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This remarkable book is the first ever sociological study of an operational army unit. The author, himself a former regular soldier, observed a group of raw recruits to the British Army during their basic training, accompanied a unit on an exercise in Canada and also went with it to the dangerous bandit country of South Armagh.John Hockey paints a memorable picture of the subsculture of private soldiers in todays regular infantry, and he shows vividly how this conforms and conflicts with the formal demands of the military organisation.Anyone who wants to know more about the working of the army at grass-roots level will find this book essential reading.