Towards the end of 2002 there were rumours that the UK was going to become involved in some sort of action in Iraq, a member of President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’. America was rattling its sabre, and we weren’t usually far behind. I didn’t think much of it. Nothing to do with me. And then I was asked to extend my service. It’s like that line from The Godfather III: ‘Just when I try to get out, they pull me back in.’ No sooner had George 2 planted the seed than it was all I could think about. I could have said no but I didn’t want to. Six months of sitting on my hands since returning from Afghanistan probably contributed. I was bored. The police didn’t want me till June the following year. What else was I going to do?
It didn’t take me long to land a job with my old logistics mates. None of the work sounded particularly sexy but I’d worry about changing that when I got to Iraq. So far my best results had come when I didn’t plan them.
Next stop: telling Deborah.
I’d like to say I handled it well, but I suppose it was the beginning of the end of our relationship. In her eyes I’d pledged my life to her, and here I was sodding off for another six months on my own.
I kept saying, ‘This won’t stop me joining the police,’ but I don’t think she was in the mood to listen.
For some reason she didn’t believe my interest in the Marines had ended. That this tour meant nothing …
* * *
Yet again I was in the advance party. Same story: get this vehicle to Brize Norton and jump on the plane with it. The only difference was that this time there were only three of us. Oh, and on this occasion they actually told me where we were heading: Kuwait City.
Like Bagram, the city was already overrun with American troops. Unlike Bagram, there was no evidence of the war Kuwait had been involved in more than a decade earlier. It was bustling, there were motorways, nice cars, there didn’t seem to be any sign of conflict or poverty, just people going out about their business. Kuwait City was urbanised, functional, modern – the exact opposite of anything I had seen in Afghan.
Once again, our arrival saw us dumped on an airfield. This time there was a welcoming committee to chauffeur us to Camp Commando, just north of the city. The fact that I was travelling with an officer and a colour sergeant probably made a difference. The seniors in question were the Quartermaster and George 1, so I couldn’t have been in better company. I was even upgraded to acting corporal to ensure I had similar privileges.
We were billeted in an air-conditioned American tent. Not only did I not have to erect it myself, there was electricity, little screened-off areas that served as separate rooms, even televisions. That was nothing, however, compared with the construction job going on west of the city in Camp Doha. The place was like a small town. There was a gym bigger than anything I’d seen back home, and even restaurants like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and KFC were being built for the incoming hordes. There was military hardware everywhere you looked, large armoured vehicles, everything on a massive scale. Even though our camp, Commando, was largely unpopulated, our little band of forty or so marines was still dwarfed by the hundreds of Yanks doing their advanced prep. When the troops did start to arrive, the UK forces would multiply in hundreds while the Americans grew in thousands.
It was very clear that this was going to be, once again, an American war. All the briefings were given by Americans. These were something else. In the UK a major or a lieutenant-colonel will shuffle amiably in front of a group of officers, NCOs and other ranks and run through the order of the day. The US equivalent was rather more showbiz. There was music, there were lights, and there was a general issuing a call to arms so passionate, so evangelical, that it would have had a pacifist reaching for a rifle. And they did this every time.
Despite the activity in the camp, there was actually an attempt at stealth. The Iraqis obviously knew that something was happening, but the intention was that they shouldn’t know what. Not until it was too late. A lot of my days were spent travelling in unmarked cars with senior officers. My role was strictly that of security but I got to see everything they saw. There wasn’t a possible location we didn’t scout. For a while Babiyan Island, two miles from the border with Iraq, was considered as a jumping-off point for the invasion. Then we moved even closer. The plan was to establish hundreds of small camps along the border by pushing up mounds of sand with bulldozers to create a gun line. I saw it grow from conception to reality in a matter of days.
It was great being involved in the advance party. Seeing all the factors that led to the decisions. But knowing that HMS Ocean was on her way with 40 Commando, that 42 Commando would be flying in within days and that 45 were already training to support UKSF, I had that sinking feeling that, when the going got tough, I’d be nowhere near the action. Again.
It was time to get networking. My best chance was with the TACP I’d worked with in Bagram. The second those boys arrived I was pestering Phil Guy for a switch.
‘Rob, I’m sorry, we’re on maximum capacity this time. The whole brigade’s here. There are no vacancies.’
‘Okay, but I’m going to ask again.’
‘I expect nothing else.’
It was the same story everywhere else, but I didn’t let up. In the meantime, there was training and preparation. At this stage we all believed that Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s oppressive leader, had access to chemical and nuclear weapons, so everyone had to be trained in specialist equipment to detect an attack. We were also put on a course of naps tablets – nerve agent pre-treatment pills designed to protect your nervous system in the event of a chemical attack. But that was only half the story. If you are exposed you still need to inject yourself with a pen that was now part of the kit, as were gas masks.
It was exciting, but it was only a matter of time before my real work in stores started. Shipments were arriving daily and once 3 Commando Brigade began to arrive those had to be distributed. I was assigning beds, weapons, medication, gas masks, boots, you name it, all from my little corner of Camp Commando. It was like a tiny British principality in the middle of the USA.
By the end of the February our guys were in situ. Training was slick. There was a real mood in the camp that D-Day was imminent. Then the word came that we were to stow all our personal belongings. This could only mean one thing: the greatest military operation since the Second World War was days away.
We waited and we waited and we waited. The first week of March came and went. By the time the second week had passed without incident I wasn’t alone in thinking that, after all, nothing was going to happen. Obviously the powers that be had found some diplomatic solution instead.
And then, on 19 March, the order was given.
‘We’re going to war.’
* * *
‘Shock and awe’, they called it. The vast blanket bombing of Iraq’s border posts and then Baghdad itself was so spectacular, so relentless, that the Iraqi forces had no time to regroup, recover or counter. The truth is, though, that people at home probably saw more of it on TV than we did. What we did see and hear made everyone at Camp Commando desperate to get involved. Everyone.
The massive aerial bombardment was incredible. The sky lit up with the trails of cruise missiles. We were just on the edge of the desert, about ten miles south of the Iraqi border, and could see on the horizon to the north of us absolute fury raining down from the skies. For four or five hours, all I could hear were helicopters, fast jets, missiles – immense firepower flying overhead. We were sitting and waiting for the final word about when the troops were to get on the helicopters to follow the aerial bombardment in. I remember looking at the guys boarding the helicopter as part of the advance party, some of them my really close friends. I was gutted not to be joining them.
Phil Guy’s TACP team were flying out to support 42 Commando. I desperately wanted to get involved. Again, I asked Phil if there was a chance he could squeeze me on to his mission. Again, the captain said, ‘Not this time.’
On 21 March I watched as a flight of Sea Knight helicopters set off for their various landing zones – ‘LZs’. I was proud of Phil and everyone else but, God, did I wish I was on board. They all disappeared into the distance and I went back to work. A few hours later I heard a commotion outside. I ran out and there in the distance, in the desert, I could just make out a ball of fire. Men were shouting, scrambling transport.
I stopped a junior marine. ‘Is it one of ours?’
‘We think so, Corporal.’
‘Was it shot down?’
‘Don’t know.’
The base was in turmoil. How had Saddam’s troops managed to get that near us? Patrols were despatched, defences engaged. In the meantime, first responders were reaching the crash site. When the news came on the radio my heart sank.
‘Sea Knight CH-46 down – no survivors.’
Shit!
‘Enemy fire not ruled out but unlikely.’
For the next forty-eight hours I carried on with my duties, delivering munitions to outposts in the desert, completely in the dark about the crash. That’s the way of it. Then the intel started to seep out. It was only by checking in with the other Sea Knights that HQ worked out which chopper had gone down, and how. The report said it had been hindered by a sandstorm. There was a mechanical problem and the pilot couldn’t land and so had been heading back when the aircraft hit difficulties. When it came down, all eight Royal Marines and four US troops were killed on impact, as were the crew. One of the marines was Captain Philip Guy.
I was gutted for him, for his family, his friends. He wasn’t yet thirty, and had his whole life ahead of him. As did everyone else on board. I knew each and every Brit, plus the one South African affiliated to us. I’d worked with some of them at Stonehouse and had issued kit to the rest. We were all brothers. We all thought we’d be going home together. What happened to them seemed so horribly unfair.
And one fact didn’t escape me. I had pleaded and cajoled to be active with TACP. I had begged Phil Guy to let me go with him. If he had said ‘Yes’, my name would be on that list of people whose next of kin were being contacted right then.
George 1’s words had never sounded more relevant.
Be careful what you wish for.
* * *
All those US briefings had made me desperate to kick some ass, like the American ground troops already geed up for the big invasion,. Luckily, being in charge of ammunitions, I was at least going to move when my company did.
And we were moving.
The Americans were making a charge for Baghdad, in the centre of Iraq. The British were going for Basra, which is on the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, the confluence of the Tigris and Euprates rivers in the south. The military being the military, there was a race. The Brits were doing their best to get into Basra and secure it before Baghdad fell to the US forces. Which meant all of us – including stores – were going mobile.
Hundreds of troops piled into every vehicle we had and the column pushed out. My team had dozens of trucks loaded with supplies. For once I didn’t get the dull job of driving one. Six marines were given quad bikes to scout ahead and provide security with the on-bike rocket launchers. I was one of them. Obviously, one of the thousands of courses I’d taken had covered quad bikes.
We drove up through the border. I’d been close to it many times and seen it every which way through binoculars. Crossing the demilitarised zone – about 500 metres of nothing between the two countries – was eerie. Then we hit Iraq soil and suddenly we were surrounded by friendly faces. Between the giant signs reading ‘Welcome to Iraq’ Royal Marines Police waved us all through. That’s when it got really weird. Everywhere we looked, murals of Saddam Hussein covered the walls of buildings – and they’d all been defaced. The most polite ones had given him a clown’s nose. Others showed him with different bits of genitalia added.
The journey through the border towns was eerie, slow and arduous. Eerie, because the towns were deserted. Slow, just in case lone Saddam supporters were lurking in the abandoned buildings. Arduous, because the weather was shit. If all you know about deserts is that they never have any rain, you may want to rethink that. It poured down water in biblical proportions. If you had been at all superstitious you might have thought that it was a sign that what we were doing was wrong. Sandstorms clogged our vision, rain-soaked sand clogged our wheels. Suddenly the quad bike, while highly mobile, was the one vehicle no one wanted to be on.
Luckily, no one was superstitious.
Driving through a desert is everything you’d imagine. That is, if you imagine sand for 360 degrees. The road was a single straight stretch of tarmac that disappeared into the horizon. Either side were deep irrigation ditches made of concrete. For miles at a time there was nothing to see or hear but ourselves.
We were several hours inside the country when the whole convoy stopped. I assumed it was the result of radio traffic that I wasn’t privy to. Even above the noise of our idling engines, however, the reason was unmistakable.
Gunfire.
And close.
The men in the WMIKs were all standing to. The threat was real.
We waited for an hour, then the command to advance was given. Two miles further down the road we reached a small factory town. Buildings on all sides were burning. In the road and lying scattered elsewhere were the corpses of fallen Iraqis. Whatever we’d heard had been serious.
And we’d missed it all.
We were that close behind the first wave. Yet time after time, every time we reached the scene of a firefight the party was already over. Everywhere we arrived there were traces of 40 Commando’s work. But that was as close as we got.
Our final destination was another factory town about twenty miles inside the border, some thirty miles south of Basra. It had already been cleared by 40 Commando and US forces – as I was to hear later in graphic detail from some of my friends in the company. Once we had secured the site and unloaded the equipment, those of us in logistics (i.e. stores) turned around and hightailed it back to Kuwait to fetch another shipment. That might have been terrifying if we hadn’t just made the same journey. I knew the biggest threat to my safety on the way back was the weather. The first three days of my war were basically spent driving up and down that one road. After the seventh time I was willing an enemy to pop up just to keep me awake.
I decided that if the fight wouldn’t come to me, then I would hunt the fight. Once we were established in a petro-chemical plant in the township I volunteered myself for absolutely everything outside the camp. If there were any convoys going into Basra then I would get on a convoy. If someone was needed to lead a company of guys into an area behind us, such as the troops providing security for the gun line, I stuck up my hand. I’d been all over the area on my quad bike. There was no better tour guide.
On one such familiarisation patrol I was with a troop of marines ranging in rank from captain down to marine. The instructions were to patrol on foot and clear a local village. That doesn’t mean kill everyone there: just make sure there are no undesirables hiding out among the locals. It’s a show of force. Remembering the village elder in Afghanistan who’d lied through his teeth about the Taliban, I wasn’t exactly confident of the results.
Because I had driven through the village a couple of times and knew the ground, I was asked to lead the troop up.
‘With pleasure, sir.’
This is my time.
It was a night patrol. The invasion had seen the disappearance of the police force and all the security that had originally been in those areas, so naturally a vacuum occurred in which looting and retribution killings and other crimes were rife. Our senior guys in charge wanted to show the civilian population that, invaders or not, we could still protect the region. But the population had already taken matters into their own hands. A vigilante force was reputed to be in operation. They didn’t know us and we didn’t know them. So we needed to be alert.
We approached the town in traditional single file. From my daytime sorties I knew all the alleys and back routes. Working through these in stealth mode we spotted through our night-vision goggles a lot of people wandering around. People with guns.
Part of me was relieved.
At least it’s not goats.
There were fifty of us, and I was confident that we could handle any threat. The pressing question was: did these people constitute a threat? Would Card Alpha be tested? Would we need to fire a lethal shot? Even as invaders in a hostile country, we had to be aware of the law.
We were all trained for full-on combat. Coming up with a measure less extreme came less naturally. There was a moment when we weren’t entirely sure what to do. In the end the patrol leader, a young captain, decided to give away our position to see what this group of people would do. Would they engage us? Would they be curious?
A Schermuly (usually pronounced ‘schmooli’), named after its inventor, William Schermuly, is a hand-held flare that fires 1,000 metres up into the air, then comes down slowly on a parachute, lighting up some 300 square metres like a 1,000-watt firework. Firing one is a gamble. They call it ‘recce by fire’ because in illuminating your enemy you’re giving away your own position. Sometimes there is no alternative, however. We launched three Schermulys over the locals. They didn’t do anything. They just stood and watched, mouths open like kids on Bonfire Night. The captain was satisfied.
‘Move forward.’
As a precaution, the Minimis (5.56mm squad machine guns) were moved to the front of the crocodile file. That aside, we tried to advance as non-threateningly as possible.
We were in a town square, with, to our left and right, two small tower blocks on either side. As we reached the square a drunk suddenly lunged out of nowhere. That was something we had definitely not been expecting in a Muslim country. He fell onto the bloke next to me. If he had done that today we’d assume he was a suicide bomber, but in 2003 that scourge was nothing like as common as it would become. As for the rest of the village, the armed men put their weapons down and came over to us, smiling, as if to say, ‘We are not the enemy.’ Our patrol was divided into three sections, and I was in the leading one, but we had only one interpreter with us and he was with the captain in the third section. With little or no understanding the locals’ language we couldn’t let our guard down completely, and so they probably found their country’s great liberators stand-offish, at best.
Once the interpreter had joined us, we were directed to the police station, about a two-mile mile hike into town. By the time we arrived word had got round. People were gathered with their sick or injured children for the so-called saviours to heal. I was twenty-six years old and armed to the gills, yet strangers were bringing me their wounded kids. (When I’m your best bet, I thought, you know you’re in trouble.) We were even given a baby that had been abandoned by its parents. It was very emotional, but also worrying. There were a lot of moral dilemmas for the young officer to ponder.
And I mean a lot. We were there two days in the end. He called in water and food and medical supplies and we responded like people, not soldiers. We didn’t turn anyone away, even when we knew their injuries weren’t caused by anything to do with the current fighting. Ultimately, I know there were people alive when we left who never would have made it if we hadn’t shown up.
That didn’t mean everyone wanted our help. I was brought one child who in my opinion had been stabbed, although the parents said otherwise. As I treated him a gang of older teens who’d been standing near by started to get twitchy. I didn’t feel safe. The whole area was a tinderbox. Then one of the youths threw a stone. I don’t know if he was expecting twenty-plus loaded rifles to be aimed at his head, but that’s what he got. Whatever it may have looked like, we were first and foremost marines, not medics.
Knowing the village was suffering because of sanctions instigated by the West and war damage that had shattered the main water supply, it was impossible not to want to do as much as possible. But we were just tens of men. What they needed were hundreds. We were there as security, not engineers or builders or doctors. There would be other people coming after us. Or at least that’s what we told the civilians – and ourselves.
After our two days in the village I took part in several other patrols before we pushed further ahead to Basra. Once there, I was surprised to see people going about their daily business more or less normally. I didn’t encounter any hostility, although neither were the locals as friendly as they had been in the village to the south. My most vivid memory is of catching up with my mates from 40 Commando and hearing how they’d stormed the city. Under fire, and everything.
And here I was hoovering up the dregs a few days later.
For me, Iraq was a tour that promised so much, when the American command announced its mission concluded with the capture of Saddam Hussein I was actually glad. To have been so close to the action – such massive action – and yet still not to have taken any active part was the nudge I needed. When I considered that there were men in the Met who had fired their weapons – fired a lethal shot – more recently than I had, I knew once and for all that it was time to go. On my return to the UK I left the Royal Marines and, in 2004, began training with the Metropolitan Police.
* * *
You can knock on the door only so many times without being let in. It was time to stop knocking.
Within weeks on the new job I knew I’d done the right thing. I was still on probation, patrolling my patch in South London, on the famous Old Kent Road. I’m not saying it’s one of the cheapest properties on the Monopoly board for a reason, but suddenly there was a radio alert warning of a high-speed chase in our area. Even as I listened I heard – then saw – a white BMW whizz past, closely followed by two black unmarked police cars. The BMW stopped just past us and a passenger jumped out of the back and started shooting at the police cars, which also stopped. The police shot him and then another guy jumped out of the BMW and they shot him as well. It all happened right before my eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more exciting.
I only got to roll out the yellow police tape, not deal with the bodies, but that sniff of action confirmed that not only was I on the right track, but that everything I wanted was right on my doorstep. Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq – and Peckham. Who is to say where the real war zone is?
Peckham police station should have had a revolving door. You were never more than a few minutes away from a crime. I thought my first arrest as a beat cop would really stay with me but it was so closely followed by my second and third and fourth that they all blur. Fun times, I have to say.
In your probation years you get moved around different divisions for ten weeks at a time. I loved that, as I thrive on variety. I even enjoyed my period as a school liaison officer. Loads of little kids lapping up your stories, what’s not to like?
My favourite attachment, however, was to the rapid-response unit. The detective I was under could sniff criminality a mile away. For action, though, Bonfire Night takes some beating. We must have confiscated thousands of pounds’ worth of, basically, gunpowder from kids intent on firing them anywhere but into the sky. Case in point: towards the end of the night we were called to the North Peckham Estate, then one of the most deprived areas in Europe, let alone the borough, and since demolished. As soon as we arrived something felt off. I could hear laughing from behind a car. Then suddenly this missile came zooming at us. If I hadn’t dived to the ground I’d have lost an eye. By the time I looked up there were more fireworks coming at us, this time from all directions, like a barrage from heavy mortars. I managed to get back into the car but the bombardment continued.
This really was like Iraq.
The only downside with the job that I could see was the pervading attitude within the Met itself. As a commando you expect to be moved around like a pawn to wherever the danger is. As a police officer, it’s as though the senior command want to protect you at the expense of the public. There were loads of scenarios where I felt I was in a position to apprehend a villain or put a stop to a situation, but my mentor officer would say, ‘Hold back, wait for back-up.’ Nine times out of ten the perpetrator would get away. On one occasion we came back from a foot patrol down Peckham High Street and I noticed that the backs of our tunics were layered in spit. How many people must have been gobbing on us I hate to imagine, but I was all up for going back out to find them. My guvnor said, ‘No, it’s not worth it.’
It bloody well was to me.
The worst occasion was when I was across the road from an amusement arcade when I heard the radio chatter that a robbery was in progress in one of the slot-machine venues inside. It was broad daylight, and I looked through the window and confirmed it.
Over the radio I said, ‘I’ve got eyes on the perp. Permission to apprehend?’
‘That’s a negative. We have information that he is armed.’
I looked again.
‘No, I repeat no. There is no weapon. Permission to apprehend.’
‘Stand down, MD665. That’s an order.’
And so I watched as the guy filled a bag with cash then sauntered out into the sun. He walked towards me and actually winked as he went by. It was obviously not his first job. And he obviously knew how the system worked.
I’m not saying that this particular incident was the tipping point but so many little episodes like that began to fill my day that it wasn’t long before I realised that I didn’t respect the organisation. I respected the individual coppers I met, they all work bloody hard. But our hands were tied by unseen overlords who seemed more interested in PR than public safety.
Suddenly Card Alpha didn’t seem quite so restrictive. In fact, it started to look damned appealing. So much so that when my Marines mates down in the West Country started telling me that they were gearing up for a proper go at Afghanistan I felt that tingle of excitement I’d had when Kosovo, Iraq and Bagram had been in the wind. I tried to ignore it but in the end I asked my guvnor if I could join the RMR – the Royal Marine Reserve. This works in the same way as the Army Reserves (formerly the Territorial Army): you keep your job – and your salary – and train in your own time, but can be called to serve when necessary. It’s the best of both worlds and plenty of police have served in the reserve forces over the years.
The problem was, I was not yet a policeman. To qualify I needed to finish probation and get five years’ service under my belt.
‘But the war will be over by then,’ I protested.
‘I’m sorry, Constable, that’s the way it works.’
The truth is, I didn’t really want to go to Afghanistan. More than anything I just missed the physicality of my old life. I missed the camaraderie, the daily challenges, the knowledge that I was among the elite of my kind. I just missed being a marine.
Being told I couldn’t be one for a few more years, not even as a volunteer, not even at weekends, triggered a response in me that I never expected.
I handed in my resignation from the police and returned to Lympstone.
* * *
I’ve made some crap decisions in my life, but this was not one of them.
I didn’t mind the two-week refresher course at CTC. I didn’t mind being busted down to the bottom rung again as a simple marine. I didn’t mind being made to feel like a raw recruit with the OCD-level ironing and saluting. I didn’t even mind that for my foreseeable future I’d just be doing courses again. My obsession with front-line action had passed. I was just happy being back where I belonged.
For the remainder of 2005 I was back with 40 Commando at Norton Manor, Taunton. I was happy to knuckle down with whatever they threw at me. What they actually threw at me was a promotion. The Marines being the Marines, however, you don’t just ‘get’ a promotion, you have to pass a promotion course. And you can only go on that course if you’ve already been promoted. So in order to qualify as a corporal I first had to become lance-corporal – the rank I’d held in 40 Commando in Kosovo, seemingly a lifetime ago. Next stop an eleven-week Junior Command Course at CTC.
Even while I was on the course, I already had my eye on the programme after that. I’d tried and failed to get loaded onto the mountain leader course before Afghan. Now I had another chance. By the time it came round it was 2006 and I was in peak physical condition. I needed to be: it was a nine-month course. I could see no reason why I shouldn’t pass. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.
Week 5, and one of the tests was to carry a guy twice my size up Sennen Cove, a stone’s throw from Land’s End. All the way up I could feel my ankle and my calf – my old SBS tryout injury – screaming at me. I made it and was halfway through the eight-mile run back to our accommodation when my friend Noisy said, ‘Rob, I don’t know what’s wrong but your right leg – it’s about twice the size of your left one.’
It felt like it, too. I got hold of some painkillers and made it back to camp. I could barely breathe at the end, let alone run. The course leader took one look and said, ‘We’d better get you back to Lympstone because there’s something seriously wrong with your leg.’ I was in too much pain to really follow what was going on. But I soon snapped awake when the base medic said, ‘You’ve ruptured your calf – I’m afraid we’ll have to remove you from the course.’
I was gutted, obviously. For the second time a frailty in my leg – the same frailty – had kept me from taking that next step up. A few years earlier I’d have felt like chucking the TV out the window with frustration. The new mature me found the bright side. Better to be thrown out after only five weeks. Imagine getting to eight months and failing. You’d be suicidal.
There was another positive, as well. Mountain leaders, by definition, are away most of the time. Again, I used to thrive on that. But towards the end of 2006 I met someone in Taunton who I wanted to stay home for. Her name was Carly, she had a lovely son called Sam, and being a local girl she knew all about the Marines and their constant disappearing act. For that reason she was more than a bit wary of getting involved with me. When injury ruled me out of the ML course I think she found me that bit more attractive a proposition.
It was mutual. I spent three months in rehab and most of that time I was plotting how best to stay in the Marines and yet stay local to Carly. Then I hit upon the answer: I’d do a physical-training instructor’s course. It’s one of the longest in the calendar and arguably the most important. PTIs are the guys who turn raw recruits into killing machines, civilians into commandos. Everything that follows begins with them.
Carly was delighted. We both were, and with extra reason. Our whirlwind romance had resulted in Carly becoming pregnant. Getting that news was a big moment – asking her to marry me a minute later was another one. Now, more than ever, I needed to be local.
We married in March 2007 and seven months later, in October, our son Will was born. Three months after that, in the new year, I finally started my course. I thought I knew what fitness was, but this took it up another level. Throw in middle-of-the-night feeds with Will and the forty-minute commute between CTC and our place in Taunton, and you’d have been pushed to find anyone in the UK at that time more in need of sleep.
The PT course has legendary status in the service just for how shit it treats the students. There are so many rules which, if broken, result in a physical beating from your trainers. It sounds horrific, and it is. It always has been and always will be.
I don’t know who was happier when the course ended: I, for getting through it with all my teeth intact, or Carly, for knowing she had at least two years during which I wold be working on our doorstep.
Some of our friends were not so lucky, however. I came home one night to find Carly in tears. I immediately thought there was something wrong with Will or Sam but she said, ‘No. It’s Steve. Donna thinks he might die.’
Donna was one of her best friends, and Steve was a mountain of a man who’d got me through my recce leader’s course. They were both good friends of ours. Steve was over in Afghan on one of the early Herrick operations (Operation Herrick was the codename for all British military operations in Afghanistan from 2002 until the end of military operations by UK forces in 2014). Word had just come back that he’d been caught in an ambush. The marines had gone out on patrol with the Afghan police. The two groups had split up, and then the Afghans had opened fire on the Brits. Steve was shot a number of times, and the rounds made a mess of his abdomen and everything below. Donna was right to be worried. We all were.
Steve survived and was shipped home for specialist care as soon as he was stable. When we went to visit him it was shocking. This giant, this pure physical presence, was barely a skeleton in the bed. His muscle mass had vanished. He looked a broken man.
You can’t help thinking, This is the reality of war.
As the war in Afghan took hold Carly and I started to see more and more of our friends return from the front with limbs missing. That is if they returned at all. Some of the worst casualties were among the SF guys. When a war is on, the television news becomes a nightly ritual – you just want to keep up with what the boys are doing. I was watching the news one evening in summer 2007 when I suddenly froze. On the screen was a picture of a young man I knew very well, Corporal Mike Jones, one of the great guys I met at SBS training. Since then we’d patrolled together in Afghan and Iraq, and had both been based in Plymouth. Just a few months earlier we’d shared meals during junior-command training. He was, in short, a friend. And now he was on the news. I was too stunned to hear what the broadcaster was saying. I didn’t need to. It was obvious.
Mike was the sixty-eighth British serviceman to fall since the country’s involvement in the Afghan campaign began in 2001. He would not be the last.
Military towns can be very dark places when the troops are away. Carly had grown up with living in a suddenly much emptier town and the prospect of death or wounding, conditioned to it by friends of the family and neighbours. It’s a unique situation. On the one hand, the troops and their families are conditioned to expect the worst. On the other, the worst is something they never get over.
More than ever, she was relieved that my job meant that I was not going anywhere. And, if I’m being honest, so was I.
* * *
As the newbie on the PTI staff I got all the glamour jobs, like making tea. It didn’t bother me. I was no longer a potential victim for the trainers to pick on. I was one of those trainers.
Some of the other guys had been there for years. Pete Howe, who’d gone up for corporal with me back in the day, was a good mate (despite my pipping him to that promotion) – now that we were both on the same side of the pupil/teacher divide. Pete was actually the envy of the whole camp. Once in a blue moon – well, every three years, to be precise – the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) recruits a leader from the PT branch. Pete was the next man up. No one knew exactly what he would be doing, but we all agreed it would involve action of the most violent and secretive kind.
Like all of us, Pete loved his sport. Among his many talents he was a terrific footballer. About a week before he was due to leave us he was playing in a five-a-side match, and managed to break a leg – audibly. I was in a building close to the pitch and actually heard the sickening sound of his leg snapping. A moment later the door behind me flew open and the PT sergeant-major, shot out.
‘What the hell was that noise?’
Like me, he’d heard it inside the building.
‘Pete Howe, sir,’ I said. ‘I think he’s broken his leg.’
‘Shit. He’s meant to be going on draft next week.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘gutting. If you need a replacement I’m available.’
It was a joke. A flippant remark. I thought no more of it.
A couple of hours after the match I got a phone call from the PT sergeant-major, who said, ‘Rob, will you come and see the “drafty”?’ – the branch officer in charge of drafting. I made my way to his office. As soon as we’d finished saluting he said, ‘Are you serious?’
‘About what?’
‘I need to know if you really think you could do this billet with the SFSG because they are going active very soon and they need a body.’
Christ.
‘Well, I’m para-trained, I’ve served in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghan, I’m a corporal …’ I basically blurted out my whole CV.
‘But are you interested?’ he said. ‘Are you up for it?’
I took a moment, and realised that, yes, yes I was.
‘More than you will know, sir.’
It all happened so fast. I was back in the staff room before I thought, Carly is going to kill me. And, indeed, she was distraught, claiming we had agreed that it was too dangerous. I couldn’t disagree with her. But the second I was offered the chance I knew I’d been lying to myself about being ‘over’ wanting to see action.
* * *
Within two weeks I was packing my stuff at Lympstone and heading off to Wales and straight onto an advanced firing course. En route I couldn’t help smiling.
Another decision I didn’t make.
Another great, great result.
* * *
After a circuitous route around various Welsh bases I was delivered to the Brecon Beacons. I met the rest of the troop as they were midway through a firing package. I walked in and, after a couple of introductions, drew a weapon and was given a load of ammunition. We spent four weeks running around the ranges up there working on all the basic skills. I didn’t learn anything new, but there was definitely more intensity (and more money). It was also more realistic.
The four weeks in the mountains took us up to Christmas and leave, which I spent at home. It was great to see Carly and the boys, obviously. Come the new year, however, I had to break it to her.
‘I’m going away now with the Special Forces. I can’t tell you where and I don’t know when I’ll be back.’
* * *
It had begun with a request from a foreign entity; specifically the government of another country. They wanted help training their troops to cope with insurgents. I suppose at some level they were willing to pay, an echo of the military-catalogue sales pitch to the Omanis all those years ago.
The mission was simple: train as many men as you can to as high a standard as you can. We were there for four months working to a four-week cycle, so that’s four groups of men who passed through the system. It was … interesting.
Without mentioning specifics, I can say, as you can discover online, that both forces went out to Afghan as part of the so-called ‘kill or capture’ of high-value targets (HVTs). Accompanying them were the SFSG. HVTs rarely sleep without a small army around them.
Above them would be aircraft plus a Spectre – the legendary Lockheed AC-130 gunship, a heavily armed version of the C-130 Hercules developed for ground attack and close air support. Nothing would be left to chance. In fact, SF prefer a deck massively stacked in their favour.
Some of the equipment the SF guys had was out of this world, almost futuristic. And it made a lot of what you were doing seem unreal. For example, each man’s weapon was equipped with a laser sight. These weren’t what killed the targets – it’s not Star Wars – but they might as well have done. Meanwhile, the aircraft overhead would be flying too high to be heard. But I imagine they could see everything from up there.
Invisible fire support from above, silencers, laser beams, infra-red goggles – it all sounds like a computer game. And I imagine that’s exactly how it felt.
I imagine that, in action, all the SF and SFSGs could hear would be the dull, click-click-click-clicking sound of rounds travelling through the air. I imagine that they saw their targets fall they would never fully feel connected to the process, even when the voice in their headphones said, ‘Target down’. They would feel almost detached from the outcome.
I imagine.
I learned more than I can reveal on duty with the SF. We were busy. Very busy. And I wanted to stay busy but mid-assignment I received my mail – even when you’re operating undercover the postman finds you. I had been selected for a promotion course. Did I want to go through with it?
Promotion courses come round once a year. Other things come round even less frequently. Carly was pregnant with our second child. If I stayed with the SFSG I’d miss the birth. I admit the temptation to stay was huge. Thanks to one mistimed tackle I was finally enjoying the ‘action’ I’d trained for. The action I’d dreamed of. But I was a family man now. I had responsibilities. A promotion would bring in more money.
I returned home early in 2010. Ollie was born in April. But that was not the only good news. As soon as I finished my training, as soon as I made sergeant, I was offered the chance to join 42 Commando, which I took. No sooner had I arrived than I heard a familiar voice.
‘Well, if it isn’t Sergeant Driscoll.’
‘Captain – I mean, Major McCulley. How are you doing, sir?’
The formalities lasted barely seconds. This was the man who had transformed my Kosovo experience and helped me to get out of 45 Commando. We were mates, it was great to see him. But that didn’t mean business didn’t come up over a cup of tea.
‘Here’s the thing, Rob. We’re pushing out to Afghanistan as part of Herrick 14. I’ve got a vacancy for group leader. It’s a fighting group. It’s front line. It’s going to get noisy. The question is: do you fancy it?’
We both knew the answer.