Physical description

Black dust-jacket over black hard-cover book. Spine shows the gold Australian Army emblem at the top and then the title in white, there is a spine label at the base. Front cover has VD in large white letters at the top, followed by the sub-title and an image of three men in surgical gowns in a surgical room. The page has translucent red bubble images over it.

Publication type

non-fiction

Inscriptions & markings

'A4416 / 616.951 / HOW' [Handwritten in pencil on the inside front cover]
'ADVANCE REVIEW COPY / for more information, author interview or extract / Sharon Evans 0410332789 / [email protected]' [printed in black type on a white sticker label attached to first page]
'PROPERTY OF VICTORIAN BRANCH RSL' [stamped in red ink on title page and page block edges]

Summary

Sexually transmitted diseases, for centuries lumped together as 'Venereal Disease', or 'VD' for short, have always marched in lock-step with soldiers from all armies wherever they have served. During the twentieth century at least 125,000 Australian soldiers contracted VD while serving in overseas deployments - the equivalent of six World War I infantry divisions. No one has previously told this alarming story in its entirety, and few authors could tell it as frankly or objectively as Ian Howie-Willis. As readers will soon realise, Dr Howie-Willis has dealt with this confronting subject candidly but sensitively. His scholarship in this carefully researched book is immaculate, but the book's great strength is its fairness to and compassion for the tens of thousands of people who succumbed to sexually transmitted diseases as a result of Australia's military involvements across a century of overseas deployments. - from Trove.