Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [39]
To our great amusement, these students invariably over-acted the military card, whereas we had just joined for a bit of fun and to meet foxy GI Janes. It was total pleasure pulling the well-pressed legs of all these military stiffs, by intentionally wearing our berets like chef’s hats and turning up late and in pink socks.
In turn, they looked down their raised noses at us, as two incompetent jokers, wasters and buffoons. Neither of us minded at all. It was all way too much fun!
It was something about guys of our age pretending to be something that they weren’t, that made playing the fool so totally irresistible. I suspect that my dad would have behaved the same. (Taking yourself too seriously, in whatever field, was always dangerous around him.)
During that OTC year, though, we did develop a marked respect for one of the genuine soldiers, a senior officer we had met who had been in the SAS in his younger years. He walked with a quiet confidence, he laughed a lot, and never took himself too seriously.
Correspondingly, we never felt the urge to mess around when he was there. Instead, he inspired us to be more like him: to have done something difficult, real and lasting. That is ultimately what good leadership does. It inspires us to reach higher.
So was quietly born in both Trucker and myself a quickening of the heart that said: I wonder if one day we might ever attempt Selection for the SAS?
And that was the second life-altering thing that happened – and it started off a ride that was to take me to the very edge.
Literally.
CHAPTER 35
Two things motivated me to join the SAS Reserves.
One was the determination to achieve something special and lasting in my life. To find that pride that lasts a lifetime; to have endured, to have been tested – and to have prevailed.
It is a hard feeling to explain, but it was very real inside me.
The other motivator was less worthy.
It was to outclass all those OTC military-stiffs who had so looked down their noses at me. A totally flawed reason, I know! But I wanted to show them what I was actually capable of. To show them that real soldiering was about graft, graft and graft – not smart, smart and smart.
Both these motivations may sound a bit warped, but if I’m honest they are probably accurate reasons why I initially wanted to attempt SAS(R) Selection.
Above all, it was about wanting to achieve something special, that so few people pull off.
The flip side was that the task did feel like an almost insurmountable challenge for me.
I knew that out of the many already toughened soldiers that applied each year for 21 SAS Selection, only a tiny handful regularly passed. It is a brutal attrition rate to embark on, especially when you feel very ‘average’ physically. But big challenges inspire me. I think we are all made a little like that.
I also believe strongly in the powerful words: ‘I took the road less travelled, and that has made all the difference.’ They are good ones to live by.
The big, final motivator was that I really wasn’t enjoying my university studies.
I loved The Brunel and our small group of buddies there, but the actual university experience was killing me. (Not the workload, I hasten to add, which was pleasantly chilled, but rather the whole deal of feeling like just another student.)
Sure, I liked the chilled lifestyle (like the daily swim I took naked in the ornamental lake in the car park), but it was more than that. I just didn’t like being so unmotivated.
It didn’t feel good for the soul.
This wasn’t what I had hoped for in my life.
I felt impatient to get on and do something.
(Oh, and I was learning to dislike the German language, in a way that was definitely not healthy.)
So, I decided it was time to make a decision.
Via the OTC, Trucker and I quietly went to see the ex-SAS officer to get his advice on our Special Forces Selection aspirations.
I was nervous telling him.
He knew we were troublemakers, and that we had never taken any of the OTC military ‘routine’ at