Fred Smith is the poet and storyteller of Australia’s mission in Afghanistan. He was the first Australian diplomat to be posted to Uruzgan in 2009, and the last to leave in 2013, returning to Kabul in 2020-21 in the lead up to the collapse of the Afghan republic. His album Dust of Uruzgan was on the iPods of every Australian soldier deployed. The lyrics to his song ’Sappers Lullaby’ are engraved in marble at the Australian plot of the British War Cemetery in Kabul. His first book, The Dust of Uruzgan, was described as a “convincing a picture as we will ever have of the tragedy, hope, oddness and courage of Australia’s Uruzgan enterprise… an astonishingly vibrant piece of reportage from the heart of our longest war.” (Hugh Riminton, Political Editor, Channel 10)
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