Philistine: A Professional Soldier in Africa - Couverture souple

Griffiths, Mark; Sartori, Andrea E

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1919534709 ISBN 13 : 9781919534701

Editeur : Pilgrim Scribes Ltd, 2026

Synopsis

A Military Memoir by Mark Griffiths during the Angolan Bush war of the early 1980s when the Cold War ran hot.
The specialists of the 44 Parachute Brigade, Pathfinders, were professionals in every sense, each a specialist in their own field. Many had spent years in combat before arriving there. They were parachutists, reconnaissance men and veterans of earlier wars who understood their trade and practised it without illusions. 300 pages, 80 colour photos maps and illustrations.
This hard-edged collection of men were part of the SADF but largely unaccountable and independent. Through their maverick antics and dark humour they acquired a nickname-‘The Philistines’.
Not the description of Biblical lore, but rather descriptive of a unit of refined brutal practise. The soldiers adopted it with a certain dark humour. They were not interested in ceremony or appearances. Their work was war.
Mark Griffiths describes the mentality of that world with characteristic bluntness:
‘When it came down to it, there was no greater sport than manhunting. Most of the lads were experts in their field, with decades of war-fighting experience behind them. The majority had more than ten years of active service, many with combat parachute jumps under their belts. They knew what it meant to swing the sword and swing it well. If you did it often enough, you became good. And once you were good, it was easy. For the new guys, it came as a shock. But for the rest of us, it was something else. It was an addiction. An adrenaline addiction. And once it gets in your blood, there’s no getting it out.’
Philistine is a soldier’s book. It is direct, unsentimental and written by someone who fought the war himself.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Mark Griffiths is a military veteran and author whose professional life reflects extensive operational experience and a distinguished military lineage. He was born into a Royal Air Force family; his father was a Group Captain DFC and AFC, who wrote Winged Hours and Angel Visits about his escape in WWII. His family includes Adam Hart, author of Operation Pimento, and Simon Hart, author of Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip. Close family includes one of the former Queen's private pilots, reinforcing a longstanding tradition of national defence and public service. Griffiths is the principal author of the Making a Mark memoir series, grounded in first-hand military experience across multiple theatres of war. His work reflects operational authority shaped by decades of service and an inherited culture of authorship and military discipline.

Andrea Sartori was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the British Military Hospital. She was raised in a politically active and academically distinguished family. Both of her parents were nominated for the Government Senatorship in separate sectors in Buenos Aires, and served as Deans in their respective Faculties. Academic discipline and professional excellence formed the foundation of her upbringing. In 1974, her family emigrated to South Africa during the political instability surrounding the Peronist era. Having grown up speaking Spanish and raised in a multilingual household that included French and Italian, she later learned English upon arrival in South Africa and subsequently Afrikaans through formal schooling. She pursued Fine Arts as a field of study, initially seeking distance from the political environment of her early life. Her professional trajectory, however, returned her to institutional and regulatory work through translation, diplomatic service, and Systems Development. She met Mark Griffiths in 1995, and their shared intellectual and operational backgrounds led to a long-term professional partnership, including the development of national regulatory structures and the publication of their work. The family relocated to the United Kingdom in 2009. They have five adult children.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Pilgrim Scribes Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1919534709
• ISBN 13: 9781919534701
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 300
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg