With the help of local people, Asher manages to find the actual locations which were the milestones for the Bravo Two Zero patrol. It is a fascinating detective story which begins with Asher meeting Uday Hussain then finding and walking the route taken by the patrol. Michael Asher is amongst other things ex SAS and this is the account of his on-the-ground 2001 research into what happened to the Bravo Two Zero patrol in Iraq in 1991. With the help of local people, Asher manages to find the actual loc This is a must read for anyone who is interested in the Special Forces in general or SAS "Bravo Two Zero" patrol in particular. This is a must read for anyone who is interested in the Special Forces in general or SAS "Bravo Two Zero" patrol in particular. In The Real Bravo Two Zero Asher has written a far better and more humane book than either of the two he deconstructs, but he still seems to understand why McNab and Ryan produced the books they did.- Nick Rennison. Their real heroism, respected by both Asher and the Bedouins to whom he spoke, lay in their powers of endurance and determination when utterly isolated and alone, hundreds of miles inside enemy territory. We get the heroes we want and Asher understands that the Rambo-like exploits they reported were what we, and the media, demanded of them. Yet Asher does not seem motivated by a desire to denigrate the heroism of McNab and Ryan. Most readers of this book and of the tale told by the Arab who discovered Phillips's body will probably decide that he has done so. One of Asher's aims in his book is to rehabilitate the reputation of Vince Phillips, one of the dead. According to Asher's sources, he omitted to mention this at his initial de-briefing. According to Ryan, on his lonely journey to the Syrian border, he was obliged to kill two Iraqis, one with his bare hands. According to Asher, the mission was "compromised" by three Arab locals, one of them a man in his 70s, and the SAS wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew. According to McNab, when the patrol was discovered, it was by Iraqi soldiers and a furious firefight ensued with the SAS men downing a dozen or more men before fleeing. There is an almost comical disparity between McNab and Ryan's version of the mission and the version Asher reports. Asher, fluent in Arabic and familiar with the ways of the desert Arabs, travelled to Iraq 10 years after the Gulf War and re-traced the steps of the SAS patrol, finding Bedouin eyewitnesses to events. What Michael Asher claims is the truth about Bravo Two Zero is, however, astonishing. Even the most uncritical reader of the two books would have been aware that some artistic licence had been employed. Two bestselling books- Bravo Two Zero and The One That Got Away-were published and two of the soldiers, using the pseudonyms "Andy McNab" and "Chris Ryan", were launched into new careers as writers. Two bestselling books- Bravo Two Zero and The One That Got Away-were published and two of the soldiers, using the pseudonyms "Andy McNa The Bravo Two Zero mission, in which an eight-man SAS patrol was discovered many miles behind Iraqi lines and had to make a run back for the border and safety, is probably the most famous incident involving British troops in the Gulf War. The Bravo Two Zero mission, in which an eight-man SAS patrol was discovered many miles behind Iraqi lines and had to make a run back for the border and safety, is probably the most famous incident involving British troops in the Gulf War.
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