tells us anything we didn't already know, despite the whole matter being 'sub judicae' at the time of Jackson's writing (the enquiry was still ongoing).

The author, however, is far more confident and interesting when recalling perhaps his most challenging command, that of KFOR, the NATO force tasked with moving into Kosovo to supervise the withdrawal of Serb forces in the late 90s. General Jackson clearly relished the job and he writes enthusiastically about organising, delegating, negotiating, chivvying and fretting in roughly equal measure. His lack of confidence in his NATO superior, American General Wesley Clarke, is also obvious and stark. The two had a difficult relationship and Jackson clearly thought that Clarke had an 'agenda' to get the Serbs, a sort of post-Cold-War way of bashing the Russians (who were sympathetic to the Serb cause) by proxy. This shaky relationship came to a head when Jackson all-but-refused to obey an order from Clarke to block the runway at Pristina airport in order to prevent Russian troops landing. In his rather blunt words to his superior, Jackson declared: I'm not going to start World War Three for you. The General's account of how he dealt with Blairite 'spinners' sent out to 'help' is also interesting.

As with any autobiography, we must ask ourselves whether at the end of it we have a clearer picture of the author. In the case of 'Soldier' I felt that I didn't. Jackson comes across as likeable, chatty and, once in a while, humorous, but he never gives much away and this just doesn't satisfy, especially when his book was promoted as being "explosive". The book is a meticulous account of an impressive career but it is in no way explosive; it actually divulges very little that is new and in places it drags. The General proffers interesting opinions on most matters military and political but none of them are in any way memorable, excepting perhaps his scathing views on American military policy and one American General in particular. Jackson talks about loyalty being the glue that holds any army together but the habit is perhaps a little too strong in himself because we can't help but wonder about the inevitable enemies, military and political, he made throughout his career and what his real opinions of them are.

Still, if 'Soldier' is not a deep exposé of life at the top it certainly is a mine of information about the British Army, its recent history and its makeup. General Jackson's love for his 'family' is evident and quite touching. He was clearly an exceptional soldier and his career coincided with periods of immense change in the world and consequent periods of change in the British military. That Jackson was instrumental in ordering many of these changes is a credit to him. It's just a pity that 'Soldier' is ultimately a rather humdrum read. It is interesting without being riveting. Jackson writes well and has a practiced talent for getting to the point, but it's just a pity that the point is so often not worth waiting for.

***

'Soldier' by General Sir Mike Jackson

Corgi Books 2008

472 Pages

ISBN 978-0-552-15602-8

Summary: A readable account of a trip all the way up through the Army ranks.