Spotlight on As You Were by Gerry Fostaty

A hot new book now available is As You Were by Gerry Fostaty. The following description is taken from the author's website:


Six teenaged boys died and fifty-four were injured in an explosion on a Canadian Forces Base in Valcartier, Quebec. A live grenade inadvertently made its way into a box of dud ammunition, and its pin was pulled during a lecture on explosives safety. One hundred and forty boys survived, each isolated in their trauma, yet expected to carry on with their lives.


Thirty-four years later, Gerry Fostaty, who was an 18-year-old sergeant that summer and one of the first on the scene after the explosion, received an unexpected e-mail from his former sergeant-major, triggering a journey into memory, a quest for a true picture of what had happened on that day. In As You Were, Fostaty pieces together the story of how a series of preventable mistakes led to tragedy.


The only full account of an event that received minor attention at the time, As You Were is the story of a normal day turned horrific; how duty, responsibility, and honour make ordinary people take extraordinary measures; and how the military did their best to ignore this devastating incident.

Published by Goose Lane Editions. Visit the publisher’s website here. You can find more information about this book and the author at the following sites:

CBC Quebec AM interview
http://www.cbc.ca/quebecam/2011/04/07/as-you-were-by-gerry-fostaty/
 

CBC The Current interview
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/05/24/valcartier-part-one/