GURKHA RECRUITMENT “YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING”
Kailash Limbu was one of tens of thousands of Nepalese applicants who had to endure stiff competition and tough exercises to become a British Gurkha soldier
Becoming a Gurkha soldier in the British Army is a prized career choice for young Nepalese boys, although since 2020 female applicants have also been accepted. Thousands apply each year but there are only a few hundred vacancies to be filled. In 1999, Limbu was one of only 230 Gurkhas to be recruited out of 32,000 initial applicants from across Nepal.
To achieve this extremely competitive dream, Limbu had to undergo a vigorous selection process. Each recruit has to pass through three selection boards, although Limbu did not initially put much effort into his first selection. “At that point I did not do all the necessary requirements,” he says. “For example, they wanted us to do 24 sit-ups but I could only do it 18 times because I didn’t have much time to practice the exercise. I was focussing on other things but they did see potential in me.”
A British officer encouraged Limbu to improve his fitness level, which stood him in good stead for the daunting District Selection. “At this stage there were over 1,000 applicants but there were only 14 places,” he says. “Thirteen other people were called out but one place remained and my heart was pumping. My name was called out for the
14th place and I said, ‘Yeah, I got it!’”
From District Selection, Limbu went to the final selection board at the British Gurkha Camp in Pokhara – Nepal’s second-largest city. This time, the selection was mentally as well as physically challenging: “All of the applicants were put into a house and cut off from everything. There were no phones and you couldn’t communicate with your parents but I was so focussed. I was determined to get in the British Army because you didn’t know who was going to fail or pass.”
The applicants had to now undertake various tests, the hardest being the doko race. “It’s a running exercise with a load of weight on your back in a basket,” says Limbu. “I was used to carrying a basket in my village to bring grass for the cattle or fuel for the fire. It wasn’t new for me but the only difference was that the basket we used in Pokhara was smaller than the one I used at home.”
The doko race required the applicants to run a long-distance stretch up a hill: “There is a river in Pokhara and you started in a flat rice paddy field. Then you had to climb straight up a steep hill while carrying 35kg. You had to run up that hill in a six-seven kilometre exercise. However, I never practised for it! I had heard little things about the race but I was really confident that I could do it and believed in myself. So many of my friends told me that they practised many times and came to Pokhara earlier to practise the route. It was exhausting climbing up that hill. I was almost knocked out because I had never trained like that but I just kept going and didn’t give up. I finally finished and although I didn’t come first I was somewhere in the middle.”
Limbu’s success in the doko race was a factor in his finally being accepted into the British Army. This was a huge achievement and reflected his determination to succeed: “You have to keep going and going. It was tough but I was willing to give everything to do this job.”
see was desert. You could start to hear in the far distance some Taliban trying to shoot into our base. We ended up being there for 31 days and there was fighting almost every day.”
Now a corporal and section commander,
Limbu was concerned for the Gurkhas under his command: “I was quite young at 25-26 years old but the soldiers in my section were all younger than me. You had the feeling of, ‘What’s going to happen?’ You were trying to see the enemies but because of my team I was slightly anxious and – honestly – sometimes fearful too. However, I was also thinking, ‘I’m going to kill them before they kill us.’ We were prepared.”
Sieges and ambushes
As well as Camp Bastion, fortified bases were also established in various districts of northern Helmand to stop insurgents overrunning the area. However, the Taliban laid siege to an ISAF garrison at Musa Qala, which was approximately 100km from Camp Bastion. The garrison was besieged for weeks and soon needed to be resupplied with provisions. It fell to the recently arrived soldiers of 2 RGR, including Limbu, to deliver supplies in what proved to be a dangerous mission.
The Gurkhas manned a convoy of 12 supply vehicles, including WMIKS, which were armed Land Rovers with mounted machine guns. They travelled through a hostile desert landscape before they were on the outskirts of Musa Qala. “As our convoy was heading that way we had a huge fight,” says Limbu. “The Taliban used every weapon system to try and smash the logistics we were taking but our job was to protect those supplies and safely drop off our friendly assignment. We therefore used every weapon system and continually fought back. We won the firefight but our
WMIK fell down into a dip and we had to fight hard. Nevertheless, we stopped the fighting, resupplied Musa Qala and turned back.”
This pattern of intense firefights with the Taliban continued for 2 RGR across their tours in Afghanistan. On 8 March 2008, Limbu was based at FOB (Forward Operating Base) Delhi in the Garmsir district of Helmand. He came under extremely heavy attack during a clearand-search mission on a day that happened to be his and his daughter’s birthday. “We were operating to go south near to the Pakistani border,” he says. “Our job was to clear the area, which was controlled by Taliban insurgents. We were at company strength for the mission and went by Chinook helicopter into the desert.”
Limbu was at the head of a platoon, where he was the leading section commander of eight soldiers. Moving through shot-up houses, the Gurkhas were supported by patrol tactical vehicles and were in search of recently located enemy fighters. “As we were advancing we could hear the enemy talking through radio chatter, which kept getting busier and busier,” he says. “They began plans to attack us and we knew that we were going to get into contact somewhere behind some building.”
The Gurkhas were swiftly attacked with mortars: “Using all of our skills to make ourselves a small target we all of a sudden came into [enemy] contact and the fight began. It was quite a huge fight but we neutralised that one by calling for a long-range Gps-guided missile. We then continued advancing onto our next objective.”
While the Gurkhas advanced through a landscape of buildings and a rubble-strewn roads, they were constantly under the threat of encountering IEDS (Improvised Explosive Devices), which were homemade roadside bombs. Potential IEDS were soon detected near a T-junction and the vehicles were forced to halt: “I remember that the trucks stopped and
“AS I CLIMBED I JUST ENGAGED. BULLETS CAME DOWN AND WE SHOT BACK. WE BEGAN TO CLIMB INTO THE HILL AND WE WERE REALLY PUMPED UP. WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN BUT WE WERE READY WITH OUR TEAM. ALL OF MY TEAM WERE REALLY READY TO SMASH THEM”
“AS LONG AS WE HAVE UNITY THEN EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE. THAT’S WHY THE BROTHERHOOD WE HAVE IS UNIQUE. EVERYTHING WE DO, WE DO IT PURPOSEFULLY AS GURKHA BROTHERS”