The Quiet Soldier - Adam Ballinger
Posted: Tue 09 Sep, 2003 3:26 pm
The idea of walking into a recruitment office and cheerily applying to join one of the world's most fearsome special forces regiments seems a bit like turning up at NASA and saying you want to be an astronaut please - but you don't know the first thing about flying an aircraft, let alone going to the moon in a machine that will kill you if you press the wrong button. "Don't worry" you can imagine them saying, "just come back next weekend and we'll get you in the simulator for a bit of practice. Bring your trainers." The SAS must be the only special forces outfit in the world that will take a man off the street and give him a crack at selection. I don't know if that fills me with hope or not, but it certainly makes for a very interesting read.
"Ballinger" was invited to try out for 21 SAS Regiment - one of two Territorial Army Reservist battalions of the famed SAS - by a shadowy ex-Army type who slipped him a bit of paper with a number on it and told him to give them a call. Righto. Anyway he does - or there wouldn't be a book I suppose - and after a year of hearing nothing while they check his name isn't really Paddy O'Toole, he gets his call-up to attend a physical at a barracks in London. He goes for the physical with all the other hopefuls - he's told to bring his trainers - and then the whole lot of them are taken for a run, on which about 80% (I can't remember exactly, but loads) - Walter Mittys all - promptly and obligingly bale and go back to the pub, their special forces careers over, but the stories no doubt just beginning. I have met several of these unlikely heroes leaning against pub bars, fag in one hand, pint in the other, the odd one even with a mouldy old bit of paper confirming he went for that physical. "Yeah, it was terrible. They made us run to Swindon." Okey Dokey. Taxi for one please. One particular not-so-quiet-soldier I once encountered had a little plasticated "SAS Veterans' Association" membership card in his wallet, like you do - in case you didn't believe he was a trained killer who got thrown out for being too hard. Whatever. Wish I was going with you man. That's the problem with the SAS. They are spawning a nation of killers - conversation killers.
For those who have actually laid off the sausages for a bit and are committed enough to have a serious go, the rules are simple: they will throw you out ("bin" you) just because they don't like you; they will bin you if you get an injury or illness which precludes you from continuing with the selection/training (although they will let you come back and try again if they like the cut of your gib); and if you miss a single weekend of training (you must attend every single weekend for like a couple of years)...you guessed it. Seeya.
It's a good, well ordered book (though with bizarre flash-backy gap-year-in-India bits thrown in - dunno what that was about) and the author writes in an un-fussy style which lets the drama of the story come through. Some of the other reviewers have commented approvingly on the usefulness of the book as a primer for prospective selection candidates. I couldn't possibly comment on that myself, being a louche lounge lizard, albeit an evil genius, but I can report that it is a jolly good read, and tells the story of man who has undergone a gruelling and quite unique ordeal.
"Ballinger" was invited to try out for 21 SAS Regiment - one of two Territorial Army Reservist battalions of the famed SAS - by a shadowy ex-Army type who slipped him a bit of paper with a number on it and told him to give them a call. Righto. Anyway he does - or there wouldn't be a book I suppose - and after a year of hearing nothing while they check his name isn't really Paddy O'Toole, he gets his call-up to attend a physical at a barracks in London. He goes for the physical with all the other hopefuls - he's told to bring his trainers - and then the whole lot of them are taken for a run, on which about 80% (I can't remember exactly, but loads) - Walter Mittys all - promptly and obligingly bale and go back to the pub, their special forces careers over, but the stories no doubt just beginning. I have met several of these unlikely heroes leaning against pub bars, fag in one hand, pint in the other, the odd one even with a mouldy old bit of paper confirming he went for that physical. "Yeah, it was terrible. They made us run to Swindon." Okey Dokey. Taxi for one please. One particular not-so-quiet-soldier I once encountered had a little plasticated "SAS Veterans' Association" membership card in his wallet, like you do - in case you didn't believe he was a trained killer who got thrown out for being too hard. Whatever. Wish I was going with you man. That's the problem with the SAS. They are spawning a nation of killers - conversation killers.
For those who have actually laid off the sausages for a bit and are committed enough to have a serious go, the rules are simple: they will throw you out ("bin" you) just because they don't like you; they will bin you if you get an injury or illness which precludes you from continuing with the selection/training (although they will let you come back and try again if they like the cut of your gib); and if you miss a single weekend of training (you must attend every single weekend for like a couple of years)...you guessed it. Seeya.
It's a good, well ordered book (though with bizarre flash-backy gap-year-in-India bits thrown in - dunno what that was about) and the author writes in an un-fussy style which lets the drama of the story come through. Some of the other reviewers have commented approvingly on the usefulness of the book as a primer for prospective selection candidates. I couldn't possibly comment on that myself, being a louche lounge lizard, albeit an evil genius, but I can report that it is a jolly good read, and tells the story of man who has undergone a gruelling and quite unique ordeal.