The Hard Way: Adapt, Survive and Win

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It felt like everything was imploding on me. I was stranded,” recalls the 57-year-old today. “It was a whole new world for me. I was scared to talk to people. I couldn’t tell them what I’d been doing for years. The Special Forces world is all cloak and dagger, no one knows who you are or what you are.” Billingham would graduate from the Royal Marine cadets to enlisting with the Parachute Regiment in 1983, where he would serve with distinction as a Patrol Commander and expert sniper . In 1991 he applied to join the SAS – the fearsome and secretive elite special forces unit with a well-won reputation for excellence in operating in extreme and hazardous conditions. He excelled in this life, rising to the rank of sergeant major for the regiment, and undertaking dozens of classified and extremely dangerous missions. He spent seventeen years with the SAS, serving in countless war zones, winning a commendation for bravery and was awarded the MBE . After leaving the army, he embraced the life of a bodyguard to Hollywood stars such as Angelina Jolie , Brad Pitt , Sir Michael Caine , Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe , before being recruited as one of the lead instructors on SAS - Who Dares Wins for television. Billy and his wife’s charitable business seeks to empower people in Haiti (Picture: Getty) You’ve written a second novel… Having been a fan of the popular Channel 4 show SAS: Who Dares Win, quite a few of the DS', have penned their autobiographies.

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I do believe that the best treatment for a soldier is another soldier,” says Billingham. “We know that often it’s about sharing a joke about something that happened, rather than giving someone more sympathy than they can handle.” New beginningsWhen the situation happened she was out in the Adriatic. It was starting to feel really uncomfortable and suspicious. She was uncomfortable, and I had this in my mind, almost like a Taken scenario, I was like I have to do something about this, and I did." Another novel tiled Lazybones won the Theakston’s Old peculiar Crime Novel of the year award in 2004, and later won the same award for his Death Message novel. A Novel, in the dark, was also nominated for the crime writers Association Gold dagger at 2009 crime Thriller Awards.

Billy Billingham: ‘No one trains to see Former SAS soldier Billy Billingham: ‘No one trains to see

It’s why Billingham hopes that support for the Tommy Club will help it to build its services for veterans, to foster more communities where veterans can get together, to train, have a coffee and “shoot the s---”. At the too he has his life lessons he adheres to which are informative and you know when he makes decisions later in the book these were his base of thinking. That loss of community and identity coincides with too much time for reflection. Smells, certain songs – it’s unpredictable what will trigger a memory of a traumatic event in your service past. There are a few war stories in here and I enjoyed the jungle ones along with him. Never telling all he gives enough to give the picture of the madness on the ground. To put all this in context, a survey by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) reveals that more serving British service personnel have killed themselves since 1984 than have died in combat.I don’t talk about SF [Special Forces] operations stuff, and rightly so, but it is my life. I spent most of my early military career trying to get into the SF and then the rest of the career not talking about it. Then when you step out it’s ingrained into you not to talk about it.” Pulling at the string of the local warlord who is destined to become Mace’s nemesis, General Ruak Shahlai, but hardbitten American arms dealer Erica Atkins, who controls a whole international network to her advantage.