IF

[DuncaninFrance]

I am just starting a book called 'In action with the S.A.S. - A soldier's odyssey from Dunkirk to Berlin by Roy Close ISBN 1-84415-28603 and I thought the following might interest.

(Adaptation by an unknown SAS member after Rudyard Kipling)

If you can read a map and find your way

And trust your compass and follow where it may,

If you can trust yourself when we all doubt you,

And make allowance for our doubting too;

If you can walk and not be tired by walking

Or being lost and late don’t deal in lies

Or when silent don’t give way to talking

Nor talk too big nor look too wise;

If you can hump a Bergen nor mind the weight

And care for it as tho’ it were your life,

If you can fight alone yet basha with a mate

And work with him yet never come to strife,

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they have gone

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them ‘hold on’,

If you can talk with trogs and keep your virtue,

Or walk with ‘brass’ – nor lose the common touch

If neither we nor Pen-y-Fan deter you

If all men count with you but non too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours are the wings and everything that’s with it,

And, which is more – you’re SAS my son.