‘Psychopathic’ special forces soldiers mixed with criminals & sold ammunition, claims veteran
Soldiers in Britain’s elite special forces regiment associated with organized crime gangs, sold ammunition and some may have been borderline psychopaths, SAS veteran Chris Ryan has claimed.
Ryan, famously the only soldier to escape a disastrous 1991 SAS mission in Iraq during which half the team died and the rest were captured, made his comments to Gloucestershire Live on August 9.
While publicizing his latest thriller, the soldier turned author said he had run into some dubious characters during his time in the regiment.
“There were people who would sell ammunition, there were people who had dubious backgrounds in terms of who they were mixing with outside of hours of the regiment, like family and friends involved in gangs or organized crime,” he said.
He also told the website some of his comrades had shown signs of being mentally unstable.
“There were guys that were probably bordering upon being slightly unstable. Psychopathic,” the now-retired soldier said.
Ryan also used the interview to take a shot at former soldiers who turn themselves into professional survival experts – in particular TV personality Bear Grylls.
“That guy is like a juggernaut in terms of success. Good on him, he’s cornered the American market, which is great, but it’s show business,” Ryan said.
“There’s only actually one guy that I would say is a true survival expert and that’s Ray Mears. He knows his craft.”
The veteran of wars in Iraq, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Cambodia said Florida, where he now lives, is starting to grate on him because of all the guns.
“It’s becoming very tiring, actually. It’s pretty immoral. They’ve got a strange way of looking at life. Apart from the gun crime and the carriage of weapons, which is a big bugbear of mine, it’s just the politics,” he complained.
