With no overnight kit or sleeping bags, my blokes also got cold very quickly that night, and I remember getting a bit fed up with them as I built our shelter almost single-handedly. Sleep can be a much-needed escape during survival exercises, but in the Arctic it is inevitably in short supply because it’s freezing. As the nights wore on, the blokes – who would be all on top of each other for warmth – would often joke that the end was nigh, as the temperatures dropped below minus twenty.
One character I was given to look after during the survival phase was another regimental legend – Norman Fox. Norm had passed the Commando Course at the age of fifty-four – still the oldest ever. Not content with this, he wanted to sample some survival training in the Arctic. So when Norm woke me up in the night telling me he thought he was about to die, I thought he actually might. So I spent most of those nights awake, talking to him and trying to keep our pathetic fire going. Often in my haste I hadn’t built it with a firm enough base, and it kept disappearing into the snow.
Jimmy was breezing through these courses without pausing for breath. He made me look very average. On a rare evening off in camp, while everyone else headed up to the bar to drink £11 pints of strong Norwegian lager, Jimmy and I went skiing around the civilian cross-country course opposite. He was an athlete. I was not. I think he got bored of waiting for me on the course, but he covered it up well. He won the regimental ski race at his first attempt. I did enjoy the odd night down in the local town, too. Never before or since have I paid so much for alcohol; never before or since have I had a hangover like it. Something about the altitude, apparently.
Towards the end of the deployment the weather started to warm, and the nightmare temperatures of just above freezing during the day (water everywhere as the snow melted), combined with plummeting temperatures at night (freezing said water) meant that soldiers started dropping like flies. Jimmy and I were accustomed to the place now, and worked hard to keep the lads going.
Towards the end of that Norwegian winter I seemed to be spending most of my time completing forced marches across the mountains as the rear marker, pulling a pulk (a sledge used to carry equipment). A 300lb sledge is simply unstoppable on some slopes, which is a bit of a nightmare if you’re attached to the front of it. It could, on occasion, be extremely funny to watch an individual driven down the side of a mountain by the sled he is pulling, unable to stop. I did hope the Russians weren’t watching.
We returned to the UK in late April. I arrived home on the RFA Sir Galahad, enduring a good North Sea storm on the way back around the south of the UK to Plymouth. When I arrived at the Citadel ready for Easter leave, my CO informed me that I was to supplement manpower in another battery in the regiment – 79 Battery – on a trip to the US to practise interoperability with the US Marines. I’d be leaving just ten days later. I was rather upset, having recently acquired a new girlfriend, but unfortunately the Army is not an optional service.
As it turned out, there were a couple of silver linings. Firstly, Jim Philippson was in 79 Battery, so I knew it would be fun. Secondly, by the time we were ready to set sail it looked as if we would, in fact, be off to Iraq, taking the place of some Spanish troops in the north of the country. The Spanish had decided that enough was enough following the Madrid bombings of 2004; the enormous political pressure at home meant they were pulling out of Iraq.
At the time, 79 Battery was the Lead Commando Group. This is a sub-unit formation of 3 Commando Brigade which, along with 16 Air Assault Brigade, forms the United Kingdom’s high readiness response for the strategic military requirements of the Government. ‘High readiness’ was a loose term; it did not prevent the blokes from drinking heavily on Union Street in Plymouth, but it precluded foreign holidays. Usually a battery could expect to be the Lead Commando Group for one year, in a three-year cycle. The upside was that you could expect to be deployed to fairly interesting places; ours would be Najaf, near Fallujah in northern Iraq.
The day before we left I went to see my new girlfriend in London, meeting her on the Millennium Bridge during rush hour. I remember watching all the commuters dashing about, most on their way home after another ordinary day, and thinking that tomorrow I was off to Iraq. I had to remind myself that I had chosen this path, and that this day was always going to come. The following day my girlfriend gave me a lift to Southampton to board the RFA Sir Tristram; part of a small fleet of ships, headed up by HMS Ocean, heading for the Gulf. It was a bright, clear and crisp early summer’s morning as I kissed her goodbye on the dock.
It remained a challenging time inside my head. I had become a bit of a machine, passing arduous military courses at a canter. I drank with the best of them and seemed relatively well-liked amongst my fellow officers and the men of the regiment. Yet some nights inside me the battles returned, only ending when I collapsed into much-needed sleep. My ‘hardwiring’ from home still had a hold over me. I spoke to my parents less often by then, but I was often reminded that ‘God could see everything that I was doing’. I thought I had put all this stuff to bed, but the truth was that it still haunted me. The others saw it, too. Jim Philippson laughed at me, telling me it was all a load of bollocks. He did seem to understand the grip it held on me though. Jimmy just thought I was weird, and spent too much time in the bathroom washing my hands.
RFA Sir Tristram had been extensively rebuilt after suffering a direct hit in the Falklands War. Consequently, speed was not her thing. She could cruise at nine knots, but no faster. We pushed out from Plymouth into the Atlantic waiting for the final call to start heading to the Middle East, and then sailed in a five-mile box shape for four days before we were told to revert to our original mission and head to the US. It appeared the UK Government was not prepared to commit any more forces to Iraq.
It takes two weeks to get to the US on a ship going nine knots. I found it hard to retain my sanity and my cabin mates did not help. I was sharing with Philippson and yet another Jim, who was senior to me but junior to Philippson. It would be fair to say that these two Jims did not get on; I, as the junior rank, simply observed their stand-off.
The new Jim declared on the first day that he ‘did not believe in deodorant’ – which on a ship heading through the tropics was always going to be a problem. He had also brought a guitar with him; he thought he possessed a talent for music, but was sorely mistaken. Philippson had a short tolerance for most things, but by his own admission this particular set up was a challenge for him.
Philippson and I became very close during this trip. Our days would be similar; getting up together, doing some strenuous physical exercise, reading (I think Jim was trying to read the entire Bible at the time, cover to cover) and a lot of smoking off the back of the ship after dinner, watching the sun go down, chatting. Philippson had also started a book about his life, which I am sure would have been a terrific read; I don’t know what happened to it in the end.
We docked in Virginia at Naval Station Norfolk – the biggest naval base in the world. Soldiers who had been cooped up for two weeks were released into the city at 1900 hours on a Friday night, and warned against being absent when the ship headed further south in three days’ time. Carnage was inevitable.
Philippson and I stuck together, ending up spending the night with a couple of girls at a house they shared in Virginia. These girls entertained us for a good couple of days, showing us around the place before we had to return to the ship, where I promptly wrote a letter to my girlfriend at home telling her how much I was missing her. The following day we headed further south (again at nine knots) to conduct exercises and ship-to-shore manoeuvres with the US Marines, using an array of helicopters and landing craft.
Once we got ashore for the main part of the exercise, we spent the long, sweaty days firing and moving the 105mm Light Gun Howitzers that were the mainstay of the regiment. When we weren’t firing the 105s, we conducted some basic jungle training in the swamps. Each evening we would take a run to the nearest beach to cool off in the Atlantic Ocean. Lif
e was good.
After a month or so in the field, the exercise finished and we embarked on another short period of R&R. Jim Philippson, myself and a couple of others hired a car and drove down the eastern seaboard of the United States. We spent a particularly memorable weekend in a hotel that was hosting a cheerleader convention, and I was offered a job in the Abercrombie & Fitch shop in Jacksonville by a very attractive girl, which I seriously considered. When I told Philippson, he informed me I was a wimp for not taking it and absconding service.
R&R trips abroad were one of the reasons you joined the Army in those days. In a world of increasing commitment and declining resource, I fear they are often the first items on the agenda of any cost-cutting exercise; a sore mistake. In some parts of the British Army, R&R is a very controlled science. Blokes are given specific packages of accommodation and activities, are usually escorted by officers and bussed to and from specific locations rather than given a free rein. In 3 Commando Brigade, we were told when the ship was leaving, and precisely how much shit we would get in if we were not aboard. Many commandos have, in the past, been seen running towards a retreating gang-plank in last night’s clothes; one story involved one of the Senior NCOs conducting a boat-to-ship transfer using a local police boat in New York. Happy times.
6
While I had been earning my dollars (or not) with Jim Philippson, my best mate in the regiment, Jimmy Goddard, had been rather jiffed by the system and didn’t come to the US. I’m not sure how, because he was a very popular bloke, but Jimmy had ended up with a sequence of indifferent junior staff jobs. After our courses in Norway, instead of going on exercise Jimmy was tasked to host visits to Norway from British dignitaries and ministers, including the regimental chaplain, who was to become a great friend to both of us. Karl Freeman still enthusiastically runs his church in Plymouth; we became such friends that he married my wife and me a decade later.
Jimmy did manage to benefit personally from his time pushing papers in regimental HQ. We had both assumed that, as neither of us had been to university, we would have a slower rise to the rank of captain than our fellow officers. This was the norm for non-graduates back then. You can imagine my disdain when, one morning shortly after my return, he burst into my room, took off his second lieutenant rank slide and threw it on my floor, proclaiming, ‘I won’t be needing this shit any more.’ He had managed to convince ‘the system’ that his NVQ in bricklaying was the equivalent of a degree, and was to be promoted.
After his stint in regimental headquarters, Jimmy was to be posted to 7 (Sphinx) Commando Battery; a sub-unit of 29 Commando located in Arbroath, some 600 miles from Plymouth. Soon afterwards, I was completing another twenty-four-hour orderly officer duty on Tuesday, 3 August 2004, when I received a call from Jimmy’s brother Andrew. Andrew informed me that Jimmy – along with Claire Stickler, a friend of ours from Sandhurst – had suffered a horrendous climbing accident that afternoon on the Gower Peninsula. The fall had killed Claire and, amongst multiple other injuries, had snapped Jimmy’s spinal column, leaving him paralysed. Jimmy wanted to see me.
I rushed up to the Morrison Hospital in Swansea, where I found Jimmy’s family. I was taken up to see him and, looking through the glass window of his room, I could see the severity of his injuries for myself. I opened the door, and Jimmy sat up as best he could, stretched out his arms – ripping out the multiple cannulas – and gave me a bear hug. He was beside himself with grief for Claire, completely disregarding his own situation, as ever.
Desperate and dark days followed. I committed myself to spending my summer leave in the hospital with Jimmy, his mum and his sister. We took turns sleeping on the floor in the family room. I would shave him in the mornings and make sure, led by his family, that visitors were both available and wanted. I went to see Claire in the mortuary. Jimmy had asked me to say goodbye for him; at this stage we didn’t know if Jimmy was going to be able to do it himself. She looked peaceful and happy. I kissed her forehead – the first of my friends to die.
There were some very long nights during the hot August of 2004, as we all struggled to comprehend the horror of the accident which Jimmy relayed to me a number of times. During our darkest nights he wanted to join Claire, and I struggled for words. This deeply impressive and strong young man would now be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his days, and I resolved that I would always be there for him, regardless of our separate journeys from here on.
Jimmy was in hospital for thirteen long months following the accident. After the initial summer leave period I managed to get up and see him perhaps twice a month, as I returned to my duties in the Army. He’d been moved to Stoke Mandeville, where he undertook strenuous rehabilitation. This involved working hard on his balance while learning the basics of self-reliance in a wheelchair, including transferring in and out of the chair into car seats, sofas and toilets. Adapting to life in a wheelchair, while emotionally and psychologically demanding, is also a huge physical challenge, as the most basic of human functions must be re-learnt. I found his determination to progress inspiring. At Stoke Mandeville, an institution where many in his position did not work as hard as him to adapt, it was a privilege to go and see him on Christmas Day, Saturday evenings and other potentially lonely times.
We resolved that once he had finished at Stoke Mandeville hospital we would go away for a while. He loathed the fussing over him; everybody helping him to do the smallest of tasks. We got him a Motability car, packed it out and decided to drive it as far as we could without falling out with the vehicle or each other.
We departed from Bracknell early one morning and headed to the Channel. We drove through France that first night, straight to San Sebastian in northern Spain, where we pulled up in a layby, blew up the roll-mats and got a bit of sleep. We spent some long and hot days in and around San Sebastian before heading further south through Madrid to an apartment in southern Spain that was owned by a member of Jimmy’s family. During the days, we would often head to a swimming pool or the beach and lounge around. In the evenings, we would inevitably head into the nearest town and put away a few beers, as Jimmy enjoyed discovering how much he could now drink.
Jimmy had always been an extremely fit man, and he was determined his injury would not put an end to that. We had managed to strap his hand-cycle to the top of the car for our holiday, and he got in it at every opportunity. He drove it on the roads like he was at the wheel of a lorry, commanding other drivers to get out of the way and scaring the life out of me. We engineered a contraption that meant we could hook his wheelchair onto the back of the bike, so that when in town he could transfer into that and get about a bit easier. With me on a clapped-out mountain bike we looked like a travelling circus, but neither of us cared. The Spanish police stopped us on our way home most evenings, assuming we were thieves with a penchant for wheelchairs and handcycles. I won’t forget the time we had to prove Jimmy was unable to use his legs.
The holiday gave Jimmy time to get used to his new life. It was rigged with challenges that can be overcome with close friends – personal hygiene was dealt with by the fire-hose at the apartment we used; the sea provided a well-needed bath. Maintaining dignity was a big thing for me, and an even more important thing for Jimmy. I didn’t want to fuss over him, and it can’t be easy having things done for you by mates who you used to look after yourself. But we both just got on with it; laughing as I occasionally collapsed into the sand under the strain of carrying him hundreds of metres to and from the sea; often letting him struggle and work things out for himself. It was just what both of us wanted – a chance to get away from life in the UK and spend some quality ‘tramp time’ abroad.
7
During the winter of 2005 I was dispatched to run the regimental ski team, competing at a series of events across Norway and Europe for four months. It sounds rather idyllic, until I tell you that it was cross-country skiing (not downhill) and I had to wear a Lycra all-in-one gimp suit for the races.
When I returned to the UK
a decorated athlete (not), I was sent to the jungle warfare training school in Belize, probably to warm up a bit.
Belize was another formative experience for me. I was put in command of a troop of Royal Marines, with two sections made up of marines from 45 Commando, and one of soldiers from 29 Commando Regiment. We spent thirty-two days in the jungle without respite – initially on a course and then on a three-week exercise. I didn’t know any of the personalities before I left the UK, but gelled fast with my troop sergeant, ‘Doddy’, who was a rough, tough but brilliant soldier. And a Scouser.
The whole experience shaped me further as a young officer. The jungle was a terrific environment to operate in as an infantry troop commander. It was claustrophobically wet and hot, and the days were long and physically exhausting. I learnt how to live, survive and fight in both primary (untouched) and secondary (re-grown, after deforestation or similar) jungle.
There was plenty of wildlife to keep you amused as well. The nearest watering hole for a wash was also home to some crocodiles, who peered at us through weeds on the opposite side of the lagoon as we swam. To wash we would all strip naked, lather up and then dive in. The soap was sucked off us by hundreds of tiny fish; an exhilarating clean! Living like an animal amongst the jungle wildlife and my brother soldiers, cut off from the outside world, was a very happy time for me.
This stint in the jungle was followed by a short but memorable period of R&R, where I took the opportunity to go diving off the stunning St George’s Caye in Belize. Upon returning to camp to begin our transit back to the UK, we discovered that our plane had been delayed by three days. The CO addressed us all in the camp. In his apologetic speech, he included the instruction that under no circumstances were we to head into Belize City, and certainly not to a place down the road called Raul’s Rose Garden.
As soon as darkness had fallen we were all on our way to Raul’s Rose Garden in downtown Belize City. I went with my troop sergeant. We walked into what looked like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Prostitutes were everywhere; fights were sporadically breaking out; chairs were flying; and all in this warehouse, shed-type structure that was meant to be a bar. Doddy and I got a drink and observed. Blokes were engaged in sexual acts all over the place. The Army unit we had been supporting for the exercise finally saw their chance to throw a few fists at my marines, after we had mercilessly taken the piss out of their soldiering skills for the last six weeks. It was carnage. We stayed for a bit to make sure that the lads were sticking together and were OK, before getting a tip-off about an impending police raid. We left by the back door and headed to a quieter bar for the rest of the night.
We Were Warriors Page 6