What do you think?
Rate this book
Mercenary Mum: My Journey from Young Mother to Baghdad Bodyguard
Mercenary Mum is the true story of Neryl Joyce, a young single mother who went from working at her local Woolworths to serving as a soldier in the Australian Army’s elite Close Personal Protection Unit. She later left the army to become a high-risk security contractor, where she was responsible for protecting high-threat targets from assassination and opportune attack in Iraq.
Vividly and powerfully, Joyce takes us on a journey through the battlefields of Iraq. She suffers the loss of close friends on the infamous Route Irish. She reveals what it’s like to be a woman in a brutal man’s world, and a victim of sexual abuse. And she tells how she survived all this to return home to her son.
Mercenary Mum is the unforgettable and inspiring story of one woman’s fight for her career, for her family and for life itself.
Neryl Joyce served as a commissioned officer in the Australian Army in its Close Personal Protection Unit, and worked as a private security contractor in Iraq.
Vividly and powerfully, Joyce takes us on a journey through the battlefields of Iraq. She suffers the loss of close friends on the infamous Route Irish. She reveals what it’s like to be a woman in a brutal man’s world, and a victim of sexual abuse. And she tells how she survived all this to return home to her son.
Mercenary Mum is the unforgettable and inspiring story of one woman’s fight for her career, for her family and for life itself.
Neryl Joyce served as a commissioned officer in the Australian Army in its Close Personal Protection Unit, and worked as a private security contractor in Iraq.
292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 24, 2014
4 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Neryl Joyce
1 bookNeryl Joyce served as a commissioned officer in the Australian Army in its close personal protection unit, then worked as a private security contractor in Iraq. After retiring from the security business, she and her husband moved to Christmas Island to manage a detention centre. Neryl currently lives in Perth.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2017
Catchy title, and an excellent read.
A highly readable and engaging autobiography of a gutsy woman who, through brains, guts, and determination, carves a niche for herself in not one, but two traditionally male-dominated career paths: the military (the Australian Army, as both an enlisted soldier and later a commissioned officer) and the Private Military Contracting world (hence the tongue-in-cheek use of the word "mercenary" in the book's title).
In the military phase of her life in particular, Neryl had to overcome her physical awkwardness and lack of natural athletic ability (particularly in the running department) in order to persevere and graduate from enlisted boot camp and officer school alike.
Along the way, she also had to cope with multiple heartbreaks (first a dead-end loser druggie boyfriend, and later a would-be fiancé who became the father of Neryl's son Kane but then abruptly left her holding the proverbial bag as a jilted would-be bride and single mum).
Going onto the PMC phase of her life (and book) in Iraq, the author experienced an emotional and professional roller-coaster of triumphs & tragedies, ups & downs....with the negatives including everything from sexist attitudes from certain teammates, to reckless mission planning via poor leadership & management that eventually resulted in the needless tragic deaths of several teammates and treasured friends of the author's, to a vicious rape (and to add injustice and insult to injury, the scumbag rapist bastard got away scot-free).
Yet through the adversity, the author kept fighting on and refused to give up on her dreams (or her son), and she eventually ends up meeting and marrying the man of her dreams and living the happy family life that she desired for so long.
Neryl recounts her story with an articulate writing style and terrific sense of humour that keeps the pages turning. And while I myself am neither Aussie, nor female, nor a parent (no kids that I'm aware of anyway), I *was* both an enlisted servicemember and commissioned officer before becoming a PMC in Iraq (three tours including my current one), so I found much in this book, both positive and negative experiences , that I could relate to based on my own personal experiences.
Well-done, Mrs. Joyce!
RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS AND NOTEWORTHY PASSAGES (page #s are from the Nook edition)
--p. 16: "It's no wonder that I despise bullies to this day." Amen!!
--p. 17: "On my tenth birthday, I was given the greatest gift an '80s girl could have asked for: a stereo....I could listen to the radio, play tapes, and, best of all, put on records." Aahh, the good ol' days of pre-digital era home entertainment....
--p. 18: She's a math-ocist! 😮
--p. 19: "I was so excited about my enlistment ceremony the next day I could barely sleep." OutSTANding motivation!!
"....what looked like a bulldog that had taken human form..." Haha!
--p. 20: "It wasn't hard for me to identify my bag: it was the only one that looked as though it had started life in the '70s and then been on a world tour." Haha!
--p. 35: Aussie boot camp grads get to drink on graduation day?!?! Lucky bitches and bastards!!
--p. 38: "The dentists never did PT with our unit" Damn REMF slackers!
--p. 39: "It is important to have good friends to make mistakes with." Hear, hear!
--p. 44: "But I stuck with him, hoping I could change him." An all too common mistake in relationships, committed by males and females alike.
--p. 52: Top graduate of the MP course! OutSTANding, I can relate, hooah!
--p. 54: "This was history. I was going to play a role in it." Another hooah!
--p. 56: "There are no comfortable seats" on a C-130; gee, ain't that the frickin' truth!
--p. 58: Ugh, fucking media.
--p. 67: "I worked my arse off - literally and metaphorically." Gawd, I love this author's sense of humour!
--p. 68: July 2001; wow, so the author finished her officer training the same month and year that I started mine!
--p. 76 "...but, in the end, I decided it was better to show Kane that it paid to take life by the balls." AMEN!! Too bloody right, mate!
--p. 78: Aahh yes, the counter-SAM elliptical descent into Baghdad....
--p. 108: "It was strange how quickly living in a war zone became ordinary." True enough.
--p. 118: Mmmm, Iraqi bread....samoon, by any chance?
--p. 141: Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, haha!
--p. 156: "There I stood, a foreigner in my own country." Yep, kinda feels like an out-of-body experience.
--p. 157: "I had no regrets. I'd worked hard for my money, and it was time to let loose." AMEN!! You only live twice, so make the most of it!!
--p. 185: "Everything happens for a reason." I've been on both the giving and receiving end of the saying soooo many times in my life.
--p: 186: Aw dammit, not Tomahawk and Camel!!
--p. 193: "Trained close protection operatives are taught that automatic transmission cars are the best vehicles to use on missions because if you attacked, the stress and surprise of the incident is generally going to make you stall your car."
Yep, K.I.S.S. principle, but the stick shift aficionados would undoubtedly consider that to be sacrilege.
--p. 195: "But in South Africa, I did things I would not normally have been able to do."
Lekker, Mevrou, lekker! Gotta love the ZSA!
--p. 196: "He had a goatee (as did most of the Americans I met)" Haha, American contractor cultural SOP!
--p. 205: Yes, Neryl, your ice cream story is indeed funny! :-)
--p. 220: "Security guys might be hot, but they're not very good at steady relationships." Hey, ouch!! :-O
Poor Skippy, OUCHIE!!
--p. 226: "the 'love rotation,'" haha, nice!
--p. 229: Ugh, double-whammy; Bruce and Wingnut, fucksake!
--p. 231: All's well that ends well. Way to hang in there and persevere, Neryl!
Technical/Admin Observation: while there are page breaks for transitional purposes , the author doesn't use actual separate Chapter numbers. Nothing wrong with it, but certainly different and unusual for a book of any lengthy narrative.
A highly readable and engaging autobiography of a gutsy woman who, through brains, guts, and determination, carves a niche for herself in not one, but two traditionally male-dominated career paths: the military (the Australian Army, as both an enlisted soldier and later a commissioned officer) and the Private Military Contracting world (hence the tongue-in-cheek use of the word "mercenary" in the book's title).
In the military phase of her life in particular, Neryl had to overcome her physical awkwardness and lack of natural athletic ability (particularly in the running department) in order to persevere and graduate from enlisted boot camp and officer school alike.
Along the way, she also had to cope with multiple heartbreaks (first a dead-end loser druggie boyfriend, and later a would-be fiancé who became the father of Neryl's son Kane but then abruptly left her holding the proverbial bag as a jilted would-be bride and single mum).
Going onto the PMC phase of her life (and book) in Iraq, the author experienced an emotional and professional roller-coaster of triumphs & tragedies, ups & downs....with the negatives including everything from sexist attitudes from certain teammates, to reckless mission planning via poor leadership & management that eventually resulted in the needless tragic deaths of several teammates and treasured friends of the author's, to a vicious rape (and to add injustice and insult to injury, the scumbag rapist bastard got away scot-free).
Yet through the adversity, the author kept fighting on and refused to give up on her dreams (or her son), and she eventually ends up meeting and marrying the man of her dreams and living the happy family life that she desired for so long.
Neryl recounts her story with an articulate writing style and terrific sense of humour that keeps the pages turning. And while I myself am neither Aussie, nor female, nor a parent (no kids that I'm aware of anyway), I *was* both an enlisted servicemember and commissioned officer before becoming a PMC in Iraq (three tours including my current one), so I found much in this book, both positive and negative experiences , that I could relate to based on my own personal experiences.
Well-done, Mrs. Joyce!
RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS AND NOTEWORTHY PASSAGES (page #s are from the Nook edition)
--p. 16: "It's no wonder that I despise bullies to this day." Amen!!
--p. 17: "On my tenth birthday, I was given the greatest gift an '80s girl could have asked for: a stereo....I could listen to the radio, play tapes, and, best of all, put on records." Aahh, the good ol' days of pre-digital era home entertainment....
--p. 18: She's a math-ocist! 😮
--p. 19: "I was so excited about my enlistment ceremony the next day I could barely sleep." OutSTANding motivation!!
"....what looked like a bulldog that had taken human form..." Haha!
--p. 20: "It wasn't hard for me to identify my bag: it was the only one that looked as though it had started life in the '70s and then been on a world tour." Haha!
--p. 35: Aussie boot camp grads get to drink on graduation day?!?! Lucky bitches and bastards!!
--p. 38: "The dentists never did PT with our unit" Damn REMF slackers!
--p. 39: "It is important to have good friends to make mistakes with." Hear, hear!
--p. 44: "But I stuck with him, hoping I could change him." An all too common mistake in relationships, committed by males and females alike.
--p. 52: Top graduate of the MP course! OutSTANding, I can relate, hooah!
--p. 54: "This was history. I was going to play a role in it." Another hooah!
--p. 56: "There are no comfortable seats" on a C-130; gee, ain't that the frickin' truth!
--p. 58: Ugh, fucking media.
--p. 67: "I worked my arse off - literally and metaphorically." Gawd, I love this author's sense of humour!
--p. 68: July 2001; wow, so the author finished her officer training the same month and year that I started mine!
--p. 76 "...but, in the end, I decided it was better to show Kane that it paid to take life by the balls." AMEN!! Too bloody right, mate!
--p. 78: Aahh yes, the counter-SAM elliptical descent into Baghdad....
--p. 108: "It was strange how quickly living in a war zone became ordinary." True enough.
--p. 118: Mmmm, Iraqi bread....samoon, by any chance?
--p. 141: Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, haha!
--p. 156: "There I stood, a foreigner in my own country." Yep, kinda feels like an out-of-body experience.
--p. 157: "I had no regrets. I'd worked hard for my money, and it was time to let loose." AMEN!! You only live twice, so make the most of it!!
--p. 185: "Everything happens for a reason." I've been on both the giving and receiving end of the saying soooo many times in my life.
--p: 186: Aw dammit, not Tomahawk and Camel!!
--p. 193: "Trained close protection operatives are taught that automatic transmission cars are the best vehicles to use on missions because if you attacked, the stress and surprise of the incident is generally going to make you stall your car."
Yep, K.I.S.S. principle, but the stick shift aficionados would undoubtedly consider that to be sacrilege.
--p. 195: "But in South Africa, I did things I would not normally have been able to do."
Lekker, Mevrou, lekker! Gotta love the ZSA!
--p. 196: "He had a goatee (as did most of the Americans I met)" Haha, American contractor cultural SOP!
--p. 205: Yes, Neryl, your ice cream story is indeed funny! :-)
--p. 220: "Security guys might be hot, but they're not very good at steady relationships." Hey, ouch!! :-O
Poor Skippy, OUCHIE!!
--p. 226: "the 'love rotation,'" haha, nice!
--p. 229: Ugh, double-whammy; Bruce and Wingnut, fucksake!
--p. 231: All's well that ends well. Way to hang in there and persevere, Neryl!
Technical/Admin Observation: while there are page breaks for transitional purposes , the author doesn't use actual separate Chapter numbers. Nothing wrong with it, but certainly different and unusual for a book of any lengthy narrative.
November 19, 2017
3.5 stars out of 5
I started this book yesterday evening, well, actually more late at night. First reading some pages between putting the kids to bed, doing some dev-work and writing. But when I wanted to go to bed around 1 am, I knew I couldn't. The book had me in its grip. And so, I set down to read it properly.
Around 4:30 I finished, cursing myself for not sleeping, and reminding myself this was why I read only audiobooks before bedtime, and not e-books.
This will tell you the book is a real pageturner. Yes it uses cheap dirty frowned upon clickbait-like chapter endings. Yes, the writing style and technique belonged to a first-grader. It was uneven, choppy, unrefined and overall, just bad. Really quite bad. Not Twilight-bad, mind you, but it could have done with a copy-edit pass.
That I didn't mind that, when things like that usually turn me off, is because of the story . This book has good storytelling. Not the best, no, not by far, but good and entertaining. It was like reading Larry-Correia-for-women. Without the supernatural monsters, with human monsters.
That last bit, is important: nowadays I never read non-genre fiction anymore. I'm so used to different tech, different creatures, different worlds, that it was refreshing to read about the horrors of our human race.
I picked this book as part of a research project for my books. There aren't many sources for information about female mercenaries that aren't defined by the male gaze. Females mercenaries are a minority, and them teaching and telling us about their line of work, their experiences, is rarer still. So, here somes in this book: the story of a single mom turned mercenary and working in terrorism-wrecked Iraq.
We all know the events there in Iraq from the news. It's safe and clean and almost sterilized. This story takes you there, as a woman, amidst the real every day danger. It shows us the attrocities commited by the outsiders ánd the insiders. It was incredibly interesting for me as woman to read, not only because of its research value (which it actually doesn't really have much of, I'm both sorry and glad to say) but because it shows the extra difficulties women have in any male-dominated field of work, just as I have in mine. As a woman, you have to be better than men, in order to get the same appreciation as them.
As a mother, I could understand her struggle to balance her care for a young child as a single parent ánd working in such a high risk-long distance field.
It's hard to say anything about the story. Not because of spoilers, but because I'm a little bit conflicted about it. The book is supposed to be kind of autobiographical. Maybe it is. I don't know. The problem is that the characterization is bad: the main character is a Mary Sue. We know she's going to make it, because it's autobiographical, and she's a bit self rightious, holier than thou, and extremely competent in everything she does. Yes she faces some token difficulties in the beginning, but that proves - for the story - to be no real problem. The ending is just.... stupid. It doesn't fit with the story, it's syruppy sweet and it just screams 'fake'. But maybe it was real and her life is really like a fairy tale, who knows?
If this were fiction, I would call it very sloppy writing. Since it's marketed as non-fiction, I can't, and I'll give it the benefit of doubt.
Nevertheless, it is an amazing story, full of wonderful insights in that shadowy mercenary world. It's really worth your time.
I started this book yesterday evening, well, actually more late at night. First reading some pages between putting the kids to bed, doing some dev-work and writing. But when I wanted to go to bed around 1 am, I knew I couldn't. The book had me in its grip. And so, I set down to read it properly.
Around 4:30 I finished, cursing myself for not sleeping, and reminding myself this was why I read only audiobooks before bedtime, and not e-books.
This will tell you the book is a real pageturner. Yes it uses cheap dirty frowned upon clickbait-like chapter endings. Yes, the writing style and technique belonged to a first-grader. It was uneven, choppy, unrefined and overall, just bad. Really quite bad. Not Twilight-bad, mind you, but it could have done with a copy-edit pass.
That I didn't mind that, when things like that usually turn me off, is because of the story . This book has good storytelling. Not the best, no, not by far, but good and entertaining. It was like reading Larry-Correia-for-women. Without the supernatural monsters, with human monsters.
That last bit, is important: nowadays I never read non-genre fiction anymore. I'm so used to different tech, different creatures, different worlds, that it was refreshing to read about the horrors of our human race.
I picked this book as part of a research project for my books. There aren't many sources for information about female mercenaries that aren't defined by the male gaze. Females mercenaries are a minority, and them teaching and telling us about their line of work, their experiences, is rarer still. So, here somes in this book: the story of a single mom turned mercenary and working in terrorism-wrecked Iraq.
We all know the events there in Iraq from the news. It's safe and clean and almost sterilized. This story takes you there, as a woman, amidst the real every day danger. It shows us the attrocities commited by the outsiders ánd the insiders. It was incredibly interesting for me as woman to read, not only because of its research value (which it actually doesn't really have much of, I'm both sorry and glad to say) but because it shows the extra difficulties women have in any male-dominated field of work, just as I have in mine. As a woman, you have to be better than men, in order to get the same appreciation as them.
As a mother, I could understand her struggle to balance her care for a young child as a single parent ánd working in such a high risk-long distance field.
It's hard to say anything about the story. Not because of spoilers, but because I'm a little bit conflicted about it. The book is supposed to be kind of autobiographical. Maybe it is. I don't know. The problem is that the characterization is bad: the main character is a Mary Sue. We know she's going to make it, because it's autobiographical, and she's a bit self rightious, holier than thou, and extremely competent in everything she does. Yes she faces some token difficulties in the beginning, but that proves - for the story - to be no real problem. The ending is just.... stupid. It doesn't fit with the story, it's syruppy sweet and it just screams 'fake'. But maybe it was real and her life is really like a fairy tale, who knows?
If this were fiction, I would call it very sloppy writing. Since it's marketed as non-fiction, I can't, and I'll give it the benefit of doubt.
Nevertheless, it is an amazing story, full of wonderful insights in that shadowy mercenary world. It's really worth your time.
January 16, 2018
Interesting story
March 3, 2015
An interesting read, not only because it was from a female perspective within a male dominated industry, but also because it was written by a women who is a mother. The duality of being provider as well as a nurturer.There are some choices that would have been difficult for her to make but she found the courage to follow through with them, inspirational at times.
Her rape was also, something that really brought back the reality of the real world situations in which she found herself in. Being drugged and raped can happen to anyone, of any age, any where in the world and perpetrated by anyone *even men married with a wife and children).
I have to commend Neryl for her honesty through out this book, on the subject of her rape, on other areas such as leadership issues, the difficulty of being part of team and personal difficulties in being recognized as competent to do her job.
I loved how the book was filled with Australian slang. This made it feel as though I was reading a memoir written by a friend from high school that I had lost contact with.
Enjoyed reading it.
Her rape was also, something that really brought back the reality of the real world situations in which she found herself in. Being drugged and raped can happen to anyone, of any age, any where in the world and perpetrated by anyone *even men married with a wife and children).
I have to commend Neryl for her honesty through out this book, on the subject of her rape, on other areas such as leadership issues, the difficulty of being part of team and personal difficulties in being recognized as competent to do her job.
I loved how the book was filled with Australian slang. This made it feel as though I was reading a memoir written by a friend from high school that I had lost contact with.
Enjoyed reading it.
September 9, 2015
I found this book hard to put down. Joycee, as she known to her mates, shows that hard work and determination can find you in places you never dreamed of. Follow her life, detailed just enough, through the important events that moulded her life. She's a brave and morally sound woman who will inspire any young woman and in her book, gives us an insight into the macho world of the security contractor in Iraq protecting those who want to make a difference.
March 3, 2015
Enjoyed this book emmensley, an easy read and found myself looking forward to turning the page to see where this journey would take me next Itake my hat off to the author as she fought hard and overcame all sorts of obstacles that were put before her, but by believing in herself got to where she new she wanted to go and got the job done.
Want to read
September 2, 2016Recommended by James Yeager.
January 1, 2015
An interesting life - very easy to read - and a tough choice of career.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews