Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon by Richard Villar Page A

rucksack had worn the skin of his back away to underlying flesh, the fact the blisters on his feet now exposed tendons and bone, was irrelevant. If he needed plastic surgery to heal the damage once Selection was over, so be it. That was the price of ambition.
    I can understand such determination. It was no surprise to learn the man passed with flying colours. It took us three days to remove the sticky tape once Selection was over. Under it lay massive, infected, oozy sores that took several weeks to heal. Such tenacity shows why some die in their efforts to become badged operatives.
    It was not a requirement that the Regimental Medical Officer took 22 SAS Selection. Nevertheless, I volunteered to do it. It made good sense. For credibility’s sake it seemed right. You are open to criticism when you make a decision like that. Some saw it as my attempt to be a soldier rather than doctor. My MI Room staff, none of whom had taken Selection, thought it an excellent idea and I believe were proud once I passed it. Having earned my Regular badge, however, I decided never to wear full SAS uniform when in camp. My self-appointed style was a badged SAS beret and RAMC belt. It meant a lot to me. In particular, it allowed me to address the hordes of candidates eager to take Selection and speak with the voice of both experience and authority.
    I, too, developed blisters. My rucksack’s lumbar strap would dig away at the low spine until the skin eventually gave in. Once the skin was broken you could not afford infection to enter. With so much mud, filth and mire, this was not an easy task. My solution, at the end of a long day’s Selection walk, was to go to my MI Room staff, expose my bare raw back and ask them to pinion me face down on the examination couch. They would then pour neat iodine on to the Bergen sores while I screamed, and screamed, and screamed. I never did ask if they enjoyed mugging their boss. I imagine their answer would have been ‘Yes.’
    The rucksack had a lot to answer for. The shoulder straps in particular would pull forcibly downwards on each collar bone. If the straps were not continually shifted in position by the soldier as he walked, the intense pressure would paralyse the nerves to the shoulder blades. Called ‘winging’, whenever you tried to push an object away from you, your shoulder blade would lift off the back of your chest like a bird’s wing. It usually improved, but only after months of rest and strict avoidance of heavy load carrying. If you wish to stay healthy, do not take SAS Selection.
    Not everything an SAS doctor does is medical. There are certain things that would make the General Medical Council squirm. None more so than providing medical assistance to the combat survival courses. Someone has to be sure that no soldier has hidden anything up his tail end. I was always the favoured choice. Doctors were supposed to enjoy such things. In my civilian days I had only to perform half a dozen rectal examinations in a day. Even then, I had found such things hard. Particularly so, as the Rectal Clinic I attended always took place on a Thursday morning, immediately after I had eaten a full fried English breakfast. On combat survival, however, with upwards of a hundred runners from assorted countries, everyone had to be examined. No one was exempt. Worse, they all had to be seen within thirty minutes. I hated it. The only way of dealing with the large number of soldiers was to take everyone’s trousers off, bend them across a table and get on with it. Down the line I would go, one backside after the other. Glove on, finger up, feel and pull. Glove on, finger up, feel and pull. It was terrible, both for me and the troops. Particularly the Italians. As a nation they did not seem to welcome rectal examinations on exercise.
    A most enjoyable part of the job was assisting with officer Selection. In the SAS, officers are called ‘Ruperts’, and are a very closely analysed and inspected breed. Ruperts