Secrets of the SAS: In Their Own Words (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Undercover - full transcript

The SAS.

The world's most secretive
and feared military unit.

The SAS, in reality,
is nothing like anything

I have ever seen portrayed
on a movie or TV.

It's better than that.

For 70 years,
this mysterious force

has played a pivotal role in every

British military operation
you've heard of

and plenty you haven't.

We know we're on it,

the British Government will deny
all knowledge of us being on it.



In this series,
for the first time,

elite SAS soldiers talk
in unprecedented detail

about the gritty reality of life
inside the Special Air Service.

You have to have control

but when it's necessary,
and only when it's necessary,

act with extreme violence,
professionally.

Piling off of helicopters,
people swinging down ropes,

enemy running this way.
It's carnage.

Cars and guns, stuck everywhere.

Pistols and machine guns in the car,
you've got all sorts going on.

It was great fun,
like a video game almost.

There's no such thing
as an uninjured soldier.

We're trained to go to war,
we're trained to fight.

But how do you train
to look at somebody



that was once your friend
and is now dead?

I, basically, drunk myself into a
stupor and tried to shoot myself.

Get out the car!

This is the frank, intimate truth

of serving and surviving in the SAS.

You can wear all the green kit,
you know, all the sort of helmets

and, you know,
body armour all that sort of stuff,

you can wear all the black kit,
doing the counter-terrorism

but you can do
what we call the "Grey Ops."

And that's the undercover stuff.

Operating undercover
can be exhilarating,

it gives you a massive buzz.
You love it until it goes wrong.

You almost freeze.
It's almost, "Okay, it's now."

There's no fight.
There's no shouting back.

You're completely empty.

There was a lot going
in terms of sectarian violence.

It was a kind of tinderbox
waiting to go off, if you like.

Radical religious militias
and criminal gangs

have turned the streets of Basra
into a battlefield.

There was a chance
that if you were kidnapped,

you'd be handed over from one
or other parties,

and your fate would depend
on who held you

and what regard they held you in.

When you join the SAS,

you expect your disguise
or your camouflage

is going to consist of things like
cam cream for your face

or foliage in your webbing
and stuff like that.

I don't think you ever envisage
that you would be donning fake tan

and putting hair dye in your hair
and beard.

But I think if I was dressed
as I was now back in those days,

yeah, I would have definitely
been picked up and kidnapped

and either sold for money,
handed over, beheaded.

Any number of scenarios.

Colin's mission is to drive
undetected through the violent city.

For experienced SAS soldiers,
this should be a routine job.

On the day in question,
we had to drop off

a couple of SIS agents in Kuwait.

We had already rehearsed it,
we know what to do.

But this mission
will be anything but routine.

It will test their skills
and training to the limit

and reveal what it takes
to operate undercover

and under pressure in the SAS.

It's a completely different
theatre of operations.

It becomes almost that,
I wouldn't say James Bond-y,

but you're doing something
that's completely different

and very, very difficult.

Some of the people that do it
are exceptional.

I loved doing the sneaky peaky stuff.
The disguises. The following.

Lurking in the shadows, surveillance,
spy type work...

...whether that's hiding in a bush
or looking at someone

whether it's in disguise
following someone.

Maybe you've got a camera
filming somebody.

The excitement of following somebody,
monitoring somebody

is very, very sweet.

But the vulnerability is that
you could get bumped

because you've been compromised
without you knowing.

I've operated in many environments
undercover.

Keeping a low profile,

being aware of the fact
that there are factions out there

that would take every opportunity
to kill or capture.

It is a very,
very difficult thing to do

but very, very exciting.

So when we do our spy course,

we're trained in pens
that fire lasers,

we do a helicopter flying course

and we're all issued
with an Aston Martin

fitted with ejector seats.

That's all bollocks.

When we do surveillance courses,
it's real gritty stuff.

So it's working on your own,
it's being adaptable, being flexible,

blending into environments,
influencing people.

That's the skills of the new breed
of Special Forces operators,

how many different faces they have.

Colin and his colleague
head out on their mission.

Beyond the safety of British Army HQ,
in the volatile city,

they'll need all their skills
and training

to remain undetected.

When we were in Basra,

we had to blend in
with the local environment

so that meant all the cars
that the locals drove

and quite often,
we would be operating

in a real clapped out vehicle

with none of the
Gucci little accessories

and sexy little bits of equipment
that we might have in Ireland.

Colin cut his teeth working
undercover in Northern Ireland

where the SAS operated
for four decades.

You're sort of left
on your own to operate.

Cars and guns stuck everywhere,
pistols and machine guns in the car,

you've got all sorts going on.

It was fantastic.

But something could happen, you know?

Just in the blink of an eye,
if you like.

And you had to be ready for that.
And that is nerve wracking.

But for all its dangers,

Ireland was at least
familiar territory.

Ireland's a controlled environment.

We have bases everywhere.
You can speak from anywhere.

The cavalry are coming

if you get yourself
in a sticky situation.

But in Iraq,
that's not quite the case

and danger's
kind of around every corner

and the cavalry might not be coming
if you're taken.

By mid-morning,

the SAS team have successfully
dropped the two intelligence agents

across the Kuwaiti border,
undetected.

They're already half way back
to their base in Basra.

As we were driving back
from the border towards the palace,

the car broke down.

We tried to bump it, fix it,
push it, breakdown kit.

It was really dead.

There was just two of us stranded,

no back up in one of the most
dangerous cities in the world.

One of the reasons why
I loved being in the military

was the sense of a family,
tribe, group,

whatever you want to call it.

That close family unit
resembled something I didn't have

and I'd never had from my childhood.
Yeah.

My childhood was quite,
as is a lot of former military,

it was quite troubled.

At times, it was quite physical.

Yeah. And there wasn't a lot to do.

There wasn't a lot of happy memories
from that time.

I worked out, before I was 14,

I was-- I had been
in at least 20 different schools.

I ended up in children's homes.

In my sort of, like, early teens,
I suppose, from the age of 12.

Dropped out of school.
Got in a fair amount of trouble.

I was adopted when I was five

and, basically,
I just lived in housing estates

round South London, in Bermondsey
and Peckham predominantly.

Getting into gangs
and all that sort of stuff.

And landed up in juvenile detention
at the age of 16.

My mum took me along
to the Career's Office at 15

and there was a nice shiny picture
of a guy

hanging off a radar dish
in Hong Kong.

And I always remember

it was a Telecommunication
Systems Analyst Operator.

And it sounded very grand.

So I said, "I want to do that."
And he said,

"It's a year's waiting list
and then a year's training."

And my mum said,
"No, he's got to be out of the house

by the time he's 16."

So I joined the infantry
two weeks' later.

I guess grew most of my childhood
out in the army, really.

All of a sudden I've got a bed,
I've got a mat, I've got a locker,

I've got all this sort of stuff.

Within a group of people.
That's all about the tribe.

I mean,
they fed me three times a day.

They gave me warm clothes to wear.

They paid me
at the end of every week.

To me, it was Nirvana.

But I guess
anyone that joins the SAS

doesn't want to spend 22 years
and tell their kids and grandkids

that, you know, the most they did
was stand outside Buckingham Palace.

They want to say
that they served in a conflict.

They went on operations.
They have war stories.

You want to be part of that.

You want to be remembered
for being part of something.

Sixteen years later,
Colin is on the outskirts of Basra.

He's on an undercover mission

in one of the most lawless cities
on Earth.

And now he's stranded,
miles from base.

When you're on a job
and things don't go to plan,

you're immediately
out of that comfort zone.

You're immediately in that place
you probably don't want to be

as nobody would want to be.

But I guess you're...

All the training that you've done,
all the people that are around you,

the situation that you're in,

you can only go
with what you have in front of you.

Pop the bonnet, I'll have a look.

Getting out of the car
is a last resort.

As soon as we have to leave the car
for any reason,

there's a higher risk
that we're gonna be--

Our cover's going to be blown
because of who we are.

So, really, the quickest
and the fastest way

to get back to the palace
was to hijack a car.

And the next car to pass us
was a taxi.

My favoured approach
of hijacking taxis

is to try first with US Dollars.

And if that doesn't, then show them
the calibre of my weapon...

Inside the fucking car now!

...which often persuades them
that I can be the taxi driver.

The taxi driver was obviously afraid,

he probably wasn't aware of exactly
who we were.

But I tried to show him my soft,
approachable side

to warm his fears,
but I don't think it worked.

Your soft approachable
side whilst holding a gun?

The gun doesn't help.

As does the rocket launchers
and machine guns

that were getting loaded
into his boot.

But I thought that a smile and a wink
might help in that situation.

We were feeling slightly anxious
in that we were in a taxi.

But we were relieved
that we had that opportunity,

that we'd managed to get a car.

But there's always
this niggly feeling,

"Have I been compromised?
Are we going to get discovered?"

Or has some bastard seen us
and is not letting on

and he's off down the road

putting the bubble
in to the local hit squad?

All this kind of stuff plays
on your mind.

As we were cross loading
our kit from our car

that had broken down into the taxi,

there was a few cars had passed us
in the minute or so,

it took us to do that.

And there's a chance
that someone may have phoned ahead.

There's times when you know
that you might have been pinged.

Somebody's looked at you

and think they must be thinking,
"Who the fuck's that?"

And you just have to get on with it.
And, hopefully, get through it.

We knew the checkpoint
would be on the outskirts of Basra.

But when we came up
to the checkpoint,

we knew right away that there was
some heightened state

of security or alert.

In the olden days, the bad guys
would have worn a balaclava

and been quite obvious.

In Basra, the enemy and the militia
were sometimes police,

they were sometimes military.

It was a very complex situation.

Look at the card,
look at the card!

They were trying to pull
on the door handles.

And because it was a hijacked taxi,
the locks weren't working on it.

So we almost had this comedy moment

of the guys outside opening the door
and me holding it shut on the inside.

So at this point,
we knew we couldn't drive out,

we couldn't ram our way out,

so we either debus under fire
or we debus quite passively.

We were quite heavily outnumbered.

And there were
some very twitchy police officers

and I thought if we tried
to debus and fire,

the way they were situated
all around the vehicle,

it would be very hard for us
not to get hit.

And given there was only two of us,

our chances of getting out
of that one alive would be very slim.

You like to think
that when the enemy appear,

you'll do what you need to do.

Now if that means just getting away

without having
to cause any fire fight,

then you do what you need to do.

The only time you draw down a weapon
is if you're gonna kill someone.

I served with guys
that did their whole--

Their full career, 22 years,

and never fired a round--
A weapon in anger.

That didn't mean to say they weren't
doing their job properly.

They had the discipline not to fire,
you know?

Because if they had,
they may have either compromised,

or they compromised the operation
or they may have hurt somebody.

With Colin's cover blown,
he's at their mercy.

Gradually, we were stripped
of our layers,

so our body armour,
pistol, ammunition,

until, eventually, we were naked.

At the time,
it wasn't clear who was in charge.

They would be fighting
between themselves

and, like, throwing me one way
or the other.

So it was quite a volatile situation.

I think the training that you go
through in selection and afterwards

helped a great deal.

Whenever you're stripped naked,

there's a sense of vulnerability
about it

but being uncomfortable,
with no clothes on,

that's somewhere I'd been before.

That wasn't alien to me.

During selection and training,

SAS soldiers undergo
intensive interrogation.

Stripping them is just the start.

The sole reason why we get them naked
and hold them naked for a while

is purely as a conditioning,

it's to make them feel vulnerable,
make them feel cold.

So you're stripped naked
and they start throwing abuse at you,

asking you the normal stuff,
"Where you from, what you doing,

where's your unit," you know,
typical interrogation stuff, really.

Don't upset him.
Don't be arrogant.

Don't show any sort of emotion.

It's just staying
out of his eye line.

Try and make yourself look
as unattractive as possible

without antagonising him to do it.

It helps being quite passive.

It helps not being, you know,
not putting on a strong persona

and trying to bring on resistance

but rather to be almost subdued
and passive

and like a victim of where you are.

Colin is doing everything right.

But this isn't a training exercise.

I thought, if they all lost control,

it was likely that we were
gonna be torn to pieces,

beheaded, tortured and killed,
bodies dumped.

That's where I felt
the most vulnerable.

We're quite often working isolated
and cut off with no back up coming.

And sometimes
there are consequences to that

and the positions
that you can find yourself.

But inside your head,
have that strong inner strength

and that kind of weird dynamic
helps get you through it.

Colin's mental strength
is no accident.

British Army, get down, get down!

SAS selection is fine tuned

to identify men with the resilience
to survive extreme situations.

What the SAS want from people

is they don't want unthinking
psychopathic robots

who will just jump
and do what they're told.

What the SAS want is mature,
self reliant people

who can think for themselves.

And the whole SAS selection
is based towards that.

From putting you up
in the Welsh hills

with a 70 or 80 pound Bergen
on your back,

to putting you in the jungle.

The jungle's particularly hard
and it's quite mentally gruelling.

SAS hopefuls must survive
for six weeks

in the jungles of Belize or Brunei,

some of the planet's
most hostile environments.

The British SAS do not,

unlike the South African
special forces,

have psychological assessments.

They put you in the jungle.

And they watch you. In the jungle.
They watch you keenly.

And again,
until you've been in the jungle,

you don't know what it's like.

It's by far
the hardest part of selection.

And I'm pretty certain
everybody else would agree.

That jungle--
If you can soldier in the jungle,

you can soldier anywhere.

Because the minute you get in there,
your body starts to fall apart.

Because of the temperatures
that you're operating in.

You're working in 100 plus degrees
plus 100 percent humidity.

Imagine being in a sauna bath
for 12 hours. Fully clothed.

Imagine that in that sauna bath,

every insect wants
to suck your blood.

Every tree wants to rip your flesh.

For every three steps forward,
you've got to take at least one back.

And you're constantly having

a steady stream of dirt
going down the back of your neck

so that you're constantly itching
from the top of your shoulders

to the base of your spine.

And having to work
for 12 hours in that,

every day, for six weeks.

If you have a psychological flaw,
it will show up.

Test your resolve,
you're on your own.

You spend every night of darkness
late in your hammock,

there's noises there,
you don't see the sky.

You're almost under the canopy
the full time.

You're constantly wet,

you don't know
how you're being assessed.

It's almost a constant analysis,
so with those pressures on,

that can sometimes just bring up
clues as to someone's psyche.

It's unrelenting.
I mean, when I finished,

I had a dislodged retina
in my left eye,

I had no toenails left,
two broken toes.

And, you know,
it's testing for a reason.

Because, you know, they're not
gonna send you to Mothercare

to ply your trade after that,
are they? Do you know what I mean?

It was so harsh, it was comical.

One of the guys in my patrol,

each time he blinked,
he had this black bit in his eye.

And there was a leech
on the underside of his eyelid

with its tail all poking out
underneath the eyelid.

He then ran into a bastard bush

and got a thorn right
through his cheek into his tongue

which was very impressive, actually,
that it didn't bleed that much.

You'll know
when you have got hold of it

because it's got very sharp thorns

and when you put your hand on it,
the very first thing you'll do

is shout out, "Bastard!"

And it's very, very painful.

I got chased by a bear!

We were patrolling up this ridge line
and it was all silent

and we were sort of, like,
we were all giving it, like,

"Yeah, we are proper troopers here,"
do you know what I mean?

We're all cammed out.

We're all patrolling
up this ridge line.

And this fucking honey bear
from nowhere just appears.

And I'm like, "Bollocks!"

Yelled at this thing.
Do you know what I mean?

I'm like...

And I yelled at it so fucking loud,
it run away.

And run down this thing.
But they must've heard me.

Fuck me, they would have heard me
in the fucking centre of Brunei.

Do you know what I mean?
It was ridiculous.

I spilt insect repellent
on my testicles, basically,

and that happened in about day four

and I went right up to day 31
of selection

having to recover myself
and look after myself

with this very severe chemical burn
with the scars to show it.

Some people can't work

in that real claustrophobic
environment of say, a jungle,

in a small group of people
where there isn't any supervision

which will be exactly the same
when they are on operations

because you haven't got the
big military structure

telling you what to do

so you have to get on with it
yourself.

I was either gonna come off
with a pass

or I was going to come off
in a body bag.

I was that determined
that I was gonna get around.

And a lot of the guys put themselves
in that kind of mind-set.

You can literally be,

you know,
the fittest man on selection

but if you don't have
the mental strength to do it,

then you're not gonna get through.

This ingrained mental
toughness has kept Colin alive.

So far.

I was conscious of the sharp
kind of bevelled edge at the...

Almost the base of my head
at the back of my head.

It wasn't flat, it wasn't blunt.
It was quite a sharp edge.

I knew it was an AK-47.

You're kneeling down

and then you feel the gun
against your head.

What goes through your mind
at that moment?

Hopefully, not a bullet.

As the sharp end of the muzzle goes
against it, you almost freeze.

It's almost a, "Okay, it's now".

But you don't stop thinking.

You're always thinking of what ifs.

Family, kids, friends,

what are the news headlines
gonna say,

what's gonna be the consequences
of this.

That all flashes through your mind.

But, I guess,
right at that split second,

when the sharpness hits your head,

you almost empty your head
of thoughts or reflections

and just kind of prepare yourself,
I guess.

The trigger's pulled. It's a click.

There's, like, a split second
where you're not entirely sure

whether that was a mistake
or deliberate.

So you're unsure how to feel.

You're unsure whether that was
a rehearsal for what's coming next

or this is all part
of the intimidation game.

It's a very uncomfortable position
to be in

but it's also quite a peaceful one.

There are no more decisions
for you to make.

There's no fight.
There's no shouting back.

You're completely empty.

It's hard to feel elated or euphoric

about the fact
it's just been a click.

I mean, it could have been a mistake

so maybe he hadn't cocked his weapon
and now he is gonna

and now it's really gonna happen.

So I guess it makes
the whole situation

a lot more futile, in a sense,

that you're just waiting
for the inevitable

and you have almost nothing
you can do.

But the shot never comes.

It seemed like, if they wanted
to kill me, they would have

so I felt almost
an inherent safety about that.

Their captors move the two SAS men

from the checkpoint
to a police station inside Basra.

They have no idea
why they've been moved

or who's holding them.

Many of the local police
are working hand in hand

with violent gangs
and fundamentalists.

But at least they're nearer
to British Army HQ.

We were closer to home,
we were surrounded by police

and surely...

Surely it wasn't gonna be all bad
when we got in there.

But things go downhill fast.

Almost as soon as we arrived

we could hear a bit of a commotion
going on outside.

News has spread
that two foreigners

are being held in the police station.

A mob quickly grows outside.

Lots of people shouting,
screaming.

Lot of rounds going off.
Petrol bombs getting thrown.

And that just increased in noise
and size, the longer we were there.

I was more scared
of the people outside coming in

because then, all bets are off.

You've got no control.

Colin knows
that this isn't the first time

an Iraqi mob has trapped
a group of British soldiers

in a police station.

It happened to six military
police officers two years earlier.

They were all killed.

And I guess that's why when the mob
lost control in my situation,

I felt like my chances of survival
are a lot worse.

It was very close
to just slipping off the edge

of us getting out there alive.

I don't want to die.
Nobody does want to die.

But it's one thing we're all gonna do
sooner or later, isn't it? You know?

It's the only thing we're guaranteed
to do, isn't it?

So, you know, it's a consideration.

You hope that if it's going to
happen, it's happens quick.

I always like to think
that I was gonna take a few with me

if it was going to happen.

But all you can really do when you
think about something like that

is consider others.

You don't consider yourself

because I'm not gonna fucking
be here, am I?

So you've got to think, you know,

"Are my family gonna be happy
with the way things ended

and, you know,
can I write them something

that might soften the blow
for them slightly?" You know?

Or at least give them something
to cling on to

when, you know,
they're finding it hard to deal with.

I'm not gonna have to do that, am I?

I ain't gonna be here.

When we all signed on the dotted line
and went off to the army,

it was an inherent risk.

And we all realised that we could be
the one that was killed

or one of our friends could be
and that was the nature of the beast.

With the mob threatening
to storm the police station,

Colin and his colleague
have become a liability

that the police want to off load.

They try to hand over
the SAS soldiers

to a gang of masked men.

I'm not getting on that fucking car!

The fact that these guys
were in balaclavas

and it was an unmarked car
was a tell-tale

that this wasn't going to end well
for me.

They're either from a criminal gang

or a radical religious group.

Both are bad news.

I've no doubt if I had got
in the back seat of that car,

I would have been executed
within a few minutes.

When you choose your battles
and that's one I chose

and I knew that this was a battle
worth fighting.

So I just gave it everything
not to get

in the back seat of that car.

That point there
was where I had to fight for my life.

And I just became
an unstoppable force,

an immovable object.

My resistance was too strong,

there was no way
they were gonna get me in there.

And, eventually, they gave up.

The two SAS men are
returned to the police station.

But the longer they're held there,

the more likely the mob are
to get in.

The situation is getting desperate.

When we were taken back
to the police station,

no one knew we were there,
no one was coming for us,

the mob was just getting
absolutely electric.

We knew at that point
it was only a matter of time

before we'd be torn to pieces.

We were always trying think
of how we could get a message out

or always on the lookout
for a military convoy,

perhaps, passing.

This determination
is fundamental to the SAS mind-set.

It's never over. It's never...

There's always a way.
There's always a will.

As long as you're still
compus mentus.

We do everything in our power
to achieve what we've got to achieve.

But sometimes,
it just might not be enough.

The power and influence

is with the people
that are holding you

so if they want to let the people in,

if they want to hand you over,
they can do.

It's a weird balance of fate
to be held in, really.

There's constantly the fear
of the unknown.

What's going to happen?
Are we going to be here forever?

Or if they're going to kill you,
they'll kill you.

They wanted to perhaps
rip us to pieces

because they thought
we were foreign terrorists

come to blow up their city

or perhaps they knew
we were intelligence

and wanted the same outcome.

Are they in here?

When I heard the British voice,

that was probably
the most elated I was

in terms of, you know,
I wasn't euphoric

when I found out
it was a mock execution,

I wasn't euphoric when we got a taxi

or we jumped in the back
of the police 4x4

but when I heard the British voice,

there's something about hearing
that British voice

that brings an instant comfort
because that is a friendly call sign.

And he won't be there on his own.
He will be there with other people.

And that was my safety net.

I know for a fact they're here.

Aerial reconnaissance
has spotted the commotion

outside the police station.

Once the military had arrived,

they couldn't really deny
they held us.

Okay.
Those men are coming with me.

But they still have to
get past the violent mob.

We had to just get down in the back
of an armoured vehicle

and kind of burst out
of the police gates.

And as we came out,
I could hear the mob outside.

It sounded like the walls
were gonna come crashing in.

They're all shouting, screaming,
rounds going off, things--

Bricks and bottles
and petrol bombs getting thrown.

So it was quite intense.

Just 12 hours after leaving
on their mission,

the SAS team are back inside
the British base at Basra Palace.

I got moved up to Baghdad
the next day.

And just going about the normal job
the rest of the guys were doing,

kicking doors in
and doing raids and stuff.

There's not a lot of counselling.

There wasn't at that time in terms
of the stress side of it

or talking about what happened.

It was more a case
of just getting back to it.

Just getting on with the job. Just...

Perhaps not letting your mind

like dwell on it
for any period of time.

Just getting stuck back
into operations again.

Six months after
his ordeal, Colin left the Army.

Iraq was his last tour of duty.

It seemed like
the right time to leave.

The right pause in what I was doing

to perhaps go off
and do other things.

It would be unnatural
for something like that to happen

and for you not to think back

about what was such
a significant part of your life.

I've never been taken hostage.

I'm sure people have just got on
with their lives.

But somewhere, somewhere,

it's gonna sit
in the back of their mind

that they were vulnerable
at that point

and they were taken hostage.

And that thought's
not gonna go away.

Whenever I talked about it,
like, I talk now,

I talk as if it's someone else.

It's quite a complex situation
to have been in, so it's not--

Sometimes it's not always black
and white.

I've probably lived a life

that a lot of young men
dream of doing.

And I don't take it for granted.

I'm proud of that part of my life.

It can be daunting knowing

that you're leaving with that much
of your life in front of you

but it can also be quite exciting.

Colin's 12 years in the SAS

have revealed something
that was in him from the very start.

Something common to all SAS soldiers.

People told me I was thick
when I was young.

Told me I'd never amount to anything.

I saw everything in school
as pointless.

Nowadays, I would probably
have been out diagnosed

with ADHD or something like that

because I couldn't go five minutes
without looking out the window.

Do you know what I mean?
I just couldn't do that.

I joined with a reading age
of a nine-year-old.

SAS selection proves
that academic achievement

is not the same thing
as intelligence.

I did an IQ test thing
and they decided it was quite high.

Like, I've got my doctorate now.

I have both a law degree

and a master's degree
in International Relations

and I've been a barrister
for 20 years now.

Brainpower is far more important

than firepower for an SAS soldier.

You can give anybody a weapon

but the tools to get him
out of that job are his mind.

So, I did an MA Hons
in History at Edinburgh University.

Yeah, I loved doing my degree.
I got a First Class.

I got the best dissertation
and best student,

which means
I'm really, really clever.

Probably cut that last bit.

Next time...
Even SAS soldiers pay a price

for the extreme violence

and extraordinary hardship
they endure.

Our sleep deprivation was that bad,

people, including myself,
started hallucinating.

You're in the SAS.
You can't be seen to be failing.

One minute I'm killing a kid
and then I'm going home

and I'm looking after
my terminally-ill son.

- Fits of temper.
- Depression. Dark moments.

Drunk myself into a stupor
and tried to shoot myself.

There is no such thing
as an uninjured soldier.