Blog Posts – Page 3 – James E Mack

Red Poppy…White Poppy…

On November 7, 2017

At this time of year our country comes together to support the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal campaign. No change there. This year however, there was a very public challenge from another group championing the sale and purchasing of white poppies.

I’m not going to give a detailed history of the story of the Poppy Appeal, anyone interested can access this information from a quick type of the subject into a search engine of your own choice. To summarise though, the idea of the Poppy appeal was born in the bloodbath of Flanders’ Fields in the First World War and the subsequent poem by Lt Col John McRae. In 1921 the RBL organised the purchase of 9 million silk poppies and sold them to raise money for returning WW1 veterans struggling with employment and housing issues. Subsequently a poppy factory was set up and employed disabled and disfigured ex-servicemen.

At no point was the message behind the campaign one of celebration or even commemoration of war. It was an altruistic initiative aimed at alleviating the suffering of men who had suffered the very torments of hell already.

What we have this year is almost a protest campaign by the white poppy supporters of the Peace Pledge Union. The white poppy too, has a long history, having begun to be promoted in 1926 for people to show their support to the ending of wars. They claim that their campaign is to support all the victims of all the wars. They believe that they stand as a group to promote the ending of warfare however it is the former element that brings them a lot of negative publicity.

During an uncomfortable chat show interview, Symon Hill of the Peace Pledge Union was put on the spot when he had to declare with a direct answer whether his organisation’s stance recognised members and supporters of ISIS. Citing the party line that his organisation could not pick and choose which victims of which wars, I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t prepared for the vehemence of the public response to his comments. Which surely is only to be expected when you are saying that you recognise people whose sole reason for existence is to kill anyone who disagrees with their philosophies and refuses to convert to their ideology.

I don’t have an issue with the Peace Pledge Union’s ethos of a war-free world and remembering victims of warfare. My issue lies with the poisonous narrative that is being spread about the origins and values of the Red Poppy campaign. I have watched as many people have swallowed the rhetoric spouted against the RBL’s ongoing efforts: That the Red Poppy is a celebration of war, that it is a commemoration of bloodshed, that it is a symbol of racism to wear one.

This is what makes the blood boil. Utterly untrue smears trotted out as facts by those perpetuating these myths. The PPU was also lambasted when it was discovered that they had exhibited at the National Union of Teachers’ conference to promote their campaign in an effort to being granted access to schools. It worked: The PPU signed up over 100 teachers to their initiative and this enabled them to have their £60 school education packs put into state schools throughout the UK.

Col Richard Kemp took umbrage with this initiative, highlighting the fact that taxpayers’ money should not be spent on indoctrinating children with a left-wing political agenda. The PPU counter that the Armed Forces are allowed to enter schools and talk to those of school-leaving age about life in the military and that therefore, the PPU should be allowed to counter this initiative by educating the same children with an alternative narrative. Even their language betrays the scorn and outdated, left-wing views that they hold about the Armed Forces.

The Armed Forces are part of the state’s infrastructure for the defence and security of the realm. They are essential to this and it is important that both recruitment and retention continue to be developed. Contrary to the PPU’s assertion, the Armed Forces offers some outstanding career paths for those who perhaps would be limited in their choices in a conventional environment. I certainly count myself as being included in this bracket.

I remember a conversation a couple of years back with a supporter of the PPU making the point that the Red Poppy and Remembrance Day in general was nothing short of a glamorisation of war and they had made the decision to support neither. When I pointed out the origins of the Red Poppy and the reasons behind it, I was accused of being unable to be objective, having come from a background in the Armed Forces. When I pointed out that actually, my first-hand experience in war zones had made me far more empathetic to the civilian victims than a casual observer of television reports, I was rounded upon and accused of being part of the war machine that caused the deaths in the first place.

Yes, part of the ‘war machine’: An evil conglomerate that deploys on a whim to murder, destroy and pillage small, defenceless nations cowering in fear. But what hit me more than anything else was this person’s absolute hatred for the Armed Forces and what they represented, and their apparent preference for a socialist/communist state that would address the situation. So I pointed out their lack of objectivity and congratulated them on their stubbornness for holding on to a discredited ideology that suppressed and massacred its own people as a means of controlling the masses.

The argument soon turned bitter to the point where my education was brought into question as some kind of justification as to why this person’s university-level education should add more weight to the discussion than my own. Despite the fact that their degree was in English Lit which, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t hold a significant element of geopolitics or social science modules…

I rarely lose my temper during debates or discussions with people like this, having learned many years ago that you can’t reason with morons. However on this occasion I was angry. This person was nothing less than ignorant, insulting, obnoxious, and unwilling to listen to any other viewpoint than that of their own. The irony being that these were all attributes that they levelled at members of the Armed Forces during our discussion.

So the angry me came out. But the good anger: That cold, controlled anger where you dominate the situation by projecting it through your demeanour, expressions, tone of voice, gestures. I delivered a monologue, punctuated by finger pointing and the ‘pusser’s hand’, on everything that the Red Poppy campaign stands for and destroyed every one of the individual’s misguided and misinformed opinions that they’d spouted as facts. I pulled their assertions apart and provided examples to highlight the erroneous beliefs. I could see the change in our dynamic with the person holding up their hands and nodding, leaning backwards, obviously feeling intimidated at my assertive stance.

When I had finished I asked them why they’d felt it acceptable to rant and rave at me with their insults and diatribe and how uncomfortable they’d felt when the behaviour was mirrored back at them. There was a lot of waffle at this point regarding their strongly-held beliefs and passions overriding manners and courtesy but I don’t believe this is the case.

I believe the problem is that their narrative, for the greater part, goes unchallenged or, at best, is given the minimum of rebuttal due in no small part to the vehemence with which they deliver their utter tripe. People being people, most probably walk away with a roll of the eyes or a slight shake of the head, ceding their corner in preference for the quiet life. Unfortunately this is interpreted as another victory and the moral high ground claimed with the flag of the misguided and misinformed, lending strength to their causes and campaigns.

So we should always challenge it. As I said at the start of this piece, I have no issue with the PPU’s aspiration for an end to all wars. I do take issue with their attempts to portray the Red Poppy campaign and Remembrance Sunday as things that they are not. I take issue with state schools spending taxpayers’ money on the white poppy educational packs. I take issue with the PPU’s loathing of the Armed Forces and its efforts to undermine recruitment among school-leavers.

But mostly I take issue with the fact that the PPU goes mostly unchallenged. The money raised by the sale of their poppies goes right back into their own coffers, not to any charitable cause or to aid civilian casualties. The RBL continues to this day to provide aid and assistance, through the revenue raised from the sale of the Red Poppies, to service men and women who desperately need their help. The irony is that it is this that is challenged by the PPU and its supporters and not the fact that funds raised by the PPU benefit no-one but their own organisation. And it is this that should be challenged, particularly at this time of year when we gather to remember the sacrifice that a nation made that allows the PPU and others of their ilk, the freedom of speech to deliver their misguided message.

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A real problem to come…

By James

On October 24, 2017

In Terrorism and Counter Terrorism, Topical

In a very rare example of a politician raising their head above the parapet of conformity and non-confrontational policy statements, Rory Stewart, an MP, has called for returning ISIS members and supporters to be killed as traitors as a result of the threat that they pose to the United Kingdom’s national security. Mr Stewart, as well as being an MP for a seat in Cumbria, is also an International Development Minister for the FCO and DfID, and a former diplomat.

Such a bold, hard-line statement from any individual holding office is rare, particularly in the era of the career politician, whose mantra seems to be ‘if we do nothing, then we can do nothing wrong.’ But Mr Stewart is not a conventional politician by any measure. No stranger to the Middle East or the conflicts there, he also walked across Afghanistan in 2002, a remarkable feat captured in his book The Places in Between. What I enjoyed about the book was the fact that Mr Stewart did not fall for or espouse the usual guff about welcoming villagers giving him their last slivers of bread as befitted their customary obligations. Because he could speak the language (and because the majority assumption was that he couldn’t) Mr Stewart could hear first-hand the real conversations behind the duplicitous welcoming grins and invites. He did encounter some genuine hosts along the way, but I really respected his decision to balance his account with the reality on the ground so to speak.

Rory was also the youngest ever Chair of the Defence Select Committee and a Senior Coalition Official in Iraq in 2003 – 2004. It would be very easy for the liberal media to stamp on Mr Stewart’s comments as right-wing, hard-line and anti-islamic, as they tend to do. But it is a little difficult to do that with Mr Stewart as he is also the executive chairman of The Turquoise Mountain Foundation; a NGO charity aimed at reviving traditional arts and crafts and urban regeneration in Afghanistan. So; no muslim hater.

His comments regarding killing returning ISIS members and supporters stand out because of their complete transparency. There is no hidden message here. No softening up pre-statement for advisers to analyse the public response before moving forward. No. This was a clear statement with the justification included just in case there was any confusion.

Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy to Counter ISIS has made no bones about his aspiration and intention to kill all foreign ISIS fighters on the battlefield. This negates the requirement for messy legal quagmires and political hand-wringing over what stance to take on returning ISIS members. This solution would be the optimum one for all governments facing this quandary; ending the problem on the battlefield in the theatre of conflict. But not all will die there. In the UK, many have returned already, causing a nightmare scenario for our security and intelligence services.

With over 850 British citizens having fled to ISIS-controlled territories, around 150 having been killed and approximately 400 returning to the UK in the past 18 months (as of July 2017), it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to see that we have a significant problem. The Director General of MI5, Andrew Parker stated recently that MI5 is now foiling one major terrorist plot a month. The key word in this phrase is major; likely to result in significant loss of lives. This does not even take into account the hundreds of other plots in their infancy or struggling to get off the ground.

Add to this mix those returning ISIS personnel, dejected and defeated, the dream of the caliphate a hazy memory. Do we really believe that these individuals are going to reintegrate into normal society? Sit back on their sofas in Luton with a digestive and a cup of tea to watch Eastenders? Slot back into the Friday night treat of a KFC while watching TV in Kenilworth? Look back on their days in black as nothing more than a misguided gap year never to be repeated?

Max Hill QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism, would appear to be of the opinion that yes, many of those returning from Iraq and Syria should be allowed to settle back into normal life. Should be given ‘space’ to readjust rather than being prosecuted. That they were ‘naive teenagers’ embarking upon a great adventure. Mr Hill’s comments are directly opposed to Rory Stewart’s and highlight the growing gulf in how our political masters will address the situation.

So, should we treat returning ISIS members and supporters as traitors, affording them the full measure of the state’s wrath? Or should we view them more in line with Mr Hill’s assessment?

I for one wholeheartedly subscribe to treating these returning dregs of humanity as traitors and I have several reasons for this:

We are at war with ISIS. Officially. They represent a real threat to the safety of the United Kingdom and its people either through direct action or their support and sponsorship of terrorist attacks here. Any support, involvement, or assistance to ISIS aids them in their effort to kill UK citizens.
This is not Germany during World War 2 where many citizens were co-opted to join and support the Nazi party because to do otherwise risked alienation, arrest and incarceration. Just getting to ISIS-controlled territories took real effort; months of preparation and planning, of covering one’s activities from friends and family, financing the journey. Then travelling through different countries and networks of people smugglers and facilitators just to get there. At any stage during this strained process, the individual could have stopped and returned home before crossing the rubicon. Indeed, this would have been easier to do. The fact that they chose not to demonstrated their commitment to the ISIS cause.
ISIS relies completely on recruitment to swell its ranks and boost its physical presence. While our news footage is filled with scenes of the black-clad, AK47-toting fighters, like any other war machine these fighters are supported by a cast of thousands of less glamorous but essential roles. Medical and First Aid helpers, IT experts, Cooks, Mechanics, Propaganda Writers, Shopkeepers, Communications, Tradesmen to look after and repair housing, Accountants, Couriers, Factory Workers etc, etc, etc. The list is almost endless but the point is that the murdering and killing could not have taken place without the infrastructure around it that kept ISIS functioning. So, no matter that those returning from Syria or Iraq claim that they were never fighters, to me their role was just as significant. An analogy would be sending British soldiers into Afghanistan with only their rifles and bullets and no other support whatsoever. Their war would be a very short one.

And lastly, because this is what they chose to support. This is just one example of the mindset and psychology of the people who flock to join ISIS regardless of how big or small their perceived role is. The burning alive of a Jordanian pilot, filmed and disseminated across the internet for the world to see. And it’s worth remembering that many of those who did see it nodded with satisfaction and agreed with the vile action. ISIS exploit the value of social media much better than many of its predecessors, provoking terror and outrage while aiding recruitment. And it is the fact that actions such as this encouraged British citizens to flock to the caliphate that should warn us against treating them as anything less than the fighters themselves. If you support the burning alive of a man in a cage or the throwing of suspected homosexuals from the roofs of buildings, your values are not those of the United Kingdom.

And this is why I believe that these returning creatures have to be labelled, processed and tried as traitors. They are not returning because they realised the error of their ways, came to their senses and said ‘ ..mmm…these guys are mental, this is not for me.’ Maybe for the odd individual that could be the case but not for the majority. They are returning because the dream is over. The caliphate is gone and the black flack burned with its ashes scattered in the wind. These people are not returning to the UK to assimilate back into society and in any case, should not be allowed to do so. No matter how hard they try to assure the authorities otherwise, in some part of their psyche there lingers the motivation that prompted them to make the considerable effort to follow the black flag and cheer as men burned in cages.

And it is nearly impossible to redirect this motivation. But it is very easy to reignite it, blow on the hot embers until the flames are seen once again, rousing dormancy to a state of action. This cannot be allowed to happen. Rory Stewart completely understands this, probably as a result of his significant exposure to conflict zones and their associated issues. Max Hill does not.

Our government is charged with the duty of care of our nation and its citizens. When the head of MI5 is telling us that we have a real problem keeping a lid on terrorist attacks, what we cannot have is a returning population of individuals who hate our country, our people and our way of life. And who can slip back unnoticed into our general population where they can be the most effective to ISIS-sponsored plots and attacks.

Yes, it is a very hard decision for a government to publicly pronounce, particularly in this risk-averse climate the majority of our politicians seem to thrive upon. But it is a decision that cannot be shirked or prevaricated over. Send the clear message; a traitor to our country will be treated in accordance with the full wrath of the state. To do otherwise is a betrayal of the trust of the people who voted you into office and charged you with the duty of keeping us safe. More importantly, it is a betrayal to the families who have lost loved ones to the vile actions of these reprehensible criminals and their supporters.

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The Value of Black Humour…

By James

On October 13, 2017

In Uncategorized

While not entirely unique to the military, black humour is probably seen by commanders at every level as the key factor in assessing morale in trying conditions. A very true expression I came across time and time again in the military was ‘…don’t worry when your soldiers are complaining; it’s when they stop that you know there’s a real problem.’ And I found that to be very true; that no matter how bleak or tough the situation, the jokes and the banter kept coming. It was when this stopped that I knew we had something to worry about.

We use idioms and sayings such as ‘If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’ that encapsulate the meaning of humour supporting triumph over adversity. I’m pretty sure every former and serving member of the Armed Forces has countless examples of these that they chuckle over whenever they recall them to memory. But they serve a very useful function whereby anyone who is feeling overwhelmed or scared shitless during a situation is brought out of their private hell by a shocking but hilarious statement. This pulls the individual back into the support of the group and takes their mind away from the deep, dark abyss it has just been peering over.

It also provides individuals with a relief outlet during times of extreme stress. An example of this I witnessed was when I had just rotated back to my unit after a stint in a very kinetic area of Iraq. We were on the ranges one day when the word came down that we had lost two members of our unit in an ambush. I didn’t know either individual other than on a casual basis but many others were shocked and devastated by the loss of close comrades. Saddled upon this sadness was the news that the roles of the recently deceased would have to be replaced.

Pretty much anyone who could have deployed had already done so, to the point where individuals were getting fatigued. But it’s the military and the show stops for no-one. Eventually when no volunteers came forward, a pressed man was found. He wasn’t happy about going back there so soon but accepted his lot with a healthy amount of cursing and complaining. But we knew this guy well and knew that he’d also had a close call on one of his last rotations. So…we are firing away on the range, enjoying the day and the rarity of the occasion when we could all meet up.

A colleague of mine mentioned how strained ‘Trev’ looked and I’d noticed the same thing myself. And we both knew he was processing his forthcoming deployment with anything but joy. Just then a military photographer arrived and said he’d been told to get a few pictures of us for the Unit’s historical archives. As we jostled for positions with the usual banter, ‘Trev’ remained off to one side, indicating that he wasn’t arsed about being in some crap photo for the CO’s study. There was a moment of quiet as everyone sympathised with what he was going through until my colleague stepped out of line and said ‘Oh come on Trev; this might be the last photo you’re ever in with both of your legs mate!’

The laughter was immediate, everyone creased up and even ‘Trev’ gave his first grin of the day and wandered over to join us. The comments were flying thick and fast with requests for his Breitling watch if he lost an arm and his Ducati motorbike if he didn’t make it back at all. He was laughing himself now and demonstrating his contempt for our lack of respect with his two upturned middle fingers. We turned our attention back to the photographer who was setting up his cameras and shaking his head. ‘There’s something seriously wrong with you lot.’ was all he said.

But he was wrong. If we’d all been of a mind to tiptoe around ‘Trev’s issue, or sympathised with well-meaning platitudes; the ‘You be careful over there’, ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through’, ‘You must be so disappointed’ etc, etc, etc…it would have made matters worse. As it was, he left the ranges a different man from the morose scowler who’d started the day. Only problem was when he went back and was relaying the tale to his girlfriend that night, she didn’t quite see the funny side. Oh, and he returned to us six months later. With all his parts complete.

Even during the most extreme circumstances, black humour can act as a coping mechanism that enables individuals to get through the short term period of trauma or shock and allow them to carry on with the task at hand and deal with the emotions later when in a safer environment.

An officer that I knew visited the rehabilitation unit at Headley Court and had steeled himself for the sight of amputees and disfigured soldiers. He’d anticipated a morose, maudlin hospice where the feelings and sensitivities of the patients would require great care in order to avoid offence. To his relief and surprise, nothing could have been farther from the truth. What he encountered was an environment of tough-willed individuals who refused to be defined by their injuries and relentlessly mocked each other’s ailments and injuries.

He witnessed many occasions where, during the sports sessions, double amputees would mock those who had lost ‘only’ one leg, referring to them as ‘plastic’ or false claimants, showing off with their big, fat, white leg. On one occasion he was stood speaking to a wheelchair-bound veteran when another individual in a wheelchair negotiated past them. Without a word, this individual reached out and upended the veteran my friend was talking to, tipping him right out of his wheelchair and onto the floor. My friend was stunned as the perpetrator sped off down the corridor hooting with laughter. The guy on the ground looked up with a huge grin, shaking his head. ‘Bastard! He’s owed me that for ages since I loosened the wheels on his chair a couple of weeks ago!’

There was another interesting aside to the Headley Court example around a few months after this story. The comedian Jimmy Carr made a joke that went something like:

‘Isn’t it awful, all those poor soldiers coming back from Afghanistan. Wounded, maimed, losing their arms and legs. Absolutely terrible…but on the plus side, Great Britain is going have a good chance of winning the Paralympics next year!’

I found this funny. My friends found it funny. Some of the tabloids however went after Jimmy Carr with a vengeance and he was forced to make a public apology and retract his comment. A letter written by a group of injure veterans was put together and sent to the tabloids telling them not to try and speak for them when they were perfectly capable of voicing their own opinions. And that they had found Jimmy Carr’s joke hilarious.

Like many of us, I have retained my love of black humour but have also learned to be careful where and when I indulge in it. The world is littered with masses of individuals just waiting to take offence at the merest hint of an improper remark. A very good friend of mine relayed the story of a BBQ with his new colleagues from his office job shortly after leaving the forces.

They’d began telling funny stories and anecdotes and my friend joined in, throwing his hat in to the ring with a tale that involved a shooting, a brothel, the theft of a prosthetic leg, and a baboon. A classic saga of soldiers abroad getting into a ridiculous situation and living to tell the tale. It was his wife’s hissing of his name that alerted him to the fact that all was not well. It was one of his favourite stories from his time in the military and he’d gotten so caught up in the telling of it he’d failed to register the silence and shocked faces of his new co-workers. The awkward silence that followed underlined how unimpressed his colleagues were with the dark, funny story. But he remembered the laughs he’d got relaying the same tale in his previous life and thought he would receive the same reception from his new co-workers. Sadly, this was not the case.

Paramedics, Fire and Police Service personnel also share a healthy black humour that again, acts as a coping mechanism for dealing with the grim nature of some of their roles. And while it can be frowned upon by officious jobsworths with little else to occupy their time, I for one will never lose my regard for the value that it serves.

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An Unbeaten Path; how one man overcame his PTSD

By James

On October 2, 2017

In Military Matters, Topical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gslEeV2DATU

Andy Shaw was known to many of us throughout his time in the Royal Marines. A respected war veteran and popular officer throughout his military career. I’m pretty sure however, very few of us had any idea of the horror he experienced or the associated guilt and trauma he carried inside for years to come.

This is a beautifully constructed documentary about a remarkable man and the horror he experienced that affected him for over 30 years. More importantly it is the story of how he overcame this affliction and channeled his experiences to help others suffering from PTSD.

It is the first work I have seen of Geraint Hill’s and it is impressive. The subject matter is handled with sensitivity, compassion and unflinching honesty that makes this a moving and relevant piece.

This is a story of an individual who not only addressed his own demons but invested his life in helping others going through the same experience. Utterly inspirational.

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Once were Warriors..

By James

On September 15, 2017

In Military Matters, Topical

United by uniform, bound by oaths of attestation, moulded by shared experiences, the military is the very definition of a tribe. A warrior tribe of men and women connected by common values and ethos. A patchwork populace of smaller groups united by the same procedures and processes that provide commonality. We call them Unit or Regimental traditions because ‘rituals’ sounds too primitive and pagan. We call them deployments because ‘rites of passage’ is more akin to young African males entering manhood, having proved their worth. We award medals to mark the warrior’s achievement because celebrating this accomplishment with scar tissue on the face would not please the RSM.

We speak our own language; largely English but littered with acronyms and slang incomprehensible to anyone outside our circle. This bonds us further, separating us from those who don’t talk our talk. And we like this, take a perverse pride in our collective identity. If you ever witness a reunion of old military colleagues it is almost instant that drinks become ‘wets’ or ‘brews’, the kitchen becomes the ‘galley’ or the ‘cookhouse’ and the rate of profanity multiplies at an eye-watering rate. They are back with their tribe, back among the only people they feel truly understand them.

This relationship is cemented completely by the bond of experiencing war. When young, and perhaps not-so young people experience and survive war, they become even closer to one another, becoming a tribe within a tribe. They relate more to each other than anyone else in the belief that only they can fully understand what they have gone through. Trying to share this with someone outside of their circle is futile and often seems to belittle the intensity of the experience.

This situation becomes worse when the conflict is an unpopular one. The well-documented situation of returning soldiers from Vietnam to the USA is a good example of this. Tours of duty over, the returning veterans were targeted by those protesting the war and the government’s foreign policy. Stunned by the staggering level of antipathy they experienced, most veterans retreated within themselves, unwilling and unable to discuss their experiences with anyone else but another vet. It took many years for the general public to differentiate between a government’s misguided foreign intervention and the poor conscripts that were sent to fight it. Hence the glut of books and movies relating to Vietnam only being released a long time after the conflict. Vietnam veterans in the USA probably retain a stronger bond with each other than most post-conflict veterans due to their poor treatment, forcing them to fall back on the bonds formed in the jungles and paddy fields of South East Asia to fill the void they found on their return.

The military, by necessity, takes individuals and moulds them into tribes, relinquishing the self and thinking only of the group. Because that is the only way you can take people to war and expect them to fight and survive. Contrary to public perception, very few soldiers would cite Queen and Country as their motivation for facing down bursts of AK 47 fire in dusty foreign compounds. They fight to protect the man or woman either side of them, to take the position without losing one of their own. In this the military is uniquely successful in its ability to achieve this mix of duty, honour, and commitment from an individual pulling in sometimes less than the minimum wage.

But what happens when service personnel leave all this behind and enter an entirely new world where there is no real chain of command? No orders, merely company directives? Where swearing in the staff room can lead to a dignity at work infringement? When their request for a coffee ‘Julie Andrews’ is met with a blank look? Some won’t experience this, assimilating almost immediately to their new circumstances. Some will adapt, in time, learning through guided discovery. Others however, can’t or won’t adapt.

I’ve lost count of the amount of ex-servicemen and women I have met who refer to their work colleagues as ‘civvies’, despite having been ‘civvies’ themselves for many years. When they discuss their jobs there is the inevitable lambasting of the evil triumvirate of Health and Safety, HR, and Political Correctness and that these institutions weaken rather than strengthen the workplace environment. Nostalgia for their time back in the mob when things seemed simpler and easier to understand is all too common. A time when an infringement was addressed immediately by a SNCO having a quiet word or a blatantly open threat of public disembowelment from the RSM. No paperwork or escalation process, no HR hand-wringing or procedural quagmires. A different time.

So why do some of us find it harder than others to integrate back into regular society after a long spell in the military? It’s simple; we have left our tribe, our brothers and sisters, a way of life alien to many but the only one many of us have known. It’s particularly hard for those who joined the Forces at the age of 16 and have literally known nothing other than the military for their entire adult life. A friend of mine is a prime example of this. He joined the Royal Marines as a ‘boy soldier’ or junior, worked hard, got promoted, became a sniper and enjoyed a good career. What was apparent to me however was that during social occasions we could only ever really talk about military subjects as he had no real experiences outside of this. When wives and girlfriends would discuss their work or relay an anecdote or two, his eyes would glaze over and he would have nothing to say until he turned the conversation back to the merits of Crusader Bergans over PLCE…

Another friend of mine summed it up with his own experience. He left the Marines after completing around 6 years of service. When he was attending job interviews he would conduct a discreet assessment of those around him and, by his own admission, sit back smugly secure in the knowledge that he was more than a cut above most of the scruffy applicants, dressed as he was in smart suit and gleaming, polished shoes. After many rejections however, it dawned on him that if he wasn’t getting these jobs then they must have been given to the scarecrows he had been so quick to deride. He told me that the penny eventually dropped that nobody really gave a shit that he’d been in the Corps for a few years or that he could iron a shirt and polish his shoes.

He was treated exactly the same as the scruffs he had looked down his nose at. And it was this aspect that confused him the most. He was accustomed, as most of us were, that when people asked you what you did and you replied ‘I’m in the Forces.’, they would proffer their respect and admiration. When he left, he anticipated this same admiration to stand him in good stead but found it cut little ice with employers looking for someone with recent experience. Dejected and alienated, he missed his tribe more than ever and became quite embittered as a result of his experiences.

Because in the private sector, there really isn’t a tribe, at least not in the way that we have become accustomed. Alpha bankers and stock traders may beat their chests and dispute this, but a collection of hyper-masculine individuals do not constitute a tribe. At most they are a subculture.

So when we walk out of the camp or barracks for the last time we are also walking away from our tribe. And when we lose our tribe we become lost, cast adrift in an entirely new world that we struggle to make sense of. At least for a while. And that time frame is different for everyone.

Company employees are not conditioned or programmed to put the group before self, do not endure physical suffering that creates bonds or recognise a sacrosanct chain of command. Because they don’t need to; they will never encounter a situation where the life of the man or woman next to them depends on their actions. They will never be asked to remain awake, hungry, thirsty, physically and mentally exhausted, for days at a time. Never have to say goodbye to their wives and children in the hope that they return alive or at least in one piece.

Because that’s what members of the Armed Forces are paid for. To fulfil these duties on behalf of the public and negate the requirement for conscription or compulsory National Service.

When former service personnel join their new job in the private sector, depending on the individual, the transition period can be quite a significant one. And the main reason for this is, for the most part, lack of commonality. The adjustment of leaving a structured tribe and moving into something altogether more amorphous.

In some cases however, the attributes and values we bring from our tribe stand us in good stead in our second careers. Again, it is not uncommon for an ex-Forces individual to shine in a job through their confidence, communication, and willingness to push themselves. One of my former colleagues found himself doing very well at his new civilian job and was gaining rapid promotion. He found that one of the things that he brought from his military background was that of keeping going until the task was complete. Many of his co-workers were happy to down tools the minute the working day was done, regardless of what stage of development the project was at. My friend reverted to old habits and worked until happy that he had completed the elements of the task to either deadlines or time-frames rather than clock-watching. This attitude was picked up by senior management who rewarded his endeavours with quick promotion and additional benefits, to the chagrin of some of his colleagues who felt their time in position should have qualified them for the promotion. As my friend stated quite succinctly, ‘Longevity of position is not a benchmark of quality.’ Quite right; anyone can spend 8 hours a day sitting in an office. It’s what you do with those 8 hours that makes the difference.

I see regular posts on various forums from former service personnel unhappy with their lives after the Forces and in particular, how they feel let down by the military after they have left. One such post I see now and again on social media says ‘I was prepared to fight for my country, I was prepared to die for my country, I was NOT prepared to be abandoned’. I was curious about this post for several reasons, the main one being that it was liked and shared by a lot of people. Now, I could understand the odd individual who has had a raw deal based upon personal circumstances, but whole groups?

So I contacted a few of these people, asked about their experiences and was quite surprised by their reasoning. Taking the few individuals with very personal circumstances out of the equation, the remainder seemed to feel that the military had failed them all in dereliction of after-care. Their military experience ranged from 2 years to 10, some had deployed, some had not, some were front-line soldiers, some were not. But all felt that their struggle to assimilate was the direct fault of the military in not preparing them for life after the mob. As some of them had left the Forces as far back as the seventies I thought it possible that perhaps the blame lay in the inadequate resettlement processes of that era. However, many of the individuals I contacted had left far more recently and had the opportunity to engage with the resettlement packages available so this couldn’t be the ‘one size fits all’ answer.

Truth is…I didn’t find an answer. I found bitterness, blame and utter belief that the military ‘should have done something’. But what? What could the military have done to assist these individuals in integrating into civilian life? As I said, I can understand this back when once your time was done you walked out the door on a rainy Friday afternoon after handing your leaving routine in and that was it. Military to Mr or Mrs at the dropping of the barrier behind you.

But regarding the individual who had only completed 2 years of service, never deployed and (I suspect from our conversations) left under a bit of a cloud; were they entitled to some long-term commitment from the Army to ensure their well-being? My feeling was that this individual couldn’t give me a definitive answer to what the Army should have done for him…realistically. His suggestions seemed to indicate that he wanted some kind of extended, formal links with his old life. He felt that the Royal British Legion, Regimental Associations etc just didn’t cut it for him. To be honest, I was at a bit of a loss with what to suggest and struggled to identify with his cause. But I believe that on leaving the Army, he’d struggled to fit in with his new circumstances despite his relatively short service period. His language remains littered with military jargon and slang, linking him back to the tribe he left many years before.

It is incredible the strength of the bonds that unite military personnel, even, as in the case of the individual above, when they have completed a relatively small amount of service. Once forged, never forgotten as the expression goes. I doubt there’s a former member of the Armed Forces, regardless of how long they have been civilians, who can’t rattle off the service number they last used decades before.

I’ve always thought that if a company or business could replicate the military’s success in gaining and retaining the loyalty and esprit de corps of its tribes, they would be sitting on a gold mine. Unfortunately, corporate culture and working compliances do not open themselves to the same practices that the military exploit to build the tribal framework. The closest I think I have witnessed was the early years of Virgin, when Richard Branson’s personality-driven work culture accrued very real loyalty from his workforce. Branson, through his well-documented focus on looking after his staff, came closest to building what I believe defines a tribe. Branson’s employees loved working for the brand, were proud to wear the Virgin uniform and represent their CEO to the general public. As I said, this was the early days and Virgin today is another multi-national, corporate giant with a typical workforce representative of such.

And I think this is because the bigger an organisation becomes, the more difficult it is to maintain the links that created the tribal culture in the first place. Yes, the military is a large organisation, but it is essentially a nation of smaller tribes bonded and linked by common purpose and sense of duty.

Our tribes define who we are and how we conduct ourselves, and the longer we remain with a tribe the stronger the bonds. The intense experiences we endure throughout our military service further cements those bonds, extending them long after the day we walk away from our tribe to face a future of assimilating into an altogether different animal. An animal that has none of the intensity of experience or common platforms from which to relate.

We once were warriors, a tribe in the truest sense of the word where, for however long we served, the self was put aside for the good of the many. A concept that became hard to find once we’d returned our ID cards and walked out of the main gate of camp to whatever fate awaited us.

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Women on the Front Line…

By James

On September 6, 2017

In Military Matters

While it never really leaves the media, there is another surge of interest currently doing the rounds regarding females joining front-line military units and engaging in combat operations alongside their male counterparts as equals. US Ranger training is the latest unit to hit the headlines across the pond while here in the UK, the RAF Regiment has announced that it is opening its ranks to accept female candidates.

Interestingly enough, the Royal Marines went through a very high profile experience some years ago when the first female soldier successfully completed the All Arms Commando Course. Now, despite media assertions to the contrary, this course was already open to both sexes but due to the arduous nature of the physical demands, had never really been inundated with female applicants.

Naturally, when it became public that several women were attempting the course, the media went into hyper-drive. The female candidates were immediately labelled as ‘G I Janes’ after the abysmal Demi Moore movie of the same name, and as much information on them dug up to bolster the tabloid stories.

Again, despite the reports that these women would be the first Marine Commandos to earn the Green Beret, this was completely untrue. The women were attempting the All Arms Commando Course, a six to eight week evolution aimed at qualifying serving personnel from the other branches of the Armed Forces with the Commando qualification, allowing them to serve in a supporting role with 3 Commando Brigade. The Royal Marines Commando Course is 32 weeks long and a completely different beast.

Most people will remember Capt Pip Tattersall as the woman who passed the Commando Course. Capt Tattersall was the first female to pass the course in 2002 and immediately became a media sensation. Her achievement was congratulated by MPs in an early day motion in the House of Commons, she was mentioned on No. 10 Downing Street’s official website and named Woman of the Year by Good Housekeeping Magazine. Very high profile but as the first female Commando, probably to be expected.

Unsurprisingly, there was a corresponding backlash from several corners regarding this. Some found it suspicious that someone who could never cross the first main obstacle of the Assault Course, the 6-foot wall, miraculously achieved it on her final attempt when onlookers were dispersed to avoid placing undue pressure upon her. Others looked upon it as the opening of the floodgates where the standards for passing the Tests would be lowered, similar to the Army Fitness Tests where women have different criteria to the men for the same tests.

Personally, I don’t know. I wasn’t there and didn’t witness Capt Tattersall’s attempts. Among myself and my peers when we heard that women were starting to attempt the All Arms’ Course, we weren’t particularly interested either way. Our prevailing opinion being that if they passed it under their own merit then it was a job well done. I don’t care who you are, the Commando Tests are tough, unchanged from the days when they were evolved to prepare soldiers to deploy on specialist warfare missions during the war. Anyone who passes them gets my respect.

And that is the key point for me and most of my contemporaries. That the standards remain unchanged. Undiluted. Valid. I remember talking to a Warrant Officer at the time who informed me that there were some very high-level discussions taking place regarding identifying alternative standards to facilitate females viewing the course as achievable. The Royal Marines of course defended the standards as a hallowed benchmark, never to be tinkered with in the pursuit of a well-intentioned social experiment.

The Royal Marines could never hope to win such an argument at MoD level. Reforms and alterations that improve and promote inclusion and equality take precedence over almost anything a Royal Marines’ General may go in to bat with.

But here’s the interesting thing; Regardless of the conflicting opinions on a woman passing the All Arms’ course, something fundamentally important came out of the situation. After Capt Tattersall, the Royal Marines would never have to adjust the Commando Tests to encourage women to attempt them. Because a woman passed the Tests under the same criteria as the men, proving that the Tests can be passed by either sex without the need for alteration. So, whether by accident or design, the Royal Marines have ensured that they will retain the one standard for some time to come.

And despite the fact most of us remember Pip Tattersall as the woman who passed the Commando Course, there has been another, although with much less fanfare. Surgeon Lt Lara Herbert RN passed the course carrying exactly the same weight and within the same timings as the men, first time around proving again, that women can pass the Tests as they currently stand.

Women in front-line combat roles is an altogether different subject and probably more hotly debated. Those for the initiative point to 21st century values and equality legislation. Those against highlight the risk to unit cohesion, additional logistical requirements and distraction through romantic trysts and liaisons. In 2016, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron lifted the ban on women serving in these units.

The Israeli Defence Force is usually held up as the example where females are integrated into combat roles and have been for some time. Again however, there are limits here. For example there are ongoing trials evaluating mixed-sex tank crews but the line has been drawn at females serving in Special Forces units. Other considerations were also recently brought to bear when a deployment of female soldiers manning checkpoints in a kinetic area attracted the wrath of Islamists who viewed the women’s presence as a direct provocation, inciting a higher level of violence and attacks. Some elements of the IDF remain unconvinced that total inclusion into ground combat roles can ever be achieved, pointing to an earlier trial where medical and psychological experts questioned the wisdom in exposing a large amount of women soldiers to excess physical and mental pain and exhaustion just to find one or two candidates who could successfully complete the training.

Another consideration that raises its head when the discussion of having women integrated into ground combat units is that of their treatment at the hands of the enemy. An example I heard at a recent discussion panel was that of the fate of the Royal Irish Regiment soldiers who were taken hostage by the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone back in August 2000. While, by and large, these soldiers endured their period of captivity and survived to be rescued in the SAS Operation Barras, the point was made that had there been female soldiers present, their treatment would undoubtedly have been vastly different to that of the men. The West Side Boys were a collection of vicious, well-armed thugs constantly out of their heads on either cocaine or marijuana and regularly used rape as an integral weapon in their campaign of terror. The point being made at this discussion was that in all likelihood, female soldiers in the same situation would be forced to endure far worse treatment and trauma than the men as a result of their gender.

The problem seems to lie with how to integrate women into ground combat units while maintaining the physical standards that ensure all soldiers deploy to conflict zones confident in the abilities of the soldier next to them. I personally witnessed a situation some years ago when I was assisting on a pre-deployment course for soldiers deploying abroad to be integrated into a front-line unit. As part of the preparatory training package there were standard criteria that the soldiers had to meet in order to be signed off as ready to deploy. These involved a balance of skill-based tests and physical tests such as medical training, weapons training and shooting and casualty evacuation procedures. It was this last subject that proved problematic for the female soldier on the course. Her shooting was okay, she was good at med, and had no problems with the variety of weapons that she had been instructed in. One of the casualty evacuation procedures used was that of the casualty drag; hauling a dead weight to simulate getting a wounded soldier out of the line of fire and into cover. We used a heavy dummy, weighted to represent that of a soldier and his body armour, rifle and equipment to test the soldiers in this. It wasn’t easy but it was an accurate representation of what it felt like to drag a wounded oppo out of a firefight and into safety. And it was, as one would expect, a criteria test; pass or fail.

The female soldier struggled badly. She never managed to haul the dummy much past the half-way mark and even at that she would collapse exhausted and unable to go any further. She was given several opportunities over a two day period to attempt the test again in the hope that she might find the strength from somewhere to pass it. But to no avail. The result was passed to the unit’s headquarters who immediately sent a Major to the training area to investigate the matter. He was apprised of the situation and watched as the female soldier completed her final attempt but again, failed to achieve it. After several calls back to the unit he approached the senior instructor and asked if he would be happy to pass the female as ready to deploy if the unit in country accepted her at risk. The senior instructor stated that if the unit was happy to take her then he would annotate her training record to show that she was being given a limited pass and highlight the reason for this.

Before the Major could call headquarters with the result, the senior instructor pointed out an important fact: While the female soldier could deploy to the unit with a limited pass, all the soldiers that she was deploying with would remember that she couldn’t pass the casualty drag. This would impact on their confidence in her once engaged on operations, where her ability to get an injured colleague out of the line of fire could not be relied upon. He also highlighted the fact that if she was deployed with a limited pass, she would only be allowed to operate within limited parameters once in theatre, not carrying out the complete role that she was being deployed to fulfil.

Long story short, the Major took responsibility for the remainder of the situation and the woman was deployed as intended. I asked the senior instructor if any men had failed the casualty drag during his tenure and he informed me that he had seen 2 individuals fail. They had been members of a support unit being deployed to augment a front-line unit and had struggled with most of the fitness but bombed on the casualty drag. They had been failed, headquarters informed and they were returned to their respective units without further discussion. No Major was sent to the training area to investigate, no request for limited passes forwarded.

I asked my colleague what his thoughts were on the disparity between the treatment of the sexes in this situation. He shrugged, said he thought it unfair but that the Army were massively overcompensating to show that women were not being discriminated against when it came to filling available roles, including serving with front-line units. The problem in his view was that it achieved exactly the opposite; male soldiers would eventually regard all females conducting the pre-deployment training as an attend course, rather than a criteria one, thereby devaluing any progress in equality.

But women have proven beyond doubt that they can not only fight alongside male counterparts in combat operations but also excel at it. Gallantry awards to women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are not unusual or the actions they are awarded for different from that of male soldiers. Female medics in particular have shown outstanding bravery on the field of battle with Kylie Watson, Sarah Bushbye and Michelle Norris among a growing group of female soldiers awarded the Military Cross for bravery and valour. Leigh Ann Hester, an American MP serving in Iraq, was awarded the Silver Star for her role in recovering from an ambush and assaulting an enemy position with hand-grenades and small arms.

So there is no argument that women cannot be as brave or as proficient as men on the field of battle. I worked with a female soldier some years ago who pulled off an astonishing recovery from a dire situation, saving her own life and eliminating the immediate threat. Operational sensitivity precludes me from going into detail but suffice to say I don’t know many people, male or female, who could have done what my colleague did and I’m still awed by her actions these many years later.

Is there an answer here? Can we seamlessly integrate women into front-line combat units? Do we want to? Is the problem one of perception rather than practicality? I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure; this is not a subject that is going to go away any time soon. To that end, real answers and solutions are going to be required. Answers and solutions that, while addressing the issue, do so without risking the lives of those men and women who will be going on the front line.

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Top 10 Dumbest Terror Plots

By James

On August 20, 2017

In Terrorism and Counter Terrorism

After yet another terrorist atrocity, it’s quite easy to start thinking that these morons are getting the upper hand. I think it’s worth remembering that they are not the masterminds that they would have us believe and that luck, good and bad, plays a large part in the success or failure of their attacks. To lend a bit of perspective, I’ve put together a small list of some of the dumbest terror plots we’ve seen in recent years.

1. THE KANGAROO BOMB PLOT – Sevdet Ramadan Besim was an Islamic fundamentalist struggling for inspiration for an attack on his home soil of Australia. Besim was determined to kill Police officers and came up with an array of different methods with which he discussed carrying out his attacks. While looking at co-opting some locals into his plot, Besim discussed the use of kangaroos as delivery vehicles for his bombs. Besim planned to catch a roo, paint it with the Islamic State flag and stuff its pouch with C4 explosives then set it loose among Police officers. Admittedly there were some small flaws with this plan however hats off to Besim and his gang for taking terrorism to a whole new level; the radicalisation of native animals!

2. THE WANTED MAN WHO WANTED HIS REWARD – One of my favourites as I was in the region at the time and this was the talk of the FOBs for many weeks. In 2012 a man approached a military checkpoint in Afghanistan clutching a piece of paper in his hand. The Afghan security forces stopped the man and spoke to him, asking him what his business was. The man brandished the paper and began explaining his demand. The Afghans were confused and asked him to explain himself once again. The request still made no sense so he was asked again. And gave the same answer. The Afghan commander approached his American counterpart and explained the situation:

Afghan Commander (AC): Erm…this guy has arrived with one of the ‘wanted’ posters for a local Taliban IED maker.

US Commander (USC): Cool. He’s got information he wants to offer up for the reward?

AC: …not exactly. He is the IED maker.

USC: Wait; he’s the IED maker? So he’s surrendering?

AC: No. He wants the $100 reward that’s promised on the poster.

USC: Let me get this straight; he’s the IED maker on the poster and he’s turned up here demanding the $100 bounty that’s on his head?

AC: Yes. We’ve asked him many times and he is here to collect the $100 that it says we give for information leading to his capture.

USC: Yeah…but…it’s him? He wants the reward for his own capture?

AC: Apparently so.

USC: (scratches his head in puzzlement) I shouldn’t be surprised by anything in this country by now but what the actual f***?

Mohammad Ashan was duly arrested and his biometrics taken and matched to those found on IEDs used against American and Afghan forces. He was processed into American custody but even as he was made comfortable in his new quarters he was still pleading for the money owed to him for capturing himself.

3. DUMB AND DUMBERER… – Meet David Robert McMenemy, anti-abortionist and all-round eejit. McMenemy felt so strongly about abortion he decided that he was going to attack an abortion clinic, blow it up, and die as a martyr in the process. Not really knowing any abortion clinics, he drove around his local area for a month trying to identify targets. Eventually he settled on the Edgerton Women’s Health Centre in Davenport. He would teach those pesky abortionists a lesson that they’d never forget.

Only problem was the Women’s Centre he’d chosen didn’t actually carry out abortions. Blissfully unaware of this and taking his training from Wily Coyote cartoons, McMenemy drove his car as fast as he could into the building and waited for the inevitable explosion. All he got was an airbag in the face and a serious case of whiplash. Undeterred, the valiant martyr got out of his vehicle and poured petrol over it to get the party started. Unfortunately, the building’s very efficient sprinkler system kicked in and doused all the flames. When McMenemy was arrested he’d only managed to inflict some structural damage to the reception area and a slightly scorched suburban car. Goes to show the the Islamists don’t hold the monopoly on morons…

4. CHUBBS AND CO – A cunning plan that Baldrick would be proud of: Buy up hundreds of packs of sports ice-packs, extract the ammonium nitrate from them and use the substance to construct a devastating explosive device. Led by the 322 lb master-terrorist named ‘Chubbs’, the gang set about their plan. Needing money to buy the packs they set up charity collections and kept the funds for their nefarious intents.

When the charity money wasn’t enough, Chubbs came up with another cunning plan with which to increase their finances; online gambling. Unfortunately for him, his subordinates were no Vegas bank-breakers. Rashid Ahmed lost £3k when he left a bet running as he made a pot of tea and another member lost £6k on a bad day on the net.

Oh, and as angry as Chubbs might have been with their financial disasters, it probably paled into insignificance when he learned of one important flaw in their dastardly plan; sports ice packs had not contained ammonium nitrate in them for the past ten years. MENSA have stated that they will not be sending application forms out to the three this year…

5. IF IT WASN’T FOR THEM PESKY SWEATY-FEET… – No list could be complete without the addition of the legend-in-his-own-lunchtime, failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Reid is one of the main reasons that we suffer the indignity of removing our footwear at airport security, exposing odd socks and naked toes protruding from well-worn holes.

Prior to boarding a flight from Paris to Miami, Reid stuffed his shoes with explosives, intent on achieving martyrdom a few thousand feet above Fort Lauderdale. Alas, Reid was so nervous that he was sweating heavier than a sumo wrestler in a sauna and his socks became soaked. Which in turn dampened his improvised detonator rendering it absolutely useless. A small puff of smoke emitted from his shoes and he was soon subdued by passengers and crew, missing martyrdom through personal hygiene issues.

6. MUST PAY MORE ATTENTION IN SCIENCE CLASS… – Salman Al-Taezi and his good chum Walid Ashibi were not the sort to let a shortage of munitions halt their killing of people in Yemen. The pair decided to build an improvised missile and deploy it later that day. They sourced the components and had a chat about where to put their weapon together. The decision was made to build it in Salman’s house as it was comfortable with a particularly lovely deep-pile shag carpet.

The men assembled their missile quickly, having done this many times before. Very pleased with their progress they studied the fruits of their labour with the pride of new parents. Walid then began fetching the ignition components from another room, wearing his plastic sandals as he trotted to and fro. Unfortunately for Walid however, his journeys across the sumptuous carpet had built up a major charge of static electricity which leapt from his body and connected with the missile, detonating the weapon and pretty much vaporising the Laurel and Hardy of IED makers.

7. GO COMPARE… – When they heard of an English Defence League (EDL) rally in their local area, 6 Islamic extremists decided that no bunch of crazy extremists was going to get away with such a brazen display of crazy extremism. Not on their watch. The 6 men schemed, plotted, sourced and planned an attack on the rally involving guns and explosives. Weapons bought, bombs constructed and every eventuality planned for, the men jumped in their van, pumped up some Justin Bieber and drove to the rally where they arrived…3 hours too late.

They had cocked up the time completely and were at a loss with what to do next. As no one was hungry, they decided against a KFC and opted to drive home and carry out another attack at a different date. On the way up the M1 motorway, a traffic policeman thought their van looked a bit shady so pulled it over. On checking, he found that the vehicle had no insurance and so the van was eventually impounded. It was 2 days later that staff at the impound lot discovered the lethal contents of the van and an operation was mounted and the men arrested. All because of skimping on their insurance. Should have gone to Go Compare…

8. YOU’VE BEEN FRAMED… – A group of budding jihadists decided that the US military base of Fort Dix provided a perfect target for their attempt at martyrdom. Taking their lead from online forums, the men started with training and rehearsals for their imminent operation. A video camera was bought from the local Best Buy outlet and their sessions filmed for feedback and posterity. Not being particularly technically proficient however, the group could not transfer their footage from the camera to DVD.

Annoyed by this setback to their training routine, one of the group took the camera to another electrical retail outlet and outlined their problem to the retail assistant. The retail assistant assured our jihadi in-waiting that conversion to DVD was very basic and, in fact, if he was willing to wait, the assistant would do it then and there in the store. Yep, you know what’s coming. Our retail assistant obviously saw something unusual in men of middle-eastern appearance carrying out reconnaissance of Fort Dix while discussing what type of bomb would be most effective. Jeremy Beadle would have loved it…

9. TO OPT OUT OF ANY FURTHER MESSAGES… – Moscow, New Year’s Eve 2010/11. Crowds pack the area despite the freezing temperature. Thousands of litres of vodka being passed between well-wishers, red-cheeked in the frigid air.

In a small apartment nearby, a woman slips on a suicide vest rammed with explosives and a mixture of nails, nuts and bolts. Her two accomplices help make the vest comfortable, there being nothing worse than a poorly-fitting vest chafing at your boobs as you approach your moment of glory. The mobile-phone was connected to the device and the Black Widow nodded at her colleagues. She was ready to start the small meander across to Red Square where she would detonate the device in the midst of the crowds.

Just as she said her goodbyes, in giant, anonymous tech-suites across the world, mobile phone providers pushed the ‘send’ button on the traditional New Year spam message to all their customers. Which included our Black Widow. Her device detonated, killing her instantly and severely injuring her companions who were soon arrested limping and staggering from the burning apartment. Spam; no wonder everybody hates it!

10. MATE, YOU ARE JUST PANTS… – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab or UFA to his mates. In the usual tradition of jihadists trying to outdo each other in explosive delivery methods, UFA stepped up to the plate. He boarded a plane for Detroit with his underpants stuffed with explosives…which he had apparently been wearing for almost three weeks! I mean, wear any pair of pants for three weeks and there’s all kinds of hygiene issues apparent but a plastic-explosive nappy? What the hell…

Anyway, as the plane descended for landing, Johnny Fartpants detonated the device…and was in immediate agony as the device only partly detonated, setting his entire nether regions on fire. Easily subdued by passengers and crew he was arrested on arrival and interrogated by the authorities.

In one of the interviews he admitted trying to join Al Qaeda but had been turned down. Like any aspiring job hunter, UFA requested feedback on his rejection and was told unequivocally that it was due to the fact that he was obviously…a moron. Pretty sad state of affairs when the world’s number one employer of suicide bombers doesn’t even want you!

So there you have it: Proof if any was needed that martyrdom isn’t for morons!!

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No country for old (or young) women?

By James

On August 12, 2017

In Topical

Like many a soldier and then later in my career, an advisor, I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. Years in fact. I count myself fortunate to have seen a lot of the country and not just the usual circuits of Kandahar and Helmand Provinces where the majority of UK Armed Forces conduct their operational tours. Logar, Herat, Nangarhar, Balkh, Paktia, Paktika, Kunar, Wardak, Parwan, Kabul were some of the regions I travelled and worked among others.

But there was one thing that I couldn’t help but observe on my travels: This was one harsh country. In every way; geographical, political, economical. A feudal landscape still dominated and ruled through tribal fiefdoms and powerful warlords. Travel an hour in any direction away from the capital of Kabul and the impact of Government was absolutely minimal if at all. A patriarchal patchwork of tribal allegiances and ethnic divides where the rule of law was determined at the local level by elders and men of influence. Patriarchal and male. Country-wide, this is how Afghanistan is really controlled.

Which leaves women with a very shitty deal really. On our first operational tours, even us older, worldly-wise individuals could be surprised at the level of the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan. Coming from a society where gender equality is a given and any mistreatment of a woman regarded as a particularly vile crime, some of the things we witnessed were particularly hard to take.

Again, far from the ivory towers of the Kabul government and their proud, vocal assertions that the foreign money and investment was improving the lot of Afghan women, the ground truth was very different. The medics on our patrols would regularly encounter village women hideously disfigured with scar tissue. Due to the patriarchal protocols our male medics were not allowed to treat these women but could only ask about the nature of the injuries in general and leave some medication with them. These injuries were a result of self-immolation; setting oneself on fire. I was to learn later that in a lot of these isolated villages, with very little else at their disposal, dousing themselves in the kerosene used for cooking and heating was a common way for a woman to attempt to kill herself.

The very nature of that type of suicide attempt pretty much underlines what a miserable existence someone must be experiencing to even consider such an act. On one occasion we learned that the woman we were trying to help had been bought and wed to a much older man, and I’m talking decades older here. She had suffered beatings from his other, older wives, given all the chores to carry out, and was being blamed for the chronic illness he was suffering. She had tried to escape back to her family but had been caught and again, brutally beaten for her transgression. Isolated, abused and unsupported she set herself on fire but did not die and was left in horrific agony with no medical treatment or medication to help.

These incidents were always reported back and initiatives and projects were developed to attempt to improve the situation. The setting up of Female Engagement Teams or FETs as they were called, was one such initiative. Female soldiers, translators, medics and civilian specialist advisors would deploy into the regions to engage directly with the local female populace. It was felt that this would be a good work-around the patriarchal limitations that our predominately male-composed patrols had been facing.

The good news stories soon began filtering back, initially in the formal reports and then onto the pages of each country’s military publications and websites. Smiling FETs with arms around village women, photos of a midwifery presentation being delivered in a crumbling concrete shed, footage of gender empowerment talks given to local women. The FETs were a solid program with great aims and focussed individuals motivated by the best of reasons. But they were fighting an uphill battle.

Although I have many examples, I think the one provided to me by a Dutch colleague gives a good general snapshot of how the program was received by the men in these regions. Anna was the lead on a coalition Female Engagement program that was reaching out to women in the isolated mountain villages and hamlets with a view to identifying their needs and addressing these requirements. Anna travelled everywhere with a complement of Dutch Marines for the protection of her team and allow them to carry out their meetings and work without the additional responsibility of looking after their own security. Anna and her team were usually accepted on a sliding scale of grudgingly to indifferent by the village elders. As for the women, it would take a little time for Anna and her team to convince them that they were there solely with the women’s interest at heart.

Anna loved her job, you can still tell that today by the enthusiasm and passion evident in her voice when she speaks about it. For her, to see and hear first hand how these women suffered fuelled her motivation to provide some improvement, no matter how small, to help them. Medical help, encouragement in self-assertion, offers to provide transport to allow them to attend clinics in nearby areas, provision of hygiene products; just some of the small but important initiatives Anna and her team provided to the women living among these remote, bleak mountain ridges.

To this day Anna is still unsure how the villagers managed to isolate her from her Marine security force. What she does remember is turning towards the door of the small room where she and her interpreter had been delivering a class in how to access further treatment. The door was wide open and the men from the village were pouring inside. The women around her began screaming and rushed past her, colliding with the men as they stumbled out of the doorway. The men ignored their wives and daughters, their sole focus on Anna and her interpreter. The first rock hit Anna on her upper shoulder and she barely had time to cover her head with her arms as the barrage of boulders were hurled at her from a distance where the men couldn’t possibly miss. She was knocked down and tried to call on her radio but her lowered arm exposed her head and she took a rock to the forehead that split the skin and made her reel backwards, blood pouring into her eyes. She curled into a ball, covering her head as best she could as rocks continued pounding her body and bouncing off the wall behind her. She was screaming for her team at the top of her lungs as the men of the village grabbed her and tried to prise her arms away from her head to give them a clearer target where they could use their rocks as hammers to crush her skull. Two loud gunshots sounded and Anna screamed with fear, believing that the villagers were now shooting at her. The grabs and the rock throwing ceased and she could hear the confident commands and the new sound of the village men yelping in pain. The security force had arrived.

Anna knows she was lucky. Bar the split forehead and a ton of impressive bruises, she survived. She is under no illusions that if the assault had continued much longer she would have died and her killers disappear into the mountain passes they knew far better than the foreign soldiers. There was of course an inquiry into the incident, how it happened, whose fault was it, but for Anna, more importantly; Why? She was at a loss to identify the motivation for the attack when all she was doing was providing low-level assistance to these men’s wives and daughters.

Turned out that the men of the villages were getting more and more irate at this foreign woman who was trying to make their women as brazen and shameless as she was. Local elders attended a shura, or meeting with Anna’s superiors to explain the incident and made no bones about the fact that they felt that the men who had stoned Anna and her interpreter had been absolutely justified in doing so and they considered the whole program a direct insult to their culture and religion. And would defend both in exactly the same way again if the foreign soldiers continued with their efforts. They didn’t. Anna’s program in the region was dropped in common with anything that was deemed culturally or otherwise incompatible with local sensitivities.

Anna is not bitter about her experience; she spent another few months in Afghanistan after her incident where she experienced some small successes but invariably ran into the same brick wall of patriarchal dominance and utter control over the lives and existence of the women in their towns and villages. An intelligent woman, she sums up her experience as something along the lines of taking 21st century values and equality ethos to a 14th century feudal society incapable of change. We both agree, based upon our experiences that real change for women, and not just the occasional good news story from Kabul trumpeted to the world’s media for its rarity, will only come with generational change. And quite a few generations.

I know some people will read this post and form the opinion that I maybe misrepresent the misogynistic treatment as being systemic, but I don’t. I think the case that highlights just how deep-rooted the problem continues to be is the barbaric murder of Farkhunda Malikzada back in 2015. This was a well-educated woman studying Islam who had the audacity to challenge the custodian of a shrine who was preying on the women who visited it by coercing them to purchase superstitious amulets. Farkhunda shamed the custodian with her knowledge of Islam and she snatched his paper amulets up, threw them in a rubbish bin and burnt them. The custodian retrieved the burnt ashes, placed them in an old copy of the Quran and went into the street holding it aloft in indignation and claiming that Farkhunda had burnt the holy book.

It was 4pm, prayer time, and Kabul was very busy. The reaction was immediate. Men in the street turned on Farkhunda and within seconds she was being beaten and accused of being an American spy. The police initially tried to help her but the mob had now reached the hundreds and had fuelled themselves into a body of rage. So the police stood back and let the animals have their way.

This whole incident was captured on film so I’m not going to go into it in painful detail as a quick type of Farkhunda’s name into a search engine will bring up the recordings. It is still one of the most vile killings I have seen and serves as a reminder how quickly hatred manifests itself as physical violence.

Farkhunda was stamped upon, beaten with planks and poles, punched then run over by a car that dragged her for 300 metres. Still not enough for the crowd, they threw her body onto the dry river bed and tried to set her on fire. She had been injured so badly however that her burqa was soaked in blood and wouldn’t take light. The mob actually used their own scarves as fuel around her body to ensure it ignited. When the police eventually arrived at this horrific cremation they advised the crowd to step back and be careful that they didn’t get burned.

So; all captured on mobile phones and the footage studied with 49 perpetrators identified, 19 of them police officers. In the end 3 men were handed sentences of 20 years and 1 man given 10 years despite the fact that the death penalty is the standard for such a heinous crime. The policemen were punished with…a travel ban. Yep, not allowed to travel outside their regions for a year. And the men who received the actual sentences? Doubtful any of them will serve anything remotely close to what they got if indeed, they even remain in jail today. And the custodian who started all of this? A proper investigation identified that he had been selling condoms, viagra, and acting as a pimp for women he prostituted from the area near the shrine. But he wasn’t beaten and set alight to by a mob of baying, rabid animals. He had nothing even close to the treatment of his victim despite his proven crimes.

All because Farkhunda was a woman. Her death was not even deemed that important until the pressure from the international community forced the Kabul government to actually deal with the crime. A telling portion of the whole sorry tale was when Farkhunda’s parents arrived at the police station on hearing that their daughter was in trouble. The Chief of Police turned to them and informed them that their daughter had burnt the Quran, that it was a proven fact beyond dispute and there was nothing more to be said about the matter. Case closed.

The title of one of my favourite books of all time is ‘No country for old men’ by Cormac McCarthy and it’s a phrase that always springs to mind whenever I think about the woman of Afghanistan where it remains No country for old, or young, women.

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Beastings and Character Building

By James

On August 5, 2017

In Military Matters

The picture above is of me as a happy Royal Marine Commando recruit or, as we were referred to for the 32 weeks of basic training, a ‘Nod’; so called because we were always nodding off to sleep as soon as we stopped moving. The happy chappy in this photo is on one of the very first exercises, a learning evolution in how to administer one’s self in the field. He is blissfully unaware that from this point on in his training all exercises will consist of physical pain, sleep deprivation, being soaked to the skin and being ‘Beasted’ for real or imagined infractions.

Beasting, or being Beasted, (and yes, I believe that it fully deserves to be capitalised for the impact and relevance that it has on all Royal Marines), is an integral part of Commando training despite the fact that you will never see it on any training program or schedule. It takes many forms, limited only by the imagination and sadistic tendencies of the Training Team member delivering the Beasting. The one underlying principle of a good Beasting is pain; real physical pain.

The first Beasting that I recall with any clarity took place on one of my first field exercises on a gorse-riddled, scrubby tract of land with the deceptively quaint moniker of Woodbury Common. Woodbury Common had been used to test the effectiveness of weaponised gases for the second world war. The legacy of this is still evident today in the Nods’ post-training routine of plucking infected gorse spikes from the various parts of their anatomy to avoid the local ailment of ‘Woodbury Rash’.

It was during this early training Ex that my troop was introduced to ‘Beastie Knoll’; a small lump of a hill in the centre of our exercise area. The fact that this feature had actually been named for its purpose should have warned us that it held a special significance but it completely passed us by. Until we were told to fall in and ‘mark time’ facing the knoll. Marking time is an odd, jogging on-the-spot activity, designed to keep the muscles warm while remaining static and listening to the verbal diatribe that precedes the physical Beasting. It ensures that while you are stumbling up a loose gravel track with your partner on your back, or powering through gorse and bracken doing wheelbarrow races on bleeding hands, at least you won’t pull a muscle.

I still don’t remember what we were actually being punished for that day, though to be honest, that’s usually pretty irrelevant anyway. A Beasting is not always dished out as a punishment, but more on that later. What I do remember is after the tenth or twelfth time of sprinting up and down this horrible landmark, laden with a partner on my back for most of them, was that I began to see double. My breathing was also not right, the deep gulps I was taking still not enough to replenish the oxygen my lactic-heavy system was screaming for. People were dropping from pure exhaustion; full-on falls and face plants into gravel and gorse. While to us nods this seemed like a good time to maybe call a halt to the proceedings, our Training Team let us know that they were singularly unimpressed with our ‘theatrical dramatics’. Just when I thought I was going to pass out it stopped. Well, sort of. We were given a minute to square ourselves away, pick up our kit and fall back in. For the five-mile run back to camp.

I’m sure when people envisage a troop of Commandos making their way down the leafy lanes of the Devon countryside they envisage a disciplined body of men, in step, steely-eyed determination as their boots strike the ground with perfect, unified precision. Well, that wasn’t us. Already exhausted and half-dead from our introduction to Beastie Knoll we looked more like the rear-guard stragglers of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Helmets askew, everybody falling out of step, stumbling into the man in front, our rifles and large packs conspiring to ensure additional discomfort was utilised. The training team ran with us, snarling and pushing us back into formation, green-beret clad collies shepherding a flock of errant Nods back to their fold.

And slowly but surely we came together as one body, rising above the pain and the self-pity to work as a group, a unit. We matched step, obeyed the cadence, regulated our breathing, lifted our heads from our chests and looked ahead with steely-eyed determination. Well, nearly…

We were soon to learn that no Training Team worth their salt would ever bring their Nods back to Lympstone in anything other than a disciplined formation, regardless of how exhausted and injured they were. And once we’d learned this it became muscle memory, a reflex that kicked in as soon as your head dropped and you began giving in to the pain. It then became a point of pride; we wanted to be seen on these suffocating country lanes as the disciplined Commandos we imagined ourselves to be one day.

From that pride another ethos was born; teamwork. I’ve lost count of the Beastings and runs I have been on where, when I’ve started to flag or slow, my oppo to the right or left of me would take a grip of my shoulder and give a couple of words of encouragement or a witty one-liner to take my mind off the exhaustion. And I would return the favour when the situation required it. It is the beauty of the Royal Marines’ training ethos that this camaraderie and teamwork is achieved almost by osmosis; the Nods learning it by guided discovery to the point where it becomes second nature. And it all starts with the Beastings.

Beastings were probably one of the most talked about subjects in the Commando Traing Centre, or CTC at Lympstone, Devon. In fact, when a Nod transitions to the second phase of Commando training he is given a ‘Beasting Jacket’ that he will wear to all future PT sessions. Even the location of CTC on the banks of the River Exe seemed to have been chosen with the criteria of having a good Beasting ground on site: The River Exe itself at low tide. These stinking, primeval mud flats, instantly accessible from the back gate of the camp, were the king of Beasting locations. Being Beasted on these mud flats was referred to as a ‘mud run’ and was reserved for special occasions due to the severity of its physical demands.

Knee deep mud sapped the strength of even the strongest Nods as they ran, crawled, burpee’d, star-jumped, leap-frogged and performed hundreds of press-ups and sit-ups in the thick, dank ooze. On special occasions they would be granted the gift of a telegraph pole with which to try new combinations of physical torture, ensuring they did not become bored or disappointed with the training team’s lack of imagination.

Initially a mud run was the boogeyman of Beastings, a sword of Damocles always present in the background and held as a threat for severe infractions. We would sometimes see a Nod troop coming back in off the mud, black creatures dripping the stinking ooze in a trail to the camp ablutions block. But here’s the perverse thing: The longer that time went by without us being given a mud run, the more we wanted it. We knew how awful it would be in comparison to some of the intense Beastings we’d had. We knew it would nearly kill us. We knew it was the worst Beasting the Team could dish out. But we wanted it. Badly.

Troops who had been Beasted in the mud carried the experience as an accolade, a badge of honour, walking with just a little more swagger to the galley or Dutchy’s burger wagon. They had experienced the worst Beasting at Lympstone and, agony and exhaustion aside, had come through it.

When we eventually received our first mud run it was as bad as we had expected. It was also quite surreal at times. For example, our Physical Training Instructor, or PTI, took us for our low-tide acquaintance with the mud. Immaculate as always in his gleaming white vest and the standard olive-coloured Denim trousers, he marched us into the slime without a change of expression or tone. He could just as well have been taking us on to the Parade Square, such was his lack of acknowledgement that this was anything out of the ordinary. Concerned that we would be getting cold, he started us off with a routine of strength-sapping leg exercises that utilised the resistant qualities of the thick mud to enhance the session. Burpees, star jumps, bastards, squat thrusts, mountain climbs, and of course marking time between them as a ‘rest’. Then to alleviate the possibility that we might be getting bored with the same exercises, we were directed to work on the upper body a little; press ups, sit-ups, leopard crawls, crunches, tricep press, flutter kicks.

I don’t know how long our mud run lasted. As a Nod you are not allowed to wear a watch for any physical activity in the event that you only apply as much effort to endure the session rather than giving it your all. But it felt like an eternity. The consummate professional that he was, our mud-spattered PTI warmed us down, stretched us off and asked for the injured to identify themselves so that he could check them over. We were then marched back off the mud and on to the bottom field of CTC where the Assault Course sits in close proximity to the main railway line. Our PTI directed us to jump in the large static tank that sits under the regain rope in order to wash the bulk of the mud away.

We marched as a soaked, dripping body back to our accommodation block, not bowed or miserable as I had expected but with heads held high and a spring in our step. We’d had our mud run and, like those before us, wore the experience with pride. We’d endured the worst Beasting that the Team could give us and, bar the aches and pains and gritty eyes and mouth, we’d come through it. We revelled in the gapes of astonishment from the newer Nod troops who had witnessed our muddy baptism from the windows of their accommodation. Stripping off our soaked and filthy uniform outside our block, we laughed and joked loudly, testosterone fuelled japery the manifestation of the experience of having come through something awful together.

And this is what Beastings achieve. The experience of physical suffering bonds and unites men quicker than almost anything else. Rising above your own pain and self-pity to remain a functional and essential member of the team takes your priorities from that of an individual to that of a unit, thinking and working for the good of the team. Throughout my entire career in the military, and indeed, even after, I still remember and value the lessons first imbued upon me as a skinny Nod stumbling up the loose gravel of Beastie knoll or wading through the mud of the River Exe.

As I said earlier, you won’t see the word Beasting appearing anywhere on any Royal Marines’ documentation or correspondence. Yet it is probably one of the key learning and development tools that I experienced in my time as a fledgling Commando. To the lay observer, a Beasting probably appears to be nothing more than a sadistic exercise in inflicting pain on an already exhausted, hungry and demoralised body of men but nothing could be further from the truth. When a Beasting is dished out as a punishment, it is rarely given to the individual responsible, usually the whole troop or section will be included. Very quickly, this demonstrates to the individual that he is accountable for his actions, that there is an impact on the whole group for the errors and mistakes he makes. Again, as the Nods progress through CTC and on to their Commando Units, this accountability becomes ingrained in the individual as common practice, needing no thought or deliberation. It is no coincidence that one of the worst insults a Marine can level at another is to call him ‘Jack’: not the affectionate Naval term but as in someone who is selfish and only does things for themselves.

The Beastings that a Nod endures teaches the importance of being accountable and thinking of the group rather than the individual, an ethos that serves them well in their later careers and in life in general. On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the lessons learned from the training camp on a Devon estuary many years before were as relevant and necessary as weapons’ training. The ability of the individual to rise above the pain and effort of operating in hot, hostile environments, laden with body armour and ammunition, and to focus on his unit is testament to the effectiveness of the only lesson never listed on a training program: The Beasting.

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When The Dirtier became Mohammed

By James

On July 30, 2017

In Uncategorized

When I worked on a special projects program in Afghanistan, I spent a lot of my time with the Afghans, rather than with the coalition forces that is the standard operational tour model I was accustomed to. There were several downsides to this, the main one of course being constantly alert and hyper-vigilant of the insider threat; the Afghan that would walk into one of my sessions one day with a suicide vest primed and ready to go.

The upshot was the experience of living and working alongside these people and their culture and the direct access to their lives and stories. Case in point: The old guy in this photo worked in the location where we conducted a lot of our training courses. I kind of inherited him when I took over the role and he was allegedly employed to clean our offices, classroom and break-out areas. In reality he would just run a spectacularly filthy cloth over surface areas making them far worse than they had originally been. That was how he earned the nom de guerre of ‘The Dirtier’.

He was very poor, even by Afghan standards. He received no official salary but was paid in kind with leftover food from the Afghan trainers. He never spoke but communicated through gestures and an odd grunt to get his point across. Once I had settled into my new position I became curious. Who was this guy? Why was he allowed to remain in our compound when he was actually more of a hindrance than a help? The Afghans are not noted for being a particularly charitable people so I was also interested in their reasons for letting him hang around.

So I asked my Afghan counterpart, a Major with a fearsome reputation earned on the battlefields of Helmand and Kandahar. Turned out ‘The Dirtier’ was once a respected Afghan Army officer who refused to shore up the puppet government that the Russians emplaced back in the 80s. Choosing honour and integrity over capitulation, he joined the Mujahaddin and their battle to force the Soviet war machine out of their country.

A natural leader and superb tactician, he quickly became a legend for his audacious attacks and bravery in action. A boogeyman spoken about in hushed tones around Russian campfires in the Hindu Kush. But with success comes notoriety and he was now firmly on the Russians’ radar. His name crept up the target list aided by information about him gleaned from savage interrogations of captured fighters. He evaded the Russians’ attempts to ensnare him and was regaled as something of a folk hero by the Afghans. But it could never last; he was a marked man.

During a particularly brutal engagement he and his men were trapped in the neck of a steep valley, decimated by repeated strafing runs from the Hind gunships. Pinned by the aerial onslaught there was no escape when the Special Forces troops swept down from the summits. His war was over. The boogeyman was caught. His capture was celebrated by the Russians who by now were looking for any good news stories to send back home to a demoralised population questioning the deaths of their conscripted sons in a nonsensical cause.

His capture was always going to be a painful one; The Russians have none of the sensitivities or conformity to treatment agreements that our western nations have. Mohammed was tortured. Firstly for information; where are the other fighters basing themselves? Who is helping them? When is the next attack? Secondly he was tortured for revenge, reparation for the lives of the soldiers he had taken. And lastly, for sport; the broken boogeyman available to all and sundry to vent their frustrations upon. Mohammed was tortured horribly and for a long time.

As a result of his torture and interrogations he is deaf and speaks only with difficulty. Hence the grunting and pointing for communicating. This man has borne witness, and been subjected to, the very worst atrocities that human beings inflict upon each other. By rights he should be a bitter misanthrope, a man with an axe to grind against the world and the injustice it served upon him. But he is not. His soft, kind eyes show he bears no grudges. The laughter lines and mischievous gleam hinting at the hidden character within.

My team contained a healthy complement of cynical, jaded individuals. Men moulded by the situations and operations they had been exposed to over the years. And yet, without knowing anything of The Dirtier’s story, I watched how they softened to the old man’s presence. Gifts in the form of clothing, caps, shoes, were passed unceremoniously with a gruff ‘thought you could use these’ to allay any suspicion that softness or affection was involved. Quite surreal to see the transformation of The Dirtier from his ragged, down and out look to turning up in 5.11 tactical pants, approach shoes and a black polo shirt.

He started spending more time with his new British friends, just as quiet as he ever was, save for the fact that he would occasionally laugh when he saw something that he could understand outside of the language barrier. One of the guys returned from leave once and took The Dirtier to one side and privately presented him with a gift. With the assistance of an interpreter he was giving The Dirtier instructions for something. Curious, I picked up my coffee and ambled across in time to see the old man holding the side of his head and crying openly. It took a second for me to assimilate all of the information in front of me and work out what was going on: My colleague had returned from the UK with a hearing aid for The Dirtier. And it was clearly working. The raw emotion from the old man was infectious and I found myself turning away, some unseen smoke obviously irritating my eyes…

It was some time later that I learned The Dirtier’s story and shared it with the guys. They were, as you would expect, impressed and respectful of the old man and what he had gone through. But here’s what I like about this whole affair: These guys treated The Dirtier with compassion and courtesy from the off, when to all intents and purposes he was just a tramp with a place to be. Whenever I hear the occasional moron stereotyping military and ex-military personnel as war-mongering automatons, I always think back to my guys and their relationship with The Dirtier and wish I could show that person the reality.

When I learned Mohammed’s story I wanted to photograph him, to try and capture those soft eyes with just the barest hint of mischief. A snapshot to remind me that no matter what fresh hell is levelled at us, we can come through it without being broken. So here it is, a portrait of the man whose story I have just written taken in our compound on the day The Dirtier became Mohammed.

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