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Combat Camera: From Auntie Beeb to the Afghan Frontline
May 2011, Afghanistan: Camp Bastion is under attack, the Sun's Defense Editor is about to catch the wrong helicopter, and a famous TV war reporter is missing half his kit and wants his shoes back. Amid the chaos, Christian Hill is preparing to lead his Combat Camera Team on the British Army's first big operation of the Helmand summer, inching through the IED-riddled fields of the notorious Green Zone, very probably getting shot at. A captain in the Media Operations Group, his job is to promote the war to the British media—and make it look like things are under control and getting better. This book reveals the inner workings—and absurdities—of the military’s media operations in Afghanistan. A war memoir that draws on hundreds of field reports, it exposes the truth behind the headlines.
- GenresWar
278 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 2014
12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 10, 2019
This guy fucking knows
July 16, 2025
AMAZING AND INSANELY FUNNY AND GOOD,HARD TO PUT IT DOWN 👌😆
April 3, 2014
Funny? Emm, yes. Sometimes very tongue in cheek but for the main part a rather dark almost 'gallows' like humour that might not appeal to everyone. Shocking? Most certainly.
Though by no means my usual type of read, given that its publicity describes it as 'funny, offbeat, shocking and affectionate' I was intrigued enough to want to read Combat Camera.
From officer training at Sandhurst through a career in journalism to serving as a Team Leader for Combat Camera Christian Hill's memoir offers a unique insight into the military's media operations in Afghanistan at a time when the pull-out date for combat troops was drawing ever closer.
Insightful, thought provoking and extremely poignant, Mr Hill tells a very human, all too descriptive, story. And whilst not exactly what one would call an easy read (but then with its many descriptions of IED injuries it never was going to be) I was however pleasantly surprised at just how readable it actually was, of just how engrossed I actually became in events.
My only gripe ..... the 'footnotes'. Placed at the bottom of the page, they were incredibly small and given that many explained the use of the initials used to denote words I personally felt they would have been better at the back of the book where they were easily found should you have forgotten what they meant.
Copyright: Tracy Terry @ Pen and Paper.
Disclaimer: Read and reviewed on behalf of publishers, Alma Books, I was merely asked for my honest opinion, no financial compensation was asked for nor given.
Though by no means my usual type of read, given that its publicity describes it as 'funny, offbeat, shocking and affectionate' I was intrigued enough to want to read Combat Camera.
From officer training at Sandhurst through a career in journalism to serving as a Team Leader for Combat Camera Christian Hill's memoir offers a unique insight into the military's media operations in Afghanistan at a time when the pull-out date for combat troops was drawing ever closer.
Insightful, thought provoking and extremely poignant, Mr Hill tells a very human, all too descriptive, story. And whilst not exactly what one would call an easy read (but then with its many descriptions of IED injuries it never was going to be) I was however pleasantly surprised at just how readable it actually was, of just how engrossed I actually became in events.
My only gripe ..... the 'footnotes'. Placed at the bottom of the page, they were incredibly small and given that many explained the use of the initials used to denote words I personally felt they would have been better at the back of the book where they were easily found should you have forgotten what they meant.
Copyright: Tracy Terry @ Pen and Paper.
Disclaimer: Read and reviewed on behalf of publishers, Alma Books, I was merely asked for my honest opinion, no financial compensation was asked for nor given.
April 28, 2014
I found this book really engaging. It's not the usual thing I'd read but I thought it was a very human account of inhuman actions. It was shocking, harrowing, and at times funny as well. I'd have no hesitation in recommending this. Here is a link to my full review -
http://manofyesterday.wordpress.com/2...
http://manofyesterday.wordpress.com/2...
June 24, 2018
3.5*
Behind the lens in HELMAND, AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan for the troops during the war was “ninety percent boredom, really, and only ten percent shitting yourself“…
From a sleepy local radio station to combat central in Afghanistan, the memoir opens in 2011 with a thunderous attack around Camp Bastion (a “permanent monument to Western overstretch“). The author up until that point had had a chequered career which was cut short with the bombings of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and thus he came to join the Combat Camera Team, circuitously via the BBC.
The author, camera in hand and part of a team, was on hand to record the everyday lives of the people on the frontline, sometimes from both sides of the conflict and his observations and experiences are brought unfiltered to the reader. He tells it as it is, how he feels and describes what he observes.
Upon arrival he had to take part in Reception Staging and Onward Integration to understand and cope with the situation that he faced. General tips about pelvic protection (keeping the reproductive organs safe) and once “out on the ground” advice to put a dog tag into your boot in case your leg got blown off. All rather sobering stuff.
From the Field Hospital to travelling in the local terrain, “outside the wire“, his detail of battle and filming is in many ways remarkable, as he captures the capacity of the military machine to just roll ever onwards, a real insight for us civilians who only really familiar with the situation on TV and in newspapers.
His team at one point had to hook up with a rookie Afghan Combat Camera Team and try to capture normal life. He meets and observes Ross Kemp who briefly breezes in on the scene (as he was filming his own exploits for his TV series which aired several years ago).
And climatically, or not, he is there when Osama Bin Laden is killed. But the underwhelming feeling at that juncture seemed to be that Bin Laden was a figurehead, who had actually become irrelevant as the war had morphed into a conflict driven by drugs.
Combat Camera is a journey to the heart of a dark time. For me it bowled along, there is dark humour with vivid accounts of the time. Way too many acronyms punctuated the text and eventually I gave up trying to fathom the tiny footnotes. I yearned for some photos – photo opportunities after all were central to the book – to break up the narrative, which I think would have been a nice touch. This book will appeal to readers who want to discover more about combat and military exploits.
Behind the lens in HELMAND, AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan for the troops during the war was “ninety percent boredom, really, and only ten percent shitting yourself“…
From a sleepy local radio station to combat central in Afghanistan, the memoir opens in 2011 with a thunderous attack around Camp Bastion (a “permanent monument to Western overstretch“). The author up until that point had had a chequered career which was cut short with the bombings of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and thus he came to join the Combat Camera Team, circuitously via the BBC.
The author, camera in hand and part of a team, was on hand to record the everyday lives of the people on the frontline, sometimes from both sides of the conflict and his observations and experiences are brought unfiltered to the reader. He tells it as it is, how he feels and describes what he observes.
Upon arrival he had to take part in Reception Staging and Onward Integration to understand and cope with the situation that he faced. General tips about pelvic protection (keeping the reproductive organs safe) and once “out on the ground” advice to put a dog tag into your boot in case your leg got blown off. All rather sobering stuff.
From the Field Hospital to travelling in the local terrain, “outside the wire“, his detail of battle and filming is in many ways remarkable, as he captures the capacity of the military machine to just roll ever onwards, a real insight for us civilians who only really familiar with the situation on TV and in newspapers.
His team at one point had to hook up with a rookie Afghan Combat Camera Team and try to capture normal life. He meets and observes Ross Kemp who briefly breezes in on the scene (as he was filming his own exploits for his TV series which aired several years ago).
And climatically, or not, he is there when Osama Bin Laden is killed. But the underwhelming feeling at that juncture seemed to be that Bin Laden was a figurehead, who had actually become irrelevant as the war had morphed into a conflict driven by drugs.
Combat Camera is a journey to the heart of a dark time. For me it bowled along, there is dark humour with vivid accounts of the time. Way too many acronyms punctuated the text and eventually I gave up trying to fathom the tiny footnotes. I yearned for some photos – photo opportunities after all were central to the book – to break up the narrative, which I think would have been a nice touch. This book will appeal to readers who want to discover more about combat and military exploits.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews