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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Pádraig O'Keeffe joined the elite and secretive French Foreign Legion at the age of twenty, seeking a challenge that would absorb his interests and intensity. He served with the Legion in Cambodia and Bosnia, then returned to civilian life, but military habits would not allow him to settle. His need for intense excitement and extreme danger drove him back to the lifestyle he knew and loved, and using his Legion training, he became a 'hidden soldier' by opting for security missions in Iraq and Haiti. In Iraq he was the sole survivor of an ambush in no man's land between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, the most dangerous place on earth. An intense, exciting and vivid account of extraordinary and sometimes horrific events, Hidden Soldier lifts the veil on the dark and shadowy world of security contractors and what the situation is really like in Iraq as well as other trouble spots. This bestseller also includes photographs taken by Padraig O'Keeffe while he was a Legionnaire and when he was in Iraq.
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‘He has led an extraordinary life. A great book – a truly incredible story’ Gerry Ryan, 2FM
‘A remarkable story of life and death in the world’s most dangerous war zones’Irish Independent
‘It is a fascinating story and takes you to many parts of the world – from Bosnia to Iraq’ Matt Cooper, Today FM
‘An incredible life spent in some of the world’s most dangerous places – a great read’Ireland AM
HIDDEN SOLDIER
An Irish Legionnaire’s Wars from Bosnia to Iraq
Pádraig O’Keeffe with Ralph Riegel
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank my parents, Denis and Eileen, my sisters, Brid and Catriona, and my nieces, Caitlin, Erin, Saoirse and Juliette, who have borne the burden of my life in conflict. Their loyal support has been one of the core pillars of my life.
Thanks to my true friends here at home – you know who you are. I have opened my heart to you all and you have never faltered in your belief in me. You stood by me even when I unintentionally brought these conflicts home. There will always be a place in my heart for you all. To Keith Kenny and the long-suffering staff of the Rob Roy pub. To James Curry for having the courage to follow his convictions.
Special thanks to Tony O’Mahony and Paddy O’Keeffe who sat with me through long nights, which first ran into weeks and then months, slowly coaxing those painful memories from my darkest corners for this book. I love you like brothers.
To Mick McCarthy, who is a Legion brother, and has been through conflict at my side from Bosnia and Iraq to Haiti. A man whose life would truly be worth my own – a true hero.
To Kathy, Artemis and Alice of the Hart Group, who kept my best interests at heart. A special mention to the late Sean O’Donovan, who made the phone call that led to this book.
And thanks to Ralph Riegel for his patience and good humour over the past year.
Finally, a heartfelt thanks to the US Army Medical Corps, Cork University Hospital and South Infirmary Hospital – I owe you all my life. Special thanks to Dr Declan Pender and Dr Sean T O’Sullivan.
Pádraig O’Keeffe, Cork, July 2007
* * *
I am deeply grateful to Pádraig O’Keeffe for entrusting me with this book which became a remarkable journey for both of us. Working on this project was a great honour.
The book would not have been possible without the incredible and unquestioned support of my wife, Mary, my children, Rachel, Rebecca and Ralph, and my mother, Nora. None ever complained about having to watch me disappear, often for days on end, into books about the Foreign Legion, Iraq and Bosnia.
Similary, my thanks to all within Independent Newspapers, in particular the various news desks, as well as numerous reporters and photographers in Cork, for their unstinting support. A special ‘thank you’ to Commandant Dan Harvey of the Southern Brigade for his honest and frank critique of the manuscript.
A special mention also to the late Sean O’Donovan for making the initial introductions which led to this project. Sean’s death at such a young age was an absolute tragedy. This book would not have been possible without him.
A substantial ‘merci’ – as always – to Michael O’Brien, Ide Ní Laoghaire, Emma Byrne, Ivan O’Brien, Claire McVeigh and all at O’Brien Press for making this book a reality.
Some surnames in this book have been shortened to their prefix and, in a handful of other cases, names have been deliberately changed. This is purely to protect the personal security of the individuals involved – for obvious reasons. But their stories have been unaltered and are faithfully recounted.
There are many fantastic books on the French Foreign Legion but, if you are to read only two, I can recommend Ewan McGorman’s Life in the French Foreign Legion and Martin Wilmslow’s The Last Valley. Both capture the essence, courage and mystery of La Legion. Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation should be compulsory reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the Middle East.
In conclusion, a grateful mention to my late father, Ralph, ex-US Navy and USS Brooklyn – a quiet, unassuming man who first told me boyhood stories about the Foreign Legion and their famous Sidi-Bel-Abbès base in North Africa. Like so many of his generation, he served proudly in the company of heroes.
Ralph Riegel
DEDICATION
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves
Carl Sagan,
from a public lecture at Cornell University,
13 October 1993
This book is dedicated to the memories of Yves, Sean and all our Iraqi colleagues of Security Team Charlie 31 who died by my side on a lonely, dusty road outside al-Habaniyah on 7 June 2005; to Aki, Nick, Morne, Seb and Bill, who gave their lives so that others might live; to the Legionnaires and security contractors who made the ultimate sacrifice and continue to make those sacrifices in the most distant, hostile corners of the world to protect and defend the defenceless. It was an honour to have been amongst your ranks.
To Denis, who made it home. To the men and women of Hart Security and to the men of the French Foreign Legion.
My life has been blessed for I truly know what it is like to walk amongst heroes.
Pádraig O’Keeffe, Cork, July 2007
CONTENTS
1
THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH
Our battered Toyota sped across the dusty road, keeping pace with the convoy vehicles in front that we were charged with protecting. That stifling noon of Monday, 7 June 2005 was already proving to be a nightmare. Our Iraqi drivers had been appalled that we were delivering a load through the ‘Sunni Triangle’ north of Baghdad, one of the most dangerous places on earth. Their fears and the condition of our ageing trucks had already slowed down the convoy as it went from our compound near the Abu Ghraib complex in Baghdad towards Fallujah, the heartland of the insurgency that was tearing Iraq apart.
Worse still, our route would, by necessity, take us north of Fallujah as we headed towards our final destination of al-Habaniyah, along a narrow, elevated road that had already proved itself one of the favourite hunting grounds for local insurgents.
As usual, our team leader, Yves M., had cried out ‘AllahAckbar’ (God is Great) over the radio as we left the security compound that morning to try and encourage everyone, but the cry didn’t get the usual hearty response and, when our Iraqi drivers answered half-heartedly, I knew that I wasn’t alone in being desperately worried about this mission. But at least I had my ex-French Foreign Legion mate, Denis B., on the convoy security detail, along with Yves, an ex-French Army veteran, and Sean L., a former member of South Africa’s private security Ronin outfit. Yves had also served in the Croation Army during the Balkans conflict, so he had combat experience and knew what he was about.
But no trip near Fallujah was ever without its risks, even for the American troops in their heavily armoured M1 Abrams battle tanks. The craters that littered the dusty roadside were a mute testament to the attacks that had already earned Fallujah its fearsome reputation. But today all we were escorting were trucks loaded with beds and billet equipment for soldiers of the new Iraqi Army, hardly the stuff that insurgents would target – if, that is, they knew what was inside the trucks. To them it could as well be ammunition or medical supplies. Or they might simply relish the chance to kill a few more infidels.
I sat in the rear of the speeding saloon and tried to maintain my focus. As my years of French Foreign Legion training had taught me, often it was the little things that kept you alive. I had two bags for my gear stowed carefully by my side, one for fighting from inside the car and one in case I had to get out of the vehicle in a hurry. Each rear door was draped with my body armour, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice.
The heat was stifling and, as I gazed out the window, the whole countryside seemed to be burned brown. The only bit of colour came in flashes of green from a few stunted palm trees, and even they were hard to spot through the dust clouds. Fuck it, but there was dust everywhere. If you expected violence on arrival in Iraq, you certainly weren’t disappointed, but no-one warned you about the dust, the flies and the heat.
On my lap was my AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle, with extra clips of ammunition stuffed into virtually every pocket and cubby-hole I could find. I was firm believer in the old infantryman’s motto that you can never have too much ammunition. Directly in front of me was my Iraqi driver, Arkan H., and alongside him an Iraqi security contractor, Wisam D. They were both married men with families, and I knew they wouldn’t be doing this job unless they really needed the money. But there wasn’t much talking, we were all too busy staying focused on what was going on along the roadside.
Today, we had to protect ten old articulated trucks heading from our secure compound in Baghdad to an Iraqi police depot just outside al-Habaniyah. To deliver the trucks and their cargo we would have to cross the insurgents’ own backyard. The key was getting there and back out again as fast and as discreetly as possible. The security detail involved five vehicles, mostly old, battered Opels, BMWs and Toyotas, like my saloon. These kinds of cars were far better for maintaining a low and discreet profile – if you drove a powerful new jeep you might as well have a neon sign over your head flashing ‘foreign security contractor’. These civilian convoys were as hazardous as our job could get. And in a country gradually tearing itself apart with violence, this area between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah was the epicentre of Iraq’s carnage.
I was assigned to the convoy’s centre as the Counter Attack Vehicle (CAV). I had to ensure that the long line of trucks stayed together and, in the event of an attack, I also had to try and prevent any segment of the convoy being isolated and overrun. In an ambush, I was expected to respond to threats in any situation, and, if necessary, to give the insurgents something to think about while the rest of the convoy got out.
But just keeping the convoy together was proving difficult enough. The articulated trucks were all old, had been in constant use since the Coalition invasion and, most worrying of all, were prone to breaking down at precisely the wrong time. Not one of the trucks or security vehicles would have been allowed on a European or US road. And yet our very lives depended on these clapped-out artics.
Some 12km from al-Habaniyah, one of the trucks got stuck as we swung off the main supply road and on to an old dirt track. This was our worst nightmare. We were in bandit country, we had to deploy our Iraqi security detail – plus, we also had to cope with the possibility of the US military mistaking us for insurgents. Sure enough, as we desperately worked to get the truck moving, a US patrol swung on to the same dirt track and, spotting our armed Iraqi guards, instantly deployed in a defensive formation as if we were insurgents.
None of us underestimated the danger we now faced. US patrols had lost so many troops that some had naturally adopted a ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ policy when faced with possible threats. Before the American patrol could fully deploy, we had to order our Iraqi contractors back into the vehicles and Sean walked, hands held over his head, towards the lead US vehicle, an armoured Humvee, to try and explain our predicament. He walked slowly, his hands in clear view and repeatedly shouting, ‘Friendly force, friendly force’, not an easy task when you know a .50 calibre heavy machine-gun is trained directly on you. One blast from that weapon is enough to cut a man in half. But, after a few nervous minutes, the US patrol lowered their M16 assault rifles and, at last, acknowledged who we were.
I sat in the car and nervously fingered the trigger guard on my AK-47. The thought flashed across my mind that this was a strange place to find a chef from Cobh, Co Cork. Whatever about joining the Foreign Legion for a military life, Pádraig O’Keeffe certainly never thought he’d end up at thirty-five years of age sitting in a battered old Toyota with only a Russian assault rifle for protection in probably the most dangerous place in the world. I took a final nervous drag on my cigarette and waited for what was to come next.
It took us almost an hour to get the truck free of the soft sand and moving again, more than enough time to advertise our presence to any insurgents in the area. By the time we had all the trucks moving again, the traffic coming against us had become quite heavy. Within twenty minutes of our truck breaking down, I had noticed a steady increase in traffic on the road. We had never seen this level of traffic coming out of al-Habaniyah before – and, interestingly, the traffic was all moving against us, as if people were leaving the area for a specific reason.
With their previous ambushes and use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the insurgents had proved that they were evolving a very special skill in killing Coalition troops, as well as Iraqis working for the Interim Government and, most of all, the private security contractors, like myself, who undertook the security jobs no-one else wanted.
I smiled grimly as I realised that, far from being in the safest part of the convoy, the killing fields of Iraq had shown that the convoy centre was where the initial attack almost always came. The insurgents had previously favoured attacking a convoy at the front and rear, in the normal manner, thereby trapping it. But, because of how convoys in Iraq were being protected, the insurgents were now often attacking in the centre, hoping to cut the convoy in half.
Attacks were also mounted at the start and end of our missions as we left or returned to our Abu Ghraib compound: this danger was reflected in the fact the Iraqi police and foreign security contractors had erected a special security zone around the area, which required vehicles to pass through almost two hundred metres of three-metre-high blast walls which lined either side of the approach roadway, forming a kind of tunnel. This was supplemented by machine-gun posts and pill-boxes. And yet the attacks still came on a weekly basis and you had to maintain high alert even at the very end of a job.
Now, as we finally approached a hamlet just a few kilometres from al-Habaniyah, we drove along an elevated road with mud-brick houses on either side. Not much farther to travel, I thought, and we’d be okay. I kept a light grip on my rifle and fought the urge to re-check the magazine – I‘d already checked it at least six times. Just one kilometre ahead we would have to make a tight left turn, enough to force us to slow our pace dangerously and spread out the convoy. As the turn loomed ahead, I repeatedly scanned the buildings for any sign of movement, because I realised that if I were going to hit this convoy, that is where I‘d mount my attack.
The US patrol had already informed us that the track we were following towards al-Habaniyah was effectively no-man’s land. One US Army Sergeant, in a quiet aside to our security team as we worked to free the stranded truck, advised us not to use the route and to head back to Abu Ghraib. He warned us that there were no Coalition forces in the area and that the hamlets around al-Habaniyah were believed to be rife with insurgents. While we were told that we would receive Coalition assistance in any emergency, none of our security team held out much hope of it in reality. We knew we were on our own. But what could we do? If we abandoned the trip and headed back to Baghdad, we’d only have to bring the convoy back out here again tomorrow. Better to take our chances and run with the convoy now.
As we approached the turn, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a figure huddled by the side of a mud-brick building to my left. I mentally registered his position and continued to scan the road ahead. I looked back to scan the house a second time and, sure enough, I could now clearly see the man crouching with an AK-47 in his hands. Instinctively, I knew that this was the moment we’d all dreaded. Time seemed to freeze as my Legion training began to take over.
The crouching figure slowly began to raise his arms and I could see the distinctive shape of the AK-47. I knew I had to signal the ambush to the rest of the convoy. We’d be cut to pieces if we ended up trapped amongst these buildings sitting on a elevated roadway some six feet above ground level.
Without thinking, I levelled my rifle and emptied a full magazine at the figure, seeing several rounds hit him. Almost instantly, I could hear a hail of fire erupt in reply from all around us. I shouted to Arkan to accelerate and get us away from the turn, and he was screaming back at me, ‘Mujahedin, Mujahedin.’ Seconds later, the windows of the Toyota exploded in a shower of fragments and I realised that Wisam was already dead, his bloodied head resting on the dashboard beside Arkan.
Suddenly I saw that the trucks ahead of me had stopped moving, and I instantly knew that something was seriously wrong. Our Toyota had barely rolled to a stop behind a truck when I ordered Arkan to sweep around it and move to the front of the convoy to find out what was wrong and why we were stopping in such an exposed position. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a civilian truck coming against us and, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, it erupted in a hail of Kalashnikov fire from the insurgents. The truck ground to a halt and its cab partly shielded our saloon as we finally pulled up beside our own convoy artics. The poor civilian truck driver was dead within seconds. I didn’t know it at the time but that civvy truck would probably save my life.
I hardly registered the sound of multiple 7.62mm rifle rounds crashing into the Toyota as I realised that, instead of coming from the left where I had shot one insurgent, the bulk of the ambush fire was now coming from my right. Within seconds of stopping, the Toyota was being carved apart by rifle fire and I knew that if I was to live through the next few minutes I had to get out of that car fast. Arkan was already out and taking shelter. As I kicked open the rear right door I felt a blinding pain in my elbow and realised I‘d been shot. But with my injured arm I was still able to hold and fire the AK-47, and with my other arm I held my body armour in front of me as a shield. I could see the body armour flapping from the ‘thud’ of incoming rounds. I fell on to the roadway, still firing my rifle one-handed, and was instantly shredded by glass fragments that now littered the roadway.
I knew I had to find cover fast, so I combat-crawled on my elbows across the roadway, around the Toyota and into the shelter provided by my car and the stranded artics. I ignored the pain in my arms, only afterwards discovering that I’d torn lumps of flesh from my hands and arms as I crawled over the broken glass. But the incoming fire was incredible. I could hear 7.62mm rounds crashing through the car, the artics and even striking the roadway, tearing chunks of stone and clay up into our faces.
I shouted to Arkan to push the car underneath the first artic in the convoy for extra protection from the incoming fire. Incredibly, the young Iraqi managed to do it, pulling against the frame of the car door at the front and sliding the big Japanese saloon underneath the front bumper of the artic. The instant I heard the ‘thud’ of the Toyota wedging itself underneath the old truck, I opened fire again, emptying a full magazine at the distant buildings where the fire against us was most concentrated.
And then, from directly behind us, all hell broke loose …
2
DREAMING OF BEING A SOLDIER
I was born on 18 September 1970, the day the rebel guitar legend Jimi Hendrix died. I’m not sure if that had implications for my attitude towards authority in later life, but I like to think it may have been an omen!
Cobh is my home town – a town with strong military links. From a young age the whole idea of a soldier’s lifestyle attracted me strongly, though neither my father, who was a member of An Garda Siochána, the Irish police force, nor my mother, who was a nurse in Cobh hospital, had military connections.
Over the years, it also dawned on me that I didn’t really like the classroom. It’s not that I wasn’t smart – my early school reports from the local national school were all pretty good – the problem was that, like generations of youngsters before me, I liked having fun much more than doing my schoolwork. Then for two years I was sent as a boarder to Scoil na nÓg in Glanmire, about eight miles away. This was an Irish-speaking school and I loved every minute of my time there and got on really well. Whereas some kids struggle when they’re away from their home environment and regard boarding school with a kind of dread, I seemed to thrive on it. That was another lesson, something else that attracted me.
Unfortunately, my time at secondary school wasn’t quite so happy. I didn’t help matters much by focusing more on enjoying myself than on doing what my teachers wanted. I wasn’t a problem student, I just didn’t like the classroom regime and, most of all, the homework that kept me away from my friends and sports. I was by now a fervent soccer fan and my favourite team was Manchester United. At times, my week revolved around ‘Match of the Day’ on Saturday night and the occasional live match. When it came to a choice between United and homework, there simply wasn’t a contest! The teachers increasingly regarded me as a ‘messer’.
My other great interest was the Vietnam War. I don’t recall precisely what triggered my fascination with South-East Asia, but, by my mid-teens, I was tracking down every book I could to find about Vietnam and its famous battles, from Khe Sanh to the Mekong Delta and the TET offensive. Mention anything to do with Korea or the Vietnam conflicts and I was spellbound. Not only that, but I liked reading about the great military outfits of the world, from the US Marine Corps through to the Spetsnaz units of the former Soviet Union. By my mid-teens, I could describe virtually every military campaign from 1945 onwards.
Slowly, it began to dawn on me that this was the kind of life I would like to lead. I thought that being a soldier was a noble profession, and it was the kind of career that truly tested your mettle. I felt it asked hard questions of you – about your courage, your discipline, your loyalty and your commitment to a cause. Above all, I was fascinated by the whole idea of comradeship and the way men in military units formed a bond that went beyond race, creed or colour. Without realising it, I had made my career choice, even though the process of trying to fulfil it was still some years away.
I sat my Intermediate Certificate exams in 1985 but I couldn’t wait for an excuse to quit school. By this stage, I’d got a weekend job working in the Commodore hotel in Cobh. My job was collecting empty glasses from tables in the bar and restaurant and loading them into the dishwasher. It was pretty mind-numbing stuff, but it seemed to me to pay reasonably well and, at sixteen years of age, it gave me a taste of what life outside the classroom could be like. I spent every waking moment trying to think up ways to get out of going to school. My parents had bluntly refused to tolerate me quitting without having either a job or an apprenticeship lined up. They made no secret of the fact they really wanted me to sit the Leaving Cert and work hard at getting into third level or a decent pensionable job like the Gardaí or civil service. I suppose it’s what every parent wants for their child, but it simply wasn’t for me.
One weekend I happened to hear that the Commodore was looking for kitchen staff and I asked the chef about my chances of getting a job. He put in a good word for me and the manager told me there was a job for me if I wanted it. It was like music to my ears, and I almost floated home to tell my parents about the wonderful, not-to-be-missed opportunity that had come my way! Reluctantly they surrendered, but only on condition that the job offered the prospect of a full-time career. So I quit school at last and went to the Commodore hotel as their youngest trainee chef.
In the mid-1980s Ireland was a pretty grim place to be. There weren’t many jobs on offer, the economy was struggling and the rate of emigration threatened to match that of the late 1950s. A lot of guys with very good Leaving Certs and even college degrees were having to go overseas for work – and yet here was I with a full-time job and money into my hand each week! I thought I was the luckiest guy in town, particularly as Cobh was hit worse by the recession that most other places, with its old, heavy industries shutting down.
For me, the next year or so was like a dream. The work was hard, the hours were long and pretty unsocial, and, to be honest, the pay wasn’t particularly great. But I was out of the hated classroom, I didn’t have exams to worry about and, best of all, I had money in my pocket when I was heading out with my friends on my night off. Working in the town’s biggest hotel also meant that I was known to the various barmen in town so I was looked after in terms of discounts and drink promotions.
Actually, I was surprised to find that I was quite good at cooking. I also took pride in what I was doing. I had come to admire the chef Gordon Ramsay, who demanded absolute passion of all his chefs: the very second I heard him use the word ‘passion’ about the dishes he was preparing, I was hooked. His approach was something I tried to apply in my own cooking and, as a result, I got on very well wherever I worked. In fact, passion is something I try to apply to everything I do in life.
By now I’d grown into quite a determined character. I wasn’t afraid of hard work and I liked the honesty associated with it. With my background, I was always going to have a blue-collar outlook on life and, today, that’s something I’m very proud of. I suppose you could say my approach to life in general began to solidify at this stage. If I worked hard, I expected exactly the same from others. I also respected people who spoke their mind even it was something I didn‘t particularly like to hear, and, over time, I grew to hate anyone who played politics and ‘flip-flopped’ with their opinions and loyalties. From pretty early on in life, I also realised that respect was something that had to be earned, never demanded. As for failings, well, there were plenty of those too. I could be stubborn and, like plenty of other young men, I thought I was pretty much infallible at times. I could also fall victim to the old Gaelic failings – drinking and talking too much. I even ignored good advice about not taking up smoking, and have pretty much paid the price for it ever since. But I was also protective of my family and I put great store in the trust of my friends. All in all, I was a typical Irish teen and revelling in my new-found place in the world.
I stayed for just over a year with the Commodore before I got the chance to move to Cork city where one of the biggest hotels, then the Fitzpatrick Silversprings, was hiring staff. It was a higher profile position, the money was better, and it was an important advancement in my career as a chef. Best of all, I quickly became friendly with the manager, John Gately, and he began to help me along the career ladder. But what I didn’t confide to anyone outside my family was the fact that, while I may have had the potential to become a good chef, I was by now only interested in a military career.
Sadly, my determination to escape from school hadn’t made entry into the Irish Defence Forces any easier for me. Ireland was caught in the grip of a serious recession and the Government in power was determined to slash costs and public expenditure wherever possible. One of the things this hit was defence spending, and recruitment to the Defence Forces was only slowly, and very reluctantly, allowed. At the same time there was huge demand, given the security of employment that came with a Defence Forces job, and the army were able to impose strict academic criteria for their potential new candidates.
Needless to say, it seemed to help your case if you had a father, brother or uncle already in the forces. I had no-one directly connected with the Defence Forces – and a fascination with the Vietnam War wasn’t likely to impress too many Irish army officers! Even so, with no Leaving Certificate and no contact within the Defence Forces, I went ahead and mailed my application. The interview, when it finally came, easily proved equal to my worst nightmare. The interviewing officer clearly wasn’t impressed by what he was reading on the resumé in front of him. I answered his questions honestly and spoke about how I was committed to having a military career and felt I would be an addition to the Defence Forces. His answer still haunts me almost two decades later. He told me he didn’t think I had what it took to be a soldier. He hurt me to the core of my being – but, in hindsight, I feel the man did me a favour as I wouldn’t have wanted to serve under someone who could destroy a young man’s hopes in that manner.
The only hope he held out to me was that, because I was working as a chef, I could perhaps work in the army as a cook. Some chance! A few weeks later, a letter from the Defence Forces arrived at my parents’ house and, when my mother handed me the official envelope, I knew the contents before I even opened the letter. But, far from being devastated by this rejection, I felt angry and insulted. I knew I had what it took to be a soldier and, no matter what the demands, I’d prove it. I vowed to prove them all wrong.
I considered my options. There were three that I could think of: joining the US Marine Corps, the British Army or the Spanish Foreign Legion. Strangely, I never thought of the French Foreign Legion at this time. I had no interest in joining the British Army and felt that the Marine Corps was the most obvious and attractive choice. The Corps were almost always involved in overseas deployments and that’s what I craved above all else. They were also one of the most impressively equipped forces, and any Marine could expect to be trained in the use of the most modern and high-tech military equipment. But, unfortunately, I quickly learned that the Corps, at that point, were not recruiting anyone who wasn’t a US citizen – despite this I attempted to enlist when I was in Miami.
My next choice was the Spanish Foreign Legion, an outfit which ranks as tough as it is unknown. Traditionally, the Spanish Legion recruits from parts of the former Spanish empire, particularly from South and Central America. Its training regime is feared and its soldiers are reputed to be amongst the toughest in the world. When I was on holidays in Spain I decided to travel to a Legion recruiting office in Cadiz where I attempted to enlist, but they told me the Legion had been closed to foreigners for some years.
So it looked as if I was destined for a career in the kitchen. But the one positive thing about working as a chef is that there is never a shortage of work, and you can pretty much pick and choose the jobs to suit yourself. At that point, I liked being in Cork and being close to Cobh – and even though I was working in Cork city, I still lived and socialised in my home town where I had a great circle of friends.
One of the things about growing up in Cobh was that you had to learn how to defend yourself. Every port or harbour town has its own demands – the streets always seem a little tougher, a bit meaner. Cobh is no exception to that rule. For the most part, it’s a quiet town, but, if you’re involved in a row or a dispute, you had better be able to defend yourself, particularly if there are a few drinks involved in the equation. I’ve had more than my fair share of fights over the years, usually because of something silly being said or a few drinks too many being consumed. But, from my early teens, the one thing I realised about myself was that I was never intimidated by the size of a guy trying to ‘sort me out’ or even the number of guys standing behind him threatening me. I always stood my ground, and, in Cobh, I knew I had friends who would never stand by and watch me being taken on by a gang. But those were also innocent days when a fight meant a confrontation with fists and never with a bottle or a knife. And, invariably, in the following days the fight was forgotten about, grudges weren’t carried and you usually found yourself mates with the lad again.
But I began to tire of life in the Silversprings kitchens. It was time to look around for a change. And, much as I loved Cobh, the thought of going somewhere else began to attract me. I remembered how happy I had been as a boarder at primary school and I figured that maybe getting out of Cork for a while would do me good. After all, I was just turning twenty years of age and thought that I was well and truly ready to see the world. The question, rather, was whether the world was ready for me? And, sure, if my move didn’t work out, well, there was nothing stopping me from moving back home. And the blessing of being a chef was that there were always jobs on offer in some hotel or restaurant. So I decided to set a pattern for the rest of my life – I decided to take a chance.
3
EARNING THE KEPI BLANC
It’s a long, hard road from a hotel kitchen in Cork to the French Foreign Legion recruitment base at Castelnaudary. But that was the journey I decided to take after a chance occurrence on a lazy summer afternoon.
After working at the Silversprings, I’d taken up a new position at the Slieve Russell Hotel and Country Club in Ballyconnell, north of Belturbet on the old Cavan to Ennis-killen road. My old boss, John Gately, had transferred to Cavan and he had offered me the opportunity to go and join him. He assured me, before he left Cork, that it was a move I wouldn’t regret.
There were a lot of reasons not to make the move – Cork was my home, and Cavan, well, it wasn’t Dublin or London in terms of its nightlife. But I got on very well with John and he was a superb operator in the hotel business. I knew he’d be exceptional for the Slieve Russell, which already had a reputation as a good hotel. I knew, with John at the helm, I’d get on pretty well there and who knew where that might take me? I was itching to leave anyway. So I decided to take a chance and I swapped Cork for Cavan.
At first I wondered about the wisdom of the move. The hours were long, the pay wasn’t great. But at least I was doing something I enjoyed and that was what counted for me. I also knew that the experience of being away from home was good for me, and Cavan, despite my preconceptions, was actually a lovely town with decent people and a thriving nightlife. For a twenty-year-old, it wasn’t half bad at all.
Then, one day in early June 1991, I was assigned to a split shift. This effectively wrecked your entire day, though you did have a couple of hours off mid-afternoon to prepare yourself for the evening shift in the kitchen. I decided to go into Cavan to kill a few hours. Normally, I’d have gone for a few pints and read the sports pages to catch up on how my beloved Manchester United were doing. But, this time, I decided to just wander around the town. To this day, I don’t know what possessed me to walk into a local bookshop; if I’m honest, I think it was fate guiding my footsteps. But, just seconds after I entered the shop, a book caught my eye. It was by Simon Murray and called Legionnaire, and as soon as I picked it up it transformed my life.
Flicking through the pages, I knew straight away that I had found my calling. It sounds ridiculous, but I was never so sure of anything in my life as the conviction in that instant that I wanted to be a Legionnaire. It was as simple as that. Up until that point, I didn’t even know what a Kepi was.
But I was immediately fascinated by the Legion – its history, its legends and the fact that, at once, it opened up all the doors that I thought had been shut to me. While I laugh about it now, initially I assumed at first that to join up I had go to Sidi-Bel-Abbès, the legendary former home of the Legion in Algeria, which had been abandoned in the 1960s! But, checking quickly through the book, I realised I just had to get to Marseilles and, without thinking twice, I strode out of the bookshop and looked for the nearest travel agency. I was so excited I didn’t even buy the book right then. Within five minutes of taking a short break from the hotel kitchen, I had booked a one-way ticket to Marseilles and the Legion depot at Aubagne. My life had just changed course. The main reason for the one-way ticket was to show myself how determined I was – though the fact that I was broke and wanted to save money on the return fare may also have been a factor!
I knew virtually nothing about the Foreign Legion except what I had picked up in the brief glance at the book: the fact that their famous cap was called a ‘Kepi’ and that the Legion had bases in Marseilles, Aubagne and formerly in Sidi-Bel-Abbès. The legendary discipline, the desertion rates, the physical demands of training and the gruelling overseas assignments – I knew nothing about those yet. Still, the discovery of the Legion and its Aubagne recruitment base was like Christmas come early.
I got back to the hotel at 5.00pm and immediately handed in my notice. I gave my boss the required seven days’ notice and worked five of the next seven days. I was careful not to explain why I was going to France. I think I was worried that someone might laugh at me. I did manage to take one day off to get my gear ready for France – and a second day I reserved for going on the lash with my workmates.
