Born in the US, he served in the military for a total of 29 years and now lives in Melbourne with his wife.
In his first four years, he was enlisted in the US Army and then spent the remainder as an officer in the Marine Corps, serving his final year as a peacekeeper.
Mr Carpenter said his book described in detail his experiences and the idea of moving towards a “future where war is something to read about in books”.
“I wrote this book because I felt a responsibility to say what others could not,” he said.
“As a retired officer, I felt I could speak more freely than many of my colleagues in the UN who continue to serve.
“I used the format of a first-person memoir because I believe people often learn best through stories, as opposed to simply dry, analytical assessments of facts.”
Mr Carpenter said that during his time as a peacekeeper, he found the camaraderie was “truly rewarding”.
“It was great to work with colleagues from around the world putting our skills and trades to work for peace instead of war,” he said.
“The difficulty was in putting so much effort into making ourselves ready to do the dangerous part that only peacekeepers do — intervene to prevent violence against civilians.
“Only to not just be prevented from doing so by our civilian political leaders, but then to have them publicly praise us and make it sound like we had done our best when in fact, we had functionally done nothing.
“Peacekeeping can be effective and has been effective when done right...
“But unfortunately, it is often not done right.”
Mr Carpenter said the institution required major reforms, and the continued need for peacekeeping existed because the root cause had not been eliminated.
“At the level of nation states, there is still an idea that war is legal if done ‘for the right reasons and in the right ways’, but that is a myth that I feel compelled to confront,” he said.
Mr Carpenter’s talks held across the region in the lead-up to Anzac Day tied into his beliefs and thoughts on World War I.
“The Anzacs fought and suffered under terrible conditions and often died in the belief that they were fighting the ‘war to end all wars’, ” he said.
“It was an implicit promise on both sides of the conflict ... but the world soon broke that promise.
“Other promises were made, we say, ‘lest we forget’, but what is Anzac Day for? What is Memorial Day and Veterans Day?
“The military guys will get together, and some older folks will go to an actual service.
“Mostly, they’re big shopping days and a good day to put sport on the telly, have a barbecue. It’s a day off work, it’s not really a day of remembrance.
“We tell the soldiers that they’ll never be forgotten, but they will be, and the thing that they die for won’t come to pass.
“So to me, working to create a ‘world without war’ is what I feel called to do to honour their memory.”
Mr Carpenter said that as he has lived and travelled in Australia, he had noted that other promises were broken to the First Nations soldiers.
“Many of them didn't get a ‘fair go’ on returning to Australia, and their names are too often missing even from the memorials that you find in most towns and cities around the country,” he said.
“I hope to do some future writing on that topic and what can be done to address that particular injustice.”
Edward Carpenter’s memoir is available to purchase on Amazon.
All funds raised from book sales will go to Mr Carpenter’s not-for-profit organisation World Without War.
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