SALUTE TO THIS BRAVE DUDE:CHRIS RYAN

In 1991, British commando Chris Ryan, a member of a team that was sent into Iraq on a mission that went awry, had to fight hunger and dehydration to hike nearly 200 miles across the desert to evade Iraqi forces and reach safety in neighboring Syria. The harrowing, death-defying feat earned Ryan lasting fame—especially after his 1995 memoir of survival, “The One that Got Away,” was made into a British television movie. That breakthrough helped propel Ryan into a successful career as an author of thriller novels that draw upon the knowledge and experiences that he amassed during his stint as a member of the UK’s elite Special Air Service. When a special forces mission went wrong in Iraq, an eight-man team was reduced to a single soldier who refused to be defeated by anything. But it wasn’t easy for Ryan. When he returned home, his body healed quickly from the deprivation, which had caused him to lose 36 pounds during his escape. But as he told an interviewer for the UK’s Sunday Mirror newspaper in 1996, his mind was slower to come around. At first, he rejected his wife and young daughter, and focused on his job in the military. “All I could see was my family life getting in the way,” he recalled. “….I just wanted to be myself, do my work, give full commitment to the regiment. It was totally wrong.” After a separation of a few months, Ryan had a change of heart. He and his wife reconciled—“It took a long time, but we talked it out,” he told the Mirror-and in 1994, he decided to leave SAS. In addition to taking up writing, he worked as a bodyguard, protecting clients such as a European businessman who was worried about falling victim to Russian criminals on his trips there. After his memoir sold 350,000 copies in hardback, though, his book editor clamored for a follow-up. At first, Ryan demurred—“I said, I'm not interested in doing any exposes about the regiment. I had something to say about my walk and that was it,” he told the Newcastle Journal in 1999. The editor suggested that he try writing fiction instead. The idea appealed to Ryan, who saw that he could utilize his real- life experiences and knowledge to make his work more plausible than the usual thriller. “'I've read the other SAS novels and you can pick holes in them,” he explained to the Journal. “You can see when they are not up to date or written by people who don't know what they are talking about. I'd hope mine are as realistic as they can be.'' He soon launched a successful series of books featuring an intrepid commando, Geordie Sharp, who encountered dilemmas based upon situations that Ryan had encountered in his military career. Meanwhile, Ryan continued to take security jobs in dangerous spots around the globe as well. In 2003, for example, he reportedly went to Iraq in the wake of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein to work for a U.S. private contractor. The jobs helped him to keep his novels realistic. “If I wasn’t having a crack with the guys and hearing their stories, then I'd lose touch and all my ideas for the books would dry up,” he told the Guardian newspaper at the time. “Plus, you do get a buzz from it, y'know?" Additionally, Ryan—still an adventure- seeker—took on other challenges. In 2005, he went on a 10-day trek in mountainous Nepal with a group of volunteers from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, which raises funds to assist military veterans who are in need. Ryan also has utilized his notoriety to help young people, visiting schools and giving talks to students about the importance of applying themselves. “I squandered my own education because all I ever wanted to do was go into the forces,” he explained in a 2007 appearance, according to an account in the Coventry Evening Telegraph. “But I had to catch up because I needed to know languages, to know about explosions, and to understand mathematical formulas.” Even though he made a living fictionalizing his commando experiences, Ryan told the Daily Record newspaper in 2010 that it was still painful to think of battles in which he’d fought and comrades who hadn’t survived. “As you get older, you look at it differently. You look at yourself and you are greyer, wrinklier, and a bit heavier,” he explained to the Record. “The guys you lost never get older. You think of them as you last saw them and, as time goes on, as you push through the years, the reality of that is sadder. You just think, what a waste of life.” He’s also come to accept that his escape from Iraq may have taken a permanent physical toll. At one point during the ordeal, he drank water that was contaminated with nuclear waste. “This emerged during a 'well man' check-up,” he told the Newcastle Journal in 2015. “They found my red blood cells weren't working as they should do and were concerned it could have something to do with the fluid I drank in Iraq.” And as someone who knows what it’s like to live with danger and its lasting effects, he worries about a new generation of soldiers returning home from the war against terror. “You know, Iraq and Afghanistan, these young lads have done far more than, you know, I could even dream of doing,” he told an interviewer recently. “Yet they live normal lives and they carry on, you know, they get over what they've seen. Those guys, they're the ones who are really brave young soldiers.”

 

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