McQuade shares stories from his globe-trotting military and civilian career in this debut memoir.
The author led a colorful life from the start, growing up in Troubles-era Belfast and then in slightly less troubled Dublin in the 1960s. He came from a large and loquacious family --— one of 13 children, — At 15, he joined a volunteer reservist force in Ireland, then the Irish army. At 19, with the United Nations' interim peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, enforcing a border between disparate religious and ethnic factions. Back in Belfast for his grandfather's funeral, he found his own role reversed when he was stopped by a British patrol; «They were all young soldiers around my own age and seemed very nervous and jumpy… I had about three rifles pointing at my chest or maybe my head too!» His soldiering days were followed by years of humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan, rounding out this account of experiences in the unstable regions of the world.
McQuade he knows how to tell a story, providing the wondrous details of life in the various war zones of his autobiography with humor and empathy. Recurring strains emerge, however, and he presents the violence that arises from poverty, identify, and ideology as a nearly universal human trait — one that can only be kept at bay with compassion, a bit of music, and the recognition of mutual ridiculousness.
A meandering but enjoyable account of an Irish soldier at home and abroad.
