SAS Ultimate Guide to Combat - Robert Stirling

I've written this book to help you - the soldier - kill the enemy when you get the chance and, most importantly, come back home in one piece. To achieve this aim I've covered combat training from boot camp up to the level required of a Special Forces soldier. And then gone on to add a few tricks of my own. I've done a bit of soldiering (Northern Ireland, SAS deployments, Bush Wars in Africa, life as a merc) and been in my fair share of fire-fights. I've only been wounded twice and learnt from both occasions. I'm going to use my experience to teach you to play the game. I'm not going to teach you how to survive in snowy mountains for a month with only one tea-bag or how to kill a room fill of people with only a toothpick. There are plenty of books that do that already. This book will teach you how to fight and survive war in the 21st century from the tools of the trade, to avoiding getting shot or blown-up, from surviving an interrogation to defending a position. This is a book not for the faint hearted. But then neither is war.

At the age of 16, Robert Stirling joined the British Army as a Junior Leader Paratrooper and so spent his first year of service undergoing a strict training regime which alternated weapons skills, drill, physical exercise and education all designed to prepare a soldier for leadership. Entering adult service and passing P Company, the Parachute Regiment selection, led to four tours in Northern Ireland and some covert experience wearing a donkey jacket and carrying a 9mm pistol. He was probably the second youngest ever to pass selection for the SAS at 19 years of age. Robert left the British Army and joined the Rhodesian Army towards the end of the Bush War. Here he led a unit of 200 men including a number of ex-French Foreign Legionnaires. He was in constant action and wounded twice. Besides extensive combat experience in numerous conflicts, Robert has been contracted to recover stolen diamonds, work undercover against mercenary operations, teach unarmed combat to ript police, provide close protection to VIPs and other secretive roles. Based in Southern Spain, he travels widely and accepts some consultancy work. He has recently trained the Austrian Officer Corps and Special Forces in unarmed combat and the Greek Special Forces. He is now running a covert operation in Afghanistan.