Warrior Brothers (34 page)

WHAT MAKES A WARRIOR?

Acclaimed Australian SAS soldier Keith Fennell recounts his development as a soldier and as a man, revealing the challenges he overcame in order to perform at the highest level.

At just 21 years of age, Fennell became one of the youngest men to have passed the SAS selection course, perhaps the most demanding challenge an Australian soldier will ever face. The gruelling three-week course requires extreme fitness, mental excellence and total commitment. Many soldiers don't make it, but those that do are then subjected to intense resistance-to-interrogation training – including waterboarding and sleep deprivation – as well as a prisoner-of-war camp and other punishing ordeals. The pain is intense; the rewards immeasurable. Fennell takes the reader inside these extreme experiences, all narrated with his trademark honesty and wit.

Thrilling, insightful and inspirational,
Warrior Training
takes you into the very heart of the Australian SAS.

Negotiating an obstacle during basic training at Kapooka.

Providing live-fire support for Indonesian special forces soldiers while on training exercises.

Physical training on board the captured illegal fishing vessel in the southern Indian Ocean.

Sleeping quarters in the forward fish-stowage area.

The majority of asylum-seekers picked up by the MV
Tampa
were men, and conditions on the cargo ship were cramped.

On the HMAS
Manoora
, we ensured that the women and children were set up in the best-ventilated area of the ship.

G observing a village in East Timor.

Baptised.
Our patrol photo taken at the helipad after our 90-minute contact in East Timor.

A distraught East Timorese woman lunges out of the crowd and strikes a captured militiaman.

Providing ‘close personal protection' for East Timorese President Xanana Gusmão.
Photo by Andrew Meares/Fairfaxphotos

Securing the high ground during a contact in Eastern Afghanistan.

Kane after a sleepless night.

Mick mans a 50-calibre machine gun on a vehicle-mounted patrol in Eastern Afghanistan.