John Paul turns his back on fighting in war zones
GOING FROM MAUGHEROW TO FIGHTING THE TALIBAN IN AFGHANISTAN, PAUL DEERING CHATS WITH JOHN PAUL JORDAN ON HIS EXTRAORDINARY LIFE SO FAR
He’s not sure but he thinks he was returning from a dental appointment in the middle of London when his attention, like millions around the World was suddenly drawn to the television screen as two planes hit the Twin Towers in New York.
Like so many this astonishing atrocity which killed over 3,000 people including one Sligoman, left an indelible mark on John Paul Jordan.
The Maugherow native felt he wanted to do something in response. He wanted to join the new fight against terrorism but also that long held sense of adventure had struck him once more.
By that stage in September 2001, John Paul had been four years living and working in London. After completing his Leaving Certificate in 1997 at 18, the former Grange Vocational School student didn’t wait too long around Sligo.
“There wasn’t much work around at the time and my father was in London at the time working in construction and I knew I‘d get a job there so off I went. He was on his way home for good and I was heading over and I got a job with a fairly big company, O’Rourke’s. The money was great but the working day was long,” he recalls.
He had become a skilled stone worker and had taken up an apprenticeship. But 9/11 changed everything for this young Sligoman.
“I had this feeling that I just wanted more from my life. I had seen the older Irish generation in England and it was just work and pub, work and pub. I felt there was more to life than this.
“I had looked into joining the Irish Army when I was doing my Junior Certificate but to be honest there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of action involved. It was a peacekeeping role the Irish Army fulfilled and I wanted more,” he says.
And so, John Paul Jordan went from building blocks and mixing cement in London to the French Foreign Legion, fighting the Taliban in Iraq with the British Army and working as a security consultant/protection officer in war zones across the globe including Lybia and Syria, for various organisations including many US media outlets.
“I looked to join the French Foreign Legion. I was filled with a sense of adventure and going to fight. I picked up my belongings and headed off after work on my holidays. I took the Channel tunnel to France and went to the Legion’s recruitment centre at Fort de Nogent in Paris. It was an old fort. I just joined up. Whatever I had was taken from me.
“I was sent down south for basic training which lasted for several months. It was ruthless altogether. It was brutal in the winter. All the basics was cold. Cold food, cold water, everything including your uniform was washed in cold water.
“I remember being out in the freezing cold doing press ups with my fists for an hour. That was what the Legion was about. And, there were plenty of beatings from the Corporals.
“But the Irish were well regarded in the Legion. The Irish have an excellent reputation,” he says.
John Paul was put into the Legion’s engineers’ regiment rather than the paratroopers and this disappointed him.
“It was probably due to my background in construction that I was put into the engineers,” he says. It was busy and he learned new skills too such as dealing with explosives.
“You received lots of good training but it was like you were shown once and you do it once and you better not mess it up,” he recalls.
After two years he was posted to French Guiana.
John Paul was getting itchy feet however, He had signed up for five years but he says: “Iraq was kicking off around this time and I felt I wanted to be more involved.
“I decided I wanted to leave the Legion which isn’t that easy. There’s a lot of paper work involved and I didn’t think they would let me go. In the end I just walked out and I left sorting out the paper work until later,” he says.
New adventures beckoned immediately. He completed a close protection course in Portugal with a South African company and got his first job as a security advisor for a company located just outside Baghdad.
“I was basically looking after engineers working on various installations in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussain. We were working all over the country,” he says.
There were plenty of close shaves. Once, an rocket propelled grenade went flying past him as he drove along with workers in a jeep which would be in three to four vehicle convoys.
“I went a foot past my head and hit a wall on the far side. There were always attempted ambushes. It was a fact of life in Iraq,” he says.
Again, a sense of frustration was building up in the Sligoman, The money was good but there was no insurance.
“You were basically on your own. The ambushes were constant and there were a lot of killings. There were many improvised explosive devices too resulting in life altering injuries.
“I felt I was limited in what I could do. I wanted to be able to do more. I used to return fire as best I could and I would fancy taking them on more with better fire power,” he says.
On returning to the UK he joined the British Army. It didn’t bother him at all. There were many Irish in the force at the time... not just in the Irish Guards regiment.
His first posting was Afghanistan. “I did a few tours. It was over and back. Very hectic. There was no end to the fighting. The Taliban are proper scrappers. They are right up for it, a great foe in many ways.
Once more he came face to face with death. “I was blown clear of one blast....it was a night operation in Helmand .....others weren’t so lucky. I saw colleagues die and others lose limbs. Some are alive with you but they don’t make it back to the helicopters to take them to Camp Bastion where the main medical facility is located.”
That brush with death in Helmand resulted in an injury to his arm and despite the fact he had soldiered on for awhile afterwards, he finally had to succumb to it.
“I underwent surgery but it didn’t go according to plan and rehabilitation was tricky,” he recalls. He left military life but he was soon back in war zones, once more as a security consultant, this time for international media organisation in war zones clandestinely moving journalists in and out of some of the world most dangerous hotspots,
He was a team leader for major US media networks such as ABC, CBS and NBC. Libya and North Africa was home for some 18 months.
John Paul was with CBS when they first reported to the World about the attack against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. |
The attack resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. In 2013 he was taking journalists covertly in and out of Syria.
“It was interesting times. You were dealing with smugglers all the time but your life was in the hands of God. We would be seen as cash cows really and you’d have to be on your toes all time, going from safe house to safe house.
“My work was getting more dangerous, Hostages were being taken and I had had a good run of luck,” he says.
He had also done work for many charities abroad. A top security man with his experience would always mean he was in demand.
But, it all came a price in his personal life. After returning from disaster relief work on the ground in the aftermath of the garment Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the walls of his own life came tumbling down. “I had gone into negative thinking. I was drinking heavily and this happened a lot to me each time I returned to England,” he said.
His marriage collapsed but the dad of two didn’t know what the root cause of his problem was. In 2013 he sought treatment through Combat Stress. He wanted to be proactive in his treatment and spent several weeks away.
He was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He didn’t see eye to eye with his original therapist and so he found himself in lone survival mode once more. “I just sneaked out in the middle of the night. I remember heading off through a forest. It was like being a soldier again,” he recalls.
For the next two years it was downward spiral with drink and drugs. There was even a suicide attempt. In 2016 he struck up a relationship with the Royal British Legion and soon a road to recovery was clear in his head.
He went on to pay for private treatment and now at 39, he can say he’s very much in recovery.
This journey took in writing a self-help guide inspired by his own incredible experiences - How To Stop Taking Drugs in 30 Days: A Simple and Daring Plan - launched in September 2017 as an eBook.
Living in Leeds, John Paul still works with various charities and media outlets as an advisor and he has also wrote another book, ‘ The Joys of War’ an account of his extraordinary journey to date and which is due for release on February 1st next.
John Paul gets back to Ireland about tow to three times a year.
“It has changed a lot in the past 20 years. It’s like there is a black cloud hanging over the country. When I go back I notice the difference. The Irish psyche has probably changed as a result of the recession and the austerity that followed.
“People don’t seem to be as bubbly as they used to be,” he says.
Life, for the foreseeable future is Leeds given he has two small children there. He’s remains active, up at 5am for a run. Life is good but he states that life was good too in the West of Ireland.
In war, John-Paul was the first to batter down the door or was first around the corner. Lots of bullets ricocheted off him or beside him. Fear, he says, never came into it.
“I had a feeling my luck might be running out as I had so many close calls and I said that perhaps it’s time to use all that experience on the other side of the fence. A year ago was my last trip to a war zone.
“I don’t wish to say where. I went on a quiet job but I don’t do it anymore. I said this life is just not for me anymore. I had worked hard to get peace in my life and I’m not going back to do that.
“It’s more rewarding to help people. I can do more here in the UK or US. That’s more beneficial to me now and more productive.
“Having said that I wouldn’t change a millisecond of my life to date. It’s got me to where I am today”