Worthing: Reflections on a career spent dicing with death

Life At The Limit will see Jason deliver first hand the remarkable story of his daring exploits in a distinguished career as an elite operator in the UK Special Forces (SBS) and beyond.

Visiting 30 towns and cities across the UK, Life At The Limit includes a date at Worthing’s Assembly Halls on Sunday, February 27.

From gunfights, hostage rescues, daring escapes and heroic endeavours that defined Jason’s service, to a very different battle that awaited him at home, Life At The Limit will present a chronicle of operational bravery, adventure and courage on and off the battlefield.

“I think it just all stemmed from early on when I first joined the Marines and I suppose I was my own worst enemy,” Jason says.

“I was wanting a life of adventure and I was looking for a way to get out of trouble by going into the military and that’s what first sparked off this life of adventure, I guess, and how it became my life.

“My family was alright about it.

“They were very supportive. My dad was in the Marines and I suppose I could have gone off the rails.

“I was young and impressionable and easily led and it just gave me the life and everything that I wanted back then.

“I was 16 when I joined.

“I don’t know how you survive but a lot of it comes down to listening to what you have been taught in your training but there is also a sprinkling of luck which gets you through.

“But the teaching is important.

“It’s more a mindset really.

“It’s about embracing the moment and living in the moment and not worrying about what might happen but also just being professional.”

Jason can’t say when he was the closest to getting killed. It happened so many times.

“There were lots of gunfights and weird situations with bullets flying all around but I do think it’s about being diligent and I think being diligent has to be your coping mechanism.

“I left the services when I was medically discharged in 2012. I had done 20 years and I had PTSD.

“It was difficult to begin with, that transition from the military life.

“It was pretty hard.

“I knew for about three months before that I was going to leave, but I had done 20 years so it really was quite a quick transition.”

As for the PTSD: “I would say that I am fixed.

“I’m a big believer that you can fix it.

“It is something that is manageable even though it is invisible.

“I did all sorts of things (in terms of treatment) and it was quite difficult but I think a lot of it is to do with the way you were thinking.

“I spent all those years where fighting was a part of my life and I spent a lot of time dwelling on the past but ultimately I realised that you can’t change the past.

“I found myself standing on the top of a cliff about to commit suicide.

“I thought that I either ended it all now or if I turn around now… and then what do I do?

“It was about being honest with myself. I either carried on thinking about all the stuff that had happened in the past or I concentrated on going forward.

“I still don’t know what made me turn around (at the top of that cliff).

“Maybe it was just that I needed to face that moment and have that conversation with myself and to be honest with myself.

“Maybe I just needed to stand there to realise that you can’t go on letting the past dictate how you are.

“You have to start dictating your own life and you have to start embracing the future.”

Tickets for the show are available from Worthing Theatres online or by phone: https://wtm.uk/

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