SPECIAL EYE SPY FEATURE
H.E.A.T. C
ontact! Contact left! Echoes over the radio. A vehicle screeches to a halt and four men armed with automatic rifles pour out of another in fast and menacing motions. Their movements are a blur as they take cover, bringing weapons to their shoulders they engage the enemy before leaving their stricken vehicle and make for safety. This could be a scene played out in the bad lands of Iraq, but it’s actually a training exercise conducted at a site in the UK. The four ‘armed’ men are all participants in Stirling Services’ Hostile Environment Awareness Training / Personal Security Detachment Course or HEAT [H.E.A.T / P.S.D.]. Barry, Francois, Chris and Tony (pseudonyms) are four professional ex-British servicemen who are heading for Iraq. All the men are fully aware of the dangerous security situation in the country, thus are attending the course in order to hone and practise the specialist skills required for operating in such a deadly and unpredictable theatre of war. To this end, they chose Stirling Services as the company that can best equip and train them for their future deployment. Director of Training is John McAleese, a 22year veteran of the British Army. During his service with the army, John spent 15 years in the elite 22 Special Air Service (SAS) regiment.
making an explosive entry during the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London. And like it or not, the incident immortalised the SAS and gave the public a fleeting glimpse of probably the toughest and most professional group of soldiers in the world. The H.E.A.T / P.S.D. courses have been specially designed for those who may find themselves operating in hostile environments such as Iraq. The course sets out areas that are imperative. The modules include: Risk Assessment, Route Planning, Vehicle and Equipment requirements, Convoy and Contact Drills, Weapons Handling, Communications, Improvised Explosive Device Awareness (I.E.D’s) Search Techniques, Remote Area Medics and Counter Attack Team Drills.
Eye Spy and Law Enforcement Picture Library recently spent time with a very specialist company providing superb training for those serving at the cutting edge of front-line security, be it in an intelligence, military or commercial environment. The head of that company is a person known to millions worldwide as the ‘man in black’ - who with colleagues - ended the Iranian Embassy siege in London. He is former SAS officer John McAcleese
Former SAS officer John McAcleese
The 10-day course which we dropped in on, is intensive and hard work. Each participant is pushed to their limit to ensure that they develop skills to an extremely high standard. Whilst Stirling Services recognise that you cannot train a man in just 10 days, the course helps augment techniques so that they can take that knowledge and apply it to the team’s personal training regimes.
John or ‘Mac’ to his closest friends, is better known as the “man in black” photographed
ALL IMAGES COURTESY LAW ENFORCEMENT PICTURE LIBRARY 42
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