BATTLEWORN

Gritty, harrowing and full of courage, a testimony to the men and woman from the council estates of Britain who lived and died in the longest campaign the British Army has fought in decades a must read for any politician. - AR retired Warrant Officer 1st Class 22 SAS

Chantelle Taylor joined the British Army in 1998 as a combat medical technician. Ten years later she made history, becoming the first female soldier to kill a Taliban fighter in close-quarter combat while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. In Battleworn, she tells the story of B Company, a beleaguered group of individuals who fought relentlessly to hold Nad-e Ali, a dusty, sweltering hellhole surrounded by the Taliban. A routine patrol into an area saturated with enemy fighters escalates into a seven-week siege. Facing the possibility of death daily, Taylor writes of gun battles and perilous patrols, culminating in the extraction of more than sixty-six casualties with four killed in action. A powerful story written with a humility that captures the sometimes impalpable humor of soldiers at war, Battleworn provides a testament to combat medics all over the world. It highlights the crucial role that they play in today's 360-degree battlefield.

Chantelle Taylor joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1998 at age 22. Years later, after numerous deployments she was recommended to take the Queens commission from the ranks. Ambitious and headstrong, Taylor opted to leave the service in 2009 and returned to Afghanistan for the third time. Employed as an instructor in combat medicine for the US department of state, the young Brit mentored Afghan doctors and police who were assigned to the East of the country, along the precarious borders with Pakistan. Moving into Diplomatic security Chantelle spent a further three years in Baghdad, Iraq, as the primary protection officer for the high profile Australian Ambassador to Iraq.

Chantelle is an ambassador for GBV UNCOVERED an international online think tank dedicated to improving the medical and psychological care available to the survivors of sexual gender-based violence [GBV] in the world’s conflict regions. Her passion to support and empower women comes from a background operationally covering the Balkans, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Chantelle is also writing a novel; venturing into fiction with the hope of one day penning for film.