Life Under Fire

by Jason Fox

  ❱❱ From my experience of watching male and female recruits working together on SAS: Who Dares Wins, men and women show resilience in different ways. As the Marksmen Test proved, women can be a bit more emotionally driven under extreme psychological pressure (though one male recruit, Chris, a very emotional individual, actually ran into the tunnel while firing his weapon, causing Billy to call him a ‘bellend’). But they’re also more considered and tactical when planning a task – they tend-and-befriend. Blokes can be more headstrong when faced with a mission. Due to their fight-or-flight response, they sometimes rush into their own deaths, but, in the main, they tend to remain calmer when responding to anger or other negative emotions. (As Chris proved, there will always be exceptions.)

  ❱❱ If men and women are to mix within an elite military operation, all individuals will need to be of a similar mindset. Teamwork, honesty and communication are key. Egos and gender stereotypes have to be left at the door. There’s no room for niceties or awkwardness when working in extremes. If those psychological roadblocks can be negotiated, as Carla Devlin proved, then there may be a way that men and women can work together in the most specialized units within the British military.

  SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

  OPERATIONAL ARGUMENTS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN – AND HOW TO SOLVE THEM

  As detailed in Phase Four, personal disputes aren’t allowed to affect us in the Special Forces Brotherhood. As a group of operators, it’s imperative we function effectively and with unity. Issues with others or ego clashes never come into play during a gunfight – they can’t. To still be fuming over a missed round of teas or a squabble in the mess simply won’t work when missions begin. Meanwhile, sulking over a decision that hasn’t gone in our favour only distracts us from the job in hand.

  If ever I had a problem with another individual during a military tour, I always compartmentalized the disagreement and worked with the lads as if nothing had happened. It was the only way to complete the required work without injury or fatalities. This attitude towards disputes has also applied to other team environments where cohesion is key. The former Manchester United footballers Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole couldn’t stand one another yet they made up one of the most effective strike forces in Premiership football during the late 1990s. Alliance regardless of personal dispute is always possible – but it’s bloody difficult.

  In order to create unity and shared purpose, one trick used before elite operations was to emphasize the mission aim during every brief. To do so, the overall objective was repeated twice. Once a plan had been detailed, the Ground Commander would remind the group: ‘Our mission today is to rescue Hostage X.’ The detail was then repeated so every operator was clear as to why they were going into such a hostile environment, followed again by: ‘Our job today is to rescue Hostage X.’ I’ve since found that it’s important to apply this mental process to all jobs of significance – a clear sense of objective is important for the success of any mission, even the ones we wish we didn’t have to conduct in the first place, with people we really can’t stand.

  For example, an experienced male scientist might be forced into a group project with an equally experienced female colleague. In the past, the pair of them had disagreed over each other’s findings and so the potential for conflict is high. However, if their cause is important – the research of a life-saving vaccine or the development of a groundbreaking cancer treatment – it’s usually enough for them to keep their minds on the job. Repeating their overall objective in these situations is imperative to remain on course. In this case: ‘We’re working together to save lives … We’re working together to save lives.’

  All it takes is a little focus and a reminder of what we’re hoping to achieve together – our primary mission.

  We’re going to pass that exam together.

  We’re going to finish writing that script together.

  We’re going to break that personal best together.

  Focus on the objective. Say it out loud. Then repeat.

  PHASE SIX

  The Power of Honesty: Handling the Truth

  Honesty is a vital asset when building resilience because it teaches us the power of brutal assessment, where acceptance of a negative situation brings tactical strength. Sadly, a lot of people would rather lie to themselves about their reality, especially when they’re in the shit. They claim to enjoy their job when the daily workload is causing them to crack. They convince themselves that a partner’s behaviour is OK when actually it’s laced with toxicity. They pretend to have a handle on the vices causing them emotional and physical damage. But if they acted truthfully about their issues and weaknesses, they’d quickly make the first steps towards overcoming them.

  Honesty and integrity are also valuable assets in intelligence-gathering scenarios. In a military sense, assessing information based solely on the facts, without opinion or judgement, is regarded as the only way to paint an accurate picture of a situation, such as a terrorist training camp or a narcotics-trafficking cell. In surveillance ops, honesty and integrity allow a specialist soldier to look at the information available to them and make a judgement call. They can then build a more robust battle plan and their attack becomes more resilient as a result. In a civilian setting, if people were to base their most important decisions on hard facts, rather than beliefs and emotions, they’d be less surprised by any unpleasant results.

  But being honest with ourselves is often the toughest call to make. (How many of us respond accurately when the doctor quizzes us about our alcohol intake, or truly push ourselves as hard as we can in that gym class?) But if we can stomach it, answering painful, personal questions in a truthful way is often the fast track to a more resilient profile. Honesty helps us to grow. And in growth we can become so much tougher.

  HONESTY ABOUT FAILURE

  No plan survives contact. It’s a basic fact of war. (Or, as Mike Tyson once famously said, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.’) As you can imagine, I’ve lived Tyson’s theory for real, sometimes on a daily basis, and rarely did a military operation go to plan, 100 per cent, from beginning to end. This can also be said of the many projects or challenges we undertake in normal life: the new job, a physical effort, the rehabilitation from injury or accident, a house move, a wedding … The list goes on and on. During each example, unexpected hitches and fuck-ups can upend the best-laid plans, no matter how much preparation has taken place in advance. The key to overcoming a Mike Tyson-style smack to the gob is to first accept its likelihood of happening. The next step is to react accordingly when it does.

  At this point, let me give you a typically extreme case study. During one military tour, we were on the hunt for a nasty militia leader. Our intel had revealed his position in a small town at the foot of a mountain range, an area we knew to be fairly sketchy. (The biggest hint that somebody of importance had been hidden there was the fact that somebody usually opened fire on us whenever we flew nearby.) Having settled on a date of attack, we went in at night, flying across a series of hills in choppers before landing on a flat stretch of desert safely short of our target. The plan was to then walk across deadly ground, reaching the town at sun-up, and kick in a few doors, at which point our person of interest would hopefully surface.

  We moved along the terrain as a long line of men, in an attempt to go undetected by any enemy fighters along the way. The sky was pitch black. Everyone tried their best to stay quiet and the only noise was the crunch of our boots on the rock and sand. Every now and then the eerie chatter of gunfire opened up in the distance. Bup-bup-bup-bup. Bup-bup-bup-bup. A scrap had kicked off several miles away and through the grainy-green of my night-vision goggles I watched flashes of light – either explosions or mortar blasts – bursting across the horizon.

  Probably the Yanks getting into some trouble, I thought, pressing ahead.

  Even though I was in the middle of a war zone, where rockets and tracer fire were lighting up the sky, I felt wrapped up in a coc
oon. It felt peaceful, like I was a million miles away from the madness elsewhere, and I was reminded of once being on a passenger flight on Bonfire Night. Inside the plane there had been nothing but the soothing, muffled roar of air conditioning and engines. But outside, hundreds of fireworks were flickering and exploding across the blackness in a weird blend of calm and chaos. The vibe in the desert was just as eerily serene.

  Then a dog barked in the distance. And another. I hated the mutts in those countries. I never knew what breed they were, but they were big, mean and crazy. Their eyes were usually bloodshot because of the dust and crap in the air, which gave them a rabid appearance. The locals liked to cut their ears off to make them look even more intimidating. Whenever one approached me – snarling and growling – I’d try to frighten it off with a boot. I didn’t fancy losing a chunk from my arm or leg. And while I’d been jabbed for rabies and plenty of other debilitating infections, I didn’t fancy putting those vaccinations to the test.

  The barking was the dogs’ worst trait, though. They rarely stayed quiet, even in the dead of night, and the local animals had obviously caught our scent. Now they wanted to tell everybody about it. We still had some distance to cover – I could just about make out the edges of the buildings through my goggles – but our smell must have carried on the wind. Suddenly, heavy gunfire echoed behind us. It was much louder and much closer than the shooting we’d heard earlier. I recognized the sound of a DShK, or ‘Dushka’, the Soviet heavy machine gun. Their rounds seemed to land behind us, exploding in the footprints we’d made five minutes ago.

  ‘Is that for us?’ I said, looking around as more gunfire zipped overhead.

  Nobody seemed to know for certain, though an awful realization seemed to settle into the group: it was too close to have been a coincidence. ‘Well, they’re firing at something. Let’s crack on a bit …’

  We advanced for another ten minutes. Every now and then, rounds from the Dushka ripped open the sky above us and ka-boomed into the rock and sand at our rear. Our paranoia had risen. They must know we’re out here – just not where, exactly. A pilot circling above confirmed our worst fears moments later:

  ‘Lads, there are shitloads of personal security on the ground,’ crackled a voice in our comms. ‘They’re positioned all around the town. Keep on your toes.’

  I peered into the black. I couldn’t see anything or anyone, but I got the feeling we were walking into a trap. We would later find out that spotters had been positioned in the mountains and were directing several defensive outposts around the town. Snipers were lying in wait. Once we got close enough, the order to open fire would have been given. An ambush was going to be bad enough but that wasn’t the worst of it. Somebody suddenly raised a hand: we had to stop moving.

  ‘Wait … They’re setting up ambushes. There are several ten-man teams waiting for us in ditches …’

  Fucking hell.

  We’d suspected that we were in for a heavy scrap that night. The bloke we were after was a big name on the Allied Forces’ Most Wanted list; he was a nasty character with some serious influence among the enemy militia we were engaged with. It made sense that he would be fairly well guarded; we just hadn’t expected him to be this well guarded. There was a pause as we figured out our next steps: should we push on or turn back? Then an unnerving comment came out of the dark.

  ‘Er, hang on a minute.’ It was Mooro, a mate of mine. ‘What the fuck have we walked into?’ He was pointing to several black spots on the ground around him.

  I peered down at the sand. In the dark it was almost impossible at first to discern any distinct shapes, but as I scanned the space around me I noticed the black circular disc of an anti-personnel landmine. Then another. And another. Dozens of them had been scattered across the ground and we were surrounded by them. It was a miracle nobody had trodden on one. Anyone making the wrong step would have been blown to pieces.

  ‘Whoa! Don’t step on the black things!’ shouted another voice.

  ‘We’ll have to chin this off,’ said somebody behind me. ‘We’re not going to surprise them now, and nothing’s in our favour. Let’s walk back to the landing zone, call in a heli and head back to base …’

  There were a few groans of disappointment. I felt annoyed too. It was probably one of the very few times where we’d had to chuck in the towel on an operation at such an early stage, but we really had no other option. We were screwed; the odds of success were too slim and there was no point pretending otherwise. By honestly accepting that we were in a bad situation, we were allowing ourselves the opportunity to fight another day. Had we ignored the truths around us and made an aggressive judgement call, we might have suffered some serious casualties. Plus, our enemy would have landed a morale-boosting victory. It was far better to make a considered assessment of a sketchy situation and to retreat. We’d underestimated the strength of our enemy. We were outnumbered. Taking a backwards step was the smartest thing to do.

  The decision was borne from experience. We’d long been trained that in order to act as a resilient force, it was tactically astute to be brutally honest about a failing plan, but only if we learned from our losses. In that respect, the mission had been fairly successful. Sure, we hadn’t grabbed the bloke we’d been looking for, but we were 100 per cent positive that our person of interest, or somebody just as important, was hiding away in that town. Why would there have been so much security if a nobody was living there? In that respect, the operation was a score. A week or so later, we heard that our target had been taken down by an aerial attack. No British troops were injured in the process. The honesty about our failure had turned defeat into victory.

  If only people thought along the same logical lines outside of service. How many times do we hear of individuals following up on bad ideas, even as the potential for failure becomes increasingly obvious? We stay with jobs that make us increasingly unhappy. We ignore the alarm bells ringing on our physical health, relationships, finances or emotional well-being because we think that to re-evaluate them would be to admit defeat. We chuck away good money to salvage bad ideas. Rather than thinking tactically and reassessing a situation at regular intervals, we pretend everything is OK. We lie to ourselves. We fall victim to our own egos, convinced that to take a step back from a situation will represent a disaster or embarrassment. But it’s important to know that, in a shitshow, retreating is sometimes the most positive step a person or team can make.

  HONESTY ABOUT SELF

  Honesty is arguably the most difficult asset to utilize when building resilience because it requires us to ask some rough questions of ourselves – and then answer with some ugly home truths. For example, following on from a failed relationship, it’s sometimes vital we take a long look at our character flaws or our behaviour. It might be that some of the negative traits in our personalities require a little work, especially if we’re to avoid making the same mistakes again. Whatever our screw-ups, it never hurts to take a look in the mirror and ask the question: How did I fuck that up? And how can I un-fuck the problem? But the process can be challenging and destabilizing, as I found out during the aftershocks of my departure from the military.

  My life was in tatters. I felt shame at the way in which I left a job I’d loved. I mourned a career that had once defined me as a person and a man. I was caught up in a series of toxic relationships that had destabilized my emotional well-being and I’d cut away the Brotherhood that had played such a valuable part in keeping me positive during stressful times. I found myself in a new job that I hated, where I worked in a role as far removed from my life behind enemy lines as I could imagine. However, instead of accepting my position and looking for ways to improve it, I pretended everything was OK. I bullshitted myself. The cover-up very nearly killed me.

  I became so depressed that I contemplated suicide. Luckily, I had second thoughts and there was enough resilience in the tank to keep me going. From there I had to admit some painful facts about where my life was headed. Bloody hell, the p
rocess still plays on my mind because it was so painful, but if I’d avoided the tough questions I wouldn’t be around today. In a brutally honest assessment, I looked at all the situations that were affecting me negatively and worked to turn them into positives.

  Having accepted I was on the verge of suicide, I worked with friends to find a therapist who was suited to my personality and issues. Luckily, I was able to locate one pretty quickly. I cut away some of the toxic relationships that were taking place in my life, because they were dragging me in the wrong direction. It might have appeared to some of the people involved that I was being selfish or extreme, but I needed to change my situation for the better. (And throwing myself into the sea would have been a far more selfish act than breaking away from certain friends and partners.) Figuring out which parts of my old job I’d enjoyed, I decided I wanted to work outdoors; I needed to challenge myself physically while helping others, as I had done in service. With my SAS: Who Dares Wins mate Ollie Ollerton, I set up an elite military-style training programme for civilians called Break-Point. I then started the Rock2Recovery project mentioned earlier. By doing so, I bonded with a new brotherhood; thanks to therapy and a process of social rebuilding, I was then able to reconnect with my old circle of friends, without shame or embarrassment.

  Sounds easy on paper, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. But with time, like the phases on Selection, my honest self-assessment, while difficult, became doable. The hardest part was the first step: I was truthful about myself. It’s a very human response not to want to endure pain, but like my life in the military, I needed to become comfortable within an uncomfortable situation. I admitted that my life was in a shit state and that a lot of my problems were self-made because I’d allowed myself to fall into a negative mindset. Yes, I’d been suffering from PTSD, which was a natural reaction to living an extreme life with the armed forces, but I’d believed, wrongly, that there was a stigma attached to my condition. And so I covered up my problems rather than talking to my old friends from the military, lads who would have expressed empathy for my pain. (I know this because when I reunited with them again at a party a year or so later, they were understanding and accepting.) Therapy helped me to come to terms with all of that.