Bulletproof - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

LANCE CORPORAL MATT CROUCHER grew up in the Midlands and joined the Royal Marines aged 16, passing through the legendary 30-week training programme and into 40 Commando despite a series of injuries. He served two tours with the Marines in Iraq before transferring into the Royal Marines Reserves and returning to Iraq as a private security contractor with the United Nations. He re-joined 40 Commando for the ultimate challenge of a tour of duty in war-torn Afghanistan in September 2007.

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[ROYAL MARINES INSIGNIA]

March 2003 Fighting alongside US Navy SEALs, Matt Croucher is one of the first 200 soldiers into Iraq

Oct 2004 On a routine patrol through Iraq, a roadside bomb goes off; suffers a fractured skull

Dec 2005 With a $1m bounty placed on Westerners heads, finds himself caught up in a tribal battle

Nov 2007 Pinned down by fierce enemy fire, he administers life-saving first aid to an injured comrade

Feb 2008 Throws himself onto a grenade to save his comrades

July 2008 Awarded the George Cross

NO ORDINARY SOLDIER. NO ORDINARY WAR.

Aus dem Klappentext

AFGHANISTAN, FEBRUARY 2008: in an out-of-control, dangerous country torn apart by war, littered with Taleban guerrilla forces and thousands of miles from home, Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, a Royal Marine with 40 Commando, accidentally activates a grenade mine whilst on a covert night patrol behind enemy lines.

With only a split second to react, Croucher s instincts kick in and he throws himself onto the grenade, reasoning that saving the lives of his three comrades was worth the likelihood of losing his own.

Miraculously, and against all the odds, Croucher survived, and mere hours later was taking part in a ferocious gun battle against local insurgent fighters, demonstrating a raw, unique courage and devotion to military duty that would later see him awarded the George Cross a distinction bestowed only on those who perform acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger.

Croucher s George Cross would make him famous around the world. But his story is much more than just one heroic act in isolation. His is a life of bullets, blood and loyalty, and of lives saved and lives taken. From a raw recruit at 19, when he was one of the first 200 Allied soldiers to invade Iraq back in 2003 as part of an elite force of British Marines and US Special Forces, through to his second tour of duty in 2004, when he suffered a fractured skull following a roadside bomb attack, only to return to action just a week later, and then being thrust into hellish Afghanistan, Croucher has seen vicious fighting, intense gun battles, roadside ambushes, and witnessed the death and injury of close colleagues on an almost daily basis.

This is his incredible story: a searing, vivid, non-stop account of one man s heroism and courage under fire, in the most gruelling combat environment since the Second World War.