BULLEVARD
How to…
SURVIVE BEHIND ENEMY LINES
and kill, but most of our work is sitting, watching, listening. You’re the eyes and ears, which often means watching a compound for 10 days and passing back information. Boredom is the biggest killer in a survival situation, so I break down the timescale – you need downtime, but you can’t afford to get complacent; in a war, it will get you killed.”
Few locations in the world are more perilous than a war zone. Former commando Aldo Kane has advice on how to make it out alive
Conceal your position “When you’re a sniper, you compromise yourself as soon as you take a shot. It doesn’t take much for people to start working out where you are, or they can just start blowing up the most likely places. Some forward positions are petrifying, like when there are only two of you at the top of a big cement tower and you can hear people at the bottom start to climb it, then back down.”
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Be invisible “Your job is to move effectively from A to B in broad daylight without being seen. You’re so in tune with the environment that you become part of it. You don’t only listen with your ears; by turning your head to the side, you can tell where the wind is coming from. You smell like your environment and look like it, because you’ve altered your camouflage. You sound like it. I walk on the sides of my feet, even at home, because it creates less impact and noise on the ground.” Prepare for boredom “Warfighting is 95 per cent boredom. People think a sniper’s main job is to shoot
Accept vulnerability “You run the risk of enemy contact and also blue-on-blue – not everyone who’s on your side knows where you are and what you’re doing. You’re in a vulnerable position for days, on a diet of dry biscuits and paste. You poo into plastic bags and pee into bottles, because everything that goes into that observation post with you comes back out with you, too.”
Follow Aldo Kane’s adventures on Twitter: @AldoKane THE RED BULLETIN
MATT RAY
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efore he became a behind-the-scenes expedition leader for TV and film, Aldo Kane was a commando sniper in the British Royal Marines. During the Iraq War, he was one half of a team that infiltrated enemy territory and set up a 10-day observation post. “Two men can’t take on an army, so the game is simple: don’t be seen, stay alive,” says the 39-year-old Scottish adventurer. “You’re moving through unexploded minefields, and the pair of you are on your own, so you have to be confident in your own resourcefulness to make it to the hide.”
ALDO KANE
Kane served in Iraq in Operation Telic, fighting behind enemy lines as part of a reconnaissance troop
Stay aware “We were ambushed in Iraq. It’s one of the most hair-raising experiences – loud and scary. But in a firefight we get the rounds down, keep moving, basically dodging bullets, and at the same time we need to take a step back to see the bigger picture. Are there any teams moving around that way? Are we calling up ammunition resupply? Are we on comms to get these two casualties out of here?”