The final round up
So that was a day spent in the company of Stirling Services, blokes who spend every day teaching their collective skills to a variety of companies and individuals. For the serious side of things Stirling Services teach professionasl how to be bodyguards for some of the most dangerous places in the world. Having said that, they’re quite rightly very selective about who they teach these skills to. With ex-SAS members on their instructor team you know you’ll have access to some of the best training and experience you can but there’s no way you’ll even be considered if you reckon you’ll come out as the ultimate street ninja, it’s not about that. It’s not about being a tough guy and knowing seven different ways to kill with a butter knife. The professional close protection side of Stirling Services is about saving lives and learning how to avoid a situation where lives are at risk.
What we were doing was the less serious side of the Stirling Services business, a day spent learning how to do an assault on an aircraft and it sure as hell beat every other ‘team building’ day I’ve been on. Learning just how complex a real aircraft assault is was a humbling experience, especially when you consider that the guys doing it for real don’t get a second chance if they get it wrong.
AMD's Sean Stacey just caught on way by during his rampage bloodbath through the plane... zero terrorists shot, six of his own team but check out the lovely groupings!But the day was fun overall and everyone had a good time, even if we all came home with some interesting cuts and bruises. I was aching for two days afterwards and a particularly tasty gash on my shin refused to stop bleeding the following day. Highlights of the day had to be Rambo getting caught up on the wing door… We were inside watching as the door burst open, in flies a figure in black, weapon at the ready to then just stop and swing there…. Or completely fluffing the same entry myself and ending up lying on the floor with the entire team on top of me and Psycho straddling the seats telling us he’d got us covered as we dissolved into fits of laughter…
So it was a bruised and battered group of tech-heads that made their way to the local pub for a livener and dinner that evening, which much have had the locals a bit surprised to overhear tales of daring-do and acts of selfless heroism as we all talked about just how many terrorists we shot and how many times we’d been shot ourselves… All the while John Mac, ex-SAS trooper and MD of Stirling Services looked on, probably feeling bloody glad most of us will never have a real gun in our hands ever… which is not much of a surprise given the evidence in the footage below...
Click to download the Outakes Video Anyone wishing to find out more about Stirling Services should visit their website at www.stirlingservices.co.uk send an e-mail to Nick Blackburn at Stirling Services.
