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General Sir Mike Jackson

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I am reviewing the book Soldier: The Autobiography by General Sir Mike Jackson which is a very good book that I bought from a local secondhand bookstore. Sir Mike was a 4 star General and over the combined British land forces before he retired in 2006. He had a university degree in Russian Studies which seems rather apt for someone in the British Army in that era. He was present at Bloody Sunday and the Warrenpoint Massacre. At the latter they lost more troops than in any single action since World War 2. At the first he does say they did come under fire where as you probably now it was a riot where lots of people were shot by paratroopers. He does also talk a bit about West Berlin where you could see an opera in the East for a pittance and Western currency was highly prized. Strangely and it was a left over from World War 2 when the Allies and Russia co-operated in defeating Germany. Both sides could send patrols through the other parts of Berlin. The parts under America, French & British control became West Berlin and the rest under Russian control was East Berlin. Obviously they used these patrols as an excuse to gather intelligence on each other. He did do a report on the feasibility of reuniting Germany with a united Berlin as its capital and thought because of the disparity in wealth between East and West it was unlikely in his lifetime. It is to there credit he was proved wrong. He also was in charge of the British Army at the time of Kosovo and apparently when the Allied troops went in, in a peacekeeping role there was already a Russian contingent there which the Americans were eager to prosecute if any members had commited war crimes but he just sent them packing back to Russia mostly because potentially it could have caused World War 3. He also had to reduce and restructure the Army which meant abolishing many historic regiments with great traditions. This was controversial at the time but had to be done. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I do recommend it. It is around 400 pages so is a substantial length.



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