Jason Fox - Life Under Fire: How to Build Inner Strength and Thrive Under Pressure

1. PART ONE :
   The Battle Mind: How to Find Resilience
   1. Phase One :
      Basic Training: The Commando Spirit
   2. Phase Two :
      The Power of Purpose
   3. Phase Three :
      The Experience Factor: Knowledge Dispels Fear
   4. Phase Four :
      Finding Your Tribe
   5. Phase Five :
      Supermen and Wonder Women: Understanding the Truths Regarding Men, Women and Resilience
   6. Phase Six :
      The Power of Honesty: Handling the Truth
   7. Phase Seven :
      Self-awareness: Defeat Your Demons
2. PART TWO :
   By Strength and Guile
   1. Phase Eight :
      Mission Planning: Prepping for Pain
   2. Phase Nine :
      Developing Emotional Control
   3. Phase Ten :
      When the Battles Done
   4. Phase Eleven :
      CASEVAC: Counting the Cost of Battle
   5. Phase Twelve :
      The Reload: Finding Your Yukon

Jason Fox joined the Royal Marine Commandos at sixteen, serving for ten years, after which he passed the gruelling selection process for the Special Forces, serving with the Special Boat Service for over a decade and reaching the rank of Sergeant.

Today you are most likely to find him gracing our television screens and giving us a taste of action and adventure around the world.

Battle Scars

To Jules: the final piece in the puzzle
as I rediscovered my inner strength

Some of the battles and military operations mentioned in Life Under Fire took place in unnamed war zones. The details and locations featured in those operations have been redacted to protect the security of those involved and the practices of the UK Special Forces.

So how do we get out of this?

We were fleeing the scene of a bloody gunfight, running from the edge of a hostile village as enemy rounds ripped overhead. I looked around. Everybody was frazzled, a unit of men stranded in a remote outpost with nothing ahead but sand and rock for miles. Our landing zone was somewhere in the distance where hopefully a helicopter was waiting to extract us, but before that was five kilometres of potential ambush across the type of terrain Special Forces operators usually referred to as deadly ground a stretch of exposed battlefield with very little cover and nothing in the way of escape routes. Walking across it was often a test of nerve. A daisy chain of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) might lie in wait; snipers in hidden positions could pick us off one by one at any moment; and there was every chance a mob of gunmen might give chase from behind us in Toyota pick-up trucks rattling with weaponry. But the biggest problem with crossing deadly ground was psychological: the understanding of an awful, inevitable reality.

We were all out of options.

Wed been patrolling and scrapping through the town in 45C heat for hours on end, as part of a heavy three-day operation. All of us were approaching breaking point and our squadron had also taken a handful of casualties. The wounded were inexperienced local soldiers working alongside the British militarys elite forces and wed been carrying them in pairs. One soldier had been shot in the arm, another in the leg. The most worrying injury was the poor dude whose gut had been torn through with a bullet. Blood pulsed from a hole in his stomach and he looked to be in a pretty bad way. I figured hed live, but only if we could make it to our ride home in good time. The mood was jittery as we sprinted for safety.

Id been in plenty of knife-edge situations like this one before operations where the work had been tricky or helicopter crashes where Id become convinced my time was up. During one operation, Id been part of a team responsible for kicking in doors on a search for drugs and ammo. While I was moving from building to building, a gunman opened fire on me as I turned into a dead-end alley. Rounds ripped into the brickwork, drawing a deadly silhouette around my body, but I remained unscathed. Talk about a lucky escape. Now, moving across deadly ground, I needed some more of that good fortune, but the odds were stacked against me.

Weirdly, the mission that week had started out in a fairly routine manner. The aim had been to make our presence felt in a lawless outpost that intelligence had flagged as a hideout for fundamentalists and terrorist training cells. The town was located in an unfamiliar territory, one the British Armed Forces had yet to visit, and so we possessed very little information about what type of reception we could expect. Our arrival was completely unannounced and initially the mood among the local people seemed fairly agreeable. Theyd been caught napping literally: when wed entered the town at dawn a truck of fighters had just slowly cruised towards us. The blokes inside, dressed in black robes with only their eyes showing through their headdresses, waved and seemed to smile, but I knew their AK-47s were in there too, stashed out of sight. Their leader made an obviously flimsy offer of cooperation. It was bollocks and we knew it. Once wed kicked in a few doors and moved through one or two buildings where we found stashes of guns, ammo and drugs the mood turned nasty. An hour or so after wed returned to our makeshift camp a few miles away, a loudhailer echoed instructions through the streets. Our interpreter relayed the highlights back to us.

This will not happen again, yelled the voice. We will engage the enemy when they come back

A fight was coming.

Our work on that mission followed a familiar routine. During the evening we usually grabbed an hour or two of kip under the stars at our base, having smashed into some known enemy positions that were located in the mountains nearby; during the day we made a series of routine patrols through the town to get a feel for the place. Our adrenaline peaked and swooped with the action. Given that we were at the tail end of a six-month tour of duty, where wed been running missions pretty much every night, I was already at my physical limits. Sprinting around under the hot sun while carrying a backpack of heavy equipment and weaponry had taken its toll. Emotionally Id become a little frazzled, too. The stress of entering buildings unannounced and scanning the shadowy corners of dingy houses for gunmen and bomb-makers, while looking out for the safety of innocent civilians and screaming kids, had yanked at my nerves.

When the battle eventually came, it was ugly. Wed returned to the town the following morning for another series of door-to-door searches, but a different atmosphere had seeped into the disorientating alleyways and thoroughfares. As promised, there was a noticeably more hostile vibe and way too much activity for my liking. People watched us closely wherever we walked. A group of lads on motorbikes zipped through the streets, constantly checking on our progress, but this time their AK-47s were in view. It felt as if the first shot was only a heartbeat away until finally, at noon, I heard the unmistakable surge of bloody violence.

Bup-bup-bup. Bup-bup-bup.

Somebody was firing on the other side of the outpost. My earpiece crackled. There was a shout.

Contact north of the village!

More shouting came through on the squadrons comms network.