This book is a tour de force of a military career spanning forty years in the service of the country. It is an account of the storied career of Lt Gen BS Dhaliwal and a portrayal of his varied and wide-ranging leadership roles in different assignments to ultimately becoming the Engineer-in-Chief; the pinnacle for any sapper who wears a military uniform.

Along the way, Lt Gen Dhaliwal recounts his foundational experiences as a leader and sapper, extracting the perceptive lessons he learnt about the nature of a sapper’s endeavours and the manner in which difficult assigned tasks were accomplished. He describes in great detail the challenges he faced and the techniques of leadership and learning experiences in different tenures, across the length and breadth of the country. He is one of a rare breed of military professionals who shaped his work environment and applied the lessons to achieve outstanding results. The manner of doing so is narrated with empathy and with a distinctive flair for management that is worthy of emulation, wherein he adapted his leadership skills to ensure that his intent was under-stood by the men he commanded, so that they could own the mission he set forth.

Possessing a unique gift of focusing on both macro and micro issues simultaneously, while ensuring a harmonious and almost error-free working environment, he worked with a vision and innovativeness to conceive, develop and formulate policies and guidelines combined with the vigour to ensure their implementation on the ground.

In this very engrossing memoir, combining simplicity with thoughtfulness, he not only details significant events of his career, but he does much more. He explains how he was informed by his experiences in a way that teaches you how to learn from your own, in an eminently readable style.