Arranged marriage? No thanks, I’m off to join the SAS
A Muslim woman — and only 4ft 11in. But Azi was determined to take on the ultimate challenge
MUM smiled at the three guests sitting on her floral sofa. ‘oh, yes, my daughter’s a very good cook,’ she said reassuringly. I pulled my headscarf tight around my head and knelt down at the coffee table to serve them all tea.
My parents — who’d had an arranged marriage when Mum was 14 — had emigrated to Manchester before I was born, but remained wedded to their traditional values. For my mother, that meant just one thing as far as I was concerned: I had to be married off to a nice Pakistani boy of the right caste — like the one sitting here in our front room, with a pot belly, goggly eyes and a terrified look on his face.
As if I were invisible, Mum said: ‘ Rest assured, brother, my daughter is not the modern type. She attends mosque every day, prays five times, doesn’t go out alone...’
the boy’s father, Majid, chipped in: ‘If I had a daughter, I’d never let her leave home to study. this country is very bad for our girls.’
I fought back the urge to ram my teaspoon down Majid’s throat. How would he react — how would any of them react — if they knew the truth: that I was undergoing gruelling training to join the Army.
And not just any regiment, either, but the most elite of all — the SAS, who were preparing me to become one of their first female reservists.
Underneath my shalwar kameez, my arms were covered in bruises and my knees were swollen to the size of grapefruits from the ordeals I’d already been put through to prepare me for combat.
So far I’d managed to keep my life in London completely separate from my other life as the youngest daughter in a devout Pakistani family, but the strain was almost unbearable. Was I really expected to marry this stranger? Majid looked at his boy triumphantly. ‘My Kashif runs the family business with me. We own two market stalls selling ladies’ shoes.’
I closed my eyes and wondered silently what my fellow SAS trainees would make of the future that was being mapped out for me. At 4ft 11in tall, I weighed just 7st at the time. Add to this that I’m female and of Asian origin, and you’re looking at the least likely candidate ever to have been taken on by the SAS.
to be honest, I didn’t even know what the SAS was to begin with.
I’d been raised in a two-up-twodown in Manchester, speaking Punjabi at home and helping out in Mum’s kebab shop after school. By the time I was 12, she also had me fully trained in knitting, sewing and sitting prettily — all the skills necessary to become the perfect Pakistani housewife.
My first rebellion was to go to Central Saint Martins art school in London.
‘Girls don’t leave home before marriage!’ Mum wailed. But Dad agreed to let me go, and, after graduating, I set up my own internet design business — but never told my parents.
LIFE
ticked along nicely, yet I felt restless. then one day a girlfriend jokingly suggested that I should join the territorial Army.
I’d never heard of it but I sent off for an information pack, which had a list of army units plus something called the SAS, described as ‘ the elite force’. no point going for second-best, I decided. I dialled the number provided and was told to go to Chelsea Barracks in London.
It was an odd place where nobody smiled or made small talk. And a waste of time. A poker-faced officer told me I wouldn’t be eligible until I’d had a few years’ military training, followed by officer training.
A few days later I was surprised to be summoned back. this time another unsmiling officer explained that the SAS needed admin support, and could I please fill in this form.
He wandered off. taken aback, I started scribbling — then looked up as two muscular girls walked in. they were followed by a man with a clipboard, who asked if we were here for ‘selection’. I looked at him blankly. then I thought, if these girls were putting their names down, perhaps I should. ‘Yes,’ I replied.
Which is how, aged 26, I became part of the first ever group of females to be allowed to take the same SAS training as the men. though I didn’t know it at the time, we were to be a one-off experiment, set in train by an enlightened colonel.
the following Wednesday, scared but excited, I turned up for the first of our weekly training evenings at the barracks. I was directed to a room where ten girls sat facing a lectern carved with the famous words: Who Dares Wins.
‘Right, ladies,’ said the clipboard man. ‘My name is Staff Wright. We have no idea how this will pan out as it’s never been done before.’
He explained that after eight weeks of women-only training, we would be joining the lads on ‘pre-selection’ — the initial test of their fitness.
If we got through it, we’d go on to the men’s selection training in the Brecon Beacons, then on to the last part, which involved learning how to fight, operate on every conceivable terrain and gather intelligence behind enemy lines.
Finally, after a two-week ‘ battle camp’, each survivor would be presented with an SAS beret. not that there would be many: of the 200-odd lads who joined up every year, only a handful got through the 13-month course.
‘oK, ladies,’ said Staff Wright. ‘I want you down in the courtyard in sports kit in 15 minutes.’
In the changing room I felt like a dwarf among these Amazonian women with legs like tree trunks. they had shoulders and biceps that reminded me of the Incredible Hulk.
outside, I stood in the back rank, copying the others and trying not to look like the idiot civilian.
Staff taylor, a short man with a face like a bulldog, began walking through the ranks.
‘over the next eight weeks, I’ll be getting rid of the wasters. Half of you will go tonight.’ Wright glanced at his watch. ‘ oK, ladies, tonight we’ll just do a warm-up. Let’s go.’
He ran out of the barracks gates and the girls filed out after him. Within minutes I was gasping for air and the girls were dots in the distance. By the time I caught up with them in Hyde Park, they were all doing press-ups — and throwing me dirty looks. they had been ordered to do the press-ups while they waited for me. not a good start.
next we had to sprint up and down a bank. Desperately I tried to catch my breath and ignore the pain. What were these girls made of?
Going back down, I fell on my bum. So taylor made me do the whole sprint again eight times, followed by a run that left me wanting to die.
then I had to give a piggy-back to one of my giant team mates. taylor’s voice tannoyed behind me, hurling abuse.
Focus, I told myself. Just focus. Come on. But after a few metres I fell flat on the ground with my face in the mud, my ribcage crushed by my team mate’s weight.
More press-ups, which I’d never done before. I could hear heavy breaths and groans — was that me?
‘Shut it! this isn’t a maternity ward!’ yelled taylor.
Finally I staggered over to the nearest tree to throw up. An Amazon pushed past, sending me flying. this wasn’t training, it was torture.
Later, as I was coming out of the showers, I heard a girl called Adele say: ‘that Asian is a slacker.’ onCE, when I was ten, Dad had challenged me to carry a sack of rice upstairs for 50p. After the second stair my body collapsed but I kept at it, stair by stair, for an hour — not for the money but because I didn’t want to be seen as a failure, especially by myself.
It was the same when it came to making it through SAS selection. I was determined I wouldn’t fail — and if I managed to get through, I thought, everything else I’d achieved would pale into insignificance.
‘When will they let us know if
we’ve made it?’ I asked a girl called Liz. ‘You already did,’ she said. ‘ Female selection is voluntary withdrawal, which is harder than being kicked out.’
I realised she was right. Dropping out would haunt me for ever. I had to keep going.
The following Wednesday, Staff Wright was waiting for us. ‘We’re five short, any more to come?’ Silence. So five had dropped out. Three hours later, we were back in the barracks courtyard doing pressups. By the 80th, my senses were blurry and there was a strange humming in my head.
Still, within a few weeks I had my own army number and specially ordered size 4 boots. I was a private — Private Ahmed!
By the next phase of training, at Pirbright Barracks, we were down to three: a professional rockclimber named Becky, a woman called Adele and me. Plus 200 lads — a mixed bunch of former Marines, Paras and even a chap from the Australian Special Forces.
Twenty minutes after a lungexploding run, I was standing at the start line of the Pirbright assault course, known to be the toughest in the military. ‘On your marks...’ I charged up a wooden plank, leapt onto a pole 20ft from the ground, leapt for the next one and, because my foot couldn’t reach far enough, fell in a heap to the ground.
On and on it went, each obstacle worse than the last, until it was finally over. At which point the trainer informed us we were all s*** and had to do the whole lot again.
Later, the trainer told us: ‘We will run over tough terrain, day and night, carrying 50lb on our backs. Any wasters can p*** off now!’
Scratching a film of filth from my forehead, I dragged my Bergen rucksack towards a four- ton truck. ‘AHMED! ‘Pick your f*****g handbag up, you stupid bird!’
Tears blurring my vision, I slung the heavy Bergen on my back and started running, then suddenly doubled over to be sick. ‘While you’re down there, do 80 press-ups,’ barked the trainer. I fell to my knees. One... two... It’s only pain, I told myself, only pain. BY THE Brecon Beacons phase of training, 100 of the male candidates had dropped out. This time there was a new trainer, Briggs, who clearly hadn’t been warned about the colonel’s pet scheme.
‘What the f***?’ he exploded when it was explained to him, before storming off.
The training began with an eightmile run, kicking up sheep manure. After that we had to navigate by map and grid references to a series of rendezvous points. Sometimes the terrain was so marshy it came up to my waist.
My shoulders were raw and by the end of the weekend I was a broken woman. Even the men were too exhausted to speak on the way back.
All too soon, we headed back to the Brecons for more punishment — an all-day run in the rain. I lost sight of the others after a few hours.
Soon, sleet was hitting my face horizontally. A freak gust caught my Bergen and I realised I was inches from falling off a cliff. I’d never experienced such raw fear.
After more than 12 hours of this torture I found myself sobbing. When I finally reached the rendezvous I couldn’t even take the Bergen off; it was stuck to my back.
A horrible Welsh recruit, who had mocked me earlier, stopped cleaning his weapon, removed my Bergen and offered me his mug of hot tea. I was utterly overwhelmed.
On a patch of grass I peeled off my socks; they were soaked in blood and I’d lost two toenails.
‘Even a one-legged geriatric could have done better than you lot today,’ yelled Briggs. ‘What do you think this is? The f***** g Ramblers?’ Could the training get any worse? It could.
That night I was ordered to lead a patrol of Welsh lads through ‘enemy’ territory — which all went fine until I went on a recce and suddenly found myself walking on air. Then, splash!
I was immersed in cold water. The weight of my kit pulled me down deeper. I was sinking, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I struggled with the Bergen straps but it was too late. My mind began to close down. Abruptly, a hand grabbed me by the collar and pulled me up. Choking, I was dragged on to a bank.
I managed to roll to one side and stand up. Then I looked down at my hands. I’d dropped my weapon in the river! This was worse than drowning, because we all had to plunge into the river to find it.
Twenty minutes later my patrol and I were soaked but I had my weapon back. The lads stood round me, hands on hips, seething.
Back at the meeting-point at last, I sat shivering as a trainer described us as a bunch of losers. I caught one of the lads smirking at me — and suddenly felt furious. NOT long before, I’d overheard a couple of recruits talking about me being ‘a tick in the box’, presumably because of my sex and ethnicity. How dare they?
For the first time I didn’t hide behind a tree as I changed out of my wet gear. The lads stopped and stared. ‘ What?’ I snapped. They looked dumbstruck.
The final part of training was a killer, mainly because of sleep deprivation. Soon there were just 20 men, then, a week away from finishing, only 14. Plus Becky and me.
By now I had a strong sense of belonging; I was even upset to hear that our colonel was retiring.
Then came the greatest shock of all. Abruptly, I was summoned into an office where an officer told me that I was dismissed.
The whole female programme had been axed, presumably by the new colonel. Perhaps he felt the regiment wasn’t ready to have women coming home in body bags.
What had it all been for? Perhaps they’d expected us all to fail, and there had never been any intention of letting women wear the blue belt and sandy beret.
I felt betrayed, a failure. My parents, of course, knew nothing of my SAS training. But even if they had, my father, a halal butcher who worked seven days a week, had always urged me to see a task through to the end — and he’d have been horrified that I hadn’t completed what I’d set out to do.
It was months before I realised what the SAS had given me. It had taught me discipline, teamwork, connecting with people from all walks of life — and I’d learnt a lot about myself.
Facing the future with a new sense of confidence, I set about changing my career and widening my interests, even standing as a prospective Tory MP at the last election in the Labour stronghold of Rochdale.
But I never told my parents — now both dead — how a nice Pakistani girl came so close to joining the toughest fighting force in the world.
AdApted by Corinna Honan from Worlds Apart: A Muslim Girl With the SAS, by Azi Ahmed, published by the Robson press at £17.99. © 2015 Azi Ahmed. to buy a copy for £13.49, visit mailbookshop. co.uk or call 0808 272 0808. Offer until June 25, free p&p.