12:20pm Thursday 27th May 2010
By Andrew Ffrench
Andy McNab, back with a new novel, is a literary star but stills keeps his anonymity closely guarded.
It has been 17 years since ex-SAS officer Andy McNab left the military to pursue a career in writing, but he’s remained almost as involved with the Army as he was when he was in it.
His gripping war stories are invariably set on the front line, his thrillers feature ex-SAS officer Nick Stone in covert operations, while away from books, McNab’s pals are largely from the military.
Now a multi-millionaire, he spends much of his time giving talks at Army training facilities and schools on his experiences as a soldier, is patron of the Help For Heroes charity, and is a director of ForceSelect, a recruitment company for ex-military personnel.
His future is defined by the Army as much as it was before he left it.
But the author is still shrouded in mystery. He has become famous for being anonymous, his picture always cast in shadow, his real name never revealed, working under the pseudonym Andy McNab. Some wonder if all the secrecy is hype or necessity.
He insists that after taking part in intelligence-gathering missions in Northern Ireland years ago, he and others could be in danger should his identity be revealed.
McNab, 50, was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in 1993 and wrote about his experiences in three books, Bravo Two Zero, Immediate Action and Seven Troop.
McNab talks about the first time he killed a man (when he was 19 he shot dead a member of the IRA) and how it actually didn’t affect him.
“At that time, if you got a ‘kill’, you got two weeks’ leave at the end of the tour, so there was quite an incentive.
“It was only when I got into the SAS, when the guys were older than me and far more experienced, that I discovered that fear was natural.”
His latest novel, War Torn, which is also being made into a TV series, traces the stories of a platoon in Afghanistan who suffer both physical and mental injuries and how it affects their families back home.
Counselling services for war-damaged soldiers are in place but there’s still a stigma among servicemen about asking for psychological help, says McNab.
“In the Army you’ve got this young macho environment. They don’t want to be seen as ‘jellyheads’. But junior and senior NCOs are now trained to identify if there’s a problem and try and work it out at the early stages.
“What we forget is that there’s a population of men and women in this country who like to fight. There’s a 10-month waiting list to get into the Army. If problems arise, it’s later on.”
McNab has often said that the Army saved him from what would have probably been a life of crime.
He was found abandoned in a carrier bag outside Guy’s Hospital in London in 1959 and was brought up by foster parents who later adopted him.
He left school with a reading age of 11, got into petty crime and ended up in a detention centre. The Army, he says, gave him a second chance.
At 16, he joined the Royal Green Jackets.
His tours of duty in Gibraltar, Germany, Northern Ireland and the Middle East may not have affected McNab mentally but they certainly affected his family life.
He’s been married five times and knows his dedication to his work proved detrimental to his relationships.
“In one job I went away for two years and didn’t think of the consequences. I wanted the best of both worlds.”
Bravo Two Zero, his account of how he led an SAS patrol behind Iraqi lines just before the first Gulf War in 1991 and was captured and tortured, became the best-selling war book ever.
McNab also found himself courted by Hollywood and became a technical adviser on movies such as Heat.
How does he now view his military career?
“I’ve benefited from it,” he says. “In the Army, you’ve got a responsibility to yourself to stay alive and to keep your mates alive. You’ve just got to crack on.”
Seems to be his mantra for life on civvy street, too.
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