The Home Front

A damning portrayal of the neglect of Australia’s modern war veterans from celebrated military historian Patrick Lindsay.

Forty-one Australian soldiers died in action over 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan; in that time more than 1400 veterans have taken their own lives. Veterans today are chronically over-represented when it comes to PTSD, depression, homelessness and suicide. Australians rightfully pause on Anzac Day each year to solemnly remember fallen soldiers, but are we forgetting our returned veterans whose personal battles continue every single day, and how did we get to this point?

In this authoritative, compelling and urgent book, bestselling author Patrick Lindsay (The Spirit of the Diggerand Fromelles among many) looks at the wide-ranging damage caused by training Australians to be fighting machines and then inadequately supporting them as they re-enter their communities. Featuring moving interviews with veterans and their families as well as a broader analysis of Australian military culture and government responses, Lindsay illustrates both the personal and societal costs of this dereliction of duty.

The Home Front is a fascinating and rousing indictment of the culture of war, the thinking of those who wage it, and the cost to those who experience it.

About the Author

Patrick Lindsay is one of Australia’s leading non-fiction authors and an acclaimed documentary maker, broadcaster and film-maker. In 2022 he wrote, directed and produced The Home Front, a feature documentary that aired on the Nine Network. Before taking up writing full-time in 2001, he was a newspaper reporter and, from 1981, a prominent TV reporter/presenter. In 2015, he was named a Member of the Order of Australia for ‘significant service to the media as a television presenter and journalist, to international relations, and to literature as an author’. He was a founding director of the Kokoda Track Foundation, served for eleven years as its chairman and is now one of its ambassadors.

Patrick lives in Sydney, is married to Lisa Cotton and has three grown-up children, Nathan, Kate and Sarah, and two grandchildren, Lucas and Sophia.