The Boat-House at Hereford
Entry posted by caldrail
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There was a film on release some years ago called Ronin, a tale of skulduggery as mercenaries are hired to retrieve a package. In one memorable scene, Robert De Niro finally loses his patience with Sean Bean whose character had made a big deal of having been an SAS soldier. "What colour is the boat-house at Hereford?" He yells at him. Sean Bean becomes flustered and cannot answer, exposed as an imposter. De Niro later admits to a witness that he doesn't know anything about a 'boat-house at Hereford'.
Many years ago I was working diligently in a warehouse which regularly employed temporary staff. One young man was on my section and I noticed a certain wildness about him. Plenty of energy, cheerful personality, and, dare I say it, somewhat full of himself.
Some time later we got talking and I asked what he'd done before he came here.
"Oh... I was a mercenary"
That raised my eyebrows. It wasn't just the uniqueness of his past experience (we didn't get many mercenaries working for us) but also his demeanour, which just wasn't military in any way. Now I'm no expert in that field but I simply could not see him in some foreign country earning his paycheck fighting private wars or guarding principals. So I asked a few questions and he sort of gave the right answers. Still not convinced.
It so happens that last night I bumped into a guy I knew at school thirty years ago. It transpires he'd gone into the services and now worked as a bodyguard for celebrities and such, and was due to return to Iraq shortly. I mentioned that youngster I'd met back then and he shook his head, dismissing him as a fraud with typical military bluntness. Too young in his opinion.
So we carried on talking and I enquired about his military career, and sure enough, he mentioned his association with 'that bunch at Hereford'. I groaned inwardly. This was hardly the first time an ex-squaddie had claimed affiliation with british special forces to me. Why do soldiers always claim to have been in the SAS? For all I know, he might have been, but it seems 'the regiment' is a necessary qualification these days. Whether you have the certificate or not.
Expose of the Week
Swindon is hardly a hotbed of mercenary activity. Its actually hard to think of Swindon as a hotbed at all. But even here the all-pervasive world of privatised military commerce reared its ugly head. On a door of an upstairs office located in our local high street (and above a bank) was an advertisement for tank transporter drivers, foreign contracts, good rates of pay. Forget your Rambo's or Arnie's, this was the real deal. No questions about boat-houses asked.
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