Veteranhood: Rage and Hope in British Ex-Military Life
by Joe Glenton
Repeater Books, £10.99

A WIDE-RANGING memoir-polemic, Joe Glenton sees his new book is an attempt “to address the commonly held idea that we vets are all irredeemably right-wing.”

Glenton, who served in Afghanistan with the British army’s Royal Logistical Corps before going Awol in 2007 and refusing to fight in the war, proves to be an excellent guide to this complex and often controversial topic, deploying lashings of black humour and military lingo (explained for the uninitiated).

Rather than “a reactionary blob,” he argues the military has always been a contested space, with a rich, though largely unknown, history of progressive dissent and resistance in the ranks.