Uncommon Soldier: Brave, Compassionate and Tough, the Making of Australia's Modern Diggers

Having been taken into their ranks in a way rarely before afforded an outsider, Masters gives heart and shape to the contemporary digger: how they are selected, how they are led, and how they are transformed from civilians to disciplined professional soldiers. And in asking if they are unique, he examines what it is that allows these young Australians to lend moral authority to communities teetering on the precipice of violence in places such as Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

By sharing the experiences of the young men and women who make up the Australian army, Masters puts under severe challenge the notion that soldiering is the province of dumb grunts. In doing so, he argues that the best measure of this country's military legend is found in the present.

Uncommon Soldieris a rare and powerful work.

"I long ago came to the view that Australians are more familiar with the digger drawn from history than they are the ones doing the killing and dying in the here and now."

The result of a three-year immersive investigation embedded with the Australian Defence Forces in Afghanistan, Uncommon Soldieris Chris Masters' penetrating and significant exploration of the contemporary Australian soldier.

As a journalist Masters has seen first-hand the way battlefields have changed over the decades. More than ever intelligence had become the key to ferreting out the enemy and 'the notion that soldiering [is] the province of dumb grunts' has been put under severe challenge.