Biting the Bullet: Living with the SAS

by Jenny Simpson

Book Overview

When Jenny Simpson married she joined a unique band of women - the SAS wives - and entered a world of secrecy and danger few outside it could begin to imagine. In this autobiography she reveals the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0006388264
• ISBN13: 9780006388265
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: HarperCollins (UK)
• Length: 320 Pages

Customer Reviews

How the "other half" deals with a partner in a Special Forces Unit..

In the same genre as "Married to the SAS," this book looks at the SAS from the wife's perspective. Quite an insightful and interesting account, particularly when compared to "Married to the SAS." To Jenny Simpson and her husband's credit, their relationship does survive the SAS. She also offers a great deal of insight into the family pressures and strains that are caused having a husband in the SAS. Whilst also being somewhat critical of the "support mechanisms" that are in place for wives and families. The usual Brit class thing comes thru in the book too. There's the "officer's wives", with typically Brit upper/upper middle class attitudes, and the NCO/Troopies wives, usually Brit working class. For those who are not Brit but have worked with them, it's a real Brit problem that most of them really don't realize or see coz they've grown up with it and it's embedded in their psych. Quite fascinating to those of us who grew up in countries without the whole "class" thing.

Very Different "Insider View" of SAS

Behind the bravado and heroic derring-do of the Special Air Service lies another story, the one you have never read about in the spate of "tell-all" books about these bold British commandos that have surfaced in recent years. Jenny Simpson pens a heartfelt story of the families of SAS operators and the lives they lead, which are in some cases every bit as demanding as those of their gutsy men. These true stories of both the hardship and the immense psychological pressure endured by courageous women like Simpson bring a long overdue, more human face to the hyper-efficient "Killing Machine" persona that the SAS wears in pop culture. No library about the SAS would be complete without this volume, for it serves to give real depth and dimension to the SAS mythos. On the other hand, readers of macho spec-ops books like "Rogue Warrior" would probably be turned off by this read, since it doesn't have much in the way of action, save when the SAS decides for a time to get spouses involved in firearms training and the "Killing Rooms", which in itself is fascinating. Highly recommended.