Life Under Fire

by Jason Fox

  BREAKING FREE

  As I mentioned earlier, our brains like to give us an easy ride, and often the mind decides we’re exhausted when there’s actually plenty more to give. Rather than tackling the early-morning gym session, the inner voice convinces us to stay in bed. Instead of facing up to our problems, or having a difficult conversation with a significant other, we procrastinate, believing that tomorrow will give us a better opportunity at change. We’re locked into the Comfort Zone and breaking free of it can be tricky.

  I identify with this process because it pretty much mirrors my decade with the Royal Marines. Any peacetime soldier comes to realize that there are only so many training exercises one can do before they become routine. I found myself feeling comfortable and safe, too safe, especially once the training had familiarized me with some of the physical hardships of military life. Every now and then a new challenge would arise and I’d get nervous again, such as when I first learned to abseil, but the excitement was fleeting. To summarize: my life as a Marine was bloody good fun, but in the absence of real action I felt too cosy in the job, with fewer and fewer opportunities to test and expand my knowledge.

  Looking to push myself, in 2001 I applied for Selection. At the time the 9/11 attacks on the USA were a few months away so the War on Terror had yet to take off. Don’t misunderstand me: I’ve never wished for war. But in the same way that firefighters hope to attend infernos, soldiers want to work in their field of expertise, applying their skills where it really counts. I was making that first step towards the Fear Zone.

  But I wasn’t really prepared.

  I knew about the challenges of Selection. Conducted over six months, twice a year (in the summer and winter), the process first served up a gruelling Aptitude Phase, which took place in the hills of the Brecon Beacons, an unforgiving mountain range in Wales. The work was known by everybody to be bloody challenging and I was placed on the winter Hills Phase, which kicked off at the beginning of January. Following a heavy Christmas, I was a little off the pace and soon paid for my time in the Comfort Zone as a group of hopefuls ran up and down a series of mountains, weighed down with heavy equipment, in a succession of long yomps. After a while, the Hills Phase became doable though still difficult. But what really put me into an area that most people would consider the Fear Zone was a challenge I couldn’t prepare for, an alien and hostile environment. Succeeding in this unknown place – and we all fear the unknown – would later help me to make it into the military elite.

  It was time to face the jungle.

  THE FEAR ZONE

  FINDING THE MINERALS

  The Fear Zone is probably the most important phase when building resilience through experience. Overcoming obstacles within it can lay the foundations for any major changes to come, but it’s an experience, or challenge, that feels utterly miserable in the moment. It might require a ruthless period of honesty (admitting to an emotional problem), some serious self-discipline (early-morning training) or a painful sacrifice or two (quitting the cigarettes and fry-ups). But afterwards, in the glow of achievement, the rewards become apparent. The feel-good endorphins experienced at the Fear Zone’s end are long-lasting and sometimes life-changing. In the aftermath of such an event, it’s not uncommon to experience a boost in confidence, a psychological transformation or an altered worldview.

  The jungle was definitely my Fear Zone.

  From the minute I walked into it, its ecosystem was on the attack. Almost immediately we were introduced to the ‘Wait-a-while Tree’ – which we also called the ‘Bastard Tree’ – a tangle of razor-sharp barbs that tore at my clothes and flesh whenever I was unlucky enough to walk into one. Moving too quickly sometimes resulted in serious injury, so the best technique for escape was to ‘wait a while’ and calmly pick off the hooks one by one rather than trying to wriggle free. Not everybody has the patience for that. Over the years, a number of lads have been CASEVACed from the jungle, having been carved to ribbons by thorns.

  The Bastard Tree wasn’t our only natural adversary. When setting up camp, our first job was to look for deadfall – branches or large tree limbs with the potential to come crashing down during the night. Testing for loose wood became one small part of a never-ending war with Mother Nature. The humidity was intense; it was very difficult to breathe. Within seconds of leaving the helicopter and moving under the vast canopy of tropical rainforest – which resembled an endless sea of broccoli as we flew towards it – I was soaked through with sweat.

  The wildlife was just as dangerous. I was actually helicoptered out of the jungle following a scorpion sting that turned nasty. Insect bites were a way of life when living under the trees, and for the most part I dealt with scorpion stings pretty well. When a scorpion struck it felt as if a searing-hot needle had lanced the flesh. The most painful one happened when one of the bastards crawled into my trousers and stung me on the ball bag. It was agonizing. At first I didn’t know what had happened, but when I tore my trousers down I spotted a black shape with an all-too-familiar stinger tail scuttling away. My knackers burned for hours.

  The most important thing when dealing with insect bites in the jungle was to protect the wound from infection afterwards. Bacteria thrive in humidity and damp, and all the lads had pots of iodine stashed in their first aid kits. Whenever there was a break in the exercises, everybody tended to their cuts and grazes. Scratches on the knees or elbows were the worst. Once those areas were infected, the joint often became so inflamed it was almost impossible to function. Ankle wounds were pretty bad, too, as I found out to my cost when a scorpion crawled into my boot one day. It jabbed me as I moved, and keeping the cut clean afterwards was impossible. The hole in my flesh rubbed against the inside of my boots and all sorts of dirt seeped into the skin. The infection soon climbed up my leg and, having picked up a blood condition, I became delirious. A medic hooked me to two drips as I was flown to hospital, where I remained bedbound for a week.

  For fuck’s sake, I thought. Why is this happening to me? Maybe this isn’t meant to be … I wallowed in self-pity. For a while I convinced myself that my military ambitions might be beyond me.

  But then I remembered I’d been holding my own within an environment that was considered to be the ultimate test of modern soldiering and I focused on my purpose again: I wanted to join the elite. I was later told that the cut would have been impossible to keep clean and that the instructors, or Directing Staff (DS), were surprised I had lasted as long as I had with that injury. That was all the encouragement I needed.

  I told myself I’d been given a test run and that I would return stronger than ever. Maybe my extraction had been a blessing in disguise? I’d certainly be more prepared and ready to stay on top of my personal admin in situations where basic soldiering was vitally important. I took the fact that the injury hadn’t taken place in a life-or-death situation, such as a war zone, as a positive. Training was the place to make mistakes, after all. Before long the change in my thinking meant I was keen to get back into the thick of the action, no matter how horrible it was set to be. I had overcome the thankfully brief lack of self-confidence I’d found in the Fear Zone.

  These days I apply a similar thought process to any negative incident that might happen in my life. I accept the fuck-up – whether it’s my fault or a situation out of my control – draw the lessons from it, leave the rest of it behind and move on. I later learned that this was the only way to function during conflict. Negativity is contagious in terrifying situations. A fearful attitude on the battlefield is often the difference between death and walking away to fight another day.

  Some other experiences in the jungle were equally horrible. During one patrol, when it was my time to rest, I fell asleep against a tree. When I woke up, I could feel something swollen in my mouth. Even worse, it was wriggling. I poked around my tongue and gums with my finger until I’d found the culprit. A tiger leech had crawled into my gob and was blood-feasting on the inside of my lip. The beasts were attracted to carbon di
oxide and I’d often see them crawling towards me, homing in on my breath as I hid in the undergrowth. I pulled out a can of military-grade mosquito repellent and squirted it inside my mouth until the leech let go and I could spit it out, leaving it to wriggle away to find another victim.

  New and gruelling experiences were thrown at me over and over and over again. We performed CASEVAC drills where we carried our teammates through the foliage for hours; there were intense live-firing exercises and patrols. At any time we might find ourselves being bumped by a mock enemy, so we’d have to move into action without warning. It was without doubt some of the hardest work I’ve had to do outside a war zone.

  Much of the difficulty when functioning at an elite level was the mastery of personal admin. Because of the wet and the heat, self-care was even more important than usual. Without it, equipment failed, but given the conditions, looking after my kit felt like a never-ending battle. The jungle soon became a vital lesson in the importance of taking care of the smallest details. There was shit and muck everywhere under the trees, which then found its way into every nook and cranny of my bergen rucksack and boots, and I was having to constantly clean and check my equipment. The DS would announce an inspection whenever the mood took them.

  ‘Right, I want to see everything out of your bergen,’ a trainer would yell. ‘I want to see it all!’

  Our weapons were then checked to make sure they were clean and functioning; the magazines were looked over for dirt. My machete was regularly assessed for rust. Even my toothbrush and Steritabs (water-sterilizing tablets) were looked at. The DS wanted to know that we were taking care of our personal hygiene, too, because to fall apart physically was a failure. Getting foot- or crotch-rot was inevitable if an operator didn’t wash properly, and the pain was debilitating.

  The lessons regarding those small details, though seemingly minor in the grand scheme of things, would help me through war and, later, as a civilian. While living in the jungle, I realized doing even the basics well was vital when operating in a war zone because a poorly cleaned weapon might jam when I least expected it. Later, when preparing for the filming trip for Meet the Drug Lords: Inside the Real Narcos, and conducting an expedition across the North Pole, I knew that ignoring personal admin was likely to bite me on the arse at a critical moment. I had to be hyper-vigilant about the small details at all times because surviving under extreme pressure often hinged upon my mastering the mundane, as it did in any expedition role or work scenario.

  The type of challenges found in the Fear Zone soon came into play. The DS would deliberately conjure up situations to seed self-doubt and insecurity. I knew that no matter where I was, or what I was doing, one of them would be lurking in the trees, watching and taking notes. The thought was unsettling; at any moment they might want to check my weapon-handling skills or they might notice that my safety catch was on while moving towards the shooting range. At one stage I was leading my patrol during a contact drill where we’d have to engage with enemy targets. As point man, it was vital that I was the first to spot any potential hostiles, but suddenly I heard a shout behind me: ‘Contact left!’ I’d missed a target and as the firing started, I knew I’d screwed up. Once the drill was over, I took a beasting.

  ‘What the fuck were you doing there?’ said the DS. ‘As point man you’re supposed to be fucking aware! You’re a fucking idiot, missing that target, Fox …’

  The DS sighed. ‘You’ve let yourself down there,’ he said disappointedly.

  You’ve let yourself down there. The dig put me into a spin for a while. I worried that I’d screwed up any chances of progressing. I worried that the other lads were stronger and more effective than me. But after a while I settled myself down. I knew the DS had deliberately planted a mind bomb and they were probably watching to see if I would unravel in its aftermath. They wanted to know if I could bounce back from failure and learn from the lessons; they were testing my emotional resilience. I quickly pushed the blunder to the back of my mind; I knew that experiencing self-doubt was an understandable reaction to the circumstances I was in. Rather than letting the criticism weigh me down, I told myself to learn from the mistake, to try my best not to repeat the fuck-up and to push ahead. After all, dwelling on negativity, such as the doubting voices in my head, would only increase my chances of failure. I shrugged them off and cracked on. It was a vital learning moment.

  In the Fear Zone I also realized that comparing my performance to the efforts of others was pointless. I had to focus on myself and the task ahead of me, not the struggles and successes of the people elsewhere in the group. (I deal with this subject in more detail in Phase Six.) Meanwhile, ignoring the doubting voices around me, especially the casual remarks of the DS – which were designed to put me into a spin – was vital when trying to execute the job in hand. There was no room for pessimism or negativity in extreme circumstances.

  With those processes in place, I finished my time in the jungle far stronger than when I’d begun. From then on, I knew I had the skills and resilience to progress into the military elite.

  I could manage just about anything. The jungle had been my Fear Zone – though psychologically that environment could be swapped for any life-altering situation: the intimidating task of setting up a new business (swap out the tiger leeches and Bastard Trees for financial challenges and supply-chain issues); breaking off a toxic relationship (with self-doubt and insecurity questioning your decisions); making a scary first step into unknown territory, such as moving house or taking up a new training regime. All of those events are as mentally daunting as any jungle. But if we can jump out of the Comfort Zone with a willingness to adapt, learn and survive, while withstanding plenty of hard knocks along the way, then we’re set up for a period of growth and newfound resilience as a result.

  THE LEARNING ZONE

  WORKING AT THE SHARP END

  I was through the Fear Zone and into the Learning Zone, ready to develop new skills, overcome any hurdles in my path and enjoy a newer, more dangerous Comfort Zone. Not that it was easy. Having passed into the SBS, I was chucked into the deep end from the off and there was no adjustment period. On my first day, having been welcomed and congratulated by my new teammates, I was loaded up with responsibilities and any failure to execute them successfully was met with scorn from the lads around me. Though the introductory period was daunting at first, I soon lapped it up. The challenges I’d overcome within the Fear Zone told me I could cope and I soon began to enjoy my life in the Learning Zone.

  At every opportunity I was encouraged to build on my portfolio of experience, often in some quite unexpected ways. I learned about demolition: the subtle art of using just enough high explosive to achieve your aim. There were modules on bodyguarding and surveillance. I even went out to the middle of nowhere in Wales and spent a few days learning chainsaw skills. It seemed crazy at first, but each course added new techniques and thought processes. The training was adrenalized, but at all times I was expected to perform at the highest level and quickly while under pressure. The learning environment was intense, with an unspoken rule that I was now serving at the military’s sharpest point. I had to be the best at everything. One of the phrases that kept getting bounced around was ‘the unrelenting pursuit of excellence’. I seemed to be chasing it at every turn, but having come through the Fear Zone of the jungle, I became stronger and more effective.

  I loved the autonomy within the Learning Zone, as understood by the British military. Being a specialist operator, I was never screamed at. Nobody ordered me to manage my kit in a certain way or to function in a certain style. Whenever I was given a task, I was expected to execute it with a minimum of fuss. If new equipment was being installed, I had to learn how to utilize it in the best way possible. With nobody to kick my arse, I was forced to motivate myself, and it encouraged me to adapt and improve using the resilient mindset that had been developed by Selection. The DS had looked for people who were naturally self-reliant in stressful situations and could le
arn under pressure. They needed to become comfortable in uncomfortable positions; those situations would enable them to grow. And if they screwed up, they needed to own those mistakes, learn from them and move forward.

  While these processes might sound extreme, my experience of stepping up in a new squadron was no different from what a lot of people might expect to go through when joining a new team or taking on a tough challenge. There are new faces to meet and new responsibilities or techniques to master. The first few weeks or months in an unfamiliar situation might seem daunting. There might even be times where we look back fondly at the Comfort Zone, even though we felt bored and stale in a life or circumstances that offered us very little in the way of challenges or hope. But before too long, those feelings fade. We become more confident and capable and we begin to advance in different ways, emboldened by the experience of learning new skills.

  THE GROWTH ZONE

  ADAPT, LEARN, SURVIVE

  It’s in the Growth Zone that an individual sees results. It’s where purpose becomes focused, objectives are ticked off and new goals are established. In my case, I’d come through some of the hardest military training in the world, and overcome my fears, to learn and develop alongside a group of elite operators. I was now able to put into practice all the experience I’d gleaned and the skills I’d picked up, and, as a result, anything seemed possible.

  Working with the elite encouraged me to grow. I found purpose, I set new goals, I conquered objectives. As they say at the RAF training unit Airborne Delivery Wing: ‘Knowledge dispels fear.’ And nowhere was this more evident than in the SBS, where different training challenges were thrown at an individual to see if they could cope with the relentless rhythm of elite service. Sometimes I would go on diving drills; on other occasions I’d have to operate in the mountains or in Arctic conditions. With each set-up, an individual operator was faced with a series of tasks, each one designed to reflect a potential incident in a real-life war zone.