Patrick Hennessey

Patrick Hennessey was born in 1982 and educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford where he read English. He joined the Army in January 2004, undertaking Officer Training at the Royal Miilitary Academy Sandhurst, where he was awaded the Queen's Medal and commissioned into the Grenadier Guards. He served as Platoon Commander and later Company Operations Officer from the end of 2004 to early 2009 in the Balkans, Africa, South East Asia snd the Falkland Islands, and on operational tours to Iraq in 2006 and Afghanistan in 2007, where he was commended for gallantry. Patrick left the army in 2009 and now practises as a barrister. He is the author of The Junior Officer's Reading Club. When Patrick returned home from Afghanistan, battle-worn, exhilarated, unsure if he'd see anything like it in his life again, he left behind him bands of friendship forged in the heat of the moment between living and dying. His book Kandak is the story of how these lasting bonds were made.