[CaptainCrunch]

Just thought I'd throw this out there as we have threads that talk about reading recommendations.

I just picked up and read "Wearing the Green Beret" by Jake Olafsen.

The book is an autobiography that follows Jake Olafsen a young B.C. native who decides to go overseas and joins the Royal Marine Commando's.

For any kind of Military junkie this is the rare book written by a soldier on the ground at his rating.

I went into the book not expecting much, but I have to admit it surprised me, Olafsen is a fairly gifted writer who captures the emotion of the moment really well.

The book really doesn't cover much of his early life, but really gets started when he goes oversea's for his 30 week basic training. There is one way that you can sum up the training, and thats brutal. Repeatedly Olafsen talks about being in the hurt locker, a term where your at the point of breaking and the only thing that carries you through it is the fact that the Green Beret is waiting for you.

It also shows the very weird sense of humor of the British training officers who showered the NOBs (recruits) with their breakfeast and then made Olafsen present a slice of ham that he was hit with over a four day training excercise.

He also talks about survival training where he ended up spooning with four other recruits in a rain storm while dreaming of his girlfriend back home.

Upon completion of his training he was immediately sent to Afghanistan and you get a real sense of the danger for the average soldier over there as he talks about IED's ambushes and in a particularly brutal moment having to clean bone fragments and chunks of flesh out of a rifle after an suicide bomber attack.

From there he travels the world with the Commando's.

There are some things that are funny in the book as he doesn't talk about walking, he uses the very british term Yomping, he also talks about refusing to go on patrol without his lucky Canadian Flag.

Overall he keeps the book fairly light, he doesn't spend a lot of time doing the "Why are we here" reflections, instead he focuses on his mates and his mission and getting out in one peace.

Anyone who's interested in the Afghan mission, or the experiences of a elite soldier should definately give this one a read.