As Ant Middleton prepares to go on a tour of the UK, the former soldier, current author, and all-round hardman chats to Buzz’s own ex-military man Carl Marsh about his experiences.
You were Special Forces but why is there not so much written about people like yourself that have been in the Special Boat Service (SBS) – it’s often all about the SAS?
It’s because we are quite happy in the SBS to let the SAS take the credit for us over somethings. You know if you look in most of the papers and you see ‘SAS”, well you can cross that out and just put SBS there the majority of the time! It’s just a different mentality, we are happy with who we are, we are a lot more strict in what we are allowed to say and what we are allowed to do but now we are all bound by The Official Secrets Act which is a big thing for the SAS and the SBS but I think that the SAS just sells better doesn’t it? When people see the TV show Who Dares Wins they see that 3 of us are SBS and one of us is from Hereford (SAS) – all they really see is SAS because of the Iranian Embassy Siege [London – 1980] and their ears prick up and their eyes widen.
I love that about the SBS. I am very proud that we (just) get in and get the job done, and then get out. I love that side of things but I think that due to the fact that most people don’t really know what the SBS is about, therefore the SAS massively overshadows it. The SBS is roughly made up of 98% Royal Marines, so we have all come from the hardest and longest infantry training in the World. We are made up of snipers, rec troop operators, etc. We have all been selected from roughly 2,500 Royal Marines, so when we pass selection, we have nothing to prove as we are all elite soldiers anyway. Whilst with the army and the SAS, they recruit from about 100,000 from all different cap badges [all the trades in the army], and everyone has something to prove. You might have some guy from the Royal Logistics Corps (a driver or chef) that just so happens to have passed a hard course, you know, a 6-month course that is SAS Selection. These different cap badges are always in-fighting between themselves, even in the SAS. But in the SAS, if you’re not from The Parachute Regiment, you’re at the bottom of the pile as soon as you pass SAS Selection.
You’ve been asked loads of times about your comments – arguably taken out of context – where you said something along the lines of “taking a life can feel a bit God-like”. But a target is a target, whether that be on the ranges or in a war zone. Does firing that weapon become second nature, like driving a car?
No, what it is, especially when I was point man and I was going into combat and bullets would be firing over your head, your body is that much in tune with itself, it’s that much in harmony with itself, you’ve got every organ and every emotion working at its fullest capability and it is working in perfect synchronicity with each other. This is only for a couple of seconds, and when your body feels like that, everything slows down like in a car crash, it almost feels like you can control time and that I am counting in milliseconds and I can see him lifting his weapon towards me and it’s bang-bang and you do what you need to do and having that feeling, and being able to control time and of being in that moment, that’s the closest thing that I can imagine to being God-like. Now actually taking a life, it felt like nothing, it was my job, I went in there and it wasn’t personal, I never looked anyone in the eyes, it was centre of his chest, in the head ‘boom, boom, boom’, you know, what do I need to get the job done, and then the jobs done. I don’t think about it, I don’t dwell on it and I think nothing of it, so killing someone actually feels like nothing, the whole process of being in that moment for me is the closest thing to being God-like.
How did you get your start in TV, they obviously didn’t just advertise for the role of “Special Forces Operatives wanted for exciting new TV show”, or did they?
The Special Forces community, as you know, is so small, that we all heard that Channel Four (C4) were poking their nose in and wanted to do a Special Forces Selection and it really just fell on my lap. One phone call led to another, which led to me taking this opportunity, and they said ‘Did you want to be an instructor [on the show].’ There was a handful of us and when we got the call, I went and had an interview and it was an opportunity that had come across my lap and I seized it and this is where I am today.
You also have a book, First Man In. How hard was it to keep the book focused on the power of leadership and less about your ego and what you accomplished in the Armed Forces, as some previous military writers have taken this route?
I always thought it was important to get a message out as it wasn’t just about my life story, it was about what I have learnt from my life story, and also what people can learn. I have always wanted to write a book but I didn’t want it just to be about what I have done, my failures and what I have achieved because when you read something like that, you put it down and say (to yourself) that I have had a good life at the moment and that (book) was about him.
I want people to look at the book and say ‘That guy has had an incredible life but I can implement some of this into my life’ or they may find themselves in similar situations and refer to the book as a self-help book thinking to themselves; ‘Right, if Ant’s done it!”
I have been to the lowest of the low, so hopefully it will encourage people to get a grip on themselves to switch up their mindset. Originally I thought that if I could reach out to one or two people then it will be great but it’s gone absolutely mad, I think it’s because people can relate to me and I am literally reaching out and saying ‘Look, this is the solution to where I have been at and I have scaled this down to suit you’. I have always wanted to give a message but also to give an answer to that message.
Have you always been a thinker? Being a thinker goes hand-in-hand with being a person that would ask a lot of questions after being given an order in the military, I cannot see you being anything different?
When I was in the military I was very outspoken and in the Army it didn’t serve me well, and that is why I left and joined the Royal Marines. I found that they served me a lot better there but even more-so in the Special Forces. The reason why the Special Forces attracted me so much was because I was outspoken; even though I wasn’t a leader in many ways, I always had an opinion, I always knew I was competent in my capabilities to deliver as well. In the Special Forces you have got a voice, you very are much of a thinking soldier, so it just sort of magnified from there and I realised that everyone has got a voice and can act upon certain situations and not be bollocked, or disciplined, or getting told to keep your mouth shut and stay at the back of the queue.
The military is a family but once you leave the confines of the military, and certainly when I was medically discharged in 2010, the military left me to my own devices. Thanks to a lot of the military charities, a lot is being done to help veterans (myself included) but do you think the military themselves are doing enough to educate their soldiers about the real world.
Well it’s because you are no longer a benefit to them, you are no longer an interest to them. Once you have voiced an interest to leave the armed forces and gone on your resettlement course before you leave [a trade course for post-military life], then they don’t care. They are focused on the operators and the people that want to be there that are thinking “where we are moving onto next” as that whole machine, that monster doesn’t stop from operating. You are just a broken part now in their eyes, to be replaced by a new part.
When I left the SBS, I thought I would be fine. But it doesn’t matter if you have got PTSD or if you have been injured, or even if you were absolutely fine like I was, you are always going to struggle with that transition to life outside the military as they are two different worlds. The military is a completely different world to society. What they do on your resettlement course is they ply you with all these different courses but they don’t tell you how to change your mindset. They don’t tell you that you need to retune yourself. They don’t tell you what is not or is accepted in society. We get trained to deal with violence, with extreme violence, so if someone is violent to me, then I am going to be extremely violent to them but that is what we are trained for on the battlefield. That is what I am trained to do but when you go to society, then there is zero tolerance towards violence in society, as the moment you are violent, you will end up behind bars. No-one trains you to do that, it is like aggression; if someone is aggressive to you then you will be aggressive to them but in society you will be put on an anger management course because you are an angry guy and I say “no I am not, this is how I have been trained, and tuned”. When I ended up in jail I thought to myself that I needed to cut violence completely out of my life even though for the last three tours of Afghanistan, violence has kept me alive.
Then there is aggression, there is no need for me to be in this ‘code red’ anymore as I was on the battlefield, so I want to tone that down and use that to my advantage, but we don’t get taught about the two very different worlds; all they do is give you plenty of courses to do, and then say ‘we’ve done our job’, you know, a token effort, and get on your way. They really need to sit you down and rewire your thought process, rewire your mindset, un-train you and then ultimately it is down to you re-train yourself to be a civilian. Does that make sense?
I agree, it was exactly the same with me, plied with courses and told that I would be ‘all right’ in the real world, then you leave and it’s like ‘Oh, it’s a big, big, big world’ and it’s much more dangerous outside the army for me, mentally.
Yes, 100%! Look at how you get taught, how you get taught to think, no wonder we don’t fit into society because we are not un-trained; they don’t prepare us for the next phase, they give us presents, which is like giving kids goodie bags. That is alright for the next five minutes but after that, you are done for.
Lastly, the tour, which starts off in Cardiff at the end of August; will those that have read your book get to experience stuff that you have not mentioned in the book?
Yes, definitely. I go into much more detail about my life and I talk about a few situations that I have been in such as Afghanistan and how I have subsequently learnt from them. I also talk about a coaching mechanism to do with fear, so it’s definitely different to the book.
An Evening with Ant Middleton, St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, Fri 31 Aug. Tickets: £27. Info: 029 2087 8444 / www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk
