We select few

The selection course

I was stoked. I was finally trying out for the job I had wanted since I was a 14 year old boy, to be part of the legendary Special Air Service Regiment (known as the SASR). I had been inspired to join after watching a documentary on the abc with my mum. Straight out of school I joined the Australia army and went into the infantry corp. Posted with 2/17 infantry regiment, I served 3 tours of the middle east, two in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. Aged 24 and at the peak of my fitness, I sat the SASR's selection exam, which was a paper involving English and mathematic questions. approximately 86% of people sitting this test will pass. Following the written exam, we had to complete a physical fitness test involving a 3.5 km run in full kit (webbing, pack, boots and uniform) to be completed in under 16 minutes 30, a 20 km pack march in 3 hours and 15 while carrying 20 kilograms in your pack and 8 in your webbing. I scraped past by 30 seconds on the first part and cleared the pack march with 15 minutes to spare.

A month later, I arrived at a nondescript building in the middle of nowhere with 130 other men. As we stood for the first roll call of the course we were issued weapons. f88 Steyrs to be exact, they used standard 5.56mm NATO rounds, the steyr is accurate to up to 400m.

"Martins, Peter," I heard my name called. "Sir!" I called after I had snapped to attention."Martins? would you be related to Brigadeir Joseph Martins?"

"yes sir," I replied, baffled on how he knew my older brother.

He moved on to the next candidate. That man's name was Colonel Jones and he would later command my first tour with the Sasr. But now came the hard part... now came three weeks if hell