by Andy McNab
You can do whatever you want: You can go and get drunk out of your head or you can go home and mow the grass, it really doesn't matter.
But everybody has to be able to cut between when they're working and when they're not.
There was one particular crowd that came from all squadrons, called the Grouse-beaters-all the Highland jocks who used to get together and go downtown and drink. At New Year the Grouse-beater would hit the town with their skirts and fluffy shirts. Such occasions apart, the ordinary man in the street would find it very difficult to pick out Regiment blokes. Anybody seeing a squadron away would probably think it was a school outing.
With such a cross section, there were bound to be personality clashes now and again; it's just a normal human reaction, and it clears the air.
Fortunately the Selection process cancels a lot of that out because they're looking for blokes that can mingle with one another in closed environments, but it's bound to happen.
We'd just come back from over the water one Christmas and were in one of the bars downtown. Eno, the midget, was drunk; he was getting behind Regiment blokes that he knew, jumping up and slapping their heads, then disappearing giggling into the corner. It pissed off one of the blokes so much that he turned around and dropped him. In the morning Eno phoned me up and said, I don't know who it was, but I was obviously out of order." A couple of days later he found out it was one of his really good mates out of the same troop that had decked him.
"Ah, well," he said, "that's all right, as long as I know."
The culture is downbeat. Elitism is counterproductive, it alienates you from other people, and we depend on a working relationship with many other groups like Special Branch or the security services. After all, the Regiment is there as strategic troops, to do tasks that enhance other groups' capabilities. It was always hard, however, to break down the barriers. I remembered going on courses or being seconded to other units. I'd be sitting there on my own for a couple of days before anybody would talk to me. Everybody would stand off because of the mystique that was created in the army about the Regiment. We had to make an effort to go and talk to people, to show them that we were normal, approachable, and just like everybody else: We had grass that was overgrowing; we had a cat that was missing.
That wasn't to say that we didn't know we were very professional and very confident in what we were doing, but that had nothing to do with elitism. Blokes just looked at it as a job, as a profession.
Soldiering was something that they found they had the aptitude for, and they wanted to take the profession to another level.
It was sadly ironic that because they were so good at what they did, they were more likely to be at the sharp end; because they were so good, they were more likely to end up getting killed. What it all boiled down to was that if we were there shooting at somebody, chances were that he'd be shooting back at us-which meant that we were in the shit, and we could die.
A lot of the time to be shooting at somebody means that the task is being compromised. The Regiment is not a big, aggressive, overt force looking for trouble; it's about small numbers of strategic troops, a covert force that spends as much time intelligence gathering as anything else.
The Regiment's roots were in the Second World War and the Malaya conflict, both of which involved a lot of information gathering and quick strikes. It wasn't about inflicting massive casualities; it was about destroying equipment and communications, and lowering morale.
As a small force during the Second World War, killing forty Germans meant little in the scale of things. Destroying forty aircraft, however, was a different matter: It embuggered the enemy, and it saved Allied lives.
My own ideas about killing had changed a lot since I was young. I killed my first man when I was nineteen.
There was a big celebration purely because I'd done what I'd joined the army to do. But now I got a kick from stopping death, not causing it.
It certainly didn't worry me when enemy were killed in contacts.
I didn't celebrate the fact, but there again I didn't lose any sleep about it. I understood that they had sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, but they were big boys, like all of us, and they knew what was going on. They knew that they stood a chance of being killed, the same as we did.
I'd never met anybody who kept a running total or said, "Yeah, good stuff, I've killed so-and-so." If it had to be done, I didn't know anybody who wouldn't try to make it as quick as possible-not so much to make it a nice clean way of dying for them, as to make it safer for himself. The quicker they were dead, the less of a threat they were; it's no picnic getting shot. In the films it's all rather nice: The guy takes a round in the shoulder and is still running around shouting good one-liners. Load of shit: You get hit by a 7.62 round, and it's going to take half your shoulder off.
During the Second World War David Stirling," the founder of the Regiment, threw a grenade into a room and killed several Germans. He didn't need to do it to achieve his aim, and he bitterly regretted it.
He said it was a waste of life and it pissed him off.
We walked home through the park, taking the cold November wind full in the face. Leaves swirled in small typhoons, and it started to pour with rain.
"I love this weather," I said. "Best part is knowing I'll be home in a minute with a brew in my hand."
Jilly turned to look at me. She looked strained.
"It's going to be a bit hotter where you're going, isn't it?"
"You what?"
"Kuwait. You can't kid me you won't be going if it blows into a war."
In the short time that I'd known her, she was always all right if she wasn't aware of the dramas. She knew very little of what I did and had never asked questions because, she told me, she didn't want the answers.
"Oh, you're off, when are you coming back?" was the most she would ever ask. But this time it was different. For once she knew where I might be going.
I didn't want to mess things up between us. I wanted this to be it. My marriages had failed mainly because of my commitment to the army. Now I realized I could have both-a career and a strong, lasting relationship.
Our future was together.
"Don't worry, mate," I said. "There's more chance of Maggie getting kicked out of Downing Street than there is of me being sent downtown for a new pair of dessies and some Factor twenty."
As I put my arm around her, I only hoped she didn't notice that my fingers were firmly crossed.
Glossory
203 M16 rifle with 40MM grenade launcher attached 2 i/c second-in-command 66 lightweight, throwaway antitank rocket 109 or Agusta type of helicopter 109 A.R.F airborne reaction force A.P.C armored personnel carrier Atap foliagf-covered A.T.O ammunition technical officer basha shelter beasting army slang for a beating or very hard run with kit bergen pack carried by British forces on active service BG Bodyguard biwi bag Gortex sleeping bag cover blue-on-blue friendly fire bone narr brick four-man infantry Patrol in Northern Ireland C130 Hercules transport aircraft C4 U.S plastic explosive can Saracen armored personnel carrier hexamine (hexy) small block of solid fuel chinstrap, be on really knackered, as in "I can't go H.M.S.U headquarters mobil support unit your on, I'm on my chinstrap here" I.A immediate action C.O.B.R cabinet office briefing room ID identifylidentity CQB close quarter battle I.E.D improvised (or identified) explosive CRW counterrevolutionary warfare device CTR close target recce I.J.L.B infantry junior leaders battalion CT team counterterrorist team infil infiltration Cuds countryside mt intelligence Delta Force U.S. equivalent of 22 S.A.S iv intravenous drip Regiment jark technical attack on weapons or dicker IRA observer improvised (or identified) explosive DMP drug manufacturing plant device DPM disrupted pattern material leak sweat (camouflage) LMG light machine gun DS directing staff (instructor) L.O.E limit of exploitation DZ drop zone long rifle dry bag diver's dry suit LS landing site E&E escape and evasion L.U.P lying-up point eppie scoppie tantrum M.O.E method of entry E.R.V emergency rendezvous mozzie rep mosquito repe
llent exfil exfiitration ND negligent discharge of weapon F.O.B forward operations base net communications network Foxtrot on foot NVA night-viewing aid fresh fresh food NVG night-viewing goggles FRP final rendezvous O.C officer commanding fuddle or getting together and having a brew OP observation post kerfuddle OPSEC operational security Gemini inflatible assault boat P.E plastic explosive GPMG general purpose maching gun pinkie 11 0, a long wheel-base Land Rover green slime (or member of Intelligence Corps PIRA Provisional IRA slime) QRF quick reaction force HE high explosive R.T.U return to unit head shed nickname for anyone in authority. rupert nickname for officer, not always From Malaya days, this is what derogatory any form of leadership in the RP rendezvous point regiment has been called, after the Sat nay satellite navigation term for the start of the river scaley signaler course scaley kit signals equipment SF security forces short pistol sitrep situation report SLR self-loading rifle sen sergeant Major SOP standard operating procedure ssm squadron sergeant major stag sentry or sentry duty stand to prepare to defend against attack tab hard long-distance march wirn R.I.T T.A.C.B.E tactical beacon radio TCG tasking and coordination g?u-p vc voluntary contribution to squadron funds VCP vehicle checkpoint
