Andy McNab - Military Career

Military Career

After McNab enlisted in the Royal Green Jackets he was posted to Kent for his basic training, and boxed for his regimental team. After his basic training, he was posted to the Rifle Depot, in Winchester. In 1977, McNab spent time in Gibraltar as part of his first operational posting, while with 2RGJ.

From December 1977 to June 1978, he was posted to South Armagh, Northern Ireland, as part of the British Army's "Operation Banner". In 1978 and 1979, he returned to Armagh as a newly promoted Lance Corporal, and claimed to have killed for the first time during a firefight with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. McNab wrote of the incident: "I remember vividly the first time I had to kill someone to stay alive. I was a 19-year-old soldier in Keady, South Armagh, and my patrol stumbled across six IRA terrorists, preparing for an ambush. When the shooting started, they were just 20 metres away from my patrol. I was scared, very scared." McNab was awarded the Military Medal for this incident. However, security sources later claimed that the person McNab shot was only wounded and died as a result of injuries from a separate shootout later that day.

In 1982, after spending eight years with the Royal Green Jackets, he decided to attempt SAS selection. Having failed his first attempt he finally passed in 1984, and transferred to the SAS. While serving with Air Troop, B Squadron, 22 SAS for ten years, McNab worked on both covert and overt operations worldwide, which included counter terrorism and drug operations in the Middle East and Far East, South and Central America and Northern Ireland. McNab trained as a specialist in counter terrorism, prime target elimination, demolitions, weapons, tactics, covert surveillance roles and information gathering in hostile environments, and VIP protection. He worked on cooperative operations with police forces, prison services, anti-drug forces and Western backed guerrilla movements as well as on conventional special operations. In Northern Ireland, he spent two years working as an undercover operator with 14 Intelligence Company, going on to become an instructor.

During the First Gulf War, McNab commanded Bravo Two Zero, an eight man SAS patrol that was given the task of destroying underground communication links between Baghdad and north-west Iraq and with tracking Scud missile movements in the region. The patrol was dropped into Iraq on 22 January 1991, but was soon compromised, escaping on foot towards Syria, the closest coalition country.

Three of the eight men were killed, four were captured (including McNab) after three days on the run, and one member, "Chris Ryan", escaped. The four captured men were held for six weeks before being released on 5 March. By the time he was released, McNab was suffering from nerve damage to both hands, a dislocated shoulder, kidney and liver damage, and hepatitis B. After six months of medical treatment he was back on active service. In the words of the SAS's commanding officer, the story of the patrol "will remain in Regimental history forever".

Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab claims to have been the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in February 1993.