The rest of our time in Ireland was less busy but more sad. The battalion took some injuries during a mortar attack on a position at Forkhill, and one of the members of my platoon was killed by a booby trap bomb in Crossmaglen. Later, our colonel was killed when the Gazelle helicopter he was traveling in was shot down. Then it was back to normal battalion shit at Tidworth, and the only event worth mentioning during the next year was that, aged all of 18, I got married.
The following year we were back in South Armagh. I was now a lance corporal and in charge of a brick (four-man patrol). One Saturday night in July our company was patrolling in the border town of Keady. As usual for a Saturday night the streets were packed with locals. They used to bus it to Castleblaney over the border for cabaret and bingo, then come back and boogy the night away. My brick was operating at the southern edge of the town near a housing estate. We had been moving over some wasteland and came into a patch of dead ground that hid us from view. As we reappeared over the brow, we saw twenty or so people milling around a cattle truck that was parked in the middle of the road. They didn’t see us until we were almost on top of them.
The crowd went ape shit shouting and running in all directions, pulling their kids out of the way. Six lads with Armalites had been about to climb onto the truck. We caught them posing in front of the crowd, masked up and ready to go, their rifles and gloved fists in the air. We later discovered they had driven up from the south; their plan was to drive past the patrol and give us a quick burst.
Two were climbing over the tailgate as I issued my warning. Four were still in the road. A lad in the back of the truck brought his rifle up to the aim, and I dropped him with my first shot. The others returned our fire, and there was a severe contact. One of them took seven shots in his body and ended up in a wheelchair. One player who was wounded was in the early stages of an infamous career. His name was Dessie O’Hare.
I was flavor of the month again, and not just with the British army. One of the shop owners had taken a couple of shots through his window during the firefight, and the windscreen of his car had been shattered. About a month later I went past on patrol and there he was, standing behind his new cash register in his refurbished shop, with a shiny new motor parked outside. He was beaming from ear to ear.
By the time we returned to Tidworth in the summer of 1979 I was completely army barmy. It would have taken a pick and shovel to get me out. In September I was placed on an internal NCOs’ cadre. I passed with an A grade and was promoted to corporal the same night. That made me the youngest infantry corporal in the army at the time, aged just 19. A section commanders’ battle course followed in 1980. I passed that with a distinction, and my prize was a one-way ticket back to Tidworth.
The Wiltshire garrison town was, and still is, a depressing place to live. It had eight infantry battalions, an armored regiment, a recce regiment, three pubs, a chip shop, and a launderette. No wonder it got on my young wife’s nerves. It was a pain in the arse for the soldiers too. We were nothing more than glorified barrier technicians. I even got called in one Sunday to be in charge of the grouse beaters, who were also squad dies for a brigadier’s shoot. The incentive was two cans of beer-and they wondered why there was such a turnover of young squad dies By September my wife had had enough. She issued me with an ultimatum: take her back to London or give her a divorce. I stayed, she went.
In late 1980 I got posted back to the Rifle Depot for two years as a training corporal. It was a truly excellent time. I enjoyed teaching raw recruits, even though with many of them it meant going right back to basics, starting with elementary hygiene and the use of a toothbrush. It was also round about this time that I started to hear stories about the SAS.
I met Debby, a former R.A.F. girl, and we got married in August 1982. I married her because we were getting posted back to the battalion, which was now based at Paderborn in Germany, and we didn’t want to be parted. All my worst fears about life in Germany were confirmed. It was Tdworth without the chip shop. We spent more time looking after vehicles than using them, with men working their fingers to the bone for nothing. We took part in large exercises where no one really knew what was going on, and after a while no one even cared.
I felt deprived that the Green Jackets had not been sent to the Falklands. Every time there was some action, it seemed to me, the SAS were involved. I wanted some of that-what was the point of being in the infantry if I didn’t? Hereford sounded such a nice place to live as well, not being a garrison town. At that time, you were made to feel a second-class citizen if you lived in a place like Aldershot or Catterick; as an ordinary soldier you couldn’t even buy a TV set on hire purchase unless an officer had signed the application form for you.
Four of us from the Green Jackets put our names down for Selection in the summer of 1983, and all for the same reason-to get out of the battalion. A couple of our people had passed Selection in the previous couple of years. One of them was a captain, who wangled us onto a lot of exercises in Wales so we could travel back to the UK and train. He personally took us up to the Brecon Beacons and put us through a lot of hill work. More than that, he gave us advice and encouragement. I owe a lot to that man. We were lucky to know him: some regiments, especially the corps, aren’t keen for their men to go because they have skills that are hard to replace. They won’t give them time off, or they’ll put the application in “File 13”-the wastepaper basket. Or they’ll allow the man to go but make him work right up till the Friday before he goes.
None of us passed. Just before the endurance phase, I failed the sketch-map march of 18 miles. I was pissed off with myself, but at least it was suggested to me that I try again.
I went back to Germany and suffered all the slaggings about failing. These are normally dished out by the knobbers who wouldn’t dare attempt it themselves. I didn’t care. I was a young thruster, and the easy option would have been to stay in the battalion system and be the big fish in a small pond, but I’d lost all enthusiasm for it. I applied for the Winter 1984 Selection and trained in Wales all through Christmas. Debby didn’t care too much for that.
Winter Selection is fearsome. The majority of people drop out within the first week of the four-week endurance phase. These are the Walter Mitty types, or those who haven’t trained enough or have picked up an injury. Some of the people who turn up are complete nuggets. They think that the SAS is all James Bond and storming embassies. They don’t understand that you are still a soldier, and it comes as quite a shock to them to find out what Selection is all about.
The one good thing about Winter Selection is the weather. The racing snakes who can move like men possessed across country in the summer are slowed by the snow and mist. It’s a great leveler for every man to be up to his waist in snow.
I passed.
After this first phase you are put through a four month period of training which includes an arduous spell in the jungle in Asia. The last main test is the Combat Survival course. You are taught survival skills for two weeks, and then sent in to see the doctor. He puts a finger up your arse to check for Mars bars, and you’re turned loose on the Black Mountains dressed in Second World War battle dress trousers and shirt, a greatcoat with no buttons, and boots with no laces. The hunter force was a company of Guardsmen in helicopters. Each man was given the incentive of two weeks’ leave if he made a capture.
I had been on the run for two days accompanied by three old grannies-two Navy pilots and an R.A.F, load master You had to stay together as a group, and I couldn’t have been cursed with a worse trio of millstones. It didn’t matter for them: the course was just a three-week embuggerance, and then they’d go home for tea and medals. But if SAS candidates didn’t pass Combat Survival, they didn’t get badged.