Nothing Significant To Report

Laugh-out-loud yarns from a soldier in the New Zealand Army

When new recruit Dario Nustrini's head was freshly shaved in preparation for the army, he knew nothing about what training to fight, kill and die for New Zealand would look like. Since leaving leaving high school the year before, he had been on a steady diet of spliffs, Speights and the occasional sandwich from the cafe he worked at as a waiter. He weighed about as much as an empty pillowcase, with slightly less insulation from the cold.

Nothing Significant to Report is the brilliantly entertaining and unvarnished truth of what life is like in the New Zealand Army. From back-breaking exercises designed to make recruits spit the dummy to roleplaying in an SAS manhunt and accidentally starting a rubbish fire in a military compound, these are self-deprecating tales of misfits, mischief and camaraderie.

When Dario is deployed to war-torn Iraq, what will he think of the role he has spent five years preparing for?