Gritty look at the Afghan war
When The West Australian first met Corey Stamp at a small base in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province almost five years ago, the young soldier wasn't sure whether to thank or curse his luck.
Cpl Stamp, as he was then, had been caught in two Taliban bomb blasts in a fortnight.
Several of his mates had been seriously wounded in one of the attacks. Remarkably, he escaped both incidents without injury.
The 24-year-old probably rightly thought he had seen his fair share of Taliban improvised explosive devices.
He hadn't. In that same tour, he went on to get caught in another two bomb blasts.
Cpl Stamp's vehicle moments before the explosion.
One of those attacks claimed the lives of friends Pte Tomas Dale and Pte Grant Kirby.
Cpl Stamp was left without major physical injuries, but the mental wounds were lasting.
The Queenslander, now a sergeant, is one of many Diggers to tell his story in a major online history project launched by the Australian Army yesterday.
The Longest War is a gritty look at Australia's role in the Afghan conflict.
Open to the public, the site includes almost three hours of video and interviews, including never-before-seen footage of Australian soldiers in combat.
Chaos in the cabin after the roadside bomb exploded.
Most extraordinary is video taken from cameras mounted on soldiers' helmets showing Australians caught in IED attacks and ambushes.
One of the videos released shows the moment Sgt Stamp's armoured Bush-master vehicle was hit by a bomb and the frantic efforts that followed to free Diggers trapped and wounded inside.
"It's very confronting," Sgt Stamp told _The West Australian _ yesterday.
"I am surprised that the army has let the public see it.
The vehicle on the side of the road after the blast.
"And I'm happy they have. A lot of people sugar coat things and they haven't done that this time."
Having been blown up four times, Sgt Stamp acknowledges there is an irony in his new career - as an explosives disposal expert.
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While the documentary will win praise for its warts-and-all depictions of war, some have pointed out the Australian military was not so keen to release imagery of wounded soldiers when the conflict was at its hottest.
"While it's pleasing to see the army finally releasing this material, having looked at it there's no reason why it couldn't have been released many years ago," Kevin Foster, a Monash University academic specialising in the military's relations with the media, said.
