Bravo Two Zero

"This is an excellent book all about survival. That is the survival of the human spirit against adversity. When the chips were down Andy and the other men with him had to escape and evade detection across hundreds of miles of open desert in the extreme cold before they could get to safety. And they weren’t really equipped for that kind of harsh weather. What happened was they were sent behind enemy lines to do what we call an OP, which means an observation post on an MSR – main supply route. They were really looking for the movement of Scud missiles because you can put a launcher on an articulated truck and it moves across the desert. Unfortunately, they were dropped off in the dark and when it became light they saw that they were practically on top of an Iraqi position. So they were compromised and the balloon went up and they had to what we call bug out, which is when you have to get all your equipment together rather sharpish and make a run for it! Get the weekly Five Books newsletter They made a run for it and it was a good few days before they made it to safety. All the time they were being pursued across the Iraqi desert in vehicles and Andy and his gang had to escape and evade, which we are trained to do as part of our SAS selection. With lesser men, the whole lot of them probably would have died. As it was, one of the guys froze to death but nearly all the rest either escaped or were captured. In Andy’s case, he was captured and tortured and held until the Iraqis ran the white flag up. So this is a real survival story. The guys who escaped and are alive today had all done SAS selection and were fit guys so they are around today to tell the story. Well, I’ve never had to escape and evade but other hardships are things like when you are on a mission like one I had of retaking a plateau where I was in the full heat of Arabian nights. It was hot at night and during the day it gets up to 40 degrees. There isn’t enough water and then on top of that you are lugging all this really, really heavy equipment about – normally uphill. It’s again another survival of the fittest exercise. If you’re not fit you’re not going to get up there and you will be left behind. The SAS being a macho organisation, you don’t want to let your mates down."