Once I left 23 SAS, I got into close protection and did a few small contracts as a bodyguard in the UK and abroad, including Russia. When I wasn’t working in close protection, I normally worked the doors. It helped pay the bills between operations, and door work gave me time off as and when I needed it. Being a member of 23 SAS and a qualified paramedic, I was privileged to be invited to many of the regiment’s training courses and asked to instruct, which also required time off. That was the beauty of door work; I doubt any other job would have been so accommodating. I loved working in the protection industry. It is what I always wanted to do. It is a great industry.

Once the war in Iraq came to an end and investment and rebuilding programmes started, more and more bodyguards I knew applied and were accepted on security contracts protecting foreigners throughout the country. I heard stories of three- to six-month contracts paying upwards of £350 a day. A year or two of this would allow me to pay off my mortgage and be financially stable. I’d be able to buy the things I needed, pay off my car loan and give my girlfriend a few nice gifts. Plus, I would be doing a job I could previously only have dreamed about.

There will never be anywhere else quite like Iraq – there will simply never be any comparable opportunities for bodyguards anywhere else in the world. Iraq has brought the world of the bodyguard into the spotlight. There are thousands of bodyguards working in Iraq – if not tens of thousands – and almost every major foreign company with contracts in the country employs teams of security personnel to protect its employees and assets. I wanted to work within one of those teams.

I had heard that Control Risk Group (CRG) was one of the biggest and probably one of the best security companies operating in Iraq at that time. CRG is a truly international company with offices in almost every major country around the world. They didn’t pay as much as some of the other companies, but their structure, equipment, facilities and logistical support seemed much better, and this was much more important to me than a few extra pounds in my weekly wage packet. It was my first real high-risk assignment, and I wanted the extra security of a well-established international company behind me.

I had a contact within the recruitment section at their head office in London, to whom I sent my CV. I had heard that CRG received hundreds of CVs each and every day, so I followed up my letter with a telephone call a week or so later. I was told that the company was not currently recruiting and to call back in a month. I persevered and called them a few more times over the following couple of months, until one Friday afternoon when they confirmed that they were recruiting again. I was told to attend a special recruitment day at a hotel near Victoria Station on the following Tuesday.

Living in Manchester, I made arrangements to stay with a friend on the outskirts of London on the Monday night so that I would be fresh for the interview on the Tuesday morning. I was allocated a one-hour spot, along with hundreds of other hopefuls. The interviews began at 8 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m., and there were about 50 applicants being seen each and every hour. After spending the first 45 minutes filling out application forms and listening to the company history and profile, I was ushered into a small office, where I was interviewed. Most of the applicants didn’t get an interview – they were turned away just on the weakness of their application forms. One of the interviewers asked me a few questions about my background and experience, while the other listened and took notes. The interview only lasted about 15 minutes. I was told that I would be contacted within three days.

I think those were the slowest three days of my life. I waited beside my phone, praying that I’d been successful, but it didn’t ring. On the fourth day, I called them and was told that I’d got the job and would shortly be going to Iraq. I was put on standby, which meant that I could be called at any time and given 24 hours’ notice that I was leaving. I didn’t know where to start to get everything organised. I was given a kit list, and I spent a day and a lot of money buying each and every item, but I soon realised once I got to Iraq that I would never need most of it.

My girlfriend and family were not at all happy. They didn’t want me to go and tried their hardest to talk me out of it. But I needed the money, and it was what I wanted to do. No one could stop me.

The call finally came on the following Friday morning. I was told to be at the CRG offices in London the next day, at which time I would sign the contracts and complete the final paperwork before being taken by minibus to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about 50 miles west of London. From Brize Norton, we would fly via Hercules to Cyprus, where we would stay overnight before flying on to Basra. Once in Basra, we would then make the brief flight to Baghdad International Airport, formerly known as Saddam International Airport. Apparently, Saddam had contracted the French to help build the airport, at a cost of over $900 million, which was never repaid.

Although each and every one of us was very nervous and scared, we were all in complete awe as we arrived in Baghdad. We were met by a team of veterans, each fully armed. We were given body armour and AK-47s and told that if a contact occurred on the route out from the airport, we should stick together and listen to the instructions.

The road from the airport into Baghdad is probably one of the most dangerous in the world. The route – sometimes referred to as ‘Route Irish’ – is almost eight miles long and links the airport to the Green Zone – the heavily guarded area of central Baghdad where the UK and US embassies and most foreigners are based. Passengers from the airport are ferried along the route in armoured buses called ‘Rhino Runners’, because they look a bit like big grey rhinoceroses. A great many bodyguards, journalists, businessmen and military personnel have lost their lives along this route, and I was praying I wouldn’t lose mine on my first day in Iraq. Along with the rest of the team, I snapped madly at everything I saw with my new digital camera. It was surreal looking around me at the burned-out cars, bullet-ridden buildings and smoke swirling into the air – I had seen it on the news but had never imagined that one day I would be experiencing it for real.

Before we were allowed onto a team, every new recruit had to undertake an intensive assessment. This comprised driving skills, weapons handling and knowledge, and advanced first aid. You had to pass all three to be allowed onto a team, otherwise you would be sent straight home. This rule was not compromised, and many new recruits were sent home after the first or second day because they had failed one or more of the modules. The only exception was if you had a particular skill and excelled at two of the disciplines, in which case you might be allowed to fail the other, but this was rare. I passed all three and was accepted onto my first team. My wages were £280 per day, paid directly into my UK bank account, and I worked six weeks on with three weeks off.

Among its many contracts, CRG had been tasked to protect dignitaries from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Our job was to escort FCO personnel around Iraq, visiting schools, hospitals, government buildings, charities, organisations, etc. We almost always used three-car convoys.

When we were not working, we spent our time training and practising our emergency drills so that every possible scenario we might encounter was covered. I enjoyed driving and was particularly good at it, so I was increasingly tasked to drive the principal vehicle. The good thing about CRG was that almost all of the vehicles they used were armoured, whereas many other security companies only had armoured vehicles for the client – the rest of the team had to put up with soft-skins.

We were soon to realise the importance of armoured vehicles when we had our first live contact about two weeks after I arrived. Our convoy came under fire as we were making our way back to the Green Zone. The client’s vehicle, which I was driving, was targeted. A number of rounds went into the side of the vehicle. As the sound of the first shot hit the car, the client cowered on the floor while I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. A round had gone into the radiator, and we had to evacuate the vehicle about six kilometres further up the road, just before the temperature gauge went off the scale. We locked the bullet-ridden vehicle and evacuated the client into one of the convoy cars.

When we came back to retrieve the vehicle, it was evident that someone had tried to break the window – probably to steal the high-frequency radio – without any luck. It would have been easier for them to have broken the lock rather than to have tried to pickaxe the window.

I had been in Iraq for about eight months, and I knew the country as well as anyone, but still things changed dramatically and quickly, and we always had to be prepared for the unexpected. For this reason, all operations had to be meticulously coordinated and planned. Iraq is the bodyguard’s dream job, but it can also be his or her last-ever assignment, and many have died in the field. The Iraqis learn very quickly and are getting more and more sophisticated. When I first went out, improvised explosive devices were easily spotted and generally very crude, but as time passed everything and anything was utilised. A good example of this was a dead dog by the side of the road. It had been there for a couple of days, but no one had taken any notice of it. However, one day a convoy passed it and it exploded. The Iraqis had gutted it one night and packed it full of explosives. Another time, a box that had been left at the side of the road for a few days was suddenly filled with explosives and detonated.

Tunnels were always a problem, as you never knew who or what was waiting for you at the other end. Whenever a convoy was just about to enter a tunnel, the local Iraqi vehicles behind would suddenly slow right down to leave as much distance as possible between themselves and the convoy – just in case.

CRG lost one of their bodyguards while I was out there. He wasn’t on my team, but I knew him well. He was a team leader and was in a two-car convoy with the principal when his vehicle exploded. It had either gone over a landmine or someone had slipped an improvised explosive device under it at a junction. When it exploded, it threw the team leader through the front window. He lay dead on the ground with the left side of his face, his left arm and shoulders on fire. The rear vehicle pulled alongside to evacuate the principal. When the second in command looked into the rear of the exploded car, he saw the principal engulfed in flames, waving his arms frantically and screaming. The second in command didn’t know whether he should put him out of his misery with a single bullet to the head, but the principal soon stopped screaming and died. There was nothing left of the driver apart from a piece of leg and a bit of torso.

Texts and emails relating to the incident flew around the British bodyguard community. Some new recruits waiting in Jordan for their onward flight to Iraq turned around and went home and others who had been planning to come over never left the UK. Most of us were in Iraq for the money, but many of us had families, children, girlfriends and wives, and many people realised that the job simply wasn’t worth it.

Most bodyguards working for CRG now arrive on scheduled flights via Jordan. Iraqi Airways and Royal Jordanian Airways were two of the first airlines to operate regular international flights, and it was quite surreal sitting on a flight going into Baghdad and being served sandwiches and coffee by a pretty flight attendant. The ‘hosties’ were also in Iraq for the money. It is said that they earn hundreds of pounds per flight.

Take-off and landing from Baghdad is not for the faint-hearted. Flights use a ‘corkscrew manoeuvre’ to avoid coming into the range of small-arms fire and ground missiles, forcing you to hold on to your seat and hope for the best. The take-off is quick and the climb steep and dramatic – the objective is to get as high as possible as quickly as possible, and the reverse is true for landing, except it is even scarier.

I have since been offered contracts with other security companies, but from my experience CRG is still one of the best. They charge a lot to their clients, but the equipment they supply is excellent. CRG’s employees stay alive because of the money the company spends – many teams in non-armoured vehicles are dead now because a company refused to invest. Some bodyguard companies seem to lose more personnel than others, and the American companies seem to lose more than most. Blackwater, probably one of the biggest employers of bodyguards in Iraq, seem to lose personnel every week. It was even rumoured that one of their teams was found hanging from a bridge. Custer Battles – or ‘Cluster Fucks’ as they were nicknamed by the security community in Iraq – was another US firm that seemed to lose many of its personnel.

Contracts are ongoing and continuous until you resign. You are staggered with your team – on and off at the same time; rest and recreation at the same time – so you really form a close working relationship with your colleagues. Some companies don’t do this. They chop and change teams, and you never know who you might be working with from one contract to another, but CRG do their best to keep you in the same teams until your resignation.

After one more tour, I will have enough to pay my mortgage off and will come back to the UK and to my girlfriend and look for another job. The trouble is: what is there to do after the excitement of Iraq?