'John Ratcliff was born in Melbourne in 1962. He began his studies in traditional Chinese medicine in the early 1980s, graduating in 1988, before spending six years in the Australian army’s commando regiment. He then left to continue his career in Chinese medicine. He opened his first clinic in Richmond, which he ran for 11 years, and went on to become one of Victoria’s first fully qualified Chinese-medicine practitioners to be recognised by the state government. Ratcliffe left Melbourne for Afghanistan in 2005 on a three-week private-security assignment that morphed into a five-year journey into hell.' (Source: Biting Through)