Battle Scars

by Jason Fox

  ‘Mate, your buddies are going to be delighted to see you,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe they wouldn’t be.’

  He was right, too. Once inside, I spotted several familiar faces in the crowd and moved towards them nervously, wondering how my arrival would be received. ‘Foxy!’ shouted one of my old friends, grabbing me by the arm. ‘Mate, where have you been?’ I honestly wasn’t sure what to tell him because, despite Alex’s help and my recent moments of self-discovery, I still remained cautious about how to act in social settings. I didn’t know what to do around people I used to fight alongside, or how my condition might manifest itself in a big gathering of The Brotherhood, blokes that probably wanted to relive their memories of war over a few drinks. Sucking in a settling breath, I figured that honesty was the only policy.

  ‘Listen, I got struck off, medically discharged, but you probably know that bit,’ I said, steeling myself for an unpleasant backlash, some piss-taking maybe. ‘What you don’t know is that when I got binned I told everyone I’d developed tinnitus from all the gunfights, but really I was mentally shot. I had PTSD, chronic burnout, depression … it turned me into a miserable bastard.’

  The words seemed to tumble out of my gob without thought, as if someone else had been speaking for me. There was a pause, a flash of confusion, as if the group were wondering how to react around someone who had just admitted vulnerability and weakness. Was Foxy mad? And then, release:

  ‘Mate, why didn’t you say something at the time?’ said one of the boys. ‘We could have sorted you out …’

  The words I’d longed to hear for ages followed soon after. ‘We’re here for you, pal.’ I felt relief and warmth, as if I’d taken a sip of healing medicine. I also experienced a pang of regret at not having opened up in the first place. It wasn’t quite The Brotherhood’s warm embrace, the life jacket, but just knowing that other people were able to deal with my flaws and meltdowns gave me a sense of security. It represented another sign that I was moving in the right direction. Even Danny was there, able to move through the crowd towards me in his wheelchair, cracking a few jokes with the lads as he appeared at my side. Seeing him like that, unable to move from the neck down, was tough. I’d expect most of the blokes who knew him from his time in active service would have felt the same way. His injury was yet another reminder of just how close we’d all been to copping it in war.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Andy, once Danny and I had finished catching up.

  ‘A long story, mate, but basically he went through the door first and got shot. It was my turn to go first later on that night. That’s just the way it was …’

  Often the difference between life and death in war seemed like a coin toss. Emotionally steadied, and with The Brotherhood rallied round for support, I was now more determined than ever to take charge of the odds. I wanted to grab that TV gig. Even more encouragingly, I felt compulsion, a sense of urgency.

  I needed to grab it.

  28

  Emboldened after my meeting with some old friends, I decided to press ahead with Who Dares Wins, though the Ministry of Defence weren’t so keen at first and initially requested I reject Channel Four’s offer. But I wanted the job so desperately, having realized it would help to push my mind towards a healthier place. I would have purpose again, a sense of adventure, kudos; I’d be surrounded by a team of ex-elite soldiers, each one fully aware of the demands and pressures of our work. There was also the question of money – I was flat broke.

  I understood the military’s need to retain its secret practices and none of the people on the show wanted to discuss covert tactics or reveal the technical details of any operations we might have been involved with. All of us knew that discretion was key. So when I was contacted by the officer tasked with overseeing ex-military members’ media involvement, I worked hard to explain this and eased his concerns.

  He still wasn’t convinced. ‘I’m advising you not to do the show,’ he said.

  ‘Mate, I can’t get bloody work,’ I moaned, my patience straining. ‘It’s hard for me to get employed when people know I have an underlying mental health problem. I won’t get a sniff at most of the jobs best suited to my military experience, not when people find out I’ve suffered from mental health issues, and I can say goodbye to those big contracts in maritime security where I’m expected to be carrying weapons on ships. Unless it’s a very good friend who’s willing to take a risk with me, I won’t get a gig. Police force? No chance. Fire service? No chance. They’re all jobs that someone like me should be perfect for, but I can’t do any of them.

  ‘So what the hell am I supposed to do? I’m fumbling around here, wondering where my next pay cheque is, and I’m not seeing any help coming from the bloody military – and I shed blood, sweat and tears for you. So sod it, I’m doing this.’

  Once production was underway, Ollie, Colin, Ant and myself worked with the TV crew to ensure that everything was done with authenticity and within the boundaries of what we could, and couldn’t, say to a public audience. Set on the unforgiving terrain of the Brecon Beacons, which is used by the military for training exercises, we ordered the recruits to embark on long runs over the peaks while carrying huge military backpacks. We pushed them through ‘The Sickener’, a gruelling test of the body and mind where the group was forced to run for hours on end, breaking out to perform a series of endless push-ups or long crawls through icy-cold streams. The challenge ended only when several candidates had dropped out, not that we informed them of that particular detail. The thrashings went on all day. As in war, the finish was seemingly never in sight and there were plenty of false endings.

  The tests lasted for over a week, and at the end of every day, the directing staff would gather to discuss the merits of each individual, via debriefings and assessments, in what was called ‘The Prayers Meeting’. Some recruits might quit on their own accord, handing in their armbands – each bearing the recruit’s number – once a particular challenge had splintered their spirits. Others might be deemed unsuitable for the next session’s efforts and were binned off. But over the eight days, a shortlist of individuals came to the fore as being elite, physically and mentally, and there was a major transformation in several of them.

  Jon Callaway was cocky as hell when he first turned up on the scene. A good-looking bloke who obviously spent way too much time looking at himself in the mirror, his ego was out of control. At one point he told us he’d wanted to emulate the Hollywood actor Jason Statham in a film or TV career, and almost immediately the DS had taken a dislike to him. Jon was too flash, and ego wasn’t something we ever tolerated in the military elite. But after every beasting – a verbal assault, or physical punishment, such as a gruelling extra set of sit-ups – he seemed to learn a little. His attitude changed, and by the end of the series he’d discovered self-control, choosing not to react aggressively when ordered to do things he didn’t like, and surprisingly even a little humility. He became one of four candidates who made it through to the infamous final phase where the recruits were sent on the run, as a team, for twenty-four hours, the ‘Hunter Force’ eventually tracking them all down through the woods, where they were then captured and exposed to an unpleasant form of interrogation, though not as bad as anything I had experienced in my training. It was still pretty tough for them. For the next twenty-four hours, with no respite, they were placed into stress positions, forced to listen to white noise and dragged into questioning sessions, where they were screamed at by a team of skilled inquisitors.

  One lad, Freddie – ‘Number Five’ on the show – nailed the final challenge with class. A bloke with a high-end job in an oil firm, he’d surprised everyone in the interrogation phase by remaining totally switched on after a week of physical exertion and long stretches of sleep deprivation. Each recruit was given an alibi for why they were wandering around the Brecon Beacons in standard-issue military kit during that final stage, and it was the interrogator’s job to rip those alibis to shreds. Rather than giving ‘Yes’ or
‘No’ responses, however, Freddie made vague, non-committal statements. He’d say, ‘I believe so’, when presented with a questioning statement, or ‘I think that’s what happened.’ This was an impressive way of stalling the people in front of him, instead of pissing them off with straight denials or hemming himself into a position with a definitive answer. At one point during the episode, a camera even caught him wincing after he’d accidentally nodded and responded ‘Yeah’ to a particular line of enquiry. Fatigue had caught up with him.

  Still, Freddie remained focused, perhaps more focused than we’d expected, and at one point during the final episode (in a moment that wasn’t aired) he even managed to escape from the interrogation process. Having asked for a toilet break, Freddie locked himself in a cubicle for a few moments, which was allowed. Five minutes passed and when a member of the production team – a former soldier dressed in a black balaclava – knocked on the door to check on his timekeeping, there was a worrying silence.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the bloke exclaimed. ‘He must have fallen asleep.’

  When he peered into the cubicle, Freddie was gone. His trainers had been left on the floor and a pair of combat trousers had been draped over the toilet seat, the ends of the legs meeting the shoes to give the impression to anyone peering under the door that someone was still sitting in the stall. Above the toilet an open window was the gaping evidence that Freddie had chosen his moment to get away half naked, later running into the production office, which had no direct part to play in the events unfolding. Instead, a team of TV crew and office managers stared as Freddie ran into their Portakabin, dressed only in his pants and a T-shirt.

  ‘Er, are you handing your armband in, Number Five?’ asked one of the crew in a vague attempt to stick to protocol.

  Freddie shook his head. ‘No, I’m happy to go back in. I just thought I’d try to escape … That was the whole point, wasn’t it?’

  It turned out Freddie had everything required of an elite soldier: plenty of brains, strength, resilience and determination. He was a cheeky bastard, too. I’d have been quite happy to scrap alongside him, had he chosen a very different career path earlier on in life.

  As part of Who Dares Wins, each ex-soldier was required to chat on screen about various psychological aspects of the challenges being faced by the show’s recruits. I knew that talking about my mental health on the show would be an important step for me; I wanted to open up. Retelling my experiences to a national audience was something I felt would quicken my healing process. The confessional might even help viewers when coming to terms with their own issues. At some point I felt the platform to discuss my experiences with PTSD was too big an opportunity to pass up, so I told the show’s producers that I wanted to reveal what I’d been through. My aim? To show anyone watching that experienced military personnel were vulnerable, too. But when the moment came for me to get it all out on camera, I stressed about how I should come across, what I should say and how I should say it. I waited in a hangar, the team preparing their cameras, lighting and microphones, the debate raging in my head. How should I tell this story? What image do I want to present? In the end, I told myself, Just be you. Be yourself, be brutally honest and talk about what really happened. I acknowledged that deceiving myself in the past had contributed to my becoming dangerously depressed. I certainly didn’t want to fake it again, like I had at Sodexo, pretending to be somebody that I wasn’t. Besides, there was no need for me to play a role. I’d actually lived what I was about to talk about.

  It was time to teach myself about being myself.

  I took a deep breath. ‘There’s a night that I’ll always remember,’ I said, looking directly into the camera. ‘We got into a firefight, and it was a long night anyway, and there were a lot of bullets flying around, on both sides. I remember thinking to myself, “This is quite hairy, this is one of the hairier situations I’ve been in …” I remember getting into a ditch and feeling so fucking tired and drained that I actually wanted to be at home, to be back as a kid and be with my mum. That feeling was momentary because I suddenly realized, “It’s not over; it’s not over yet,” and that I had to keep pushing myself. No matter how drained you are, if you’re someone who quits when bullets start flying, or people start dying around you, you’re not the sort of person we need. That’s why we test it.

  ‘I don’t really believe that there’s such a thing as a completely weak person or a completely strong person. The weak point for me is that I’m overly self-critical. I’ve recalled certain things, decisions made, and they’ve had an adverse effect on me. It’s obviously to do with killing people in front of other people, which is something that happens a lot – we’re in such close proximity to civilians – or it can be women and kids seeing stuff that’s just violence, basically. I got medically discharged when they diagnosed me with PTSD, so I had to leave a few years before my time was up. A strong person is someone who knows their weaknesses and knows how to control them, or at least manage them. They’re someone who knows themselves to a certain degree.’

  As the film crew captured every word, I found it had been easy to talk in front of the camera. I viewed it as just another tool to get the job done, and apart from the odd muddled line here and there, I’d quite enjoyed it. Throughout, the Who Dares Wins experience had given me a renewed sense of excitement, camaraderie and adventure. With the final interviews filmed and the crew packing down their gear, I started talking to one of the directors. He wanted to know if I’d got a buzz from the job.

  ‘Yes, mate,’ I said. ‘And you probably won’t believe this, and you’ll cringe and flinch at me for saying it, but fundamentally the people in this industry are no different from experienced soldiers at the top end, apart from the fact that people stereotype you as a bunch of left-wing sods and us as a bunch of right-wing hooligans. I’m generalizing in a very bad way, but you’re people who like to be busy, you like to have a lot of things on, you like to pressurize yourselves, push yourselves out of your comfort zone. You get itchy feet, you’re always travelling, and when you get a chance to let your hair down you go ahead and let your bloody hair down.’

  I had found a new calling, a way of operating away from my life in the military that delivered comparable shots of adrenaline. The work had been fun, a better version of being in active service, and we had creative licence over what we were doing. Essentially, we were our own bosses, too, operating with a little guidance from the production company, Minnow Films. But none of us knew just how well the show was going to do and the high audience ratings and reviews were something of a surprise when they landed, even though one of the producers had warned us: ‘You lot are going to be bloody superstars, mark my words.’ And once the first episode of Who Dares Wins had been and gone, and the accompanying hype began to build for episode two, the moment of my very public confessional, I went into meltdown. I fretted over how people would view me afterwards. Clearly, the lads on the show had been portrayed in certain ways to amplify their characters, and I became anxious that my profile would come across as weak or incapable. For a brief moment I regretted my decision to open up. At home, as the Channel Four screening time approached, I became grumpy and irritable, arguing with my new girlfriend when I should have trusted in myself, realizing that it was too late for me to do anything about what I’d said or how I’d acted.

  When episode two went out, it was everything I’d wanted it to be. The feedback on social media was instantaneous and overwhelmingly positive. People tweeted me with their recovery stories from PTSD, some asked for advice on how best to move forward in getting help. The cathartic confessional had been invaluable for others as well as for myself, and over the coming months fans of the show approached me to say, ‘Mate, that helped me to sort myself out,’ or, ‘My son decided to join the military because he needed that purpose in his life.’ My anxiety over the show had served as a personal lesson, too: Nothing’s ever as bad as you think it’s going to be. And when I met up with Jamie from Rock2Recovery for a pin
t in South London the following day, he gave me all the affirmation I’d needed.

  ‘Foxy, that was on point,’ he said. ‘That was a brave thing to do. Thank you.’

  I had made another bold stride into an exciting and rewarding new life.

  29

  The Ellida pitched upwards, a small five-man rowing boat dwarfed by the churning Atlantic waves. We were 2,000 nautical miles into a seven-week journey, with another gruelling 1,800 to go, our team battling hypothermia, sleep deprivation, dehydration and now one of the hairiest squalls I’d ever sailed through. The boat rolled this way and that. From the safety of our cabin at the end of the vessel, Aldo and I desperately tried to secure the crew’s possessions, bailing out water from the small hatch in the side during a vain attempt to keep the equipment dry. Outside, the three blokes whose shift it was to man the oars – Mathew Bennett, Oliver Bailey and Ross Johnson (our complete crew working under the name of Team Essence) – wrestled against the forces of nature. As we took a much-needed break from rowing, Aldo and I watched through the Perspex wall that separated us from them, and laughed nervously at the storm’s gathering power as it swirled around us. And then the water ahead lurched violently, taking us with it, the boat rising up, up, up against a wall of wave, slowly cresting, Mat, Oliver and Ross pulling hard to avoid disaster.

  But we hadn’t enough momentum.