training the Khmer Rouge in the Far east [we] were sent home and I had to return the £10,000 we’d been given for food and accommodation”." Bravo Two Zero During the Gulf War, Ryan was a team member of the ill-fated eight-man SAS patrol, with the call sign Bravo Two Zero. The patrol was sent into Iraq to "gather intelligence,... find a good LUP (lying up position) and set up an OP" on the main supply route (MSR) between Baghdad and North-Western Iraq, and eventually take out the Scud TELs. However they were compromised and forced to head towards Syria on foot. Ryan completed a tab, from an observation point on the Iraqi MSR between Baghdad and North-Western Iraq, to the Syrian Border. This march made SAS history as the "longest escape and evasion by an SAS trooper or any other soldier", covering more than SAS trooper Jack Sillito had in the Sahara Desert in 1942. During his escape, Ryan suffered injuries from drinking water contaminated with nuclear waste. Besides suffering severe muscle atrophy, he lost a potentially fatal and did not return to operational duties. Instead, he selected and trained potential recruits, before being honourably discharged from the SAS in 1994. On 29 June 1991 Ryan was awarded the Military Medal "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Gulf in 1991" although the award was not gazetted until 15 December 1998 together with the equally belated announcement of Andy McNab's Distinguished Conduct Medal. Zaire Ryan was also a member of an SAS team sent to protect the British Embassy in Kinshasa, Zaire. The team were to ensure that all British diplomatic staff were safely evacuated from the country before the First Congo War. The operation was meant to last only three days, but eventually took one month. Post-military career Since leaving the SAS, Ryan wrote The One That Got Away, which covers the account from his patrol report of the Bravo Two Zero mission. Both his and McNab's accounts have been heavily criticised by former territorial SAS member and explorer Michael Asher, who attempted to retrace the patrol's footsteps for TV and claimed to have debunked both accounts with the help of the then-SAS regimental sergeant major Peter Ratcliffe, a very good friend of Ashers. Ryan, now a best-selling author, has written more than 70 books, both fiction and non-fiction. Many of his works are well known,