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Who Wins

By catdynamics on November 28, 2006.

For some strange reason the book I grabbed for the latest travel is a paperback of "Who Dares Wins", Geraghty's anecdotal account of Special Air Service (UK) history from 1950 (Malaya) to 1982 (Falklands) and the regiment's involvement in some select actions, as well as their selection and training.

It is interesting history but two things struck me: one is the account of UK involvement in South Yemen and Oman respectively - one an object lesson in how not to handle an insurgency, the other an success; the other was the account of the interrogation/survival training in selection of candidates.
The methods, taken from experiences of captured members, sound interestingly familiar, if not quite as brutal as some we heard about recently. There is also an aside that the training effectively was both of the interrogators and the interrogatee. There are also some interesting (anecdotal) accounts of what constituted effective interrogation - torture was not it. This is written 25 years before the current controversy. Make good reading for some people.

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A minor classic. I especially remember the quote from Mike Rose's speech to the selection passing-out in 1980: "One intelligent soldier can achieve more than a fleet of B-52s".

I also remember the bits about Rose making an utter arse of himself in the Falklands, which should have predicted his hopeless performance commanding UNPROFOR in Bosnia.