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Barrel of a Gun: Mispent Moments in Combat
Al J Venter
Publisher: Casemate (2010)
Hardback - 352 pages - 16 pages of photographs
October 2010. Hardback 228 x 156 mm 352 pages 16-pg photo section
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Al Venter has spent most of his adult life covering wars. From these 40 years has emerged his latest book which, for want of something better, he has called Barrel of a Gun. This book covers many of Venter's exploits, starting with his first real experience of conflict after he'd landed in Nigeria following the Ibo-led putsch that eventually led to the Biafran Civil War. From there he went on to cover the wars that the Portuguese were then fighting in a desperate rear-guard series of guerrilla conflicts to retain their African colonies in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (today Guiné-Bissau). Then came Beirut, Rhodesia, the Congo, huge dollops of the Middle East, South Africa's border wars in Angola and the consequential overflow into Zambia, Uganda, Liberia, El Salvador, the Balkans - where he went in twice - once with the United States Air Force over Kosovo and afterwards with mine-clearing teams in Croatia, Executive Outcomes (twice into Angola and once in Sierra Leone) as well five weeks with mercenary South African helicopter pilot Neall Ellis in the subsequent Sierra Leone war against the RUF rebels. There he flew combat in an antiquated M-24 Russian gunship that leaked when it rained. Since then, Al Venter spent a lot of time covering some of South Africa's security problems, including more than a month with para-military units active against drug elements along the Tugela River in KwaZulu/Natal. One recent phase in South Africa involved a brief spell in the mountains on horseback, and not the first time either. He was attached to a mounted unit along the Angolan Border in earlier days, not long before one of the soldiers was blown up by a Soviet TM-57 anti-tank mine. Venter has been twice injured in combat, once when a TM-57 detonated under his APC while with a long-range penetration group deep behind enemy lines in Angola and another time, through his own stupidity, that destroyed all hearing in his left ear ......
Al was 30 Degrees South UK's guest speaker at its Frontline Club event in May 2011.
