APPARENTLY THE SAS SWEAR TOO FUCKING MUCH. THIS FROM A COUNTRY THAT RELEASED CONVICTED TERRORISTS WHILE DRAGGING ITS OWN VETERANS THROUGH THE COURTS.
I’ve been out of the Army for a few years now, but apparently things have changed rather considerably since my twelve years with the 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, the senior cavalry regiment of the line. We’ve reached the extraordinary point where somebody who worked at SAS headquarters has complained about the soldiers using too much bad language.
The SAS, for fuck’s sake. Not the Women’s Institute, the local parish council or the fucking customer services department at John Lewis. The Special Air Service, whose members spend a considerable amount of their careers training to do things most of the population would require a change of underwear just thinking about.
And somebody has taken exception to their vocabulary.
Monica Grenfell, a former civil servant who worked at SAS headquarters near Hereford between 2015 and 2018, has been speaking about the culture she encountered. Among her complaints was the amount of swearing, which she compared to language that wouldn’t be acceptable in Marks and Spencer.
Marks and fucking Spencer. I nearly spat my tea across the room.
Now, she has also made considerably more serious allegations about conduct in Afghanistan, which are being examined through an independent inquiry. Those are separate matters, and I’m not going to pretend allegations of unlawful killings are the same thing as somebody calling his mate a cunt.
But the swearing complaint? That deserves its own entry in the Great British Book of Fuckwittery.
TWELVE YEARS IN THE ARMY AND NOT A SINGLE FUCKING LANGUAGE LESSON
I joined the British Army and spent twelve years in the cavalry. During that time I encountered some extraordinary characters, some outstanding soldiers, a few magnificent examples of human incompetence and a vocabulary that would probably cause half of today’s HR departments to spontaneously combust.
Swearing wasn’t something you did occasionally when circumstances became particularly challenging. It was woven into the fabric of everyday life, alongside polishing things that were already polished, painting things that didn’t need painting and being told to move something from one side of the camp to the other before being ordered to move the fucker back again.
A good senior NCO could deliver an entire briefing using variations of the word fuck, occasionally interrupted by bollocks, bastard and a particularly inventive description of somebody’s parentage. You could tell whether you were in trouble by the pronunciation, volume and the precise number of syllables he managed to extract from a word that technically only had one.
And the beautiful thing was that everybody understood him.
You didn’t need a follow-up email, a flowchart or some little prick from Human Resources explaining the difference between constructive feedback and inappropriate workplace language.
If the sergeant major told you that you were a useless fucking oxygen thief who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, there was a reasonable chance you’d failed to meet his expectations.
Military communication has always contained its own peculiar mixture of profanity, sarcasm, gallows humour and verbal creativity. Some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard came from blokes who could barely construct a sentence without using the word cunt as punctuation.
And some of the finest men I’ve ever known would have been dismissed from a modern corporate environment before the first tea break.
Which brings us back to Marks and Spencer.
I CAN SEE THE NEW SAS TRAINING MANUAL NOW
Imagine the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 being conducted under modern retail customer service guidelines. Six armed terrorists holding hostages, the Metropolitan Police handing over control to the SAS, and somebody deciding that before the lads go through the windows, they need a refresher course in appropriate workplace communication.
“Now gentlemen, before we begin, please remember that some of the people inside may find raised voices distressing. Try to avoid aggressive language, respect personal boundaries and remember that our reputation for outstanding customer service is what sets us apart.”
Meanwhile, a heavily armed terrorist looks up to find a bloke in black combat equipment coming through the window offering him a Sparks loyalty card and asking whether he’s considered joining their autumn knitwear promotion.
I imagine the after-action report would make fascinating reading.
“Operation successful. Hostages rescued. Terrorists neutralised. Unfortunately, Corporal Jenkins used the word FUCK on seven occasions and failed to demonstrate sufficient empathy when requesting that an armed hostage-taker put down his weapon.”
Recommended action? A written warning, mandatory diversity training and three months working on the delicatessen counter.
Somebody really ought to explain that the military isn’t a fucking supermarket. You don’t recruit and train people to operate under extreme pressure, endure exhaustion, face danger and make potentially life-or-death decisions, then expect them to communicate like a trainee manager explaining why the meal deal has gone up by 35p.
AND NOW FOR THE BIT THAT REALLY BOILS MY PISS
Because while we’re apparently concerned about the language being used by British soldiers, there’s another rather extraordinary aspect to this country’s treatment of the people it sends into conflict.
The British government authorised the early release of convicted terrorist prisoners under the arrangements following the Good Friday Agreement.
That’s not an opinion, a conspiracy theory or something invented by a bloke on Facebook wearing a Union Jack tracksuit. It’s a matter of parliamentary record.
By 25 June 2003, 447 prisoners had been released early under the scheme. Of those, 151 had been convicted of murder.
One hundred and fifty-one people convicted of fucking murder.
Meanwhile, British military veterans have faced investigations and prosecutions over incidents that happened during the Troubles, some more than half a century ago.
In October 2025, Soldier F, a former paratrooper, was acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges relating to Bloody Sunday in 1972.
Nineteen seventy-fucking-two.
Fifty-three years between the events and the verdict.
Now, before somebody arrives with a history lesson and a laminated copy of the Good Friday Agreement, I’m perfectly aware that the prisoner releases formed part of a negotiated political settlement intended to help bring an end to decades of violence.
I understand the reasoning. I know there were compromises, negotiations and difficult decisions involved in the peace process.
Understanding why something happened doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it.
Because there’s something that sticks in my throat about a country that could find a political mechanism to release people already convicted of murder, yet has spent decades struggling to decide how to treat soldiers it sent into Northern Ireland under the authority of the British state.
And the very same country is now having a public conversation about whether members of the SAS swear too much.
You couldn’t write this as fiction. An editor would send it back and tell you the plot was too fucking ridiculous.
THE GOVERNMENT LOVES A SOLDIER UNTIL HE BECOMES A VETERAN
I’ve always found the relationship between the British establishment and its Armed Forces rather interesting. Politicians absolutely fucking love soldiers when there’s a parade, a television camera or a wreath to lay.
They’ll stand there looking solemn, wearing their best suits, talking about duty, service, sacrifice and the enormous debt of gratitude the nation owes those who have worn the uniform.
They’ll tell us how proud they are of the men and women who serve, how our Armed Forces represent the very best of Britain and how we’ll never forget what they’ve done.
Then the parade finishes, the cameras disappear, the band packs away and everybody fucks off back to Westminster.
The veterans are still here, though.
Some are dealing with the physical consequences of service, others are trying to navigate a benefits system that appears to have been designed by somebody who considers the possession of two functioning arms sufficient evidence that a person could probably compete in the Olympics.
And others have faced the prospect of legal proceedings over events that happened when they were young soldiers, serving in circumstances created by the very government that sent them there.
As recently as 12 October 2026, the government was still announcing amendments to Northern Ireland legacy legislation, promising additional legal protections for veterans and safeguards against repeated investigations.
Twenty-eight years after the Good Friday Agreement, and we’re still trying to sort the fucking thing out.
Yet apparently we’ve found time to discuss whether the SAS ought to behave more like the staff at M&S.
I sometimes wonder whether the people making these decisions have the slightest understanding of the world they’re commenting on.
A soldier doesn’t choose where his government sends him. He doesn’t decide foreign policy, negotiate peace agreements or sit in Cabinet meetings discussing the political consequences of deploying British troops.
He joins the Armed Forces, undergoes training, accepts a chain of command and carries out the duties assigned to him.
And when his service is over, he’s left to get on with the rest of his life, hopefully with some good memories, a few lifelong mates and all his important bits still attached.
The least he should be able to expect is that the country he served doesn’t treat him as a convenient disposable asset once the politicians have finished having their photographs taken.
BUT HEAVEN FORBID SOMEBODY SAYS CUNT
What particularly amuses me about this entire business is the assumption that using industrial language somehow tells you everything you need to know about somebody’s character.
I’ve known soldiers who could insult you in a way that was so creative you almost felt honoured to have been on the receiving end. Blokes who’d call you every name under the sun and then spend their last tenner making sure you had something to eat or a pint in your hand.
I’ve also encountered people in civilian life who wouldn’t dream of swearing in public, who say please and thank you, wear expensive suits, have impeccable table manners and would quite happily fuck you over the moment it became financially advantageous.
You can be a thoroughly decent human being with a filthy vocabulary, just as you can be a complete and utter cunt without ever saying the word.
And that’s something I suspect a few people in positions of authority might benefit from understanding.
The British Army has never been a finishing school for the delicate and easily offended. It’s an institution that trains people for situations the rest of society hopes it will never have to experience.
Its humour can be brutal, its language colourful and its traditions utterly incomprehensible to somebody who’s never served.
Some of those traditions have changed over the years, and rightly so. But the idea that soldiers should communicate according to the standards of a corporate office demonstrates a spectacular misunderstanding of what military life actually involves.
Put a group of squaddies together and they’ll find something to take the piss out of. Give them six hours of waiting around, freezing temperatures, a broken vehicle and somebody who’s just announced that the hot food has been cancelled, and I guarantee the resulting conversation won’t sound like an episode of The Repair Shop.
Although I suspect the bloke responsible for cancelling the scoff might need repairing himself.
THE FINAL FUCKING INSULT
So here we are in October 2026, in a country where successive governments have wrestled with the consequences of releasing convicted paramilitary prisoners while pursuing or permitting the prosecution of former British soldiers for incidents from decades ago.
A country that can find billions for defence equipment, produce endless glossy recruitment campaigns and deliver speeches about the extraordinary courage of its Armed Forces, yet somehow struggles with the basic question of how it should treat its veterans.
And now we’re discussing whether members of the Special Air Service swear too much.
I’d suggest the government has considerably bigger fucking problems to worry about.
If the day ever comes when a group of armed terrorists takes hostages and the SAS are called in, I very much doubt anybody trapped inside will be concerned about whether the bloke coming through the window has remembered his customer service training.
They’ll be rather more interested in whether he knows what the fuck he’s doing.
Personally, after twelve years in the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, I have absolutely no intention of apologising for the language I picked up during military service. It’s part of a culture I understand, shared with people who experienced the same strange mixture of boredom, pressure, camaraderie and absolute fucking absurdity.
And if somebody thinks the SAS are too sweary, I can only imagine their reaction to spending a wet November morning listening to a cavalry sergeant major attempting to discover which useless bastard has misplaced an entire vehicle’s worth of equipment.
They’d probably need six months off work, a counselling referral and a strongly worded letter to the Defence Secretary.
Although they’d have learned at least seventeen new applications for the word FUCK.
So, to the former squaddies, matelots and crabfats reading this, here’s today’s question.
WHAT’S THE MOST GLORIOUSLY CREATIVE MILITARY BOLLOCKING OR INSULT YOU EVER HEARD?
I’m not interested in anything classified, just the sort of magnificent verbal abuse that would have an HR department reaching for the defibrillator.
I suspect the comments section is about to become unsuitable for Marks and Spencer.
And frankly, that’s absolutely fucking fine by me.
