If fame is thrust upon you, Peter Cosgrove writes, you either run from it or embrace it. "I am guilty of embracing it," he confesses in the prologue to his autobiography.

It's an admission that won't surprise anyone who closely followed his career after he was elevated from relative obscurity to head the East Timor intervention force in 1999. And he is candid enough to acknowledge the extraordinary role that luck played in his career. Until Timor came along, he was not even among those tipped to lead the army, let alone the entire defence force.

However he played the hand that fate dealt him superbly. He became, perhaps, the nation's first modern celebrity soldier, certainly its best known since World War II. No previous holder of the office of Chief of the Australian Defence Force cultivated a media profile quite the way he did and none is likely to any time soon.

It was a style that attracted its fair share of criticism, but for the Howard Government the popularity of the nation's top soldier was no small asset at a time of heightened military activity both in the region and further afield. It's clear from these pages that he and John Howard held a deep mutual regard.

Cosgrove explains that his step into the limelight came about partly through circumstance - the need to manage carefully the public face of the risky East Timor campaign.