Book Review - My Story
General Peter Cosgrove: My Story
Written by: General Peter Cosgrove,
Harper Collins Publishers, NSW, 2006,
ISBN: 9780732283841, 468pp.
Reviewed by: Dr Albert Palazzo, Research Fellow, Land Warfare Studies Centre
The writing of autobiography is a problematic endeavour. The author’s closeness to his subject makes attaining objectivity almost impossible and can thus call into question the work’s value and viewpoint. This is especially true when public records will remain closed for many years, preventing other authors from offering well-researched interpretations of their own. Autobiographers can also bring an agenda to their book—a need to set the record straight or to seize the high ground in a future struggle over the facts and their interpretation.
Cosgrove does himself have an agenda in My Story, but he seeks neither to promote nor to pre-empt the opinions of others. Instead, his focus is personal, on the things that have brought meaning and pleasure to his life—duty to nation, pride in the Australian Army, and love for wife and family. My Story is the simple tale of a commander who just happened to rise to the top of his profession. Readers who desire an insider’s account of controversial topics or revelations of secret government decision-making will be disappointed. Instead, Cosgrove takes a more measured, personal and self-effacing approach to his biography.
The book readily divides into three sections: the early years leading to the brink of high command; INTERFET, the Australian-led intervention in East Timor; and the command of the Army and the ADF. While INTERFET was the high point of Cosgrove’s career, readers should avoid the temptation to skip ahead because My Story’s early chapters are essential and riveting reading. It is in these pages that we see how the character of Cosgrove the man is formed, a character that he retains for his entire career. The term larrikin is often applied to Australian soldiers, and in this case it fits easily. In the best of the Boy’s Own tradition, Cosgrove accepts the challenge of a good prank, whether it be the donning of priest’s garb at St. Francis to hand out absolution at altar boy practice, or the ordering of a load of wet cement for delivery to the Waverly College quadrangle during an assembly. Young Cosgrove, it appears, would have had no difficulty joining Kipling’s Starky and Company on their adventures.
It is to INTERFET, however, that many readers will naturally turn. Australia was the lead nation in an international coalition that oversaw East Timor’s transition to independence from Indonesia. It was also Australia’s largest military deployment since the Vietnam War. Cosgrove found himself in command only by chance. Just a year earlier he had resigned himself to retirement when his term as Commandant of the Royal Military College, Duntroon ended. Unexpectedly, he received promotion to Major General and command of the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, the Headquarters formation that would oversee INTERFET. As a hands-on commander, Cosgrove was in his element in Dili, but it was on the diplomatic level that he revealed new talent. East Timor’s peaceful transition to independence relied on Indonesia’s cooperative withdrawal. While several confrontations took place, for example the fire-fight at Motaain, it was Cosgrove’s ability to diffuse situations at the highest level that most contributed to the operation’s success.
The final third of the book is destined to be its most controversial. In his roles as commander of first the Army and then the ADF, Cosgrove walked the corridors of power in Canberra. The lad from Paddington now served on the national stage and was in a position to influence and implement security policy. Readers who expect illumination of events that captured the nation’s passion during this time will be disappointed. The ‘children overboard affair’, the decision to join in the invasion of Iraq, and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are covered, but Cosgrove does not provide much more than what is already known. Instead, he remains loyal to the Western tradition that military officers not comment on affairs of state. Cosgrove limits himself to explanations within the realm of military responsibility and does not speculate on issues of political consideration. For Cosgrove such matters are the subject of a different book by a different author.
While My Story’s target audience in not necessarily a military one, Cosgrove can not avoid including in his book lessons for current and future commanders. Over the course of his career he held 12 command appointments, commencing as a platoon commander in Vietnam and finishing as the Chief of the Defence Force. In between he led 1 RAR, was in charge of the Infantry Centre, and commanded 6th Brigade. He also attended the Marine Corps Staff College at Quantico and the National Defence College in New Delhi. While Cosgrove’s service is rich in experience, he identifies no explicit leadership principles. In keeping with the work’s self-effacing style, Cosgrove forces the reader to distil leadership lessons from his actions. It was in Vietnam that Cosgrove first learned the need for leaders to take action, to be decisive and to trust in the training of their subordinates. Cosgrove also makes it clear that effective leadership is hard work. It must be cultivated, it must be learned, and it cannot be faked. These lessons, and others, are timeless, applicable to all levels of command, and they helped to shape Cosgrove’s decisions and actions over the course of his service.
Cosgrove’s affection for the Army runs deep and this is evident throughout My Story. He takes immense pride in the capabilities and judgements of the soldiers and officers he led, and in their ability to assume responsibilities far greater than their peers in other walks of life could ever expect to face. Cosgrove recalls the story of a young lieutenant in East Timor who, when confronted by an openly hostile body of withdrawing Indonesian troops, maintained his calm and diffused a potentially explosive situation that could have risked INTERFET’s mission. Cosgrove knows that a mission’s success is determined by the decisions made by individuals. If My Story has a plea for the future it is that Australia must continue to invest in the Army’s human capital.
My Story does have weaknesses. Perhaps Cosgrove, now retired, should have spoken more openly about his role in the controversial events that occurred when he was CDF. To have done so, however, would have gone against the book’s tone and have undoubtedly ruined a story that is worth reading. My Story is the celebration of a man’s life in service to his country, and in his devotion to family. From this perspective it delivers.
