9 hours ago
William and Harry's former private secretary: 'Protect our courageous SAS soldiers or we will lose them forever'
Last summer I went back to Hereford for the funeral of a friend from 30 years ago. He had died climbing, which is what he loved most, apart from his family, his friends and his country.
Other than a mesmerising twinkle in the eye and dark good looks, he didn't stand out as anything special on a crowded street. For he was a humble man: Kind, selfless and quietly confident. He had a drive within him to help others, particularly the vulnerable, the picked-upon and those living in fear of their lives.
Normal traits, in fact, for a soldier of the Special Air Service.
So much has been written about the SAS, so many films made, so many reality-TV botch-ups of our actions and even our selection processes. Apart from one or two post-war accounts written by early veterans, I recognise none of the recent fictional stereotypes in my friend the climber or anyone else I came across in my eight years in the regiment.
At the wake after the funeral in Hereford, the regiment's home, I was buttonholed by George Simm, my Squadron Sergeant Major, Regimental Sergeant Major and benevolent scourge. Almost all the old friends I met with him were being persecuted for their brave actions in Northern Ireland many decades ago.
They were phlegmatic, facing the storm as they've faced it before, but their courage could not conceal the sense of betrayal they felt. I left angry.
It is an abhorrent injustice. Though bound by the SAS strict code of discretion, I can at least use the four unchanging principles of our founder David Stirling to tell you the reality of what I saw during my time.
First, the principle that seemed so effortless to everyone but me (though I hope others may have felt the same): 'The unrelenting pursuit of excellence.'
I have never known – nor will I again – such consummate professionalism as in the SAS.
Within its ranks are some of the finest soldiers in the world, jacks-of-all-trades who have proved they can meet any threat – except perhaps the one they now face from lawfare, the threat from within.
Next came 'the highest standards of self-discipline'. Physical and organisational, but especially moral.
An oft-quoted line is that we would never transgress morally on operations because to do so would be to lower ourselves to the base level of our enemies, blowing our credibility and decimating our ability to achieve our mission.
While this may be true, it is secondary. What guides SAS soldiers is the urge to do right by the innocent folk we have been sent to protect – as in Northern Ireland, where the SAS arrested more terrorists than they ever killed – and to do right in the eyes of our comrades and the British people.
That might sound overly idealistic, pompous even, but it is how many of us felt. Some of us in the regiment did not even vote in general elections. This was not idleness and certainly not some petulant statement. It was because we had implicit faith in our system of parliamentary democracy, and in what Britain stood for in the world.
To have voted would, in some way, have compromised that. We were there to do the will of the Government – any government – and not take party-political sides. That, of course, was when we believed the Government had our backs.
Stirling insisted upon 'a classless but not a rank-less society', based on pure merit and no social preferment. We all did the same selection – officers and men – which meant that we had complete faith in one another.
To reap the benefits of an egalitarian structure such as the SAS, as with any other successful human enterprise, still requires leadership and a rank structure. But, as a commander in the regiment, what I learnt very early on was that I was not always the leader.
To have had me telling the climber what to do on a cliff-face would have been, literally, sheer lunacy. He was the leader then... and so on.
Finally, Stirling recognised that hubris was the surest route to ruin.
So, his quartet closes with a call for 'humility and humour'. Recognising that success in the past does not guarantee success for the future is often the most difficult of the principles to obey. But it is perhaps the most critical. The urgency with which SAS soldiers fought the temptation to be complacent and strove to remain ahead of our country's enemies simply astounded me. It still does.
While an unforgivable conceit, I am going to add a fifth principle: 'Decency'.
Three of my children have SAS god-fathers. They weren't picked for their extraordinary skills – hardly transferable – but because the moral compass of each is welded at true north. Enough said.
It seems to me that the British have a decision to make. Either we move to protect our SAS soldiers – as they have protected us – or we do nothing and lose the SAS.
In capability and character, this is a strategic asset that no other country has and which – any day now – the British people might sorely need.
This is why I wholeheartedly support the Daily Mail's campaign to protect our veterans.
