Talk:Chris Ryan

message: According to the Bravo Two Zero article, this is his real name.  Have confirmed this elsewhere.  Beanbatch 17:23, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Because that's how he's known? I doubt Fred Boggis's Survival Tips would sell quite as well, somehow. PeteVerdon 23:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heard it's part of the SAS policy. If I'm not right, please correct me. 70.68.46.180 05:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it is, but he hasn't exactly kept within the spirit, if not the letter, of SAS policy already. I personally think it's to protect himself and his family. On his real name being boring... well I know his surname and that's not too boring or geeky. Still, I shall say no more on the subject. 84.64.199.150 19:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

text: You can choose to keep your name OR your face secret - or BOTH. You don't have to keep both if you want one. I can confirm that "Ryan" is a pseudonym, and you people should respect that. Maybe none of you know how it is to live with terror threats over your head, but I happen to know how it is and it's not something you want to play around with. He should be able to write books without people crying out for his name to be publicized. Same applies to "Andy McNab". To the person who tried to publicize what they thought was his real name earlier: you should be ASHAMED of yourself. I'm sorry that you have an unsated curiosity and want to know everything - but you're playing with a man's life here. Nimloth250 (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudonym? 

message: Hi! 
OP? what on earth is OP? How on earth can an initial be used with no reference to what it stands for. 
Also the phrase '...made eye contact with the patrol' could of course be expressed succinctly as 'saw them.'
Dixie
:An OP is an observation post and I've clarified this in the article. DavidB601 08:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is OP? 

message: Is somebody able to confirm that Chris Ryan has (or is planning) to write this book as I've checked elsewhere on the Internet and cannot find anything about it. I've removed it but if someone does find something about it then feel free to put it back under Non Fiction. DavidB601 18:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  One Blank Too Far? 

message: How could Chris Ryan have been based in Aden during the british withdrawl... The withdrawl happened in 1967, Ryan was born in 1961 and didn't join the terratorial SAS until 1984? WikipedianProlific(Talk) 12:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Based in aden?? 

message: Because this article is about a real person, I intend to edit the name 'Chris Ryan' to his actual name. I am aware that this is going to cause an uproar from 'Ryan' devoteees, however the edit is verifiable, and most importantly, it is the right thing to do for the sake of encyclopedic content: Wikipedia is not a soapbox and additionally,  Wikipedia is not censored.
Not that it is required, but below is a brief justification for those who disagree that Wikipedia should inform readers about the truth behind their 'war hero'.
=== Legality ===
*the British Official Secrets Act 1989 does not specify any legal restrictions on naming current nor ex-SAS personellOfficial Secrets Act 1989 c. 6.
*Fellow patrol member 'Andy McNab' has stated "It's not a rule, it's common sense"'Andy McNab: Face-time with Andy' The Independent on Sunday November 9 1997..
*The real name of 'Ryan' was published by the British Government themselves In The London Gazette in 1998 after he had left the SAS, and is still available online from the original British Government source"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 14th December 1998. Number 55340, published: December 14 1998. Page 13620.
=== Privacy ===
*Peer review and scrutiny is standard practice for all academic work, and when an autobiographer makes themself the subject of such a work, privacy is the price they knowingly pay. For the purpose of making a profit from authoring books, 'Ryan' has made himself the subject of one autobiography; The One That Got Away (1995).
*When publishing the novel The One That Got Away, 'Ryan' demonstrated no consideration for the privacy of Vincent Phillips, Steven Lane and Bob Consiglio, all of whom he named, whilst not naming himself.
*The verifiability of 'Ryan's' actual name, is solely due to his own actions in promoting himself as a Military Medal recipient. If 'Ryan' really cared about the privacy of his real name, he would not have included this distinguishing title in his pseudonym.
=== Security ===
*'Ryan' regularly attends book signingshttp://ageofuncertainty.blogspot.com/2006/09/chris-ryan-drops-in_28.htmlhttp://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article5251198.ecewww.haylingscouts.org.uk/downloads/index/SAS.doc and is available for motivational public speakinghttp://www.speakerscorner.co.uk/file/51f34e157293e122e1ee51ebf6e4d4d6/ryan-chris.html both actions which would contradict any serious claim for security.
*'Ryan's' former boss, ex-SAS Regimental Sergeant Major and fellow Gulf War veteran, Peter Ratcliffe has scorned 'Ryan's' use of a pseudonym, stating Ryan is not "serving in the regiment any longer. So what possible reason could [he] have for concealing [his] true identity?".
*There are no quoted sources in Chris Ryan's wiki article that claim any security reasons for his pseudonymChris Ryan.
=== Verifiability ===
*'Ryan' has always used the initials 'MM' as part of his title when authoring books. 'MM' refers to the 'Military Medal' 'Ryan' won during Operation Granby, Gulf War, 1991. Only 15 MMs were awarded in this operationList of British gallantry awards for Operation Granby; the names of each recipient publically appearing in the London Gazette. Only 8 of these were awarded to members of the Special Air Service, 5 of which were ex-Parachute Regiment (as 'Ryan' has stated was his parent regiment in The One That Got Away (1995)), and one of these (Robert Consiglio) was awarded posthumously leaving only four names; Melville, Armstrong, Dunbar and Yoursten. Of these four, Yoursten works for Olive Security Group using his real namehttp://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/peo/peo_47086.html and the service numbers of both Melville (24355763) and Dunbar (24388481)"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 12th May 1997. Number 54763, published: May 13 1997. Page 5628 pre-date that of even Steven Mitchell (24428654)"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 14th December 1998. Number 55340, published: December 14 1998. Page 13620, who served in the British army for two years before 'Ryan' enlisted.By a structured process of elimination, using only British Government published sources and 'Ryan' himself, 'Chris Ryan' is most certainly Colin Armstrong"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 14th December 1998. Number 55340, published: December 14 1998. Page 13620. --Mr Pillows (talk) 02:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's nothing 'secret' about it, as I understand Peter Ratcliffe has made clear. For me it's more a case of being a sport and letting the parade go by. I'd compare it to the Banksy article. His name isn't secret either, there's just no need to publish it here. Hakluyt bean (talk) 03:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  (For context, another editor had gone through and replaced all identifying information with "secret" and "classified" in the above section, before Hakluyt Bean replied. Mr Pillows was alleging that "'Chris Ryan' is most certainly Colin Armstrong", not "'Chris Ryan' is most certainly secret". --McGeddon (talk) 19:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing the pseudonym 'Chris Ryan' to his actual name 

message: *'Ryan' has always used the initials 'MM' as part of his title when authoring books. 'MM' refers to the 'Military Medal' 'Ryan' won during Operation Granby, Gulf War, 1991. Only 15 MMs were awarded in this operationList of British gallantry awards for Operation Granby; the names of each recipient publically appearing in the London Gazette. Only 8 of these were awarded to members of the Special Air Service, 5 of which were ex-Parachute Regiment (as 'Ryan' has stated was his parent regiment in The One That Got Away (1995)), and one of these (Robert Consiglio) was awarded posthumously leaving only four names; Melville, Armstrong, Dunbar and Yoursten. Of these four, Yoursten works for Olive Security Group using his real namehttp://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/peo/peo_47086.html and the service numbers of both Melville (24355763) and Dunbar (24388481)"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 12th May 1997. Number 54763, published: May 13 1997. Page 5628 pre-date that of even Steven Mitchell (24428654)"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 14th December 1998. Number 55340, published: December 14 1998. Page 13620, who served in the British army for two years before 'Ryan' enlisted.By a structured process of elimination, using only British Government published sources and 'Ryan' himself, 'Chris Ryan' is most certainly Colin Armstrong"Honours and Awards" Supplement to The London Gazette of Monday, 14th December 1998. Number 55340, published: December 14 1998. Page 13620. --Mr Pillows (talk) 02:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's nothing 'secret' about it, as I understand Peter Ratcliffe has made clear. For me it's more a case of being a sport and letting the parade go by. I'd compare it to the Banksy article. His name isn't secret either, there's just no need to publish it here. Hakluyt bean (talk) 03:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  (For context, another editor had gone through and replaced all identifying information with "secret" and "classified" in the above section, before Hakluyt Bean replied. Mr Pillows was alleging that "'Chris Ryan' is most certainly Colin Armstrong", not "'Chris Ryan' is most certainly secret". --McGeddon (talk) 19:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifiability 

message: If your strongest source for the author's real name is your own personal "structured process of elimination", then this goes strongly and clearly against WP:SYN ("Do not put together information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources."). Editors' personal theories and research are not reliable sources, especially for a biographical article, which must hold to WP:BLP. --McGeddon (talk) 10:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Response to the proposal 

message: It is surely well-known, and can be easily checked on the web, that Chris Ryan's books are ghost-written by a variety of different authors. Surely then this entry should make this clear? Wiki-pedia is meant to be a soource of information, and so it is surely wrong to describe him as an 'author'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.102.20.12 (talk) 13:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Laughable claim, and as such don't post suggestions like that without clearly referencing to reliable sources (blogs, for instance, will not do) that state this explicitly with irrefutable proof. I know we all love to throw dirt on people who have achieved more than us, but for god's sake. It seems from the writing style that some of his later books may be ghost written (again, just speculation from my part and I have the humility not to represent it as fact), but trying to put doubt on his status as an author is just laughable and you ought to know better. Nimloth250 (talk) 05:44, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ghost Written 

message: "planned to spend three months with the Parachute Regiment at Falklands, and stayed there for 3 months before returning back to England, where they parachuted into the sea to secure the beach heads whilst the British pulled out"
Into which sea did he parachute?
Which beach heads was he securing?
From where were the British pulling out?
Is this tied up with the Aden quotes I've read? They seem to have all gone. "At Falklands"? Do they mean the Falkland Islands?
The passage doesn't make much sense to me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.28.183.25 (talk) 21:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't get it... 

message: Relating to his books, does the character Geordie Sharp in some of his books come in because of his internal SAS time?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.106.2 (talk) 05:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Geordie" 

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; deletions can take a little longer at Commons than they do on Wikipedia. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion (although please review Commons guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.
* If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Commons Undeletion Request
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 18:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  File:SasclothBadge.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion 

message: The source for this states:
:"Last March, the former SAS soldier Chris Ryan, now a best-selling author, lamented in a newspaper interview “when John Pilger, the foreign correspondent, discovered we were 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”.
Checking back, the interview appears to be this one on the Daily Mail's 'This is Money' site. The full text reads:
:HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN DEBT? 
:Yes, in 1984 when I was in the SAS. The worst time was when John Pilger, the foreign correspondent, discovered we were training the Khmer Rouge in the Far East. 
:We were sent home and I had to return the £10,000 we'd been given to pay for food and accommodation. Unfortunately, I'd already spent the money kitting out my new home.
Pilger's use of the word "lamented" implies that Ryan was sorry that the training was stopped, when from the fill context it's clear that it caused him financial problems, because he'd already spent some/all of it. The latter may be an issue, but it has very little to do with the main issue of KR training by the SAS. I am therefore amending the text accordingly. Nick Cooper (talk) 15:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I put in the "This is Money" reference as it is the original source, and the quote can be seen in context. The £10,000 are irrelevant to the issue, so that part of the quote could be removed, or alternatively, the whole paragraph should be quoted. --Zipor haNefesch (talk) 12:55, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pilger/Khmer Rouge quote 

message: "During his escape, Ryan suffered injuries from drinking water contaminated with nuclear waste. Besides suffering severe muscle atrophy, he lost a potentially fatal 16.32 kg (36.0 lb) and did not return to operational duties. Instead, he selected and trained potential recruits, finally being honourably discharged from the SAS in 1994."
Yet he claims to have participated in an operation in Zaire in October 1991?
http://chrisryansas.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-most-dangerous-ever-mission.html
Is this more fictional derring-do from "Chris Ryan"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.189.250 (talk) 17:47, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Discharged from the SAS" for medical reasons? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Chris Ryan. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100323074233/http://www.chrisryanadventures.co.uk/audio-video/video-3/ to http://www.chrisryanadventures.co.uk/audio-video/video-3/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:20, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified