Mercenary Mum

Book excerpt: How does a supermarket cashier and single Mum become a fearless Baghdad bodyguard in the battlefields of Iraq? This is the true story of Neryl Joyce, a young Australian woman, struggling to pay the bills, who signed up to be a soldier. After a stint with the Australian Army’s elite Close Personal Protection Unit, Neryl joined a private security firm inside Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone. Here, she defended high-risk foreign targets from opportunistic assassination inside Iraq. As a female bodyguard in the Middle East, Neryl had to be as good as—or even better than—any of her fellow soldiers. With courage and heart, she navigated sexual discrimination and abuse, operations on the world’s most dangerous road, and the unrelenting brutality of a man’s world. But the longer she stayed, the more convinced she became that disaster was imminent. Somehow, Neryl survived to return home to her son and tell this heart-stopping and inspirational story.