Bear Grylls Quote

There was another whole bunch of hopefuls. They would diminish down at a startling rate. We had seen it happen before.This time, though, we were there as the old hands. And it helped.We knew what to expect; the mystique had gone, and the prize was up for grabs.That was empowering.It was now wintertime, and winter Selection is always considered the tougher course, because of the mountain conditions. I tried not to think about this.Instead of the blistering heat and midges, our enemies would be the freezing, driving sleet, the high winds, and the short daylight hours.These made Trucker and me look back on the summer Selection days as quite balmy and pleasant! It is strange how accustomed you become to hardship, and how what once seemed horrific can soon become mundane.The DS had often told us: If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training.And it rains a lot in the Brecon Beacons. Trust me.(I recently overheard our middle boy, Marmaduke, tell one of his friends this SAS mantra. The other child was complaining that he couldn’t go outside because it was raining. Marmaduke, age four, put him straight. Priceless.)The first few weekends progressed, and we both shone.We were fitter, stronger, and more confident than many of the other recruits, but the winter conditions were very real.We had to contend with winds that, on one weekend exercise, were so strong on the high ridges that I saw one gust literally blow a whole line of soldiers off their feet--including the DS. Our first night march saw one recruit go down with hypothermia. Like everyone else, he was wet and cold, but in the wind and whiteout he had lost that will to look after himself, and to take action early.He had forgotten the golden rule of cold, which the DS had told us over and over: Don’t let yourself get cold. Act early, while you still have your senses and mobility. Add a layer, make shelter, get moving faster--whatever your solution us, just do it.Instead, this recruit had just sat down in the middle of the boggy moon grass and stopped. He could hardly talk and couldn’t stand. We all gathered round him, forming what little shelter we could. We gave him some food and put an extra layer of clothing on him.We then helped him stagger off the mountain to where he could be picked up by Land Rover and taken to base camp, where the medics could help him.For him, that would be his last exercise with 21 SAS, and a harsh reminder that the struggles of Selection go beyond the demons in your head. You also have to be able to survive the mountains, and in winter that isn’t always easy.One of the other big struggles of winter Selection was trying to get warm in the few hours between the marches.In the summer it didn’t really matter if you were cold and wet--it was just unpleasant rather than life-threatening. But in winter, if you didn’t sort yourself out, you would quickly end up with hypothermia, and then one of two things would happen: you would either fail Selection, or you would die.Both options were bad.