The Frontlines Are CHANGING
Battleground Afghanistan: The Frontlines Are Changing
A signature keynote by Hamilton Wende
In these high-stress, sometimes chilling and terrifying theatres of conflict; volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are commonplace.
Nothing is static, everything is fluid, and inevitably “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. If things can go wrong, they will go wrong.
In 2012 Hamilton was part of a National Geographic team in Afghanistan, on a deep mission into the desert, heading into the front lines with a company of US Marines. They were ambushed at least three times a day by the Taliban as they struggled through some of the toughest terrain in the world. Hamilton experienced the deepest fear he’d ever know, in a place where there was no way out. This is a story of taking one step after another, of discovering the courage to go on no matter where you find yourself.
testimonials
“Your story is at the same level of storytelling as * Michael Herr.”
** Michael Herr covered the Vietnam war for Esquire Magazine and wrote the screenplay for Apocalypse Now.
Through Hamilton’s experience of having been embedded with the US Marine Corps in a hot war in Afghanistan he came to experience the life changing effects of good leadership. Nothing concentrates the mind more than being in extreme life-threatening situations where the difference between good and bad leadership could be life or death.
His experiences have shown this to be true in its most visceral form.
hamilton wende
Winner of the Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Awards for Columns and Opinion, 2023.
Winner of the 2022 National Press Club’s Journalist of the Year: Print/Online Features/ Investigative Journalism Award.
Author of 10 novels, including Red Air and House of War.
Author of a best-selling children’s adventure series called Arabella.
In television, he has worked for a number of international networks, including National Geographic, CNN, BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera English, ZDF, and ARD.
He has written hundreds of articles for publications including BBC, National Geographic Traveler, GQ, Maclean’s Magazine in Canada, TravelAfrica in the UK, The New Zealand Herald, The Buffalo News in the US, The Sunday Times, Business Day, The Sunday Independent in Johannesburg and many others.
