Dulwich author's new book on bomb disposal in Iraq

[Kevin_Ivison]

Dear all,

In addition to being a fellow resident of Dulwich, I'm a first-time author whose first book, Red One: A Bomb Disposal Expert on the Front Line, is published on 19 August this year. Red One is a memoir of my time as a counter-terrorist bomb disposal operator (ATO) in Iraq, focussing on a single action (for which I was later awarded the George Medal) and how PTSD affected me for a number of years afterwards.

Here is the blurb:

This is the gripping true story of a young bomb disposal officer and his terrifying experiences in Iraq facing daily rocket attacks and terrorist bombs. When two of his colleagues are killed by a roadside bomb, Kevin Ivison is called in to defuse a second even deadlier bomb just a hundred yards from the bodies of his friends. To make things worse, the entire area is under fire from snipers, and a crowd of angry Iraqis have begun to hurl petrol bombs... With little chance of living through this impossible task, Kevin leaves final messages for his loved ones and sets out alone towards the bomb that he is sure will be the last thing he sees. In this gut-wrenching tale of heroism and survival, Kevin Ivison explains why he chose to be a bomb disposal expert in the first place, how he found the courage to face his death, and the unendurable stress that has given him nightmares ever since

Please take a look at Red One on Amazon. If you order the book through the link below, you will also be supporting Help4Heroes - I will donate every penny of Amazon commission to that incredible cause.

Here is the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0297860550?ie=UTF8&tag=keviivis-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0297860550%22%3E%3Cimg

Thank you,

Kevin Ivison

[Narnia]

Hi Kevin

I hope it doesn't sound patronising so say that I hope writing the book helped you to come to terms with what you had to deal with.

Best wishes.

[felt-tip]

Thanks Kevin - just ordered this on pre-order.

I see its released August!

[Kevin_Ivison]

Dear Narnia,

Not patronising at all - the book really explores how PTSD affected me and - I hope(!) - should increase the public conversation on this subject. If it encourages people like you to ask people like my about our experiences then I will be utterly delighted.

Oddly enough though, it did not help at all! I found the writing process (the book was largely written Feb-April 2009) not cathartic in the least - in fact, if anything, it made my symptoms worse. I think talking about events in Iraq has always been incredible helpful to me - but sitting in a room on my own for hours each day, locked inside my own mind, was exceptionally destructive.

Kevin

[Kevin_Ivison]

Dear Felt-Tip,

Thank you, Red One is published on August 19, will be serialised in the Mail on Sunday on Aug 16 and the feature of a Channel 4 News piece on Monday 17 August.

I really hope you enjoy Red One - its as honest as I could make it and, in addition to having lots of action, if covers a lot of the less glamorous aspects of warfare: I don't think any other book been as open about issues like fear (which I certainly experienced a great deal of), heroism (which I saw an awful lot of) and PTSD (which is still very much part of my life).

Thanks once again,

Kevin

[felt-tip]

I'm looking forward to it!

[Kevin_Ivison]

Thanks all for the PMs - I have replied to each individually but it is great to see people so supportive of this project and Help4Heroes.

Kevin

[frierntastic]

.

[Kevin_Ivison]

Red One has had its first review; The Literary Review says:

?the author of the gripping memoir Red One...tells it superbly...Ivison ? who this book proves to be a gifted writer as well as a genuine hero ? draws out the tension of this nightmarish scene...that literally left me sweating in terror.?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0297860550?tag=keviivis-21&camp=2902&creative=19466&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0297860550&adid=1FDQCFPHCD43M81219E8&

[northlondoner]

Good work. Think we all owe you a debt of gratitude

[ianr]

There was a long interview with Kevin on the latest BBC World Service Outlook programme. An mp3 file of it (11MByte) can be downloaded at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/outlook.

[maxmclim]

Hi Just to let you know that the below is one of the reviews on amazon.co.uk

under the title Fight or Flight: The Day Iraq changed Capt Ivison's Life

For the record, I am a published author of Larkhill's Wartime Locators: Artillery Survey

in the Second World War Pen & Sword, 2007, and I live in NE Italy

I should like to know why you think the MoD are beginning to take note of the problem of PTSD:

is it because the numbers are growing and will affect the final outcome in replacements in the field (losing a war),

or is a fear of doing something too big and still look good before too many legal claims are made (economics).

Does anyone still go back to the second war prejudicial idea that it is a new word for lack of moral fibre, or have

we moved on? Good luck with the sales, to your own recovery, and best wishes to the Ivison - you all deserve it!

Massimo or Max MANGILLI-CLIMPSON

This review is from: Red One: A Bomb Disposal Expert on the Front Line (Hardcover)

Capt Kevin Ivison, son of a regular soldier, had a love for the Army running through his veins, and a growing thrill to diffuse bombs - a very dedicated, taxing specialist skill, requiring months of training and sacrifice before the real deployment and experience as Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO), RE finally dawns. Its ?sprit de corps, as technically special and unparalleled front line elitist goes back to the Second World War pioneers, like Stuart Archer, GC, and John Hudson GM & Bar, MBE, who with the help of genius scientific boffins, had to learn his craft on the job, to proficiently outwit the foe with the new equipment, as the UXBs modified and developed. The courage and heroism is not the same genre as that presented by SCM Mick Flynn,CGC,MC full of adrenaline, charging forward to save his mates; it involves a more qualified meditated plan of action, aware that one's decisions or indecisions (for Ivison it is the slight linguistic difference between "fight" and "flight") will hopefully push the dangers further from the Allied troops and the neutral defenceless civilians.

Capt Ivison served for almost nine years in Afghanistan, N. Ireland, and two tours in Iraq. The present volume focuses on his 4 month operations during 2005-06 in southern Iraq, around Al Amarah, in his 5 man EOD squad, as part of Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Battle Group.

As a perfectionist, wishing to give his all to obtain the most satisfying results the author was very critical of everyone: critical of the chain of command: formed to keep a knowledge of IED disposal away from appointments where they could save both British and Iraqi lives; critical of pen pushers in offices either sitting on or not processing demands for the upkeep and maintenance of necessary equipment for the front line; critical of the government for claiming to provide everything the troops require when instead it continues to keep tested equipment that either does not work: the Wheelbarrow robot built for the streets of Ulster always breaking down in the desert heat of the Middle East, or is totally useless and a permanent danger: Snatch Landrovers which he calls "mobile coffins"; critical of the Iraqi police who often operate in cahoots with the insurgents by tipping them off, and enjoying being publicly seen to successfully make great finds of stashes of weapons and ammunition, and then selling them back behind the scenes to whatever militia faction is prepared to pay a good mark up price;and critical of newspaper editors eager to make a quick return from scoops which will require months to investigate and longer to erase from readers' minds even if they are disproven.

The heart and most rivetting section of this book, centred and fossilized itself for the protagonist, on February 28th 2006, at a map reference point Red One along Red route, the hardest part of Al Amarah, a dual carriageway heading East-West, with the Olympic Stadium due South and open ground to the North. On arriving he learnt that one IED blast had killed two friends, Capt Richard Holmes and Pte Lee Ellis of 2 Paras, and a secondary device had been planted. He realised by priming the second bomb the conflict had moved away from a general attack against the West, the British government, or against foreign invading Armies; it had become very personal, aimed at medics or bomb disposal operators, just trying to make the area safer. The solutions were clear: flight or fight. The first was the simplest: once uncovered the device would be destroyed; the alternative, the longer, and more risky, required handling and dismantling it, before the necessary material would be delivered to the scientists and forensic specialists of the Weapon's Intelligence Section to carefully scrutinise the nature and components of such an IED, to establish how in future such a type could be defeated, and even to discover who might have handled and put it together. Ivison's mind working in overdrive counted out the number of ways he could die: besides his own mistakes brought on by fear, or tremors, a sniper might target him or at the device from the surrounding high-storey blocks; alternatively, an excitable insurgent might promptly detonate it by remote control, or a stray dog might cock its leg up onto the bomb. Chances of survival,thus, seemed to be nose diving. The tension was so great he could crumble and break down, or unexpectedly find hidden sources of resilence to soldier on regardless. Flight or fight. He thought about cruel fate of his pals Rich and Lee, not about himself, and took the "long road" to take the device out. "Bingo", it was done.

After the long road Ivison was never the same person again; he felt he could no longer do what he had passionately trained for and loved doing. He started to become withdrawn, unable to compartmentalise himself at the end of each op, unhappy even to go out in the last days of his tour. The incident had not ended, the trauma of that day started to live on and repeat itself in his mind. It bloomed into a permanent internal debate: had he been right; was he mad, should he see a specialist? He was not alone. Fortunately, his sanity and self assurance came more under control when his superiors admitted he had accomplished an act of gallantry and deserved his due merits, despite recognising his present worrying condition; he in turn could now have less anxiety to publicise to a wider audience that he is not a coward, nor had he become anti-war, not even anti-Iraqi, he was subject to PTSD, and wished actively to help campaign for all those at present or will in future suffer from this discomforting, self-destructive symptoms, but who may have difficulty in getting any help or advice from the authorities.

When ordering this autobiographical "gut-wrenching tale of heroism" through Amazon.co.uk, the author has promised all his commissions to be passed on to the organisation Help4Heroes. Ivison is a hero twice over: first for his deed at Red One, and then for his courageous attempt to fight to get over his PTSD. Even now there has been no flight. Readers too could do a little to help other anonymous sufferers from Iraq and Afghanistan when they decide to follow him on his journey of discovery and recovery.

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