"Andy McNab - Bravo-Two-Zero" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNab Andy)

Guardsmen, and the course was nothing but bullshit and regimentation.
You couldn't wear jeans, and had to go around with a bonehead haircut.
You weren't even allowed the whole weekend off, which made visiting my
old Peckham haunts a real pain in the arse. I landed in trouble once
just for missing the bus in Folkestone and being ten minutes late
reporting back. Shorncliffe was a nightmare, but I learned to play the
game. I had to--there was nothing else for me. The passing-out parade
was in May. I had detested every single minute of my time there but had
learned to use the system and for some reason had been promoted to
junior sergeant and won the Light Division sword for most promising
soldier.

I now had a period at the Rifle Depot in Winchester, where us junior
soldiers joined the last six weeks of a training platoon, learning Light
Division drill. This was much more grown-up and relaxed, compared with
Shorncliffe.

In July 1977 I was posted to 2nd Battalion, Royal Green Jackets, based
for the time being in Gibraltar. To me, this was what the army was all
about--warm climates, good mates, exotic women, and even more exotic VD.
Sadly, the battalion returned to the UK just four months later.

In December 1977 I did my first tour in Northern Ireland. So many young
soldiers had been killed in the early years of the Ulster emergency that
you had to be 18 before you could serve there. So although the
battalion left on December 6, I couldn't join them until my birthday at
the end of the month.

There must have been something about the IRA and young squad dies
because I was soon in my first contact. A Saracen armored car had got
bogged down in the curls (countryside) near Crossmaglen, and my mate and
I were put on stag (sentry duty) to guard it. In the early hours of the
morning, as I scanned the countryside through the night sight on my
rifle, I saw two characters coming towards us, hugging the hedgerow.
They got closer and I could clearly see that one of them was carrying a
rifle. We didn't have a radio so I couldn't call for assistance. There
wasn't much I could do except issue a challenge. The characters ran for
it, and we fired off half a dozen rounds. Unfortunately, there was a
shortage of night sights at the time so the same weapon used to get
handed on at the end of each stag. The night sight on the rifle I was
using was zeroed in for somebody else's eye, and only one of my rounds
found its target. There was a follow-up with dogs, but nothing was
found. Two days later, however, a well-known player (member of the
Provisional IRA) turned up at a hospital just over the border with a
7.62 round in his leg. It had been the first contact for our company,
and everybody was sparked up. My mate and I felt right little heroes,
and both of us claimed the hit.

The rest of our time in Ireland was less busy but more sad. The
battalion took some injuries during a mortar attack on a position at