I Was Never Asked What I Wanted To Be!

“The men of always aren’t interested in the children of never.”
~ Pablo Escobar ~

I spent the time while drinking my coffee this morning chatting with an friend via a messenger, even though this guy was born in a country far from mine, we are about the same age and share the same perspectives on today’s messed up world.  

We are old men now, in our early 50’s and have led what can be said to be more colorful lives than most. These days in the woke and timid world we live many would see this as a negative. The absolute need for compliance and conformity has replaced what was once classed as a lust for adventure, right?

I have been very lucky with my life and have really lived as I have wanted, made good decisions, made bad decision but they were for the greater part all my choices. I am sure I could have led a more comfortable and easy life but I never really wanted that, where is the challenge, where is the adventure, where is the experience and what stories would I be able to tell? A life without problems is not a life, you’re just breathing… Breathing comfortably waiting to die, and to let you deniers into a big secret, we are all going to die anyway…

In many ways I have always what could be classed as being outside of the system apart from when I was in the British Army, but in the days when I was in, we had a lot of freedom. Of course, we had the punchy discipline and culture that was the British infantry on the late 80’s and early 90’s but we worked and played hard. A close friend of mine Matt Trott recently detailed a few of our adventures in his book “Hard Stop” which also details his experiences as an undercover UK cop. But sadly, and also am sure a relief for many people a lot of our adventures with 1 WFR will remain unprinted… For now!

I seriously think now looking back that the best thing that happened in my life was to be classed as stupid by the educational system as a child. As a child school bored me, more so as a teenager as I began to see the teachers as sad and pathetic; whose life goal is it to be a school teacher in rural UK? Even though I hated school I read many books and one of the first was Papillon by Henri Charriere, which as Trott said jokingly years later, maybe to some extent for positives and negatives, we both viewed that as a book life guide…  

I left school at 15 years old after growing up in Falmouth, Cornwall. As I said I hated school and looking of back I don’t know what the hell I did there, it was a waste of time. I avoided going to school as much as I could and I left as soon as possible with some qualifications that I have no record of. I was never a good student and was classed as one of the dumb ones, a remedial!!

After I left school, I quickly moved away from Falmouth at 16 years old to work on commercial fishing boats in Ilfracombe in North Devon and applied to join the Army. My life goals in those days was to be a bodyguard or a mercenary, I don’t think may people back then took my career goals seriously for some reason… Soldier of Fortune Magazine was a top read for me when I had the money to get copies mailed to me, no internet back then! Funnily in 2013 I had an article published in the Soldier of Fortune magazine on my time working in Nigeria, click here for the article “Voodoo Cults”. I think the 16 year old me would be happy with life the 50 year old me had lived to date…

When I was set on joining the military I first went to the Royal Marines office in Plymouth who told me to come back when I was 17 years old. When I went to the Army Recruiters in Barnstable the same day they started the recruiting process straight away, so the British Infantry it was to be.

The Army Recruiting Sargent was from one of the Guards Regiments and after the initial aptitude tests asked what I wanted to do within the Army. I told him I wanted to join the Infantry and he told me I was stupid… This I knew, I had been told this for the last 16 years… Apparently, I had gotten the highest grade on the tests and could at that stage choose whichever branch of service I wanted. I said I wanted to stay with my choice of the infantry and the Recruiting Sargent gave me advice that would turn out to exactly on point! He told me that I would quickly get bored in an infantry regiment and would not be happy. Again he asked what I wanted, I said Infantry and he said what I believed to at the time to be the gospel truth, that I was stupid!

After completing basic training at Depot Litchfield I joined my Battalion (1 WFR) in Omagh, Northern Ireland.  First arriving at an Infantry Battalion is intimidating, being a new boy, everyone wants to fuck with you, you are the lowest of the low! I was charged within 3-day of arriving by some fat REMF (Rear Echelon Mother Fucker) of a store man for disobeying an order of wiping up a tea stain at a guard post with a dry rag when he told me to use a wet one. The funny thing was years later with 1 WFR RECCE Platoon in Cyprus we use to have to push and drag these fat useless cunts around the Combat Fitness Tests; they were our best friend then… Too easy to trip up…

Anyway, in the first few days of my arrival I received a notice to go to Battalion Headquarters (BHQ) and report the Sargent Major who was the chief clerk. I was thinking WTF have I done now… As a new boy BHQ was not the place to go near, too many opportunities to be fucked with!! So, I checked my dress, marched Depot style to BHQ and reported the Sargent Major. He asked me if I wanted to go on a clerks course, he saw my aptitude test grades. This would have meant a few weeks course back in England with leave. This for many this would be a golden opportunity they would have done unspeakable acts for just for the time off operations in Northern Ireland. I know someone who got circumcised to get two weeks leave, but that’s another story. I told the Sargent Major I was not interested, he asked if all I wanted to be was an infantryman, I said yes. He again told me I was stupid and to fuck off.

So, if the British Army had worked out in a few months that I was suited for more than just being a grunt then why had my school teachers failed so badly? Which as I said earlier had in the long run done me a huge favor and kept me out of the system and a humdrum life. Well, the British Army had hundreds of years’ experience of dealing with misguided, angry young men and to some extent was interested in using them for the best interests of the Army. I understand these days the recruiting process and the woke British Army has changed and defiantly not for the best!

As I think back to my teachers at Falmouth School, who wrote me off way before I left school at 15 years old, I see they were a very unmotivated and depressing group people who should never have been in charge of the future education of children. But, they did me a big favor. Maybe my motivation for living my life, my way has been not just for the adventure, travel and hard currency but also but to prove many people who believed me to be stupid and good for nothing very, very wrong…

But remember, others opinions mean nothing unless they are putting bread on the table. Also, others will give you advice mostly for their benefit not yours, and from their realm of life experience, which for most people is limited, timid and overly influenced by the constraints of the social systems in which they live.

I think these days it would be very difficult for young men, and I mean men of 16 and 17 years old and up, to live the lives I and others had, with the freedoms we had to make mistake, to learn and grow as men have done since the beginning of time. In the last few decades things seemed to have changed and not for the better, humanity in my opinion is in a state of regression.

I see no negatives with people living outside of the system and doing their own thing, setting their own goals, and living their own lives as long as they are respectful and pay their way. How many educated “Nine to Fivers” are depressed, suicidal, in debt and are general scum bags but have the nerve to criticize people who live what can be classed as alternative lifestyles, or in some way have tripped and fallen along their path. If you make a mistake or bad decisions and trip and fall, good for you, just get back up and learn every valuable lesson you can from that experience. To me the weakest and most pathetic people are those how have never taken a fall, this means they were too timid and scared to live…

As I said to my friend over coffee this morning many would class us as dinosaurs, stubborn, opinionated, aggressive and potentially violent old men, but that’s their choice and they are not paying our bills, so their opinions are irrelevant. What we do have though is something that is lacking in the the vast majority of people these days, which is core values, good manners, respect for others, work ethics, and the life experience to know when someone is a stupid worthless cowardly asshole when we come across them.

I am sure that even now as my associates an I have made it to the dinosaur stages of our lives there are a lot more adventures and mischief to come, which is what life is all about right? And finally, thank you again to everyone who told me I was stupid, good for nothing, and would never account for anything, I agree, your were right… From your limited perspectives, cowardly existences, and narcissistic view points you were 100% right, thank you so very fucking much!

Orlando “Andy” Wilson
Investigator & Writer etc.
Web: www.tohff.com
Social Media: @artfulgypzy
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