After leaving school jobless in1980s Newcastle, time spent gnawing at the bars of the poverty trap, was interrupted by the offer from a recruiting poster to join Britain's Territorial Army. The lure of action and adventure and patriotic fervour taking second place to the money on offer. And thus i entered a world of beer, bullets and birds and 'survival of the shittest' seemed to guarantee promotion in all but a few cases. So began the first foot blistering steps in a part time military oddessy that was full of the best and worst and the funny side of the "Green Machine."