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If you can read a map and find your way
And trust your compass and follow where it may
If you can trust yourself when we all doubt you
And make allowance for our doubting too.

If you can walk and not be tired walking
Or being lost and late dont deal in lies
Or when slience give way to talking
Not talk too big or talk too wise.

If you can hump a bergen nor mind the weight
And care for it though it was your life
If you can fight alone and basha with a mate
And work with him yet never come to strife.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they have gone
And so hold on when there is nothing left in you
Except the will which says hold on.

If you can walk with troggs yet keep your virtue
Or walk with brass nor lose the common touch
If neither us or Peny-Y-Fan deter you
If all men count with you but none to much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds run
Yours are the wings and everything thats with it
And which is more......... Your SAS my Son.


By Mr Smith.

Thats an excellent poem, especially the last bit, i recognise the last paragraph from a book i think. A couple of lads i know have recently come off selection, and they're a hell of alot fitter than me so naturally 'selection' still has that daunting chill about it.

Lenny.

Lenny,

Suggest you look-up the poem 'IF' by Rudyard Kipling.
Sounds familiar!!!

It would seem that the last verse has in fact been overlooked.

Yet past the final moutain, should the Pilgrim not remain
With both jungle and desert treated just the same
To paddle that extra distance beyond the frozen surf
Yours is the Earth, Sea and Sky and more than that is worth

----You are now SBS my Son.

Rover

I'm sure theres a few units which have adapted the poem to their liking, i looked up 'if' by R Kipling and its good i must admit, and i've never been that big on poems but his work is excellent.

I take it your an old sweat Rover, for want of a better phrase ofcourse.

Lenny.

Lenny,

Rudyard Kipling wrote a number of poems covering many units of the British Army. Gunners ,Sappers, Infantry, all there.
If you ever get the chance a copy of his 'Definitive Edition' is worth a buy.

Nothing wrong with my after shave, Eue de Reek, £1 a gallon at the local farm shop.

Rover

Haha, roger that I'll keep a look out for the book, I'm thinking ebay or amazon.

£1 a gallon, bit dear that, i'd barter them down a bit, and get some free eggs thrown in.

Have a listen lads. the poem my boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling about his son who was a young officer with the Irish Guards. He was killed during the first world war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLPqYgem ... re=related

Yea thats another good poem, the actor reads it well, i've had a look for the definitive edition and theres so many with various dates, from the 1940's up to one thats 2009, i take it they'll all be the same but just printed in said year.