Duncan Falconer

Duncan Falconer

British Special Forces, Novelist, Screenwriter, Hostile Environment Specialist, Crisis & Risk Manager
Duncan Falconer was the youngest ever man to join British Special Forces as an experiment directly from the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre. He was one of 9 to pass the gruelling Special Boat Service selection out of 147 participants. Joining British Special Forces so green, he was immediately sent on operations in order to gain experience and served the next 5 years with the SAS and, after another selection process, joined the top secret 14th Intelligence Detachment with 9 others out of an initial 190 recruits. After completing 11 years in Special Forces, Falconer stepped into civilian life once again and was immediately recruited into a company conducting tasks that included 'overflow' work from the MoD. "Some of my most interesting times".

On his way to South America to get involved in counter Kidnap & Ransom operations, he stopped off in Hollywood. While there he wrote his first screenplay which touched off his career as a screenplay writer and novelist. Falconer created a long running TV series and has had 10 books published, one of which was recently made into a movie that he also wrote.

Falconer remained in the Security Circuit since leaving the SBS, keeping his writing as a hobby, and spent the next 30 years working in just about every hostile environment and conflict zone there has been in that time. One of Falconer's most popular roles was taking journalists and news teams into the most dangerous places in order to get their story. Falconer is currently a Crisis Management Specialist and Responder to large organisations operating in hostile environments.
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Where is the motivation hidden within us? And what does it need to find its way out?

I turned up at the Special Boat Service selection simply because the Marines wanted me to be a clerk - a pen pusher - and I didn't want to. But be careful what you wish for. Attending one of the toughest special forces selection courses in the world was no small thing. And to get through it to avoid becoming a clerk was not motivation enough. What's worse is, I really had no interest in joining anyone's special forces. I joined the Marines because I didn't know what to do with myself. I was a lost human being and I think I woke up for the first time somewhere in the middle of the selection course. I was one of 147 men. But there was a great difference between me and them. I was a greenhorn, a noddy, a brand new recruit to the Marines. I was an experiment. I wasn't meant to be on the selection. They were hardened soldiers of at least 3 years experience. They hated me because I was a brand new Marine, a child (19) and because they had all been preparing for the selection for years. I was expected to last a week. 2 at the most because I was very fit (having just completed Royal Marine Commando training). I was in their way. Taking up room. Using up their valuable oxygen. And they were perfectly right. The only way to get off selection was to quit. You weren't kicked off. The instructors simply made it so tough, pushed you so hard, deprived you of rest, that you had to crack open and give up. So why was it, four months later, when we were down to just 9 of us left, I was one of them?

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