WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.280 --> 00:00:03.319
Hey guys, it's Jack. I
just wanted to talk to you today about

2
00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:06.839
a way that you can help support
the podcast. If you're not already,

3
00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:10.880
we would really appreciate it if you
guys went and reviewed us on Apple or

4
00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:16.000
Spotify. Those reviews really help people
find the podcast and help it get recognized,

5
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:19.280
and you know, if you've been
enjoying the show, we really appreciate

6
00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:24.000
your support. Another thing that you
can do to support the channel is to

7
00:00:24.199 --> 00:00:28.800
become a Patreon member. So we
have Patreon memberships that start at just five

8
00:00:28.839 --> 00:00:32.719
dollars a month, and when you
sign up, you get access to all

9
00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:36.479
of our episodes add free. That's
the big bonus for that. I mean,

10
00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:41.600
we also do some Patreon bonus episodes
for our subscribers, But this is

11
00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:47.520
the biggest and best way that you
can support the Teamhouse channel and podcast if

12
00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:51.159
you'd like to, and we really
appreciate that. So go and check us

13
00:00:51.200 --> 00:01:02.719
out at patreon dot com. Slash
the Teamhouse, Special Operations, Cobert SB

14
00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:17.200
and I The Teamhouse with your Hopes. Jack Murphy and David Bark. Welcome

15
00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:19.599
to episode two hundred and fifty six
of The Teamhouse. I'm Jack Murphy here

16
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:26.040
with Dave Park deproducing from the Shadows
back There and the recesses of our studio.

17
00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:29.280
Our guest on tonight's show is Lindsey
Bruce. We're really excited to have

18
00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.319
him on the show today. He
served in one of the Scottish regiments,

19
00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:36.640
then in the Special Air Service,
and today he's a human performance coach,

20
00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.560
so we're really looking forward to getting
into all of that real quick. I

21
00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:44.920
just want to tell all of our
viewers about Barbel Apparel. You can find

22
00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:49.400
them at Barbel apparel dot com slash
Teamhouse and they have a deal going on

23
00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:53.400
right now for ninety nine dollars.
You can get any pair of jeans,

24
00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.840
chinos, or pants just ninety nine
bucks each. Barbell is one of my

25
00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:02.159
favorite companies. They're my favorite company
for athletic wear, like stuff you wear

26
00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:06.519
at the gym, stuff you want
to go running even in the winter.

27
00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:09.439
If you want a hoodies, some
long pants, or you just want shorts

28
00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:14.879
and T shirts. They're kind of
my go to as far as how well

29
00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.199
they fit and how comfortable they are
to exercise, and so I hope you

30
00:02:19.240 --> 00:02:24.319
guys will go and check them out. They have a guarantee. Most companies

31
00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:30.479
offer an ambiguous satisfaction guarantee. But
Barbell actually means it. They say wear

32
00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:35.080
it, use it, hike it, live it, and do whatever your

33
00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:38.520
day demands. And if you have
any issues at all, they will repair

34
00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:42.919
or replace it for you. So
please check out our sponsor, Barbell Apparel

35
00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:46.960
at barbell apparel dot com slash Teamhouse. We really appreciate it. They have

36
00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.319
a lifetime guarantee, sizing exchange guarantee, and I'll never wear another pair of

37
00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.800
jeans again. They're comfortable, they're
amazing, They're stretchy, they're my stretching

38
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:58.800
pants. I love them. So
Lindsay, we' don't have to start with

39
00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:00.840
you if you could tell us a
little bit about your origin story and a

40
00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:06.319
little bit about your upbringing in Scotland
and how that led you towards military service.

41
00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:10.560
Sure, first of all, thanks
for having me on the show.

42
00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:15.560
It's a pleasure to be here.
So my my childhood, I guess you

43
00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:17.919
know, I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, so you probably heard of

44
00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.680
you know, the capital of Scotland. And we're having audio issues right here.

45
00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:28.319
Pardon so okay, can you hear
me? Okay, yes, now

46
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.680
I'm sorry, Lindsay, same question
if you could, please, No problem

47
00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:35.759
with all. Did you hear me
saying thanks for having me on the show

48
00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:38.199
a citizens, No, we did
it, but we appreciate. Yeah,

49
00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:42.719
we apologize for the technical mishap.
Yeah, no, no problem with all.

50
00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:46.360
These things happened, as you obviously
noticed before we went lives. We'll

51
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:51.439
get there. So, yeah,
I was born in Edinburgh, capital of

52
00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:54.000
Scotland, was born there. My
dad was in the military, so my

53
00:03:54.080 --> 00:04:00.000
dad's self served twelve years in the
Royal Highland Fusiliers, which was the red

54
00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:04.000
that myself and my older brothers ended
up joining as well. So I lived

55
00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000
in Edinburgh for the first year of
my life. My dad left the military

56
00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:12.680
and then we moved to a town
called Fort William. So Fort William is

57
00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:16.680
a small town population of about six
thousand in the Scottish Highlands, and that's

58
00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:20.399
where I spent my whole childhood.
To various places and that you know,

59
00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:26.279
that had its twisting turns and peaks
and troughs, but it predominantly brought up

60
00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:30.839
in Fort William. But there was
a period of time where we lived really

61
00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:32.879
out of the sticks, you know, out in the wilderness pretty much,

62
00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:38.120
and that was some of the fondest
childhood memories because we lived in there.

63
00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:41.480
Six of us lived in a caravan. I'm not a gypsy or anything like

64
00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:46.959
that before you start thinking that I'm
not a traveler, but with six of

65
00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:50.680
us lived in a caravan for about
three years, so my early days,

66
00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:56.800
I would say my earliest memories were, you know, living in the caravan

67
00:04:57.079 --> 00:05:00.959
way out in the wilderness in northwest
Scotland, and it was fantastic memories.

68
00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:06.160
And went to school sometimes, you
know, it didn't really do very well

69
00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:11.040
at school. It was a dropout
pretty much, never had any interest in

70
00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:16.639
the school curriculum. I was a
drifter, massive attention deficit all through school,

71
00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:23.399
no interest. But that obviously led
me to doing something in my life,

72
00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:28.399
which was obviously joining the military at
the seventeen years old. So you

73
00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:30.800
know, that was a massive turning
point for me and probably something I would

74
00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:35.319
say that I've got a lot to
thank the Army for because it sort of

75
00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:40.120
give me that give me that base
play, It give me that foundation to

76
00:05:40.199 --> 00:05:44.399
the rest of my life, which
obviously still benefits is today being an ex

77
00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:47.240
military guys. You know, so
yeah, I'm not sure much detail you

78
00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:53.639
want to I'd like to ask you
actually a little bit about that because around

79
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:56.639
that time frame, I believe,
well maybe it was a little bit after.

80
00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:00.120
It was more if I recall around
the time of the Iraq War and

81
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:03.160
it become kind of controversial that there
were seventeen year olds joined the British military

82
00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:08.399
and being deployed, there weren't not. In Oh, in fact, you

83
00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:11.759
know what, I think there was
actually a guy I remember right, because

84
00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:15.319
I remember this from my basic training
days. I remember when I did my

85
00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:18.160
basic training, there was a there
was a poster. There was like a

86
00:06:18.199 --> 00:06:24.680
newspaper clip clipping in the on the
on the cookhouse wall or the mess hollwies

87
00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:28.160
you guys call it. There was
a newspaper cut there was a guy who

88
00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:32.120
was actually from the Royal Scots and
he had been the youngest British soldier to

89
00:06:32.279 --> 00:06:38.040
deploy to Iraq. Wow, but
that job's my memory because I remember when

90
00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.439
it comes to think like Northern Island, for example, you couldn't deploy until

91
00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:45.560
you were eighteen years old. Okay, so that was one seventeen years old.

92
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:48.720
Tragically, there was an incident that
happened with three three young Scottish soldiers

93
00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:55.639
actually friends of my dad back in
the early seventies, they went out into

94
00:06:55.680 --> 00:07:00.600
the into the city to do some
admin and get some stuff. At that

95
00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:04.319
point in the early sort of days
of the troubles, there was control over

96
00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:08.399
how long you went out for where
you went, but there was like a

97
00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:12.519
curfew, but there was still the
ability to go down to the city.

98
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:17.399
So there was an instant happened where
three young boys got it murdered basically in

99
00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:23.839
cold blood by the Irish Republican Army, and that then changed the changed the

100
00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:27.839
rules for how young you could deploy, so it went from seventeen to I

101
00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:30.480
think it was seventeen back then,
and then it changed into eighteen. I'm

102
00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:35.920
not sure why Iraq why they were
allowed to deploy at seventeen, but obviously

103
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:40.839
it did happen. There was one
guy who was seventeen years old, but

104
00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:44.720
other than that, it was eighteen. Yeah. So what was it like

105
00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.240
going through the training and then serving
in your father's regiment. I mean,

106
00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:55.240
it's really a family affair, right, Yeah, yeah, it was.

107
00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:59.560
It was a mixed There was some
mixed feelings with that. It all worked

108
00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:03.920
out in the but there were various
reasons why I actually joined the military.

109
00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:11.560
It was like a double sided coin
really and in one hand there was there

110
00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:15.839
was me as a young teenager.
You know, I've been in the army

111
00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:18.319
cadets, so I had some had
some kind of flavor of the military,

112
00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:22.079
and I'd also grown up with it
because my father was in. My two

113
00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:26.279
older brothers then joined, but they
were like seven and nine years older than

114
00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:30.639
me, respectively, so they were
several years ahead of me. I was

115
00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:33.279
only a little boy when they left, and then when it came round to

116
00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:37.279
me joining, I guess there was
influence from them, influenced from my dad,

117
00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:41.519
and it seemed like a great idea. I had to do something with

118
00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:45.600
my life because I dropped out of
school, so I didn't have any career

119
00:08:45.639 --> 00:08:48.519
prospects. I didn't know what I
was going to do. When I at

120
00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:50.559
that point in my life, I
was actually looking I was working in an

121
00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:56.120
engineering for doing like weld new fabricat
which I actually liked. But I remember

122
00:08:56.159 --> 00:09:00.559
once Fredy no offense to the guys
that I was with. I remember this

123
00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:03.639
one Friday afternoon. I was like, you know, I was sixteen seventeen,

124
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.159
just turned seventeen, and I would
get my little pay packet at the

125
00:09:09.279 --> 00:09:11.399
end of the end of the week. At the end of the working week,

126
00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:15.639
I would have like twenty pounds,
which is like twenty five dollars.

127
00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:18.440
I'd have twenty pounds in my pocket
and I would go to the pub with

128
00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:22.879
the rest of the guys, and
they were all growing men, and initially

129
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:26.919
there was this novelty of I'm in
the pub and I'm not even eighteen yet

130
00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:28.159
and I'm drinking alcohol, and I
feel it one of the boys. I

131
00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:31.720
feel it one of the men,
and they would buy me drink because I

132
00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:35.480
couldn't really afford it buy them a
drink. But then the novelty kind of

133
00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:39.440
wore off because I was quite into
my fitness back then, so I would

134
00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:41.600
I was the guy who would run
to work, I would run back.

135
00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:48.320
I was really into my fitness,
and I just had this sort of epiphany

136
00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:52.200
that the guys who were stood in
front of me were maybe fifteen years older

137
00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:56.919
on average. I thought, this
is going to be me. This is

138
00:09:56.960 --> 00:09:58.399
going to be me in ten years, and is that what I really want?

139
00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:01.919
Stuff in this town. I love
that town and I love visiting the

140
00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.600
town, but I didn't really see
any place for me staying there, so

141
00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:09.240
I thought I need to do something, so that's that's really when I decided

142
00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:13.039
to join the military. But the
whole military thing really there was part influence

143
00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.679
in part I need a job,
I need to earn money, I want

144
00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:20.240
to go and travel, But there
was also a huge part of me that

145
00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:22.759
thought, you know, I want
to I want to kind of level up

146
00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:24.840
and be like my older brothers because
there was such a gap between me and

147
00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:28.679
my brothers, and they had it
a bit harder than I did, so

148
00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:33.159
they got you know, they got
the sharp end of my dad's nature more

149
00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:37.440
than I did. And I think
by the time I was getting going into

150
00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:39.600
adolescence, my mum was like,
you know, you're not You're not doing

151
00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:43.279
the same to him. You're not
disciplining him because they used to get like

152
00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:46.679
room inspections and ship. You know, my dad was really hard ass on

153
00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.159
so I think I I kind of
I missed. I missed that one.

154
00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:54.679
I missed the worst of it.
But then what would come with that was

155
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.399
my dad was saying because that was
maybe allowed to do things that my brothers

156
00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.000
went allowed to and I was getting
away with off, my dad would be

157
00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:03.480
like, your brothers wouldn't have got
away with that. You'll never You'll never

158
00:11:03.559 --> 00:11:07.200
be like them. You'll never you
wouldn't handle the army, all this kind

159
00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:09.879
of shit, you know. So
I guess there was part of me that

160
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.480
was like, I want to prove
you wrong, but I wanted to make

161
00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:15.559
him proud at the same time.
It was a weird sort of thing got

162
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:18.159
me off. I wanted to make
him proud, but I also wanted to

163
00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:20.799
prove him wrong because of what he
said, even though he probably didn't mean

164
00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.879
it. He maybe said that because
he knew it would get I'm as tough

165
00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:28.559
as my brothers. Yeah, yeah, and that was it was always a

166
00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:31.759
case of leveling up. So when
I when I joined that that regiment,

167
00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:35.279
the Scottish regiment that joined the World
Highland Fusiliers, it was it was a

168
00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:39.480
great time, but I remember getting
there and just feeling really fucking nervous because

169
00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:45.279
I thought my brothers had really good
reputations at the time. My dad had

170
00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:48.840
a really legendary reputation as a sniper
and a great soldier. He was like

171
00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:56.799
the this really this really admired field
soldier from from the reconnaissance platoon and he

172
00:11:56.840 --> 00:11:58.759
really made his mark in the time
he was in so people remembered him.

173
00:11:58.799 --> 00:12:03.360
There was still there were still guys
in the in the battalion at the time

174
00:12:03.639 --> 00:12:07.759
who remembered my dad. So anytime
that I didn't level up or didn't didn't

175
00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:13.840
do maybe as well in someone's eyes, is this they thought that my family

176
00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:16.120
had done. I was like,
yeah, I'm trying to fill these shoes

177
00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:20.759
all the time. And so I
was told that as well. On occasion

178
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.919
I was told that you know,
you'll never be You'll never be as good

179
00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:28.600
as your brothers. People were really
direct, and I suppose that just had

180
00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:33.360
had two choices there. I could
either kind of put my hands up and

181
00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:35.960
say, you know what, Okay, you're right, I'm not as good

182
00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:41.080
as my brothers, or I was
going to take the other option of fuck

183
00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:43.720
this. You know, I'm going
to do something that I'm going to make

184
00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:46.120
my own mark and carve my own
path and do something that no one's ever

185
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:50.240
done. And that's that's what I
did. Lindsay, can you tell us

186
00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:54.000
a little bit how you know?
Because Scotland is its own country, but

187
00:12:54.080 --> 00:13:00.240
it has basically two cards. Yeah, well it has it has a Scottishment,

188
00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:03.639
right and in a UK government is
that correct? Well? The United

189
00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:09.120
Kingdom is split into Scotland, Thingland, irelond Wales. Right, So this

190
00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:13.360
so Scotland has its own government system
and then the rest of the rest of

191
00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:16.879
the country pretty much, well I
Ireland as well obviously, but then the

192
00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:20.879
rest of the UK, so they're
all with their own I mean even Wales

193
00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.879
is its own system, but Scotland
has its own, you know, its

194
00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:28.240
own national government as well, so
they do things very differently. They work

195
00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:31.840
together, but at the same time
they're separately, right, So how does

196
00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:37.559
it work for the military in terms
of like when you go to basic is

197
00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:41.879
it is it a British basic,
is it a Scottish basic? What?

198
00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:46.120
How do they for you? Yeah? Yeah, so that's changed over the

199
00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:50.480
years as well, So I mean
it changed shortly after I joined actually,

200
00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:54.159
and they did more of a combined
thing. It just got a lot bigger.

201
00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:58.759
I'm not entirely sure how do they
do it now, But back when

202
00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:01.960
I was, when I was a
all the Scottish regiments would do their own

203
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:07.799
training, but we also had English
regiments in the same basic training depot,

204
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:11.320
so we were in it together,
but it would and it would sometimes mix

205
00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:15.519
as well, so sometimes you would
get the mix. But it was essentially

206
00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:18.639
all the all the same curriculums.
So the basic training for the British Army

207
00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:22.840
is all the same. It's not
like the Scottish regiments have a different set

208
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:26.639
of tactics or right procedures. It's
all exactly the same. So the British

209
00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:33.120
Army is is one blanket of you
know, curriculum and soops, really it's

210
00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:41.159
interesting. And then is there is
there like do you have are there English

211
00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:46.080
members in like the Few Soliers or
are they just I know it's a Scottish

212
00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:50.919
unit. But can somebody from Ireland
or somebody from England join the Few Siliers?

213
00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:56.559
They can, yeah, but it's
not common. But it goes by

214
00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:00.679
area. So it goes like this. If you walk into a career's office,

215
00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:03.480
the recruitment officer was going to try
and get you to join the regiment

216
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:09.320
that they want want people to join. So you know, Glasgow was the

217
00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:13.000
recruitment office that was predominantly for the
Royalhigland Fusiliers. But I went to a

218
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:18.799
place called them from Inverness. Inverness
was north of Fort Williams, so it

219
00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.320
wasn't Royal Highland Fusilier territory. And
it all goes it's a geographical thing.

220
00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:26.159
So if you live in Glasgow,
you go to a Glasgow regiment. If

221
00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:28.080
you're in maybe in the outskirts of
Glasgow, you might go to the Argylands

222
00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:31.519
other Islanders, or you might go
to the King's own Scottish board. So

223
00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:35.840
there's back back then. It's all
changed now that the manning's all changed and

224
00:15:35.879 --> 00:15:39.240
it's all called it's like the Royal
Regiment of Scotland, and it's like one

225
00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:41.679
Scott's, two Scotts, three Scotts, and so on and so forth.

226
00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.519
But back when I was so I
can only speak from when I was a

227
00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:50.519
recruit, there was six Scottish regiments. Two had recently been amalgamator, so

228
00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:54.600
there was seven. Then there was
six, and depending on where you lived

229
00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:58.399
would depend on what dictates you to
say which one you joined. However,

230
00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:03.679
when I joined, I was like
marched up to the careers office in in

231
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:07.360
Burness, my two brothers saying,
here's our little brother. He wants to

232
00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:11.000
join the Royal hand for his leaders. And there was no question. You

233
00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:14.240
do the entrance test and everyone else
gets this choice of well, this is

234
00:16:14.279 --> 00:16:17.200
that you could actually join the engineers
or you could join this corps, the

235
00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.120
med Corps or whatever. I didn't
get that choice. It was just it

236
00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:22.840
doesn't matter how good you do in
the test, You're going to the Royal

237
00:16:22.879 --> 00:16:25.960
Healthy right. That was it.
You know. I was kind of like

238
00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:29.000
told you're going there, and I
wanted to go there anyway because I wanted

239
00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:30.879
to be like them, you know, I just wanted to follow the footsteps

240
00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:33.840
and you know, follow the follow
the family tradision. I thought that'd be

241
00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:38.279
pretty cool. And you said that
now the Royal Highland Fusel Layers or the

242
00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.320
they're the two Scots. It's called
the Two Scots now. So there they

243
00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:45.360
are now two Scotts. Yeah,
okay, is that because you guys stop

244
00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:52.159
using fusels? And so they had
to rename it something. There's the way

245
00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:56.480
about my pay grade where they chose
to change that name. And so how

246
00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:59.360
was it as a young man getting
on in this unit where you're you have

247
00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:02.720
a family mutation that's you know,
sounds like it was hanging over your head

248
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.440
a little bit, but at the
same time, it sounds like you're pretty

249
00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:08.000
enthusiastic. It was quite it was
quite daunting. Really, it was quite

250
00:17:08.039 --> 00:17:14.519
intimidating because you just feel like you're
constantly being watched and judged and you know,

251
00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:18.759
compared us essentially. And my two
brothers were very different between themselves as

252
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:21.440
well, you know, they took
different paths. One of my brothers played

253
00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:25.160
the bagpipes. He was always also
so he was in the in the military

254
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:27.519
band types and drums, and he
was also like a machine that was also

255
00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:32.039
like the machine gun botooon, so
he was like specialized in machine guns,

256
00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:37.759
like heavy heavy machine guns. And
my other brother stayed in mainstream like I

257
00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.960
did, and you know, so
we had similar paths, but he just

258
00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:45.319
decided to obviously stay in in that
regiment. He that they both served a

259
00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:49.319
full time. I only did half
my service, did it. They both

260
00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:53.079
did full time. But that was
when my career took a different path obviously,

261
00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:56.160
when I left that regiment, came
down to Hereford and joined the SAS.

262
00:17:56.279 --> 00:18:00.720
So I made my own way.
I made I think I got to

263
00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:04.319
the point where I started thinking for
myself. That was the difference really because

264
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.319
it was kind of like monkey,
see monkey, do I want to just

265
00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:11.240
be like them? I want to
be like the dad. And at some

266
00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:15.880
point that just turned into right,
I need to start making my own decisions

267
00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:18.880
for what I want and not what
I think other people want me to do,

268
00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:22.519
and I always wanted to go.
I've always been a bit I've just

269
00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:25.720
always been one of those people who
if I get into something, I need

270
00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:26.880
to know everything about it. If
I get into something, I need to

271
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:33.000
do you know one more. It's
like I need to go the full way.

272
00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:37.079
I need to do everything with everything
in my life. I've always been

273
00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:41.759
put an extreme kind of must do
everything kind of guy. I don't know

274
00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:47.839
why. So the Royal Highland FEU
schlayers there. It's basically a battalion sized

275
00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:52.519
infantry or yeah right, yeah,
And then because you mentioned that your dad

276
00:18:52.559 --> 00:18:55.720
was a sniper, how was it
split up? And then what did you

277
00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:57.720
stay on the line the whole time? And what was the training like for

278
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:03.480
the different elements. So when you
join the infantry, everyone in the British

279
00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:07.039
Army does the same. It's called
phase one in phase two. Again,

280
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:11.960
I'm not sure how it works these
days. I'm pretty sure it's not changed

281
00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.319
that much. But when I joined, it was like ten weeks you do

282
00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:19.640
ten weeks basic and that's a standard
British Army basic training that every single person

283
00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.599
does. And then after the Phase
one training you go to Phase two,

284
00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:26.599
which is in another eleven weeks.
I think that was, so it's twenty

285
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:33.680
one weeks all in, and that's
when you do the Combat Infantry School part

286
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:37.920
of your basic training where it's infantry
specific where you learn different weapons systems and

287
00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:41.160
you don't learn to be a sniper
or anything, but you learn you know,

288
00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:45.079
anti tank weapons and stuff like that. So yeah, I guess it's

289
00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:48.319
just it's split into two. But
one part is just like training to be

290
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:53.039
an infantry man. Then you go
to a battalion, you know, and

291
00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:57.559
then the battalion had a machine gun
section, rocky section. Yeah. Yeah,

292
00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:03.519
so there's like the way they do
it's like rifle companies or like the

293
00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:06.759
main sort of infantry companies, the
mainstream companies. Then you have the support

294
00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:11.400
companies support company which has got like
your your machine gun platoon, your milan

295
00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:15.640
platoon, anti tank platoon, in
mortars, and then you got the reconnaissance

296
00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:19.960
platoon. So you know, the
the reconnaisance platoon was always kind of like

297
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:25.640
the bit that everyone wanted to if
you're really keen and you wanted to be

298
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:27.480
a soldier. It was like the
wrecky was like the place to go.

299
00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:30.039
I didn't go to the Wreki.
But I mean that was kind of yah.

300
00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:33.160
I still had a little bit mistike
about it. And you know that

301
00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:36.960
that's again I guess when when I
joined, we were armored, we were

302
00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:41.640
mechanized infantry, so we were warriors, you know, a PC's but so

303
00:20:41.799 --> 00:20:45.559
so it kind of lost. I
would say, the Wreki then didn't have

304
00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:49.039
the same kind of mystique as it
once did, maybe when it was all

305
00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:52.880
on foot when it before it was
mechanized. But we we would do like

306
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:56.079
when we were in Germany, we
did, like I think it was five

307
00:20:56.160 --> 00:21:00.000
or seven years the regiment was in
Germany, and that's when we had the

308
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.000
mechanize the responsibility. So then you
would go back to another role. You

309
00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:07.279
might go amobile or something like that, as a as an infantry unit.

310
00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:11.599
So it's like relearning a new trade. They used to move around all the

311
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:15.240
time. Now they stay in the
one place. So my old regiment is

312
00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:18.559
permanently in one place now, whereas
it used to go all over the all

313
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:22.440
over the place, Cyprus, Germany, Scotland, whatever. Oh and it

314
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:25.720
for like deployments or would be stationed
there for a period. No, no,

315
00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:30.480
it was stage station. You change
station completely maybe five years sometime seven,

316
00:21:30.920 --> 00:21:33.920
and that's changed now. I think
it's a good thing that it's changed

317
00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:36.720
because it gives people stability. Yeah, that was always a bit of a

318
00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:38.480
bit of a bally, especially for
people who are married or whatever. And

319
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:42.519
obviously kids haven't a changed school and
all that sort of stuff as well.

320
00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:45.079
So talk to us a little bit
about this sort of like fork in the

321
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:49.519
path where you decided you wanted something
different for yourself and how how did that

322
00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:52.759
thought, how did that idea kind
of germinate in your mind and come to

323
00:21:52.799 --> 00:22:00.400
fruition when I was a boy.
I mean, although it wasn't necessarily someone

324
00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:03.359
who was always going to go to
the military. It wasn't like from a

325
00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:06.359
really young age, I was like, all they want to do is be

326
00:22:06.359 --> 00:22:08.440
a soldier. I had different ideas. I didn't really know. I mean

327
00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:11.359
I I had loads of ideas when
I was a kid. You know,

328
00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:15.039
I wanted to be I wanted to
be a professional snooker player. That was

329
00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:19.960
my main thing. So a doy
snooker in the US. You probably know

330
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:23.200
what it is, but it's just
a bigger table and smaller balls too,

331
00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:27.240
right, I think I don't know. Yeah, the American pool balls are

332
00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:33.559
a little bit bigger, yeah,
heavier, so so that I played that

333
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:34.720
a lot as a as a kid, and I was really good at it,

334
00:22:34.759 --> 00:22:37.880
and all I wanted to do was
become a professional because it was it

335
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:41.599
was something that was I wasn't really
much of a team sports guy when I

336
00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:45.359
was a kid. I was always
laught to be picked for the football team,

337
00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:48.559
like or the soccer team. I
was always like the guy who was

338
00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:52.079
like the sub I was shit at
football. My son's really good, but

339
00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:57.799
I was crap. And so I
liked individual sports. I always liked to

340
00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:02.720
go running, to go to the
gym, to you know, play snooker,

341
00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:06.799
to do you have anything that was
that was isolated, that it was

342
00:23:06.839 --> 00:23:10.039
an individual thing because it was very
competitive at the same time, and I

343
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.920
only wanted to rely on myself.
So there were various things I wanted to

344
00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:15.960
do as a kid. Snooker player
was one. There was a there's a

345
00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:19.200
short time that I was deluded enough
to think I could be a footballer,

346
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:22.480
but I wasn't good enough at any
point, so that was a very short

347
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:27.279
lived dream. But I suppose it's
like anything kids in general, they want

348
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:30.680
to be an astronaut, they want
to be a pop star, they want

349
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:33.039
to be an actor. And then
as you get older, that belief system

350
00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:38.559
kind of like channels into a more
realistic and you're like, oh, I

351
00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:41.640
just need a job, you know, I just need to do something.

352
00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:44.200
I'll join the army because I get
paid, and I get accommodation, I

353
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:47.440
get fed. It'll be a good
laugh, you know. So although I

354
00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:51.759
wasn't ever one of those guys who
was always going to join the military,

355
00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:55.160
there was still enough interest there,
and it was things like there was movies

356
00:23:55.200 --> 00:24:02.359
I would watch like The Wild Geese. Have you never seen That's where he

357
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:06.640
goes there? Clint Eastwood and all
that, And then the main one was

358
00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:11.039
it was a film called Who There's
Wins with Lewis Lewis Collins, were you

359
00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:17.279
know, a bunch of a bunch
of these extremists take over the American embassy

360
00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:21.440
and then sees to this rescue mission
and it's all it's all quite cheesy,

361
00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:25.480
but it's he can't not know one
that I know doesn't like that film.

362
00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:27.799
It's just it is a benchmark,
right. So I guess as a kid,

363
00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.680
I watched that and I just I
was blown away by like, how

364
00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:34.680
fucking cool this was? And I
was like, these guys and this is

365
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.200
just amazing. I was always fascinated
with that movie. And then that same

366
00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:42.359
Christmas that I saw the movie,
I got the Action Man figure with the

367
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:45.599
eagle eyes, you know, and
he was the guy who was dressed with

368
00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:48.960
the black all the black gear with
the respirator and he looked like it was

369
00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:52.519
like the Sees guy. There's a
Stormtrooper version of this. It's a very

370
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:59.519
collectible piece now with Palleat. So
I remember being kind of obsessed with that

371
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:03.960
whole thing with it when you know, the Ranian Embassy was live on British

372
00:25:04.039 --> 00:25:10.160
TV when they stormed the building to
do the rescue mission, and that was

373
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.119
like when that kind of put the
regiment on the map publicly, because no

374
00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:17.160
one really knew hy much about them
at that point, so that was like

375
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:21.480
here they are. And so when
I joined the Army, I guess,

376
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:25.160
being the way I am, I
didn't just want to join the army.

377
00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:27.400
I thought, what's the best part
of the army, what's the Sas.

378
00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:32.200
Also, my older brother was very
keen to join the sas as well,

379
00:25:32.279 --> 00:25:37.119
so he used to speak about it
a lot and by the time I joined

380
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:41.240
the Army, I remember like like
the first week in basic training, it

381
00:25:41.279 --> 00:25:45.559
was myself and my friend or you're
sat next to each other, and the

382
00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:49.279
platoon commander said, you know,
these are all the different regiments. He's

383
00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:53.519
clicking through all these different different factions
of the army, you know, across

384
00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:57.079
the board. And then the last
one he got to was the was the

385
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:00.720
Special Air Service. He said,
is any one to know what this is?

386
00:26:00.759 --> 00:26:03.160
And really it's the s ES And
would anyone ever I think they'd want

387
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:06.920
to join this? And me and
my mate put our hands up. There

388
00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:10.480
was only two of us out of
about maybe thirty forty people, and we

389
00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:14.559
put our hands up. And then
I joined about five years later. And

390
00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:18.240
I always had the seed. The
seed was always planted because there was always

391
00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:19.799
this. I always felt like I
was physically fit, you know. I

392
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:25.640
was always really confident with regards to
my physical capabilities. So when I joined

393
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.119
basic training, I had been someone
who I was going to the gym.

394
00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:33.640
I was the fucking weirdo who we'd
go to the leisure center like the swround

395
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:36.599
pool was and stuff, and there
was a gym there, and all my

396
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.000
friends would go to the go and
jump in the pool and I'd be like,

397
00:26:38.039 --> 00:26:40.759
guys, I'm going to the gym, see you and see you in

398
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:44.240
an hour. And I'd go to
the gym and with my homemade fucking stringer

399
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:47.440
vest on and flex my muscles.
No one else was in the gym,

400
00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:51.559
so I was really fit and I'd
run everywhere. So when it come to

401
00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:55.519
join the army, I was like
in beating everybody everything, pull ups,

402
00:26:55.759 --> 00:27:00.559
push ups, running. I was
just like one of the fittest guys in

403
00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:03.559
my intake. So I had a
lot of confidence. So when I went

404
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:08.720
when it came to going on courses
learning new skills, I always had that

405
00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:11.359
that part pushed aside. I used
to think, okay, I've got that

406
00:27:11.400 --> 00:27:15.200
covered. I know I'm fit,
so I don't need to worry about am

407
00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:17.799
I going to be able to do
this? I know I can't. So

408
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:21.880
that confidence, then obvious say,
you know, encourages your belief system.

409
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:25.720
So it's like that whole cycle of
you've got potentially, you release potential by

410
00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:29.119
taking action. The more action you
take, then you're going to get a

411
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:32.839
better result. The better the result, the stronger your beliefs because you've got

412
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:37.000
historical proof to prove that you can
do something. So I guess by the

413
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:40.279
time I ended up going to the
sees, it felt like a natural progression

414
00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:42.799
to me. I thought I need
to do this because I didn't really think

415
00:27:42.839 --> 00:27:47.160
of myself as being a super soldier. At the same time, I just

416
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:52.480
had that, well, I've got
nothing to lose mentality, what's the worst

417
00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:56.119
that can happen. I don't pass, I get injured, I don't make

418
00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.640
it. But if I never try, then and I know I'll vet it.

419
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:03.039
So that was the seed was there
early on, and thankfully I did

420
00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:08.960
follow it through. Yeah, real
quick, sorry interrupt you, Lindsay.

421
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:12.200
We need to do a shout out
to our second sponsor. Thank you very

422
00:28:12.279 --> 00:28:17.039
much, Hello Fresh, Thank you
very much Hello Fresh. With Hello Fresh,

423
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:21.920
you get farm fresh, pre portioned
ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to

424
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.319
your doorstep. So here's what Hello
Fresh is for those of you who don't

425
00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:27.079
know. It's a meal kit,
right, It's a meal kit that you're

426
00:28:27.079 --> 00:28:30.079
going to cook. They send you. You get on you go on their

427
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:36.880
website, you order the different meal
kits. They have tons of great recipes,

428
00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:40.240
recipes you wouldn't even think of.
They send you all the ingredients you

429
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:42.720
need. They give you the recipe
to cook it, and you look like

430
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:48.599
a stud when you pull off these
fancy meals for your significant other or a

431
00:28:48.599 --> 00:28:53.559
stud at however it is. But
you avoid, you know, costly and

432
00:28:53.680 --> 00:29:00.559
bad takeout and delivery. You avoid
the grocery store. They can gear the

433
00:29:00.599 --> 00:29:06.039
meals you know for your particular diet
type. It's a fantastic experience. We

434
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:08.960
all love it. There's no more
staring blankly in the fridge wondering what you're

435
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:12.960
gonna make for dinner. We give
Hello Fresh a try and dig into their

436
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:21.200
biggest venue with over forty five recipes
to choose from each week. Go to

437
00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:29.000
HelloFresh dot com slash Teamhouse free and
use code teamhouse for free breakfast for life.

438
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:33.079
You heard me, free breakfast for
life one breakfast item per box while

439
00:29:33.119 --> 00:29:38.440
subscription is active. That's free breakfast
for life at HelloFresh dot com slash Teamhouse

440
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:45.680
free with code teamhouse A. It's
America's number one meal kit. Highly recommend

441
00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:51.400
it. So Lindsey, tell us
how selection went for you, Because I

442
00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:53.680
mean, you show up, you're
super in shape, But I mean this

443
00:29:53.759 --> 00:30:03.279
is maybe the most challenging selection course
on the planet. Yeah, and to

444
00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:07.759
put that to make that worse at
the time. You know, it's easy

445
00:30:07.759 --> 00:30:10.720
to let a lot get in your
head. You know, we let a

446
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:12.079
lot of get in our heads anyway. In general, I think it's human

447
00:30:12.119 --> 00:30:17.359
beings. And the only thing I
would say back then is that is that

448
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:22.079
when you've got when you're in a
like an infantry battalion example, and there

449
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:26.519
are there's always the guy. There's
always the guy who's like the favorite,

450
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.480
the hot you know, the hot
product, who is really switched on.

451
00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:33.960
He's fit, he's capable, his
career is doing really well. And then

452
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:40.720
that guy goes and tries sas selection
and then he comes back within a few

453
00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:45.200
weeks, sometimes a few days.
So then what does that do to the

454
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:51.279
people who feel, you know,
below his below his skill set or capability,

455
00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:52.160
they're going to go, well,
if he he can't do it,

456
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:56.119
then what chance have I got.
So that was always a common thing with

457
00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:03.720
most people. So traditionally we didn't
send people at all. Hardly anyone fired

458
00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:07.519
for selection, and that made it
even worse because there was no law of

459
00:31:07.559 --> 00:31:11.720
average, there was no numbers going, there was no I guarantee I would

460
00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:14.359
guarantee if they, if they,
if they, if they drove that within

461
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:18.400
our battalion there was enough guys who
were good enough, but they had to

462
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:22.119
send volume. And it was the
case of just it just wasn't the done

463
00:31:22.200 --> 00:31:23.799
thing. It wasn't normal for us
to go for selection. It was very

464
00:31:23.799 --> 00:31:27.240
bizarre, very one off. Once
There'll be a few years someone would have

465
00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:32.799
a cop and then usually they'd always
come back because no one I was the

466
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:37.640
first. I was the first guy
to get in since the seventies. It'd

467
00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:41.799
been that long a gap. And
it wasn't because I was anything special.

468
00:31:41.880 --> 00:31:44.680
It wasn't because I was better than
everyone. It wasn't it was It was

469
00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:48.200
because I just thought, Okay,
I'm going to do it. Why not

470
00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:52.839
me? Right right? Why not
me? And I encourage It's one thing

471
00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:57.000
I always encourage people to say.
I think when they're thinking about doing something

472
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:00.200
that's maybe challenging, it's like,
always ask yourself a question, why why

473
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:04.240
not me? The same people will
buy a fucking lottery ticket and there's a

474
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:06.400
lot less chance of winning a lot
of read than there is to pass and

475
00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:10.359
of course you have control of yeah. Point, So it's people just don't

476
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:15.400
put themselves forward because it means being
vulnerable. It means chances of you know,

477
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:19.559
the fear of failure, the fear
of being judged. No one expects

478
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:22.400
you to pass because of no one
else has passed beforehand. So yeah,

479
00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:24.960
he'll be back. He he won't
be long. He wait a couple of

480
00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:28.839
a few days, a few weeks, he'll be back. And I know

481
00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:32.599
people would have said that about me, why wouldn't they? And then all

482
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:37.400
of a sudden, this little guy
from Fort William doesn't come back. He's

483
00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:43.480
gone. You know. That was
my story, really, And so what

484
00:32:43.559 --> 00:32:49.400
was your experience at selection? When
you got there? It was? You

485
00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.119
know, I've got some great memories. I loved selection. I know that

486
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:54.480
sounds crazy. It wasn't easy,
don't know. It was fucking hard,

487
00:32:54.559 --> 00:33:00.599
of course it is. But that's
what what is What is so rewarding that

488
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:05.200
it's not difficult. It has to
be difficult. But for me, I

489
00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:08.200
guess the best thing I did was
go when I was so young. I

490
00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:13.480
was I was young enough to put
up with a bullshit, be fucked around

491
00:33:13.519 --> 00:33:17.720
from morning till night, and just
keep going. And I didn't have that

492
00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:22.400
that ego of you know, thinking
that I can't be told what to do,

493
00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:23.759
and this is this was something that
I saw as a bit of a

494
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:29.799
problem at times, especially when you're
you're you're on a course and the whole

495
00:33:30.039 --> 00:33:31.440
the whole way through that course.
At any moment, you can just put

496
00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:34.519
your hand up and say this is
for me anymore, I want to go

497
00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:37.119
home, and they'll go see that
there's the door. No one's going to

498
00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:39.160
argue with you. No one's going
to stop me, because if they've got

499
00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:42.200
to do that, you're not the
right guy for that. That regiment,

500
00:33:42.279 --> 00:33:46.160
right, So it's very much a
it's a volunteer regiment. You're a you

501
00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:52.000
are a volunteer. No one's making
you be there, So no one's going

502
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:53.519
to stand in your way if you
want to go home, as simple as

503
00:33:53.519 --> 00:33:58.160
that. So when I got there, I remember some advice I got for

504
00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:01.839
my brother, and he said,
look, the best way to think about

505
00:34:01.880 --> 00:34:06.319
this is not to overthink it and
build it up to this big thing that

506
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:08.840
everyone does. He said that it's
just a course. You're going on a

507
00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:14.119
course to learn some cool stuff and
if you're good enough, you'll pass.

508
00:34:14.440 --> 00:34:17.360
If you're not, then hey,
as long as you give it your best.

509
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:21.880
So the way that I went on
the course with the attitude that I

510
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:23.159
had was like, I'm going to
lean into the process. I'm going to

511
00:34:23.159 --> 00:34:29.559
try my best and if they want
me amazing. If they don't, then

512
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:32.599
I'm just not good enough. But
one thing is for sure, I'm definitely

513
00:34:32.679 --> 00:34:36.480
not going to voluntary withdraw, which
is what most people do. This is

514
00:34:36.480 --> 00:34:38.480
the thing as well with the Special
Forces in the UK. It's a joint

515
00:34:38.519 --> 00:34:45.360
special Forces selection process. So you've
got the SAS, the SBS back then

516
00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:49.679
even now they've even got a couple
couple more, you know, regiments that

517
00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:54.320
do the same initial selection process,
but then it branches off. So the

518
00:34:54.360 --> 00:34:59.320
SAS and the SBS do the jungle
and I don't think any anyone else does

519
00:34:59.320 --> 00:35:02.360
that. So so for us at
the time back in you know, January

520
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:09.559
two thousand, I did. I
started selection and it was SBS and says

521
00:35:09.960 --> 00:35:14.519
joint Special Force of selection process.
And when I went there and I just

522
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:16.519
thought, you know, I'm going
to just I'm just going to lean into

523
00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:21.400
this, do as best I can, and I'm going to learn as much

524
00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:22.480
as I can. If I don't
get in, I'm going to go back

525
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:30.119
to my battalion a much better soldier
with much more knowledge and experience. However,

526
00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:32.039
I also thought to myself, if
I don't pass, I'll probably leave

527
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:35.880
the Army because I was kind of
sick of it at that point. It

528
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:37.559
wasn't really for me. The infantry
wasn't for me. It was too much

529
00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:42.159
bullshit, too much there was too
much emphasis and what you have to do

530
00:35:42.199 --> 00:35:45.719
in camp to keep yourself fucking smart, you know, painting the grass green

531
00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:49.559
ship like that when they had a
royal visit, and I was like,

532
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:52.400
I just want to be in the
fielding do cool soldiery stuff, you know,

533
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:58.079
And that was my That was why
I joined the army. Yeah,

534
00:35:58.280 --> 00:36:02.360
and did did you find that after
you graduated from selections started SAS training?

535
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:08.400
Yeah, so you go there,
so you have to apply to join the

536
00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:13.039
SAS. Obviously you do it off
your own record. They can stop you

537
00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:15.639
if they want. But I was
very lucky at the time. I had

538
00:36:15.679 --> 00:36:20.360
a couple of guys. My company
commander at the time and my battalion was

539
00:36:20.679 --> 00:36:23.280
really supportive and he thought was a
great idea. You know, he respected

540
00:36:23.320 --> 00:36:29.000
me for doing it. An amazing
guy, really good leader. And I

541
00:36:29.039 --> 00:36:30.960
remember he said, look, and
you know, I've got a lot to

542
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:35.760
thank him for because I was out
in costable at the time, and we

543
00:36:35.760 --> 00:36:37.840
still had about maybe a month and
a half two months left of the tour,

544
00:36:39.719 --> 00:36:43.840
and he said, look, just
go because when I went on selection,

545
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:46.840
you do like a pre selection course, so it's like a three day

546
00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:51.440
thing, come to Hereford and you
do this this pre course, and then

547
00:36:51.480 --> 00:36:54.920
at the end of that pre course
they then say you're ready or you should

548
00:36:54.960 --> 00:37:00.760
maybe wait six months, twelve months, and sometimes they'll say this isn't for

549
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:02.360
you. You're never going to you
know, you're not right the right cut.

550
00:37:04.199 --> 00:37:07.599
So I went and did this three
day thing and I expected to be

551
00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:13.239
going like six months afterwards or seven
months afterwards. And then what happened was

552
00:37:13.280 --> 00:37:15.239
I got to the end of this
pre selection, did really well on all

553
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:19.960
the tests and the guy said,
look, we'll see you in January,

554
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.400
and this is November. So I
was like, I was like panicking.

555
00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:27.119
Now I was on a flat spin
out to see I said, what do

556
00:37:27.119 --> 00:37:29.559
you mean is that I'm not going
to be ready and he says, you're

557
00:37:29.599 --> 00:37:31.239
ready, You're ready, don't worry. Just don't don't overdo it, don't

558
00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:36.239
overtrain, you get fit on the
course. You'll you're young, you're you'll

559
00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:38.280
be absolutely fine, come and do
it in January. So I went back

560
00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:40.239
to my battalion and said, look, they want they want me to go

561
00:37:40.280 --> 00:37:45.840
in January. And my all s
was like, well why not, Why

562
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:47.800
aren't you just getting excited about it? Just just go for it. And

563
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:50.800
I said, well, I'm not
going to have enough time of trainings im

564
00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:53.000
out here, and you know,
he says go home. Then he says,

565
00:37:53.039 --> 00:37:55.599
don't want to see you again.
So he sent me home to Scotland,

566
00:37:55.719 --> 00:37:59.480
which there was loads of fucking mountains
up in Scotland, so myself and

567
00:37:59.519 --> 00:38:02.360
my brother's train up there. So
I went and did my preparation up in

568
00:38:02.480 --> 00:38:07.599
my own, my hometown and the
surrounding areas of my hometown, which is

569
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:12.039
the Scottish Islands. So you know, I was very lucky, very fortunate

570
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:16.079
that they let me get away and
get myself prepared for it. And then

571
00:38:16.119 --> 00:38:20.159
that was it. You know,
started the course. And when you start

572
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:23.679
a selection, that's a six month
process. HM. In the first four

573
00:38:23.679 --> 00:38:28.079
weeks it's it's done a like modulated
block. So the first month is what

574
00:38:28.159 --> 00:38:31.280
they call Aptitude, which is down
in the break and Beacons and another place

575
00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:37.639
called Eland Valley, which I'm actually
going there tomorrow funnily enough. But you

576
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:39.840
do that, you do the Hills
phase, which is pretty much getting from

577
00:38:39.840 --> 00:38:44.760
A to B with a cent amount
of wait in a certain time distance and

578
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:47.280
all all they want to see is
you've got the attitude and the grit determination

579
00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:52.760
to get yourself through that physical test, because that's that's a mental land physical

580
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:55.480
test, but it's it's you're not
being tested as a soldier at that point.

581
00:38:55.840 --> 00:39:00.719
It's really just about an endurance and
everybody of the man and they lose

582
00:39:00.719 --> 00:39:04.159
a lot of people. You know, there's probably two hundred and fifty guys

583
00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:07.360
I think start and by the end
of that phase is probably fifty left.

584
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:13.159
So they do they do separate the
week from the week from the chaff pretty

585
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:19.199
quickly, and then what's the next
phase after that? So after that four

586
00:39:19.239 --> 00:39:21.239
weeks, so you do a month
in the hills, you do a series

587
00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:24.079
of tests. So the last week
is like call it test week. You

588
00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:29.400
do a series of test marches individual
where you've got to you know, get

589
00:39:29.719 --> 00:39:34.920
distance, time speed in the set
times are under or you don't pass.

590
00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:39.199
So you've got to pass those tests. That culminates with what they call endurance,

591
00:39:39.239 --> 00:39:45.119
which is like a sixty five kilometer
till March. You know, you've

592
00:39:45.159 --> 00:39:50.280
got like twenty hours to do that, most people getting around the eighteen eighteen

593
00:39:50.320 --> 00:39:52.360
sort of hour mark. And then
when if you pass that and then you

594
00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:55.719
then come to herap and do you
start to do the pre jungle training.

595
00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:00.360
So we do like like like a
couple of weeks. I think it was

596
00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:04.840
actually about four weeks. You do
like a pre jungle took maybe two weeks

597
00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:07.320
forget, I think it's actually two
weeks, you know, two weeks in

598
00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:12.679
the UK learning jungle drill. So
they teach you all the all the jungle

599
00:40:12.719 --> 00:40:15.320
tactics, the basic tactics or when
you then start to go out to when

600
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:19.599
you go to the jungle and then
you get put in your your patrols and

601
00:40:19.599 --> 00:40:22.079
stuff like that and you go through
everything, you learn all the lessons.

602
00:40:22.119 --> 00:40:27.039
They teach a load of stuff.
Obviously in the classroom you do practice drills,

603
00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:30.360
dry training, and then when you
go out to Brunei, that's when

604
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:35.079
you start the jungle phase. And
that that was when I would say that

605
00:40:35.320 --> 00:40:38.760
right at the beginning of that was
probably one of the most the times that

606
00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:44.679
I felt the most pressure because you
do you do the live firing phase so

607
00:40:45.239 --> 00:40:47.679
you go to the ranges. For
the first week it's all live firing,

608
00:40:49.360 --> 00:40:52.719
and the live firing range is always
always as a soldier, it's always something

609
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:57.199
that you get. It can get
you quite anxious because it is live ammunition.

610
00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:00.920
You don't want to fox something up
because there's a lot more safety involved.

611
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:07.199
You're being watched like a like a
hawk by several director staff that are

612
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:12.280
all very experienced SES guys, So
you're really really under the microscope at that

613
00:41:12.320 --> 00:41:14.719
point. It's not like you just
get your grid reference and then you fuck

614
00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:17.000
off to the next grid reference and
you're on the hill. No one's there

615
00:41:17.039 --> 00:41:20.440
to watch you or anything like that. You can kind of pick your nose

616
00:41:20.480 --> 00:41:23.119
and scratch your ass and no one's
going to going to see it. When

617
00:41:23.159 --> 00:41:28.119
you when you go to jungle training, they are watching you like a fucking

618
00:41:28.239 --> 00:41:31.559
hawk. They don't miss a thing, you know. And when it's live

619
00:41:31.639 --> 00:41:37.280
firing, you know, everything's getting
marked, everything's getting judged, and you

620
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:38.880
have to pass it, you know, And it's it's something that people do

621
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:44.000
fail that and people do make massive
suck ups because the pressure gets to them.

622
00:41:44.519 --> 00:41:46.480
Either make a safety mistake or they
leave a pouch is open or the

623
00:41:46.599 --> 00:41:51.719
drop stuff and it could be anything, but you're being marked the whole time.

624
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:54.280
And I would say the whole process
that was when I felt most sort

625
00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:59.320
of like fucking, the pressure's on
here. But thankfully, yeah, that

626
00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:01.800
was pretty good, so it didn't
struggle with anything, but it was pretty

627
00:42:01.800 --> 00:42:06.239
nerve wracking. And then you go
into the jungle after that, so you

628
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:10.559
do you do four weeks under the
canopy and there's an exercise called atap Hurdle,

629
00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:15.760
which is the SA selection process in
the jungle where you are then again

630
00:42:15.880 --> 00:42:21.679
scrutinized and you're under the under the
microscope for or twenty eight days in the

631
00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:27.719
jungle, and that's that tests and
character. It's it's interesting because the SAS

632
00:42:28.039 --> 00:42:30.679
and the SBS are often compared,
you know to like Delta Seal Team six

633
00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:37.639
in the in the counter terrorism realm. But SAS has this long tradition of

634
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:43.360
focus or at least an initial focus
on jungle warfare, where where other American

635
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:45.039
units, you know, they might
have back in the day it might have

636
00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:49.760
gone down to Fort Sherman and Panama
to do some jungle training whatever. But

637
00:42:50.880 --> 00:42:55.400
is it is it because of is
it because of like the SSASS history that

638
00:42:55.400 --> 00:43:00.880
that jungle warfare is still kind of
a focus of THEIRS. I think that

639
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:04.960
was something that we've obviously done a
lot fishing the Bonneo campaign and Malia campaign.

640
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:08.119
You know, there's a lot of
there's a lot of experience on during

641
00:43:08.159 --> 00:43:13.800
those times with the old school guys
that were in the in the you know,

642
00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:17.480
in the s s back then.
But I guess everything comes down to

643
00:43:19.599 --> 00:43:22.159
the strategy of the manning process.
So it's a bit like like I said

644
00:43:22.159 --> 00:43:25.280
earlier about Scottish regiments. Someone at
some point says that we should need to

645
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:29.960
restructure this and it just comes down
to the strategic capabilities at the end of

646
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:32.679
the day. So I mean they
changed, there was something that changed,

647
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:37.039
but when I when I joined,
even which it was actually really thankful for.

648
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:42.480
So when it comes down to like
the manning obviously the Director of Special

649
00:43:42.519 --> 00:43:45.639
Forces and all the head honchos down
there that make all the big decisions,

650
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:50.519
it's just a capability thing. What
do we need, who who do we

651
00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:52.599
need, where do we need them
if this happens? What do we need

652
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:57.480
the capability to be? So we
would test capabilities. When I was in

653
00:43:57.519 --> 00:43:59.800
the regiment, the you know,
the commander officer would say, right,

654
00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:05.239
Director Special Forces has said that you
need to do. He wants the capability

655
00:44:05.400 --> 00:44:09.960
of a cyber squadron to do a
two mile surface swim at night from two

656
00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:16.280
miles out of shore, tactical over
fucking you know, beach landing and all

657
00:44:16.280 --> 00:44:20.960
that sort of stuff, and so
you would get you would get these things

658
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:25.239
all the time in various capacities.
But when it comes to you know,

659
00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:31.559
like the capabilities of that, we're
changing when I joined, so I joined

660
00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:36.599
boat troops, so we would actually
work closely with the SBS. So we

661
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:39.559
did our insurgeon course for the SBS. So when I first joined, you

662
00:44:39.679 --> 00:44:43.760
joined the regiment, you pass selection
and then you go and do your your

663
00:44:43.800 --> 00:44:46.599
troop capability. So there are four
troops and four cyber squadrons, so each

664
00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:50.760
cyber squadron is essentially like a mirror
image of each other. So you get

665
00:44:50.760 --> 00:44:55.119
a squadron, B squadron and D
and G and then within those squadrons you

666
00:44:55.199 --> 00:45:00.000
have a boat troop, you have
a freefall troop, you have the abilit

667
00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:05.280
troop, and you have mountain troop. Right, So each guy that joins

668
00:45:05.320 --> 00:45:08.960
each respective troop will then go to
do his specialist skill for that troop,

669
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:13.039
and then after that you go and
do your specialist patrol skill, which is

670
00:45:13.079 --> 00:45:17.239
either demolitions or patrol medic So when
I went down the pool, did my

671
00:45:17.239 --> 00:45:22.320
my my boat course with the SBS. We did that. We all did

672
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:27.079
that together, the sess SBS guys
all do the boat course. And then

673
00:45:27.320 --> 00:45:30.480
the next thing that we were supposed
to do was the dive course go tow

674
00:45:30.679 --> 00:45:32.679
diving. Now I did like a
dive aptitude. When I got there,

675
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:36.880
ended up bursting the fucking ear drum. Had a really bad experience, and

676
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:39.960
it was it was the first time
in the whole process of anything I did

677
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:43.679
Special Forces that I thought, I
am not fucking going to be good at

678
00:45:43.719 --> 00:45:47.239
this. I don't like it.
Maybe if I did it enough, I

679
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:52.519
would I would have been competent,
but I fucking hated it. I almost

680
00:45:52.599 --> 00:45:54.679
drowned a few times as a kid. I had a real fear of ironically

681
00:45:54.719 --> 00:45:59.480
had a real fear of water going
into the regiment. And then they put

682
00:45:59.480 --> 00:46:01.920
me in boats. And always remember, like me and my one of my

683
00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:05.920
best mates at the time, we
were both getting told we going to a

684
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:07.360
boat troops. So we went to
see the training officer. He says right,

685
00:46:07.559 --> 00:46:10.920
Bruce, And my mate's tick name
is Rownie, says Bruce. And

686
00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:14.599
rowing boat troop. And we stood
there and I was like, you know,

687
00:46:14.639 --> 00:46:16.519
I'm happy to be here. I'll
go anywhere you put me, even

688
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:20.840
if I don't like it. It
is an initial idea. It turned out

689
00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:22.239
I love boat Troop. But at
the time I was like, hey,

690
00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:25.559
and my mate said, well,
he said, I'm not very good at

691
00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:30.159
swimming. He was. He was
a ship swimming as well. I'm not

692
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:31.920
very good at swimming. And the
training officer says, you don't need to

693
00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:38.400
be able to be being a fucking
boat. Get out. But then then

694
00:46:38.840 --> 00:46:43.800
shortly after that, they took the
dive capability away from the SEES so we

695
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:46.679
would all do so, the boat
troops and the SBS would do diving capability.

696
00:46:47.079 --> 00:46:50.800
And about a couple of weeks before
I was supposed to go on my

697
00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:53.760
dive course, I was shipping myself
because I just didn't like being in the

698
00:46:53.760 --> 00:46:59.880
war and not under the water.
Anyway, they said we're going to the

699
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:04.119
taking the capability away, so they
took the default capability away from the SBS.

700
00:47:04.519 --> 00:47:07.559
They took the diet capability with the
s S and they just said that

701
00:47:07.639 --> 00:47:12.159
you have the lot right right,
mine share. So yeah, so that's

702
00:47:12.199 --> 00:47:20.199
how it basically works. It's very
interesting. So after the jungle training,

703
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:23.679
so this is still like when we
think of selection, we think of a

704
00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:28.679
four week like we think of the
four week your your app you said it

705
00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:35.199
was a beacons aptitude, Yeah,
aptitude right, But for you guys,

706
00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:38.960
it's short of like Green Team or
or OTC or whatever you're it's even though

707
00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:45.000
you've passed selection, it's still selection. Uh yeah, throughout your initial like

708
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:49.320
training, right, well you do
you do? Well, that's not the

709
00:47:49.320 --> 00:47:52.440
selection is six months long. So
people think of the s S selection process

710
00:47:52.519 --> 00:47:55.960
of the hills. Is that what's
most that's the first part you're doing.

711
00:47:55.960 --> 00:48:00.199
It's probably the bit that most people
know about. But that is essentially only

712
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:04.199
the aptitude for the rest of the
course. So that's really the start point.

713
00:48:04.679 --> 00:48:07.639
You're off the starting blocks at that
point, but you've just passed the

714
00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:10.719
first hurdle and it's certainly not the
most difficult one. The hardest part of

715
00:48:10.760 --> 00:48:17.440
selection, I think when it comes
to all things that are included, so

716
00:48:17.519 --> 00:48:22.000
not just the physical side of things, but when it comes to the mental

717
00:48:22.039 --> 00:48:25.480
side of things. That how resilient
you are mentally. That's when that's when

718
00:48:25.519 --> 00:48:30.679
your your character is tested more so
because you're assimilating new skills. You have

719
00:48:30.719 --> 00:48:34.079
to work as a small in a
small team. You have to be someone

720
00:48:34.119 --> 00:48:37.880
who kind of you know, as
a team player, and there's a lot

721
00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:42.639
of guys who get found out.
You know, it exposes weaknesses and people

722
00:48:42.679 --> 00:48:45.400
like no other climate, the jungle
because it's a very testing environment. Is

723
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:50.280
you need to have patience in the
jungle because you can lose your shit pretty

724
00:48:50.320 --> 00:48:53.079
easily. I always remember one day
I was I was on a patrol and

725
00:48:53.159 --> 00:48:57.360
on we used to use them sixteens
then on selection, which are quite a

726
00:48:57.360 --> 00:48:59.440
long weapon. Obviously as you know, you know, it's not like it's

727
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:01.639
not like them before, which is
shot a shorter version. M sixteen are

728
00:49:01.840 --> 00:49:05.639
quite a long weapon to have in
the jungle. And you had the black

729
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:07.320
fireing attachment you probably from other these
anyway, guys. So the black fire

730
00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:13.079
attachment you have on on an M
sixteen or a or an M four there

731
00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:16.000
was this little T bar at the
top they you turn, so it's like

732
00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:19.039
good little T bar coming out on
the top of your weapon. And then

733
00:49:19.519 --> 00:49:22.159
every fucking time, you know,
you'd either tripping a piece of tripping a

734
00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:27.639
piece of vine with your boots,
or's you you're tired and sh you're tripping

735
00:49:27.679 --> 00:49:30.719
a piece of vine, or the
the BFA the Black Fire Attachment always got

736
00:49:30.719 --> 00:49:35.199
caught in a piece of vine hanging
down and you'd be like walking and then

737
00:49:35.199 --> 00:49:38.760
all of a sudden your fucking weapons
back. I remember one day I was

738
00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:45.199
like, but I was just being
an angry Scotsman and this happened one too

739
00:49:45.239 --> 00:49:49.039
many times. I was like for
fox set, you know, and I

740
00:49:49.079 --> 00:49:52.480
lost my ship and I got caught. So a guy called Nol, who

741
00:49:52.519 --> 00:49:55.280
is my directive staff in the jungle, who was a fucking legend in the

742
00:49:55.360 --> 00:49:59.400
jungle. This guy, he was
like a ghost, like a ninja,

743
00:50:00.079 --> 00:50:02.519
and he I turned around and he
was just sat there, crouch down in

744
00:50:02.559 --> 00:50:08.159
the shadow of this like eyeball sticking
out looking at me, and the thought,

745
00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:12.039
fuck's that he just needs to pop
up everywhere? I was like,

746
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:15.480
how many of this guy is there? So then so then afterwards we had

747
00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:19.079
the day brief and he was not
an Irish, this guy. So he

748
00:50:19.119 --> 00:50:22.840
says, he says, Bruce,
he says, one word of advice,

749
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:30.199
don't fight the fucking jungle. He'll
never win. And I always remember that,

750
00:50:30.239 --> 00:50:31.199
and he's he's right, you know, but he let me get me

751
00:50:31.239 --> 00:50:34.440
a pass. He's like, you
know, let you away with that one,

752
00:50:34.440 --> 00:50:38.440
but stop losing your fucking temper.
And so yeah, it's a very

753
00:50:38.480 --> 00:50:42.800
testing environment. You know, everything
you've got to do, and you've got

754
00:50:42.840 --> 00:50:45.039
the opportunity to leave. So this, this test, this is such a

755
00:50:45.639 --> 00:50:50.639
such a profound testamental resilience because at
any time you can just go fuck this.

756
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:54.440
I'm all I'm sweaty and tired and
hungry. I'm sick of being being

757
00:50:54.440 --> 00:50:58.920
scrutinized all the time, especially if
someone makes a fuck up. You used

758
00:50:58.920 --> 00:51:01.960
to always find that people that can't
take criticism, people that can't get over

759
00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:05.960
the fact that they've they've made one
mistake. So then the lyric get to

760
00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:07.800
them, get in their heads and
they go off. Fuck it was the

761
00:51:07.800 --> 00:51:09.559
point in staying here because I'm not
going to pass. Next thing, you

762
00:51:09.599 --> 00:51:13.719
know, they're on the helipad the
next morning, fucking on the helicopter away

763
00:51:13.719 --> 00:51:17.760
out of the jungle. So it's
really, you know, a case of

764
00:51:17.800 --> 00:51:22.599
if you can stick if you can
stick it out and get to the end,

765
00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:25.239
pass or fail. The main thing
is you need to just keep going,

766
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:30.159
and that's what most people don't do. They just they just put their

767
00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:31.880
hands up and say I've had enough. So when you come out of the

768
00:51:31.920 --> 00:51:36.840
jungle phase, I mean, when
you when you finish the jungle, that's

769
00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:39.840
really when they say at that point
that whoever's left after that point is like

770
00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:44.960
they call it the hardcore element,
and they expect the people who are left

771
00:51:44.960 --> 00:51:47.480
at the at the end of the
jungle phase, they really expect them to

772
00:51:47.519 --> 00:51:50.760
be there right at the end.
So at that point, by the way,

773
00:51:50.800 --> 00:51:53.159
you're only halfway through the selection process. So when you come back from

774
00:51:53.159 --> 00:51:58.679
the jungle, you're three months into
a six month process, and then the

775
00:51:59.199 --> 00:52:02.159
next three months is then modulated into
different blocks, so you've got like observation

776
00:52:02.280 --> 00:52:07.079
posts, you've got combat and survivally, you've got communications, you have your

777
00:52:07.159 --> 00:52:13.000
your parishute course. All these things
are obviously modulated counter terrorism course. So

778
00:52:13.079 --> 00:52:16.400
these are just you're learning all the
little skills that are required for the entry

779
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:21.559
level trooper in the SEES to get
to the squadron. When you get to

780
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:27.440
your squadron, that's when you start
continuation training. So the first thing you've

781
00:52:27.440 --> 00:52:30.159
got to do is you're insurgent skill, be it boats, mounting, mobility,

782
00:52:30.719 --> 00:52:36.000
or freefall. You then do your
insurgent course that makes you capable to

783
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:38.840
be in that skill set for the
troop that you're in. And then when

784
00:52:38.840 --> 00:52:43.159
you're in the troop, you then
do your specialist skill within your patrol,

785
00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:46.239
which will be one or two things, either patrol, medic or demolitions.

786
00:52:46.880 --> 00:52:51.760
So it does go on for quite
some time, you know, and obviously

787
00:52:51.800 --> 00:52:54.719
that's it's one of those things in
the military that you're always doing something new

788
00:52:54.760 --> 00:53:00.960
and learning new things and skills.
And then the capability of each squadron that

789
00:53:01.119 --> 00:53:05.000
rotates, so it's only a two
year cycle. It was back then.

790
00:53:05.239 --> 00:53:07.599
It used to be in a two
year rotation whereby you're going to like stand

791
00:53:07.599 --> 00:53:12.280
by squadron, you're going you do
the counter terrorist team for six months,

792
00:53:12.639 --> 00:53:16.360
so you're always moving around. It's
like as carousel of activities. And so

793
00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:20.880
by the time that you finished your
initial training and get to your troop and

794
00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:23.679
become you know, an active you
know operator, I'm guessing this is about

795
00:53:23.719 --> 00:53:29.199
two thousand and one now, not
two thousands, six months. Yeah,

796
00:53:29.400 --> 00:53:32.440
you know, you do your continuation
training from the squad see you're actually in

797
00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:36.639
the squadron at that point. So
when you pass, you pass the six

798
00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:40.280
month selection process, you get badged, you get you get your belt and

799
00:53:40.320 --> 00:53:45.519
berry, and then you go to
the Saber squadron and from there you then

800
00:53:45.599 --> 00:53:49.840
do your insurgent skills and all that
sort of stuff. But the troop skill

801
00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:52.039
is pretty early. You do that
straight away. Everyone does that straight away,

802
00:53:52.039 --> 00:53:57.079
and then you do your you can
something's waited six months to a year

803
00:53:57.079 --> 00:54:00.920
before you do your specialist patrol sciale. Oh wow. Interesting and being this

804
00:54:01.159 --> 00:54:07.039
is two thousand, you know,
obviously there are there are there are operations,

805
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:10.599
but it's nothing like the post nine
eleven world. What what was like

806
00:54:10.840 --> 00:54:17.079
The SAS is primary focus during this
time. So so I guess when I

807
00:54:17.199 --> 00:54:22.280
joined and I banged in two thousand, went straight to the squadron. You

808
00:54:22.320 --> 00:54:24.599
know, there was there was a
bit going on for that first year.

809
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:30.440
We did exercises around the world and
went some places, but then nine to

810
00:54:30.440 --> 00:54:34.800
eleven happened and I'd only been in
like just over a year at that point,

811
00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:37.239
so it was kind of my career
was kind of like the perfect storm,

812
00:54:37.280 --> 00:54:40.000
really, or if you want to
join, you want to do shit

813
00:54:40.199 --> 00:54:45.239
and then I was quite lucky in
the sense that I say lucky, but

814
00:54:45.320 --> 00:54:50.559
you know, take that how you
will. But I was people don't join

815
00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:54.199
the sas to sit in camp and
do nothing for the reason yourself. You

816
00:54:54.239 --> 00:54:58.199
want to go in operation. So
that is your primary focus that you want

817
00:54:58.239 --> 00:55:01.480
to get in operations and you want
to you when to get noisy. So

818
00:55:02.519 --> 00:55:07.079
when nine a living happened, obviously
that that you know, and I set

819
00:55:07.119 --> 00:55:10.679
the world on fire. So it
was big, and afghan was obviously the

820
00:55:10.760 --> 00:55:15.800
main one. So we were we
were actually on a training exercise in the

821
00:55:15.840 --> 00:55:19.480
Oman and then we got the word
that we were going to go to Afghanistan.

822
00:55:19.480 --> 00:55:22.400
So we went from the Old Man
doing a mobility exercise and we went

823
00:55:22.480 --> 00:55:27.239
straight to Afghanistan. We went,
we went to Bagrap. We inserted into

824
00:55:27.239 --> 00:55:30.480
Bagram Airfield when it was just tended
camp. There was nothing there. It

825
00:55:30.599 --> 00:55:32.199
was minds all over the place,
was still cleaning the place for mines.

826
00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:36.440
We were living in tents. I
mean, it was fucking I remember the

827
00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:39.079
first ever PX that was in Bagram
Airfield and it was a fucking what we

828
00:55:39.119 --> 00:55:43.119
call a touch shop. It was
about the size of my living smaller than

829
00:55:43.119 --> 00:55:46.000
this room and it was like some
like chocolate bars and some Canza cola and

830
00:55:46.039 --> 00:55:49.320
that was kind of it, you
know, and then the PX was fucking

831
00:55:49.320 --> 00:55:52.000
built. A city was built within
about twelve months. But yeah, that

832
00:55:52.039 --> 00:55:55.679
was my first experience of Afghanistan was
going out into the into Bagram Airfield and

833
00:55:55.719 --> 00:56:00.159
then we deployed from the users as
a fob we were that was our or

834
00:56:00.199 --> 00:56:04.480
for upulating base. And then then
we we had full squadron there and we

835
00:56:04.519 --> 00:56:08.440
split into two half squadrons one one
half on foot, one on vehicles,

836
00:56:08.840 --> 00:56:14.440
and we our remit was to clear
clear potential areas where where the talaban could

837
00:56:14.440 --> 00:56:16.079
have been, could have been hiding
in the caves and whatnot. So we

838
00:56:16.559 --> 00:56:22.400
just been deployed in you know,
in different capacities and spent like weeks weeks

839
00:56:22.559 --> 00:56:29.440
searching for you know, potential hideouts. You know. That was my first

840
00:56:29.440 --> 00:56:34.320
reel. That was my first real
operations with the Special Forces, apart from

841
00:56:34.360 --> 00:56:38.199
things like little little you know,
two days to Bosnia to do some arrest

842
00:56:38.239 --> 00:56:44.079
stuff and onnother that was kind of
kind of taming comparison, But yeah,

843
00:56:44.360 --> 00:56:47.880
afghan was my first real taste of
operations. And then obviously after that,

844
00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:51.480
I Raq happened in two thousand and
three, so like a year later.

845
00:56:52.119 --> 00:56:53.920
And then from that point really I
did a lot of small team stuff,

846
00:56:53.920 --> 00:57:00.079
so like small team tasks doing security
for intelligence services and other small team stuff.

847
00:57:00.079 --> 00:57:02.639
And that was like you were you
were here, there and everywhere,

848
00:57:02.840 --> 00:57:08.440
and again because we rotate, there
was different squadrons would then take over the

849
00:57:08.440 --> 00:57:12.800
the operational capability. Then you go
back to being on training again, so

850
00:57:12.840 --> 00:57:16.119
you go back to being on standby
squadron or counter terror squadron, and that's

851
00:57:16.159 --> 00:57:19.679
how it all works, So you're
you're you're never really in the one spot

852
00:57:19.760 --> 00:57:22.079
doing the one thing for that long. You know. It's probably like before

853
00:57:22.119 --> 00:57:24.599
I left, it was probably like
a few months at a time. And

854
00:57:24.639 --> 00:57:30.639
then eventually they started doing six month
tours again, which was an unheard of

855
00:57:30.719 --> 00:57:32.400
thing when I first joined, and
before that, no one went away for

856
00:57:32.440 --> 00:57:37.440
six months. It was always very
short term three months probably max. And

857
00:57:37.480 --> 00:57:39.599
then the six month tours in Iraq
were quite a thing for for quite a

858
00:57:39.639 --> 00:57:47.079
few years. So when you guys
first got to Afghanistan, was there was

859
00:57:47.119 --> 00:57:53.440
there a solid idea of what your
command were you subordinated to, like you

860
00:57:53.559 --> 00:57:58.000
asked to a general command. Was
there was there an idea of what you

861
00:57:58.039 --> 00:58:00.760
guys were doing or were you guys
just kind of pitching and where you could

862
00:58:01.239 --> 00:58:08.000
we were, well, we were
we were essentially searching and taking and dominating

863
00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:13.679
grounds. So we were securing areas
for then like the Royal Marines for example,

864
00:58:13.719 --> 00:58:16.119
they when we were there to start
with, we would we would we

865
00:58:16.119 --> 00:58:22.440
would go out and search an area
and you know, essentially fucking Aliban.

866
00:58:22.599 --> 00:58:28.519
But when there was an area that
was cleared then like they were like high

867
00:58:28.599 --> 00:58:32.039
features and dominant ground in the landscape
that we would then get ready for the

868
00:58:32.360 --> 00:58:35.920
Marines to come in, they would
they would then take that position over and

869
00:58:35.920 --> 00:58:37.760
they would they would man that as
a position. So that was just you

870
00:58:37.800 --> 00:58:44.400
know, it was it was presence. But at the same time, when

871
00:58:44.440 --> 00:58:49.000
it comes to strategy and this is
something that I you know, results lead

872
00:58:49.039 --> 00:58:54.119
clues. So the SEES was always
it was not always notorious for its It's

873
00:58:54.119 --> 00:58:59.599
more covert stuff, so you know, we're not we went typically a fighting

874
00:58:59.679 --> 00:59:02.119
force. There was more to surveillance
and reporting on things that were going on

875
00:59:02.199 --> 00:59:07.360
to then let battalions come in and
fucking run over it. So that's what

876
00:59:07.440 --> 00:59:09.920
the infantry's for, right, So
there wasn't that many of us because we

877
00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:15.760
weren't no one's, no one's you
know, dispensable, but the regiment's not

878
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:20.360
that big. They were very precious
about where they were they would put us,

879
00:59:20.440 --> 00:59:23.679
and obviously, you know, we
weren't essentially a fighting force in that

880
00:59:23.840 --> 00:59:29.719
sense, or that wasn't our primary
focus. We would be in there to

881
00:59:30.159 --> 00:59:34.360
report and stuff and gather intelligence and
whatnot. It was more sneaky beaky.

882
00:59:34.800 --> 00:59:37.440
But at the same time, there's
a time and a place that that works.

883
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:42.360
It works fucking great in the jungle, doesn't work in Afghanistan, doesn't

884
00:59:42.360 --> 00:59:45.559
work in the desert. So back
to ninety one up. You know,

885
00:59:45.920 --> 00:59:51.039
back in the first Gulf War,
when you look at when the Sees went

886
00:59:51.079 --> 00:59:53.559
in there, there was obviously a
couple of things went really fucking bad because

887
00:59:53.599 --> 00:59:58.119
the strategy was wrong because they were
they were sending guys in eight man patrols

888
00:59:58.159 --> 01:00:02.119
on foot on a fucking surfaced like
a pool table, right, you know,

889
01:00:02.239 --> 01:00:06.599
so there's nowhere to hide. So
when it came to being in these

890
01:00:06.639 --> 01:00:10.199
areas, we when we actually went
to Afghanistan, we sat in it in

891
01:00:10.239 --> 01:00:15.360
a and an opsmet and we sat
in a debrief from the Kiwi. So

892
01:00:15.599 --> 01:00:21.280
the Kiwi Sas had been there before
us actually, and they had tried to

893
01:00:21.320 --> 01:00:24.719
go out and be covert in small
teams, and they boughted the missions and

894
01:00:24.760 --> 01:00:29.679
came back and said, look,
guys, you cannot fucking hide anywhere.

895
01:00:30.199 --> 01:00:32.679
And if anyone anyone watching this has
seen the film alone, Survivor probably a

896
01:00:32.679 --> 01:00:37.039
good depiction of how it actually feels
and looks out there actually were very well

897
01:00:37.079 --> 01:00:43.559
made. There's been very well well
made parts of that movie that it really

898
01:00:43.559 --> 01:00:46.239
reminds you of the terrain out in
Afghanistan. I didn't know where that was

899
01:00:46.280 --> 01:00:51.840
filmed, that that movie, but
it's quite fucking accurate in some ways.

900
01:00:51.880 --> 01:00:55.159
So when we went out there,
we thought, well, if you can't

901
01:00:55.239 --> 01:01:00.000
hide, the only other thing to
do is is show force. Right,

902
01:01:00.119 --> 01:01:04.599
this is the tap then you've got, and this basically stand there saying you

903
01:01:04.679 --> 01:01:07.559
can come towards us, but you
better be fucking ready because we were ready.

904
01:01:07.320 --> 01:01:10.760
That's kind of the message route and
that was that that carried over into

905
01:01:10.800 --> 01:01:15.000
Iraq as well, So we went
into a raft. It was very different

906
01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:16.679
than ninety one, you know,
twelve years later, it was a very

907
01:01:16.679 --> 01:01:20.840
different story. We went out there, we went on force and we showed

908
01:01:20.840 --> 01:01:23.480
the presence because there's no fucking point
otherwise because you can't hide, right acould

909
01:01:23.480 --> 01:01:28.159
do what we were doing, you
know, this search for WMDs and shit

910
01:01:28.280 --> 01:01:30.599
like that. They went there,
funny, strangely enough, went' there.

911
01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:36.920
That's another story for another day.
And how would you guys, because a

912
01:01:36.960 --> 01:01:42.159
lot of times when you know us
Tier one units or you know, deploy

913
01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:49.119
they they they'll use this Wordnate unit
or another unit to provide their security to

914
01:01:49.119 --> 01:01:52.679
support things like that because they're not
large enough and they don't move in large

915
01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:57.199
enough forces. Yeah, to provide
that force. How did without giving away

916
01:01:57.199 --> 01:02:00.239
any TTPs, would you guys,
know, not at all? Would you

917
01:02:00.280 --> 01:02:02.800
guys bring in like the marine,
the Royal Marines or conventional forces or parers

918
01:02:02.880 --> 01:02:08.440
to help you in those in those
exercises or those Yeah, yeah, we

919
01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:13.880
did. And this is this is
another thing that really displays that one of

920
01:02:13.920 --> 01:02:16.000
the one of the parts of the
ethos of the regiment was which is humility,

921
01:02:16.679 --> 01:02:21.159
because you know, you're a fool
if you think that you're jack of

922
01:02:21.199 --> 01:02:24.519
all trades and a master of some
as well, and you can do everything.

923
01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:30.880
So what we did was when we
were going out to certain. So

924
01:02:30.960 --> 01:02:34.079
when we went to Afghanistan, for
example, we went to Iraq, we

925
01:02:34.119 --> 01:02:37.320
had a we had a platoon,
we had we had a mortar platoon from

926
01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:40.239
one of the parachute regiments who then
deployed with us. And they were fucking

927
01:02:40.280 --> 01:02:45.440
amazing because that's what they do all
the time. They are full time Martipleton

928
01:02:45.480 --> 01:02:51.199
and the capability they had it was
phenomenal and they were very professional and and

929
01:02:51.239 --> 01:02:55.199
they they they sort of bolted onto
us and deployed with us to Afghanistan.

930
01:02:55.840 --> 01:03:00.639
And you know, that's like saying, well, we can't do this ship.

931
01:03:00.679 --> 01:03:02.719
We don't have enough people, we
don't have the skills really to do

932
01:03:02.840 --> 01:03:07.400
that as well as they do.
So why not bring an infantry an infantry

933
01:03:07.559 --> 01:03:09.920
platoon, Right, it's specialist in
a skill that it's going to be an

934
01:03:09.920 --> 01:03:15.639
absolute asset and and that that would
happen. And then after I left,

935
01:03:15.679 --> 01:03:19.559
actually they started something called the Special
Force of Support Group, which was Parachute

936
01:03:19.559 --> 01:03:22.239
Regiment, and I think other other
people can join that as well. I

937
01:03:22.239 --> 01:03:25.360
think it's like a specialist support group
that was attached to the regiment. And

938
01:03:25.360 --> 01:03:30.119
again it's there to pack out the
numbers because it's like outsourcing things in a

939
01:03:30.159 --> 01:03:32.599
business, right, you're not going
to do your podcast and you're not going

940
01:03:32.599 --> 01:03:37.119
to do all the tech stuff yourself
and send all the emails and you get

941
01:03:37.159 --> 01:03:39.960
somebody else to do that, and
then you concentrate on what you do best.

942
01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:49.280
You should just get on that.
What's that? Am I wrongs are

943
01:03:49.559 --> 01:03:52.320
das our chi wal here's our chi
now now d is the best of me?

944
01:03:52.519 --> 01:03:55.119
But yeah, you're right, like, and that's I think that's one

945
01:03:55.119 --> 01:04:00.559
of the things that you know,
people don't think about it. Expercis watching

946
01:04:00.639 --> 01:04:04.039
movies. You think of, you
know, special operations as these you know,

947
01:04:04.159 --> 01:04:09.239
four man to twelve man teams wearing
all black, best thing in the

948
01:04:09.320 --> 01:04:13.719
places. But if you're in a
premissive environment like the United States or Britain

949
01:04:13.800 --> 01:04:17.159
or whatever, that's fine. But
if you're someplace where the bad guys can

950
01:04:17.199 --> 01:04:20.719
come from the next village over those
six or twelve guys, aren't, you

951
01:04:20.760 --> 01:04:25.719
know, it's not enough. And
and you know lately you've got to learn

952
01:04:25.760 --> 01:04:30.039
from history. But looking at Vietnam, yeah, any anyway in fact that

953
01:04:30.039 --> 01:04:34.440
there's been you know, some kind
of conflict bar apart from like when when

954
01:04:34.639 --> 01:04:39.760
the first golf four happened obviously and
then the coalition forces going in all the

955
01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:42.559
Iraqi surrender, because that's not an
army as a consct army, they'll be

956
01:04:42.639 --> 01:04:45.039
forced to be there. It's not
a professional army rates So there's a different

957
01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:50.239
a different gravey altogether. But when
you're going to fight a motivated resistance like

958
01:04:50.280 --> 01:04:54.880
the fucking Taliban, who have lived
in all their leaves, who have grown

959
01:04:54.920 --> 01:04:57.320
up in the mountains, you know
the mountains like the back of their hands,

960
01:04:57.360 --> 01:05:00.519
can can navigate it, can smell
all the way around. They can

961
01:05:00.559 --> 01:05:04.880
travel on foot pretty quickly because they're
always traveling light most of the time.

962
01:05:05.639 --> 01:05:10.599
Now, when you get you you
went into someone's backyard, Vietnam, be

963
01:05:10.639 --> 01:05:17.119
Afghanistan, any anywhere. You know, you're always you're always at the disadvantage.

964
01:05:17.599 --> 01:05:24.639
So you've got to show a bit
of humility in a lot of ways.

965
01:05:24.679 --> 01:05:28.920
And you've got to be humble when
it comes to being realistic about what

966
01:05:28.960 --> 01:05:32.519
you need to get a job done. And I think that's what I would

967
01:05:32.519 --> 01:05:36.079
say, that's part of the reason. I mean, I wasn't there.

968
01:05:36.079 --> 01:05:40.960
But when it comes to what the
regiment did in ninety one, there were

969
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:45.679
some fucking bad decisions made. It
cost the guys their lives. Bad decisions

970
01:05:45.719 --> 01:05:49.199
at the at the high level.
And I think that was because you know,

971
01:05:49.280 --> 01:05:53.199
where the fucking sees, we don't
we'll get this, we've got this,

972
01:05:54.400 --> 01:05:57.840
and just sprinkle some special forces dust
on it and it will all be

973
01:05:57.880 --> 01:06:01.119
fight right on reality, right,
that's not reality, you know. So

974
01:06:01.159 --> 01:06:05.320
there's some ship decisions made it And
I remember actually there was one patrol.

975
01:06:08.719 --> 01:06:13.320
There was one patrol and B squadron
that and there's a book about this.

976
01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:17.480
I forget I'll get the name of
the book, Zero not not Bravto,

977
01:06:17.719 --> 01:06:24.280
because that was the so Bravatoo.
Zero was the patrol that that fulfilled.

978
01:06:24.440 --> 01:06:28.039
They went in, they went on
the ground and they followed through with the

979
01:06:28.079 --> 01:06:30.320
mission, or they attempted to fall
through the mission, but it was it

980
01:06:30.360 --> 01:06:34.119
was again there were there were fucking
lamps of the slaughter, you know,

981
01:06:34.199 --> 01:06:38.599
really because it was a bad idea
that what they were getting those guys to

982
01:06:38.639 --> 01:06:44.360
do and the tactics that they employed
and to do that were really it's a

983
01:06:44.400 --> 01:06:46.880
really bad idea from the get going
it and it ended in disaster, you

984
01:06:46.920 --> 01:06:51.599
know, it was. It was
a real unfortunate, unfortunate chain of events

985
01:06:51.599 --> 01:06:58.920
that happened. But there was another
patrol, and again there there was a

986
01:06:59.039 --> 01:07:03.079
something. One of the guys wrote
book about this, about this chain of

987
01:07:03.119 --> 01:07:09.199
events, and the other patrol that
that was basically like a carbon copy of

988
01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:13.639
Brabatu zero. They went in on
see Kings or SH forty seven to forget

989
01:07:13.679 --> 01:07:16.719
I think they were SH forty seven's. They got on the ground, the

990
01:07:16.719 --> 01:07:23.079
patrol commander, using that vision sust
out that the terrain was so fucking flat

991
01:07:23.119 --> 01:07:26.840
there was nowhere to go, didn't
have enough time to get any anywhere to

992
01:07:26.880 --> 01:07:29.039
awardy that they could potentially hide for
a bit. I mean, it was

993
01:07:29.079 --> 01:07:32.719
a fucking terrible idea. But what
he did was he actually aborted the mission.

994
01:07:33.639 --> 01:07:36.199
He aborted the mission, and as
far as I believe, he was

995
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:41.480
criticized heavily for it because the mission
that the patrols went into the in the

996
01:07:41.519 --> 01:07:47.000
ground, one patrol stays out there
partly because of the patrol commander's fucking ego

997
01:07:47.079 --> 01:07:51.480
as well, I would say,
from what I can gather, and not

998
01:07:51.559 --> 01:07:55.360
aborting the mission because it was such
a bad idea. So the one guy

999
01:07:55.360 --> 01:07:59.519
who aborted the mission with his patrol
the back of the helicopter and then they

1000
01:07:59.519 --> 01:08:02.119
sucked off basically by the base and
said this is a ship idea. Yeah,

1001
01:08:02.360 --> 01:08:09.000
the terrain didn't support their mission and
haindsay once everything else went fucking tits

1002
01:08:09.119 --> 01:08:13.920
up with the other patrol Robercuza,
it was like you were you were right.

1003
01:08:14.679 --> 01:08:16.319
He made the right call because if
he'd have stayed in the ground,

1004
01:08:16.319 --> 01:08:19.520
it could have been even worse for
them, right, you know, people

1005
01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:26.159
people lost their laves when they shouldn't
really have use those tactics. Well,

1006
01:08:26.199 --> 01:08:30.439
and we saw something similar in Afghanistan
with Operation Red Wings right where you know,

1007
01:08:30.680 --> 01:08:34.920
yes, yeah, six Seals STV
team sent down on a yeah,

1008
01:08:35.479 --> 01:08:40.840
on a record six seals out in
you know, Indian country and in a

1009
01:08:40.920 --> 01:08:45.000
place where those people own that terrain, they know everything that's going on around

1010
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:48.039
there, not a lot of you
know, natural train features to hide in

1011
01:08:48.079 --> 01:08:54.439
and things like that. Yeah,
how was it for you guys, because

1012
01:08:54.600 --> 01:09:00.279
you know, we already had Jaysck
in place, you know, so there

1013
01:09:00.319 --> 01:09:04.199
was that sort of some of the
some control over the special operations. But

1014
01:09:04.279 --> 01:09:08.720
for you guys, did you have
to fight battles with your command in terms

1015
01:09:08.760 --> 01:09:13.000
of this is not what like what
you say in the movies isn't real,

1016
01:09:13.079 --> 01:09:16.399
This is not our capability or this
is not a smart way to do this.

1017
01:09:17.239 --> 01:09:20.600
How was that for you in the
initial parts of Afghanistan, Well,

1018
01:09:20.920 --> 01:09:25.039
you just don't go you're not going
looking for a fight. You're there prepared

1019
01:09:25.079 --> 01:09:26.920
for the fight, but you don't
go looking for the fight. You're not

1020
01:09:26.960 --> 01:09:30.600
there to fight. You're there to
to you know, find in report and

1021
01:09:30.640 --> 01:09:36.920
record, primarily as a primary function
of the special posters. Really, but

1022
01:09:38.640 --> 01:09:43.760
you know, things do happen where
I mean I remember once in in Iraq

1023
01:09:43.800 --> 01:09:46.680
and again to switch to Iraq as
an example of this. There was there

1024
01:09:46.720 --> 01:09:50.279
was decision made at one point because
we were we were trying to we were

1025
01:09:50.319 --> 01:09:54.439
clearing all these areas, right,
so there was two saber squadrons and there

1026
01:09:54.479 --> 01:09:59.119
was a squadron of SBS in the
desert as well, both and we had

1027
01:09:59.159 --> 01:10:02.960
a certain geographical area that we had
to had to move across and we had

1028
01:10:02.960 --> 01:10:08.600
to clear or report on the situation, and there was it was. It

1029
01:10:08.680 --> 01:10:13.159
was a stupid amount of distance,
and I mean it was I remember the

1030
01:10:13.199 --> 01:10:17.319
first five days in Iraq on the
ground. I always say I've never been

1031
01:10:17.359 --> 01:10:21.560
as tired of my fucking life as
I was then. I've never experienced tiredness

1032
01:10:21.640 --> 01:10:26.600
like that ever, because we had
so much distance to cover, so much

1033
01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:30.319
terrain to cover, it was almost
undoable. I mean it was everyone was

1034
01:10:30.399 --> 01:10:34.560
up. It was functioning way below
optimal, put it that way. But

1035
01:10:34.640 --> 01:10:40.039
I remember, you know, we
we we got to a point where we

1036
01:10:40.039 --> 01:10:43.920
were clearing this massive airfield and at
the time, there was only a half

1037
01:10:43.920 --> 01:10:47.079
squadron, so it was probably about
twenty guys in a few vehicles. You

1038
01:10:47.239 --> 01:10:50.319
probably like, you know, it's
six vehicles or something that with a couple

1039
01:10:50.319 --> 01:10:57.079
of external factions, a couple of
intelligence guys and stuff from the US actually

1040
01:10:57.079 --> 01:11:01.520
as well. But we were clear
clearing, were on the border of this

1041
01:11:01.680 --> 01:11:06.159
airfield, and we didn't know what
was going to be resistant within the airfield

1042
01:11:06.159 --> 01:11:11.439
because we couldn't really see to the
extent. This place was fucking massive.

1043
01:11:12.319 --> 01:11:15.479
And so we get we get sent
down me and it's the first time I've

1044
01:11:15.479 --> 01:11:18.199
ever been actively shot. It was
the first time I've actually fucking felt myself

1045
01:11:18.359 --> 01:11:21.079
dodging bullets and wondering if the next
one was going to hit my head.

1046
01:11:21.880 --> 01:11:27.279
And that was a weird experience,
as you likely know. But we went

1047
01:11:27.319 --> 01:11:32.279
down the border of this airfield and
then it was always remember thinking about this

1048
01:11:32.439 --> 01:11:38.159
when I was in basic training because
I criticized this afterwards because when when you're

1049
01:11:38.199 --> 01:11:44.520
in basic infantry school, you there's
a there's a tactic. There was.

1050
01:11:44.560 --> 01:11:46.760
Any guys that are in the reserves
here watching this, don't take offense,

1051
01:11:46.920 --> 01:11:50.399
don't take it personal. But they
would make a joke that one of the

1052
01:11:50.439 --> 01:11:53.640
things you would do to locate the
enemy. I'm not sure they do this

1053
01:11:53.680 --> 01:11:56.159
in the US, right, but
one of the tactics that they would use

1054
01:11:56.199 --> 01:12:00.600
to locate the enemy, so within
within the battle Drulls procedure when it comes

1055
01:12:00.600 --> 01:12:03.880
to you, you know, reacting
to effective enemy fire. You know,

1056
01:12:03.920 --> 01:12:06.560
you find cover and all that,
and then you're trying to locate the enemy.

1057
01:12:06.840 --> 01:12:10.960
And if you can't locate the enemy, one of the one of the

1058
01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:14.880
methods that they would teach you is
to is to draw the enemy spire.

1059
01:12:14.880 --> 01:12:18.119
It was called so draw enemy spire, like you send someone a bound forward

1060
01:12:18.119 --> 01:12:21.880
and see who shoots that. So
they would then jo and say send so

1061
01:12:21.920 --> 01:12:27.840
we called the ta's like territorial armies
that our reserve force. So they would

1062
01:12:27.840 --> 01:12:30.600
say, always send the TA guy. If you've got a TA guy attached,

1063
01:12:30.600 --> 01:12:33.560
to send him draw the enemy spire
because he's the most fucking dispensable,

1064
01:12:33.680 --> 01:12:39.000
right. So anyway, so back
to Iraq. We're in this vehicle and

1065
01:12:39.079 --> 01:12:43.359
we're going down the border, down
the down the perimeter of this airfield and

1066
01:12:43.600 --> 01:12:46.520
it was essentially like fucking draw the
enemy spire, you know, see what

1067
01:12:46.560 --> 01:12:49.039
happens because we couldn't locate it.
We knew there was there was there was

1068
01:12:49.119 --> 01:12:53.119
rounds by fire, there were people
firing at some somewhere, but we couldn't

1069
01:12:53.119 --> 01:12:56.920
see them. So we were driving
down the down the perimeter of this airfield

1070
01:12:57.199 --> 01:13:00.399
and all of a sudden, this
one almighty fucking burst opens up and it's

1071
01:13:00.439 --> 01:13:03.159
coming right at us. There's two
vehicles covering each other, and it was

1072
01:13:03.159 --> 01:13:06.000
the first time we had to actually
fucking you know, you know, withdraw

1073
01:13:06.159 --> 01:13:10.600
from from heavy heavy fire, and
we didn't know how many of there was.

1074
01:13:10.920 --> 01:13:13.880
We just knew that was it was
manned. There's fucking lots of rounds

1075
01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:17.279
flying. And we managed to break, you know, break out of the

1076
01:13:17.319 --> 01:13:23.439
firefight and we got back to cover
and at that point we actually retreated because

1077
01:13:23.479 --> 01:13:26.000
we thought there's there's there's not enough
of us here. We've don't it.

1078
01:13:26.159 --> 01:13:30.159
You know, Usually British Army tactics
was always like a four to one ratio,

1079
01:13:30.600 --> 01:13:32.600
you're going to go to assort a
position which is a four to one

1080
01:13:32.680 --> 01:13:35.399
ratio in your favor. So we
didn't have a fucking clue. So it

1081
01:13:35.560 --> 01:13:40.119
just was too much of a risk. So the decision was made to withdraw,

1082
01:13:40.680 --> 01:13:44.399
and then we you know, we
just wouldn't fucking go any further because

1083
01:13:44.680 --> 01:13:46.039
you never know what's going to be
around the corner, so to speak.

1084
01:13:46.279 --> 01:13:53.319
And you got to think about everything
when it comes to decisions being made analysis

1085
01:13:53.319 --> 01:13:56.920
that happens on the ground by commanders. There's always a risk and reward balance,

1086
01:13:57.039 --> 01:13:59.880
right, So high risk have to
be fucking really high reward, right,

1087
01:14:00.680 --> 01:14:03.640
otherwise you know, there's just no
point and it's tough for those situations.

1088
01:14:03.720 --> 01:14:08.039
Also, it's it's likely. Yeah, it's like the commander that you

1089
01:14:08.239 --> 01:14:12.880
said aborted the patrol in the Gulf. W is that you know, it's

1090
01:14:12.960 --> 01:14:15.920
kind of a zero or hero moment. And the thing is, if you're

1091
01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:19.560
the person calling out the danger and
saying this is a high risk scenario with

1092
01:14:19.680 --> 01:14:25.560
little reward you you you can start
to look like a chicken little or people

1093
01:14:25.560 --> 01:14:28.319
who are really motivated to do the
opp And then if you go on the

1094
01:14:28.319 --> 01:14:30.680
op and nothing happens. Then it's
like, oh see, you know you're

1095
01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:34.800
worried for not told yourself. Yeah
I told you so. Yeah, it's

1096
01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:38.680
and that's the thing that and that's
what's defficult at being a leader, being

1097
01:14:38.680 --> 01:14:41.279
a commander, because you've got to
make some tough decisions. You've got to

1098
01:14:41.279 --> 01:14:44.199
look at yourself in the middle.
You have to answer to people as well.

1099
01:14:44.319 --> 01:14:49.560
And I think you've always got to
make a decision sometimes fucking quickly that

1100
01:14:49.560 --> 01:14:55.119
you're going to you're gonna be able
to be happy with. And you know,

1101
01:14:56.399 --> 01:14:58.560
it's a it's a it's a difficult
one, right. I mean,

1102
01:14:59.279 --> 01:15:01.399
no one's got a still ball.
No one can tell what's going to happen.

1103
01:15:02.439 --> 01:15:06.319
Some of it is luck and fate. Whatever happens happens, right,

1104
01:15:06.439 --> 01:15:11.960
But at some point, you've got
to make a fucking decision, right,

1105
01:15:12.079 --> 01:15:15.039
you have to make a decision,
because it's like that old said, if

1106
01:15:15.039 --> 01:15:16.840
you stand on the crossroads for long
enough and don't make a decision, some

1107
01:15:16.920 --> 01:15:20.079
of they'll fucking run you over eventually. Yeah, you need to go one

1108
01:15:20.119 --> 01:15:24.119
way. You need to make a
decision. And sometimes the wrong decision is

1109
01:15:24.119 --> 01:15:27.600
better than no decision is after it's
done, right, you know so,

1110
01:15:27.800 --> 01:15:30.279
and then this is the thing is
I always remember when when I first went

1111
01:15:30.319 --> 01:15:33.399
to b Squadron, when I passed
selection and I was looking obbson, I

1112
01:15:33.479 --> 01:15:38.000
was in awe of all the all
the photographs all over. We called it

1113
01:15:38.039 --> 01:15:43.479
the interest Room. It's like the
little shrine within the squadron, you know,

1114
01:15:43.560 --> 01:15:47.159
office block, and all the all
the pictures from every single generation throughout

1115
01:15:47.159 --> 01:15:49.720
the years covered the walls. And
there was this there was one in the

1116
01:15:49.720 --> 01:15:51.960
hallway and it was the it was
the guys at at the back of the

1117
01:15:51.960 --> 01:15:56.319
tailgate of the Helly before the Brave
Zero troveing in. So it was the

1118
01:15:56.359 --> 01:15:59.960
last photograph to get taken before they
deployed. And it's a really cool foot

1119
01:16:00.039 --> 01:16:01.399
grab. It's in the book.
It's in the Braveger's book actually, but

1120
01:16:01.479 --> 01:16:04.880
this same photograph with all the guys
on it, it was on the wall

1121
01:16:06.119 --> 01:16:10.319
and it and it said at the
top of the of the picture, and

1122
01:16:10.600 --> 01:16:14.800
don't criticize what you don't understand,
because there was obviously a lot of criticism

1123
01:16:15.319 --> 01:16:17.960
from different directions from right, you
know, various things that happened. And

1124
01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:23.079
I think that's that's a good point
that because it's easy to criticize when it's

1125
01:16:23.119 --> 01:16:26.680
not you. It's easy to criticize
when something's already happened that you could have

1126
01:16:26.720 --> 01:16:28.760
said, Ah, I called you, so you didn't fucking know. That

1127
01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:31.119
could have gone either way. So
I think it's it's very easy to criticize,

1128
01:16:31.479 --> 01:16:34.760
and you know, you got to, I think be respectful that some

1129
01:16:34.800 --> 01:16:39.159
poor fucker has to look at themselves
in the middle. They'll be proud of

1130
01:16:39.159 --> 01:16:42.199
themselves the rest of their lives because
they made a decision that they know is

1131
01:16:42.239 --> 01:16:45.399
wrong. And it's never going to
be from malicious intent, but it can

1132
01:16:45.479 --> 01:16:51.479
sometimes be from a place of ego. Right then obviously sacrifices other people potentially,

1133
01:16:51.520 --> 01:16:56.279
that's the other thing. Yeah,
I want to ask you a little

1134
01:16:56.279 --> 01:16:59.359
bit more in depth about like a
rack and what it was like when you

1135
01:16:59.439 --> 01:17:06.039
started of deploying there more unlike I
imagine slipping into that deployment rotation. Yeah.

1136
01:17:06.079 --> 01:17:10.560
So, so I only did the
one tour with with the squadron over

1137
01:17:10.600 --> 01:17:14.439
in Iraq. It was the last
operation or three that I did actually,

1138
01:17:14.840 --> 01:17:16.279
and that was off the back of
Afghasa. So I was on a on

1139
01:17:16.319 --> 01:17:20.279
a team task in Afghanistan, a
small team task, and I actually went

1140
01:17:20.319 --> 01:17:27.039
from Afghanistan on on tour, on
deployment, and I went straight to think,

1141
01:17:27.079 --> 01:17:29.640
go home. I went straight to
Iraq. And then that was when

1142
01:17:29.960 --> 01:17:33.039
we were actually next door to the
Delta guys, and there was like the

1143
01:17:33.119 --> 01:17:38.600
Ranger Battalion company company rangers who would
do our orders and stuff like that,

1144
01:17:38.640 --> 01:17:41.399
like we said earlier, you know, they would they would do the like

1145
01:17:41.479 --> 01:17:45.279
they would man accordings. They would
deploy with us and jobs and then between

1146
01:17:45.560 --> 01:17:49.159
us and Delta, you know,
some some operations were jointed somewhere individual,

1147
01:17:49.439 --> 01:17:54.079
but we were next door to them. And that that was all the the

1148
01:17:54.159 --> 01:17:58.119
you know, the the city stuff, you know, you know, assaulting

1149
01:17:58.159 --> 01:18:00.960
buildings in the middle of the night. That was was what that was very

1150
01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:03.880
much all about, which was and
I always remember like that I had one

1151
01:18:03.880 --> 01:18:06.680
of those I always remember the first
time that I did this. It was

1152
01:18:06.680 --> 01:18:11.319
one of those moments like I pinch
yourself moment, right, and it was

1153
01:18:11.359 --> 01:18:14.600
like it was like being in a
movie, because nothing else is like the

1154
01:18:14.640 --> 01:18:16.880
movies when you when you get to
the squadron, because when you do when

1155
01:18:16.880 --> 01:18:20.039
you do something like room and combat. I always remember thinking when I first

1156
01:18:20.039 --> 01:18:24.760
had room combat, when we were
taught on selection course, the counter terrorist

1157
01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:29.399
drills where you wear all your black
gear, the respberrayers. Having watched Hoodia's

1158
01:18:29.439 --> 01:18:32.760
Winds and other movies where people fly
out of fucking helicopters to windows and then

1159
01:18:32.800 --> 01:18:38.520
they run down corridors and through doors
and it all happens very quickly, whereas

1160
01:18:38.560 --> 01:18:43.800
in reality it's really slow, really
methodical. Yes, everything's really deliberate.

1161
01:18:45.199 --> 01:18:48.239
Even in an emergency situation where you're
doing it in emergency response, it's still

1162
01:18:48.319 --> 01:18:54.840
it's still slower than you expect.
So then when we were in Iraq and

1163
01:18:54.880 --> 01:18:57.760
the first time that we went out
on the ground and actually did a house

1164
01:18:57.760 --> 01:19:01.479
assault in the middle of the night, that was when I got this moment

1165
01:19:01.520 --> 01:19:04.520
of how the fucking I get any
better than this, because this is like

1166
01:19:04.560 --> 01:19:08.039
the coolest ship I've ever done in
my life, right, And I was

1167
01:19:08.079 --> 01:19:11.000
sat on this on the skid of
a little bird with the fast rope,

1168
01:19:11.399 --> 01:19:15.319
and we were we were the roof
team and this one one up that we

1169
01:19:15.359 --> 01:19:17.800
did and we were the roof team. So I was a guy with one

1170
01:19:17.800 --> 01:19:21.359
of the fast ropes and when you
go in, you know you're you're going

1171
01:19:21.359 --> 01:19:25.640
in towards the roof of the building
in the middle of the city somewhere,

1172
01:19:26.279 --> 01:19:30.159
and it's that you can see the
explosions got off, the entry explosions,

1173
01:19:30.159 --> 01:19:36.439
because they go off for the top
team lands for obvious reasons. And I

1174
01:19:36.479 --> 01:19:41.520
remember just being in the last seconds
before landing on the roof of this building

1175
01:19:41.960 --> 01:19:44.640
and seeing all these in this the
dead and night, it's like fucking three

1176
01:19:44.640 --> 01:19:46.600
o'clock in the morning, whatever it
was, and there's all these explosions going

1177
01:19:46.640 --> 01:19:50.640
off in mult in every single aspect
of this building, and then we're in

1178
01:19:50.680 --> 01:19:53.640
a hell. You go into this
fucking roof and it was just like,

1179
01:19:53.680 --> 01:19:56.319
holy shit, this is like,
this is like the ship. You know,

1180
01:19:57.000 --> 01:20:00.000
this is what this is what I
joined for. And then you know

1181
01:20:00.039 --> 01:20:02.800
you're running, you know, you're
you're going through building Dorothy. But it's

1182
01:20:02.880 --> 01:20:06.279
like that. That was when I
thought, this is like being in a

1183
01:20:06.319 --> 01:20:10.640
Special Forces. This is what it's
all about. And I guess after I

1184
01:20:10.680 --> 01:20:14.239
had done that, in all honesty, it was like, how what can

1185
01:20:14.279 --> 01:20:16.840
you do now? That's better than
that? Right? Yeah, there is

1186
01:20:16.920 --> 01:20:21.680
there is nothing more exciting. But
I mean there was other things that I

1187
01:20:21.680 --> 01:20:28.880
did that were that were probably more
I felt more pressure with the responsibility.

1188
01:20:29.199 --> 01:20:31.000
So there was one job I did
when I was in the squadron, we

1189
01:20:31.239 --> 01:20:38.119
we were up in the the and
the nim Rods with the the f through

1190
01:20:38.119 --> 01:20:41.720
the Air Force, and we would
be the overwatch, so when all these

1191
01:20:41.720 --> 01:20:44.760
things were happening, we'd be in
the sky thousands feet up. And I

1192
01:20:44.920 --> 01:20:48.319
was like this day on the ground, the surveillance in the sky for the

1193
01:20:48.359 --> 01:20:54.199
whole squadron. So I remember once
following this, following this one vehicle for

1194
01:20:54.239 --> 01:20:58.079
about six hours without looking away from
the screen and my fucking eyes to follow

1195
01:20:58.079 --> 01:21:00.880
out my head, but I remember
that it was it was surveillance followed by

1196
01:21:00.960 --> 01:21:06.039
the talk onto a job. So
I literally watched through this fucking high powered

1197
01:21:06.119 --> 01:21:11.199
lens the Saber squadron arriving, all
the wages, the cording going in,

1198
01:21:11.279 --> 01:21:14.079
and it was like watching it from
a bird's eye view in detail and thinking,

1199
01:21:14.119 --> 01:21:15.960
ah shit, this is how it
looks from above, and watching the

1200
01:21:15.960 --> 01:21:19.279
guys even stack up on the doors
and the windows, and then the helly

1201
01:21:19.319 --> 01:21:23.399
team coming in. I saw the
whole thing happen, and I was responsible

1202
01:21:23.439 --> 01:21:26.680
for making sure that they knew what
was going on the whole time. Who

1203
01:21:26.760 --> 01:21:29.039
was outside the buildin, who was
on the fucking roof, who was walking

1204
01:21:29.079 --> 01:21:30.840
around. I was reporting on everything. I mean, I was fucking.

1205
01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:36.000
I was mentally fucked. That was. I was a corporal then, so

1206
01:21:36.079 --> 01:21:39.439
I was. I wasn't like a
senior guy I was. I was a

1207
01:21:39.439 --> 01:21:42.520
corporal. I was a junior NCO, but I was. It was only

1208
01:21:42.560 --> 01:21:45.479
the only sees guy that was on
this job with the Air Force, so

1209
01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:49.039
I had a lot of responsibility.
And I remember thinking to myself, right,

1210
01:21:49.079 --> 01:21:51.840
I didn't. I tried not overthink
it because I thought I am literally

1211
01:21:51.880 --> 01:21:57.880
the fucking eyes for a whole squadron
for this operation, and it was.

1212
01:21:58.199 --> 01:22:01.600
I thought about it afterwards and realized
how how much responsibility it had been,

1213
01:22:02.119 --> 01:22:06.760
and I was glad that I hadn't
actually, you know, considered the magnitude

1214
01:22:06.800 --> 01:22:11.399
of that beforehand, because it'd have
probably been shipping myself even more. But

1215
01:22:11.840 --> 01:22:15.119
I always remember thinking back on that
and being quite proud of myself because I

1216
01:22:15.159 --> 01:22:17.960
did a fucking awesome job on it, and you know, and they said

1217
01:22:17.960 --> 01:22:20.720
that, you know, that was
fucking awesome, great eyes in the sky,

1218
01:22:20.840 --> 01:22:25.039
and you know, all the communication
was brilliant, and that was something

1219
01:22:25.079 --> 01:22:28.439
that gave me a lot of confidence
actually in my abilities as a soldier.

1220
01:22:28.439 --> 01:22:32.439
But then after that It wasn't long
after that I actually left. I left

1221
01:22:32.439 --> 01:22:35.119
the regiment, you know, probably
a year or so after that. What

1222
01:22:35.479 --> 01:22:40.039
motivated that decision? I mean,
it sounds like you really loved being a

1223
01:22:40.079 --> 01:22:44.800
soldier, you really loved the regiment. Iron was that a difficult decision to

1224
01:22:44.840 --> 01:22:47.560
decide to leave it? It was
really difficult and it was really easy at

1225
01:22:47.560 --> 01:22:51.920
the same time. And then that
might not make sense, but I had

1226
01:22:51.920 --> 01:22:57.039
a gut feeling, and the gut
feeling wasn't It wasn't anything to do with

1227
01:22:57.640 --> 01:23:00.520
I don't like this anymore, because
I did like it and I love the

1228
01:23:00.600 --> 01:23:05.000
job. But I guess my mind, just my mind just changed and I

1229
01:23:05.039 --> 01:23:09.800
started thinking about life differently. I
started to realize that if it was going

1230
01:23:09.800 --> 01:23:13.199
to if I was going to stay
in the in the regiment, I was

1231
01:23:13.319 --> 01:23:15.720
kind of like a turning point.
I was at a turning point where I

1232
01:23:15.760 --> 01:23:18.159
had to make it. You know. It was almost like a fork in

1233
01:23:18.159 --> 01:23:25.039
the road, and I thought,
I've acchoose this life. Then I was

1234
01:23:25.079 --> 01:23:30.960
witnessed to I was witness to people
who had a lot of marriage. Probably

1235
01:23:30.039 --> 01:23:35.159
I mean the guys who are married
in the regiment. It doesn't have great

1236
01:23:35.159 --> 01:23:40.520
success on that front. There's a
lot of divorce. There's a lot of

1237
01:23:41.720 --> 01:23:45.119
you know, not so nice endings
in that sense for some of the families

1238
01:23:45.119 --> 01:23:50.359
because there's a lot of divorce.
There's a hypercentage divorced, right And I

1239
01:23:50.359 --> 01:23:56.279
could see that it was a massive
problem within the regiment, and so I

1240
01:23:56.279 --> 01:23:59.439
guess that was something at the time. You know, I end up getting

1241
01:23:59.479 --> 01:24:01.479
I ended being married when I was
like about twenty five, and at the

1242
01:24:01.479 --> 01:24:05.920
time I was then with I,
I was married then. Actually I was

1243
01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:10.760
married, so I was married.
I didn't have any kids at that point,

1244
01:24:10.800 --> 01:24:15.680
but planned to have kids, and
I guess that was quite an influence

1245
01:24:15.720 --> 01:24:17.279
at the time. I thought,
you know, I want that to be

1246
01:24:17.319 --> 01:24:20.159
successful. I want to have children, I want to be able to see

1247
01:24:20.159 --> 01:24:23.920
them, and I also want to
be in control of my life. And

1248
01:24:23.960 --> 01:24:28.039
I felt like really owned by the
military, because you are, they own

1249
01:24:28.119 --> 01:24:30.880
you, and they dictate where you're
going to be, how long you're going

1250
01:24:30.920 --> 01:24:31.760
to be there for, what are
you going to do, what you can

1251
01:24:31.800 --> 01:24:35.960
tell your family. And it takes
a special kind of woman to be with

1252
01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:39.479
a guy who does that job.
He's a lot of patients, a lot

1253
01:24:39.520 --> 01:24:44.199
of commitment, and a lot of
understanding. So I guess for me,

1254
01:24:44.279 --> 01:24:47.960
it was like I thought, I've
done lots of things in the last deverle

1255
01:24:48.079 --> 01:24:51.319
years, you know what. I
had done a lot of operations, there

1256
01:24:51.319 --> 01:24:56.880
were multiple facets to that. I've
done small team tasks, squadron deployments.

1257
01:24:57.640 --> 01:25:00.479
I've been lots of places and had
a great time. And I sensed that

1258
01:25:00.800 --> 01:25:04.600
if I was to if I was
to stay, then then that I'd be

1259
01:25:04.600 --> 01:25:11.000
committing to the full time. And
I thought that might be the detriment of

1260
01:25:11.279 --> 01:25:16.399
having a family or having control over
my life. However, if I chose

1261
01:25:16.439 --> 01:25:20.159
to leave, was I going to
regret it? But I thought about it

1262
01:25:20.199 --> 01:25:24.600
for a little while, and then
every time I thought about it just kept

1263
01:25:24.600 --> 01:25:28.159
on coming back to the same thing. I wanted to have more control over

1264
01:25:28.159 --> 01:25:30.880
my life. And I knew as
well. It was something that kind of

1265
01:25:30.880 --> 01:25:34.640
told me that I just there was
something else I had to do, something

1266
01:25:34.640 --> 01:25:39.359
else I had to be doing that
wasn't this, and I didn't know where

1267
01:25:39.399 --> 01:25:42.520
it was. I didn't actually have
a clue where it was. But I

1268
01:25:42.520 --> 01:25:46.079
had this real desire to be an
influence to other people that I wanted to

1269
01:25:46.079 --> 01:25:49.840
help people with, you know,
genuine life problems and stuff like that.

1270
01:25:51.159 --> 01:25:54.640
At the same time, I was
into my bodybuilding. It was into my

1271
01:25:54.800 --> 01:25:58.720
you know, I was. I
was bodybuilding then recreationally, not competitively,

1272
01:25:58.760 --> 01:26:00.039
but I guess but that I was
like, well, maybe I could do

1273
01:26:00.039 --> 01:26:02.319
something with this. Maybe I could
be a personal trainer, Maybe I could

1274
01:26:02.359 --> 01:26:05.239
be a coach. Maybe I could
do this, Maybe I could open a

1275
01:26:05.279 --> 01:26:09.319
gym, maybe I could you know, working fitness. And that's what I

1276
01:26:09.319 --> 01:26:11.840
did when I left after a couple
of years. You know, I did

1277
01:26:11.880 --> 01:26:17.239
actually go into the gym business for
a number of years. How did you

1278
01:26:17.319 --> 01:26:21.119
like that? I mean, was
that a good transition for you? Really

1279
01:26:21.159 --> 01:26:26.960
difficult? Difficult the business side of
it or the coaching side of it,

1280
01:26:27.800 --> 01:26:31.920
everything, Because I think I would
say I didn't realize how difficult it was

1281
01:26:31.960 --> 01:26:34.359
going to be. It was more
of a it was more of a mental

1282
01:26:34.399 --> 01:26:42.640
thing. It was the it was
the environmental contrast. It was a shock

1283
01:26:43.119 --> 01:26:46.279
the system that I didn't really handle
that well. I I'm being completely honest.

1284
01:26:46.279 --> 01:26:55.000
I didn't really take to being a
civilian dealing with civilians in a customer

1285
01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:59.680
facing business. I was really bad. I was really bad at didn't have

1286
01:26:59.680 --> 01:27:06.279
a clue with business. I remember
thinking to myself, well, retrospectively.

1287
01:27:06.359 --> 01:27:11.920
This is not realizing how hard I
had found that until quite a number of

1288
01:27:12.000 --> 01:27:16.359
years afterwards. I actually had a
realization one day that what I had from

1289
01:27:16.439 --> 01:27:23.279
the age of seventeen until I was
dirty. It was like I'd had structure,

1290
01:27:23.479 --> 01:27:27.319
I had a mission, had had
to fucking had, I had purpose.

1291
01:27:28.319 --> 01:27:32.279
I had community by you know,
the cameraderie with the other guys,

1292
01:27:32.680 --> 01:27:35.600
and I fucking missed all that.
You know, I didn't miss being in

1293
01:27:35.600 --> 01:27:42.880
the army, so to speak,
but I missed the guys. I missed

1294
01:27:42.880 --> 01:27:47.600
some of the work, obviously,
because you never really lose that. But

1295
01:27:46.800 --> 01:27:51.600
I I saw I was lost.
And I guess for me, like doing

1296
01:27:51.640 --> 01:27:56.479
bodybuilding, it's super strict, right, so it gives you structure, it

1297
01:27:56.479 --> 01:28:02.800
gives you purpose, gives you some
teleological fucking goals, and so I guess.

1298
01:28:03.520 --> 01:28:08.359
Although I was really into fitness and
wanting to look good and all that

1299
01:28:08.359 --> 01:28:10.600
shit, like the vanity becomes with
that, but it was for me,

1300
01:28:10.640 --> 01:28:13.399
it wasn't really about ego and vanity. It was more about there's a big

1301
01:28:13.399 --> 01:28:15.520
part of that. But I would
say I've always had a creative mind,

1302
01:28:16.279 --> 01:28:23.000
very artistic, So for me,
bodybuilding was about stopping your body and changing

1303
01:28:23.039 --> 01:28:26.079
it in a way that you could
create something that was you know, that

1304
01:28:26.239 --> 01:28:30.920
was desirable or you know, that
was artistic and had an element of beauty

1305
01:28:30.960 --> 01:28:32.359
to it. So for me,
bodybuilding was like an art form really,

1306
01:28:33.560 --> 01:28:36.920
but it was also the structure side
of bodybilding that kept me in and let

1307
01:28:36.920 --> 01:28:41.119
it kept me attached to something.
And again that was at the detriment of

1308
01:28:41.159 --> 01:28:44.479
other things. I was never that
good at being I was never that good

1309
01:28:44.560 --> 01:28:47.319
at being in a relationship, you
know, being a husband, being a

1310
01:28:47.319 --> 01:28:51.279
partner to anybody. I wasn't ever
that good at that because I almost had

1311
01:28:51.279 --> 01:28:57.720
some sort of fucking weird attachment thing, and I think going on in that

1312
01:28:57.880 --> 01:29:00.319
in that situation, I was all
was a good dad. I always you

1313
01:29:00.359 --> 01:29:02.560
know, I would always pay myself
and being a very good dad to this

1314
01:29:02.680 --> 01:29:08.439
day, not as my favorite title
is dad, and you know, it's

1315
01:29:08.439 --> 01:29:13.319
the best thing I've ever experienced,
but against when it came to being out

1316
01:29:13.319 --> 01:29:16.720
the military running a business that I
was really interested in, but then I

1317
01:29:16.760 --> 01:29:20.119
realized that you got to make money. It was difficult to make money,

1318
01:29:20.239 --> 01:29:25.159
certainly enough money pay the bills.
My strategy wasn't that great. When I

1319
01:29:25.199 --> 01:29:29.000
came to building a business. There
was a lot of fucking blind spots,

1320
01:29:29.119 --> 01:29:31.159
a lot of bottlenecks. I was
essentially the bottleneck of the business for a

1321
01:29:31.199 --> 01:29:40.159
long time, and that pressure of
the business then got quite stressful, and

1322
01:29:40.199 --> 01:29:43.920
then I just obsessed about bodybuilding.
Now, when I was obsessed about bodybuilding,

1323
01:29:44.000 --> 01:29:45.279
like I did with everything else in
my life, I fucking did really

1324
01:29:45.359 --> 01:29:48.079
well. I won thing I want, most of the shows that I did.

1325
01:29:48.119 --> 01:29:50.680
I was a very accomplished bodybuilder.
I was very good at it.

1326
01:29:53.319 --> 01:29:56.119
But then at the same time,
other things in my life were like fucking

1327
01:29:56.560 --> 01:29:59.960
It was like it was like that
seeing Dumb and Dumber when he's he looks

1328
01:30:00.079 --> 01:30:02.680
over the thing and there's like fucking
fireballs in the background. It was like

1329
01:30:02.720 --> 01:30:05.920
a blaze of fire behind me because
it was loads of other things that were

1330
01:30:05.920 --> 01:30:10.199
going wrong that I wasn't managing.
Yeah, relationship, you know, family,

1331
01:30:10.359 --> 01:30:15.920
family, life, money, you
know, struggling financially because it was

1332
01:30:15.960 --> 01:30:19.439
trying to spend too many plates because
there wasn't very good at delegation, even

1333
01:30:19.439 --> 01:30:21.920
though I've been in the military.
When it came to running the business,

1334
01:30:21.960 --> 01:30:26.119
I thought, who can I trust? You're going to trust the management to,

1335
01:30:26.680 --> 01:30:29.079
Who're going to trust in my books
where you look at my bank accounts

1336
01:30:29.079 --> 01:30:32.359
by dealing with all this shit.
So I was very I was very kind

1337
01:30:32.399 --> 01:30:38.079
of closed off to that possibility.
So it's one of the old learning curves

1338
01:30:38.119 --> 01:30:40.520
of life. You know. As
time went on, I did learn how

1339
01:30:40.560 --> 01:30:44.560
to do business better, but at
the same time I found it really challenging.

1340
01:30:44.720 --> 01:30:45.640
Yeah. So there was a lot
of these things that were getting to

1341
01:30:45.680 --> 01:30:48.680
me, and the only thing that
really kept me attacked to something was the

1342
01:30:48.680 --> 01:30:54.479
structure with body building. How did
how did you? Eventually? It sounds

1343
01:30:54.479 --> 01:30:58.640
like you ended up leaving that behind
to some extent and going into human performance

1344
01:30:58.720 --> 01:31:01.359
coaching. Can you tell us all
little bit about that and kind of where

1345
01:31:01.399 --> 01:31:06.760
you're at today. Yeah, So
when that happened, I had a realization

1346
01:31:06.840 --> 01:31:11.479
as well, back in twenty fourteen. I always remember this, this one

1347
01:31:11.560 --> 01:31:14.640
day that I had this realization that
I just wasn't happy. I couldn't really

1348
01:31:14.640 --> 01:31:17.479
work out. I knew things were
I knew things weren't weren't great in some

1349
01:31:17.560 --> 01:31:21.760
aspects of my life, but it
was more from a personal fulfillment side of

1350
01:31:21.840 --> 01:31:25.159
things. It was like, what
am I doing? What is my purpose?

1351
01:31:25.199 --> 01:31:27.279
You know? You know that feeling
you get where you think I'm not

1352
01:31:27.359 --> 01:31:29.760
in the right fucking yeah, I'm
not doing the right thing here. I

1353
01:31:29.760 --> 01:31:30.920
don't know what I should be doing, but I just know that this isn't

1354
01:31:30.960 --> 01:31:35.000
it. There's something else out there, and I don't know what it is

1355
01:31:35.039 --> 01:31:38.000
yet. I don't know what I'm
going to fall in love with doing.

1356
01:31:38.600 --> 01:31:43.760
So I felt a bit lost again. So I guess my self awareness for

1357
01:31:43.840 --> 01:31:47.560
a period of time was not the
best because I was just I was packing

1358
01:31:47.560 --> 01:31:51.039
down all these emotions that were that
were getting to me, and I was

1359
01:31:51.079 --> 01:31:55.520
just I was just showing up every
day and pretending everything's okay, and the

1360
01:31:55.520 --> 01:31:59.159
whole body building fastad of you know, then social media comes along and you're

1361
01:31:59.199 --> 01:32:01.479
just putting out shit that people want. People think you're having a great life.

1362
01:32:01.520 --> 01:32:06.239
But it was within me. I
realized that this one day that I

1363
01:32:06.319 --> 01:32:10.880
was walking along the along the road
and I just stopped and I would stop.

1364
01:32:11.680 --> 01:32:15.720
I'm really fucking unhappy. So I
thought something has to change. But

1365
01:32:15.800 --> 01:32:21.880
that continued as well for another couple
of years until they eventually, you know,

1366
01:32:23.880 --> 01:32:26.880
the whole lockdown thing happened and all
that. But there was a point

1367
01:32:26.880 --> 01:32:31.319
in time actually that around the twenty
fourteen period where there was a particular client

1368
01:32:31.359 --> 01:32:35.239
who wasn't really getting the result that
I wanted to get, and I couldn't

1369
01:32:35.279 --> 01:32:39.800
understand why I wasn't following the plan
or yes, And I realized that there

1370
01:32:39.800 --> 01:32:41.680
was a gap. There was there
was a blind spot. There was a

1371
01:32:41.720 --> 01:32:45.560
real gap that I wasn't covering.
That was I didn't understand people enough.

1372
01:32:45.119 --> 01:32:48.840
I didn't have the skills or the
knowledge as well as much as I thought

1373
01:32:48.840 --> 01:32:53.680
I was a people person, I
didn't have the skill set or the inkland

1374
01:32:53.720 --> 01:32:57.600
or the knowledge to delve in deeper
to really help people at the at the

1375
01:32:57.640 --> 01:33:00.600
psychological level. And I thought that
this is the thing that's missing. Everyone's

1376
01:33:00.640 --> 01:33:03.199
talking about what you should fucking eat, how you should train. This is

1377
01:33:03.239 --> 01:33:08.920
all great stuff, but it's getting
to the point where you can actually do

1378
01:33:09.000 --> 01:33:13.119
it. And this is what holds
you back, even even though always you

1379
01:33:13.119 --> 01:33:15.600
know, people I deal with now
they know what they have to do.

1380
01:33:15.760 --> 01:33:17.600
They know the fucking you know.
They've got to go to the gym,

1381
01:33:17.680 --> 01:33:20.840
they've got to work on their mindset, they've got to meditate, they've got

1382
01:33:20.880 --> 01:33:24.359
to do all these things, but
they don't do it, and they just

1383
01:33:24.359 --> 01:33:26.640
think about it and then they don't
do anything, and then you get overwhelmed

1384
01:33:26.640 --> 01:33:29.920
and they procrastinating. And this is
what I deal with in the daily basis

1385
01:33:29.960 --> 01:33:32.359
now. But at that point I
didn't really understand it as much because I

1386
01:33:32.399 --> 01:33:35.199
was always on the elklot. I
was get on with it, you know,

1387
01:33:35.319 --> 01:33:39.560
I was in the Special Forces.
Stop fucking crying and get on with

1388
01:33:39.600 --> 01:33:42.319
it. My approach to life was
just stopping a little bit, expecially,

1389
01:33:43.399 --> 01:33:45.600
And the reality is that it just
doesn't work right. You know, you

1390
01:33:45.399 --> 01:33:48.439
got you got to really get the
best. You've got to know how to

1391
01:33:48.479 --> 01:33:51.520
get the best out of people.
So there was a period of time there

1392
01:33:51.800 --> 01:33:56.119
I became really interested in learning more
about that, and I spent in the

1393
01:33:56.159 --> 01:33:59.800
last ten years essentially, and that
will be till the day I die,

1394
01:33:59.800 --> 01:34:02.279
you know, I'll always be learning
more. But I've been in this quest

1395
01:34:02.920 --> 01:34:08.399
to you know, achieve my own
level of self mastery, and I now

1396
01:34:08.560 --> 01:34:13.640
sort of walk that path with others. So what I do now is a

1397
01:34:13.680 --> 01:34:18.720
program for men who are essentially I've
essentially got the same types of challenges I

1398
01:34:18.800 --> 01:34:25.039
had, and a variation of different
challenges as well. So regardless of what

1399
01:34:25.119 --> 01:34:27.399
it is in their life, you
know, typically it's people who have achieved

1400
01:34:27.399 --> 01:34:30.600
something, but there are things that
aren't quite quite where they want it to

1401
01:34:30.640 --> 01:34:35.840
be. So it's about turning that
switch and getting them to go from the

1402
01:34:35.880 --> 01:34:41.560
sixty percent that they're currently operating that
to then being at like fucking ninety five

1403
01:34:41.560 --> 01:34:44.880
percent. You know, no one
ever gets to one hundred, really,

1404
01:34:45.079 --> 01:34:51.000
But it's about getting there their optimization
with self from where they are to where

1405
01:34:51.000 --> 01:34:54.560
they want to be and achieving the
things in life that they really want to

1406
01:34:54.680 --> 01:34:59.039
want to achieve. But it all
comes down to stopping and you know,

1407
01:34:59.079 --> 01:35:01.479
stop looking out there for all the
stuff. You know, I say,

1408
01:35:02.880 --> 01:35:05.600
there are things out there that will
help you, but unless you stop and

1409
01:35:05.680 --> 01:35:11.119
look in look inwards, you're never
going to find what you fucking need because

1410
01:35:11.119 --> 01:35:14.239
the answers are actually all in there. They aren't out there. We just

1411
01:35:14.279 --> 01:35:17.119
need to be showing how to bring
it out. So I essentially help the

1412
01:35:17.159 --> 01:35:24.000
guys unpack their best self, not
find it out there. Because there's a

1413
01:35:24.039 --> 01:35:26.600
certain amount of shit you've got to
get done. You have to do the

1414
01:35:26.640 --> 01:35:28.720
work, you have to do the
rep you have to get get on with

1415
01:35:28.760 --> 01:35:31.600
it. So why are why is
not everyone doing that? If it's so

1416
01:35:31.680 --> 01:35:34.439
simple, why does everyone not just
get on with it, right. So

1417
01:35:34.479 --> 01:35:41.199
that's the that's the fucking keys is
finding out what makes someone tack. Why

1418
01:35:41.199 --> 01:35:43.920
are they not behaving a certain way? Why don't they do the things they

1419
01:35:43.960 --> 01:35:45.960
promise themselves they're going to do.
It's in line with their eigh your self,

1420
01:35:46.079 --> 01:35:49.119
with the person they want to be, you know. And I guess

1421
01:35:49.119 --> 01:35:51.880
they've all got the same types of
fears, you know, especially when you

1422
01:35:51.920 --> 01:35:56.640
get to you know, forties fifties
and then to start thinking they're going to

1423
01:35:56.680 --> 01:36:00.079
die of fucking you know, an
unaccomplished loser or someone who never never fulfill

1424
01:36:00.159 --> 01:36:03.439
their full potential. That scares people, especially as they get older. So

1425
01:36:03.520 --> 01:36:08.359
I'm can the guy that, like
the white guy, that gets him to

1426
01:36:08.359 --> 01:36:13.079
bring out themselves and find what's fucking
going on within there and then declus of

1427
01:36:13.119 --> 01:36:16.159
the ship they've been built up over
the last forty fifty years and then you

1428
01:36:16.159 --> 01:36:21.399
know, you know, create a
new self essentially. How was it for

1429
01:36:21.520 --> 01:36:26.920
you? Because you know, you
mentioned I think something that a lot of

1430
01:36:28.039 --> 01:36:33.840
military and particularly special operations folks talk
about, which is when you leave,

1431
01:36:34.439 --> 01:36:40.760
you go from doing this one hundred
mile an hour job tip of the spear,

1432
01:36:41.560 --> 01:36:45.319
you know, like the type of
job that they make movies about,

1433
01:36:45.760 --> 01:36:50.760
right doing every fantasy you ever had
as a young boy, when you're playing

1434
01:36:50.800 --> 01:36:56.079
with g. I. Joe,
action figures or whatever, to civilian life

1435
01:36:56.319 --> 01:37:00.279
where you don't have the purpose,
you don't have the camaraderie, you don't

1436
01:37:00.279 --> 01:37:04.840
have the structure, and it's it's
a huge jarring shift for a lot of

1437
01:37:05.039 --> 01:37:09.560
for a lot of guys, for
a lot of people. Yeah, for

1438
01:37:09.760 --> 01:37:14.479
you. In addition to working on
this business and learning how to you know,

1439
01:37:14.520 --> 01:37:17.960
sort of hack the human brain and
help these people achieve their you know,

1440
01:37:18.079 --> 01:37:24.119
their their own sort of purpose and
goals, how did you manage dealing

1441
01:37:24.239 --> 01:37:30.680
with you know, your own issues
with the camaraderie, with that sense of

1442
01:37:31.600 --> 01:37:39.880
the supreme mission to you know,
a personal mission. That's a good question

1443
01:37:40.399 --> 01:37:46.760
because this is exactly what I did
with the Motor Warrior project. So what

1444
01:37:47.079 --> 01:37:51.920
many community we need, We need
light minded people in our lives, but

1445
01:37:51.920 --> 01:37:56.560
at the same time we also need
to we also need to be aware of

1446
01:37:56.560 --> 01:37:59.960
the diversity of different people. So
this is quite a recent thing for me.

1447
01:38:00.279 --> 01:38:04.279
I had my ego was checked in
quite recently. And what we can

1448
01:38:04.319 --> 01:38:10.359
assume, you know that their gurus
online that they're speaking all sorts of ship.

1449
01:38:10.479 --> 01:38:13.000
Every single day you look at your
phone, Like, if you want

1450
01:38:13.039 --> 01:38:15.600
to be a millionaire, you've got
to hang around with fucking nine millionaires and

1451
01:38:15.600 --> 01:38:17.119
you'll be the tenth one if you
want to hang out with successful, if

1452
01:38:17.159 --> 01:38:18.960
you want to be a successful people, you've got to hang around with just

1453
01:38:19.000 --> 01:38:23.039
successful people. So you know,
you get these little carbon copies of each

1454
01:38:23.079 --> 01:38:26.199
other in little groups, and they're
all exactly the fucking same, which is

1455
01:38:26.239 --> 01:38:30.960
really boring, right, But as
soldiers were used to that, because we're

1456
01:38:30.960 --> 01:38:34.159
all soldiers, we all come through
the same fucking factory, we all go

1457
01:38:34.239 --> 01:38:39.319
through the same training, we all
end up like little carbon copies with variations

1458
01:38:39.319 --> 01:38:43.640
of personalities, but we've all got
the same core values. We're all on

1459
01:38:43.680 --> 01:38:48.039
the same mission. And then so
that can that can kind of embed a

1460
01:38:48.079 --> 01:38:53.920
belief that you have to be around
just people who you like. So former

1461
01:38:53.960 --> 01:38:58.000
soldiers will find former soldiers. So
you get these veterans groups, and these

1462
01:38:58.039 --> 01:39:02.000
are all fucking amazing things because it's
good to rub shoulders of people who are

1463
01:39:02.159 --> 01:39:05.680
the same as you. But you
should also venture out. I would actually

1464
01:39:05.720 --> 01:39:09.880
encourage anyone who's watching us now to
venture out and meet people and speak to

1465
01:39:09.880 --> 01:39:12.600
people who are completely fucking different than
you, because you learn more from them

1466
01:39:12.640 --> 01:39:15.079
people because if you hand the ound
people who are just like you all the

1467
01:39:15.079 --> 01:39:16.560
time, you kind of look in
the mirror for a point, so you

1468
01:39:16.600 --> 01:39:19.560
don't learn as much. It's cool
and all that, and it's good laugh.

1469
01:39:19.600 --> 01:39:24.439
But when you start to spend the
time around people who are from completely

1470
01:39:24.479 --> 01:39:30.079
different backgrounds that you would potentially be
judgmental of because you don't know anything about

1471
01:39:30.119 --> 01:39:31.760
them, go back to the quote
about don't criticize, we don't understand.

1472
01:39:32.840 --> 01:39:35.640
This is something I think is common
in human nature. People standing in their

1473
01:39:35.680 --> 01:39:41.520
little cliques and they don't venture outside
those clicks because it's unsafe and it's the

1474
01:39:41.600 --> 01:39:45.680
unknown. But some of the most
interesting conversations I've had recently were people that

1475
01:39:45.800 --> 01:39:49.239
went in the army. They weren't
ever soldiers, that weren't from my background.

1476
01:39:49.439 --> 01:39:55.000
They were totally different people. So
as far as how I how I

1477
01:39:55.079 --> 01:39:59.000
dealt with that, Yeah, I
wanted to build a tribe of men because

1478
01:39:59.319 --> 01:40:01.279
you can if you've got like a
common ground with people who have who share

1479
01:40:01.319 --> 01:40:06.000
the same challenges, you can use
strategies that can then help more people because

1480
01:40:06.000 --> 01:40:10.520
you can scale that as a business
as well, and it also does build

1481
01:40:10.600 --> 01:40:14.960
great community. But within my program, for example, people people people come

1482
01:40:14.960 --> 01:40:16.600
and apply and they say, is
it just for ex soldiers? Is it

1483
01:40:16.680 --> 01:40:21.359
just for people who are fucking you
know, successful in business or something.

1484
01:40:21.359 --> 01:40:25.720
I say, you don't know.
It's for anybody that just has the desire

1485
01:40:25.800 --> 01:40:28.640
to be better. That's all it
is. It doesn't matter what you fucking

1486
01:40:28.680 --> 01:40:31.880
do, where you're from, what
your sexual orientation is, don't none of

1487
01:40:31.920 --> 01:40:35.359
that shit matter. It's like,
if you're someone who is in a current

1488
01:40:35.359 --> 01:40:39.039
place and you've got the desire to
be someone else, and you think you

1489
01:40:39.039 --> 01:40:42.920
need some help and you want some
community and accountability, you're very welcome.

1490
01:40:43.640 --> 01:40:45.159
You don't you don't have to be
the perfect fit, and you don't want

1491
01:40:45.199 --> 01:40:50.399
to have to be a businessman or
fucking you know, into making more money,

1492
01:40:50.520 --> 01:40:54.199
or you don't have to be an
ex soldier. It's like it's a

1493
01:40:54.239 --> 01:41:00.199
diverse community at the same time.
The vault common common ground. But the

1494
01:41:00.239 --> 01:41:02.640
thing I found out is that human
beings of common ground. Doesn't that just

1495
01:41:02.680 --> 01:41:06.399
be you know, a bunch of
men who would all want to fucking you

1496
01:41:06.479 --> 01:41:11.119
know. People think sometimes that you
know, what I do is about getting

1497
01:41:11.159 --> 01:41:13.439
a bunch of men together go up
the top of a mountain and beating our

1498
01:41:13.520 --> 01:41:16.560
chest. Right, It's really not
about that. You know, where are

1499
01:41:17.279 --> 01:41:20.760
Where can people go to find you
and find your find your coaching if they

1500
01:41:20.760 --> 01:41:25.880
wanted to work with you. So
I'm actually having a few things about the

1501
01:41:25.880 --> 01:41:29.760
moment website being one of them.
But I get most of my leads through

1502
01:41:29.760 --> 01:41:33.000
my social media, so Instagram and
Facebook. I'm also on LinkedIn as well,

1503
01:41:33.039 --> 01:41:36.119
but I mean I'm just tapping into
that now. But we will most

1504
01:41:36.880 --> 01:41:42.000
the description of this podcast also for
people who are most most of my most

1505
01:41:42.000 --> 01:41:46.239
of my links or my leads come
through Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, sogram

1506
01:41:47.359 --> 01:41:50.479
And do you know what the what
the u r L for your website will

1507
01:41:50.520 --> 01:41:54.520
be because people might be listening to
this. Yeah, it will be the

1508
01:41:54.560 --> 01:41:59.239
Modern Warrior Project DOTA. Okay.
Also, I saw on your link tree

1509
01:41:59.239 --> 01:42:01.840
that your Instagram isn't third. Do
you want to shout out your Instagram too?

1510
01:42:02.520 --> 01:42:06.920
Oh? So the instagram is the
Lindsay Brust or pH Lindsay Bose.

1511
01:42:08.119 --> 01:42:10.880
Okay, maybe it is there and
I didn't see it, but do you

1512
01:42:11.119 --> 01:42:15.439
we have questions for Lindsay. Let
me see if we have any questions.

1513
01:42:16.239 --> 01:42:23.760
I didn't. I don't recall sing
any pop up. Okay, well,

1514
01:42:23.760 --> 01:42:27.000
Lindsay, thank you so much for
joining us. Do you want to hit

1515
01:42:27.039 --> 01:42:31.680
him up? D now? Thank
you for joining us, Lindsay, because

1516
01:42:31.920 --> 01:42:36.760
I know it's getting laid over there, and we will we may have a

1517
01:42:36.760 --> 01:42:43.960
few viewer questions and then we'll we'll
head out. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,

1518
01:42:44.000 --> 01:42:45.600
nothing like Okay, yeah, what
what do you got? D?

1519
01:42:46.159 --> 01:42:54.039
Okay from Sean? Thanks Sean?
Can say S do radio slash radar direction

1520
01:42:54.199 --> 01:42:58.239
finding? If so, how did
they learn slash teach it? And what

1521
01:42:58.319 --> 01:43:02.359
does what do UK s have support
elements bring to the table in modern operations?

1522
01:43:03.600 --> 01:43:05.600
A little bit about that. I
want to say I'm the wrong guy

1523
01:43:05.640 --> 01:43:09.680
to answer that question. It's just
I would be making a bad, a

1524
01:43:10.159 --> 01:43:14.680
bad answer that it would take me
a bit of time to think back to

1525
01:43:15.159 --> 01:43:17.520
when I was actually in. Things
will have changed since I was in.

1526
01:43:17.560 --> 01:43:20.600
As far as the reserves go,
from what I can gather, you know,

1527
01:43:21.279 --> 01:43:25.560
then they're very very rarely went on
operations, but this it did happen,

1528
01:43:25.640 --> 01:43:30.079
but very rarely. As far as
the radar question, I've got no

1529
01:43:30.119 --> 01:43:40.279
fucking clue. Wrong guy, wrong
questions? Is there is there any strong

1530
01:43:40.760 --> 01:43:46.399
like post s a s SBS community, Special Forces community or our guys just

1531
01:43:46.479 --> 01:43:50.760
kind of spread out through the UK. So yeah, they are spread I

1532
01:43:50.760 --> 01:43:54.479
mean you get like the Special Portions
Club in London, but I mean a

1533
01:43:54.520 --> 01:43:58.920
lot of these things were really the
old and bold guys would still you know,

1534
01:43:59.159 --> 01:44:01.359
gather in certain spots. So there's
there's places in Hereford, for example,

1535
01:44:01.399 --> 01:44:04.319
but some of the older guys,
like I'm talking late that the guys

1536
01:44:04.359 --> 01:44:08.720
who are now you know, the
seventies maybe eighties that will still meet for

1537
01:44:08.760 --> 01:44:13.359
a coffee morning in a social club
or something like that. But like these

1538
01:44:13.479 --> 01:44:17.800
days, like from my from my, from my sort of era, you

1539
01:44:17.840 --> 01:44:21.239
know, there are WhatsApp groups and
stuff, but we don't really have a

1540
01:44:21.279 --> 01:44:25.640
regular thing. Everyone's spread out and
everyone's doing their own things. So it's

1541
01:44:25.640 --> 01:44:29.319
something that's kind of you know,
you keep in touch with who you want

1542
01:44:29.319 --> 01:44:30.119
to keep in touch with. That's
what I do. You know, I've

1543
01:44:30.119 --> 01:44:32.600
got a few guys who I really
could in touch with on a regular basis,

1544
01:44:32.600 --> 01:44:35.399
and we do make a point in
these days of saying let's make this

1545
01:44:35.479 --> 01:44:38.880
a thing. Let's let's do this
once a month and meet for lunch or

1546
01:44:39.119 --> 01:44:43.479
whether it is so yeah, but
there's not there's not really that much of

1547
01:44:43.479 --> 01:44:45.640
a strong I mean, we do
have like reunions and stuff, but that's

1548
01:44:45.720 --> 01:44:49.720
usually every several years. Yeah,
and you always see familiar faces of those

1549
01:44:49.720 --> 01:44:53.920
and there's are great events because you
see lots of people in one in one

1550
01:44:54.000 --> 01:44:57.199
goot. But apart from that,
now, I mean I see people around

1551
01:44:57.199 --> 01:45:00.079
all the time because I live in
Hereford still, so I still see a

1552
01:45:00.000 --> 01:45:03.000
all my old mates. Yeah.
So yeah, you still see a lot

1553
01:45:03.000 --> 01:45:08.319
of familiar faces. That's cool.
Was there another question? Okay, and

1554
01:45:08.439 --> 01:45:13.560
one final question. As a boat
team guy on the sees, you can

1555
01:45:13.600 --> 01:45:18.920
definitive, definitively answer the question what
color is the boat house at Hereford?

1556
01:45:19.920 --> 01:45:26.640
Trick question? Do you know what
the chickens in the question? No,

1557
01:45:29.000 --> 01:45:31.079
there's no boat house is Hereford.
There's little bullhosts. Because we're not in

1558
01:45:31.119 --> 01:45:36.720
the we're not we're in the Midlands, so we're inland. Awesome, so

1559
01:45:36.920 --> 01:45:42.720
guys, awesome. Next uh,
actually coming up on Monday, we got

1560
01:45:42.720 --> 01:45:45.479
a doubleheader for you guys. We're
going to have two Special Forces guys on

1561
01:45:45.520 --> 01:45:48.239
the show, one at five pm
and then the next at eight pm.

1562
01:45:49.239 --> 01:45:54.520
Jay third Group guy and Dan a
fifth group guy. Both are Rack Afghanistan

1563
01:45:54.640 --> 01:45:59.119
veterans, so Monday is going to
be a busy day for us. Lindsey,

1564
01:45:59.199 --> 01:46:01.359
thank you so much for coming on
the show Man and and staying with

1565
01:46:01.439 --> 01:46:05.560
us at this late hour in your
time zone. One more time. If

1566
01:46:05.560 --> 01:46:11.399
people want to find you on social
media, yeah, so the Lindsay Bruce

1567
01:46:11.520 --> 01:46:15.399
is my Instagram and just my name
Lindsay Bruce on Facebook. You know,

1568
01:46:15.600 --> 01:46:19.439
pretty easy you find a think on
there, so quite distinctive pictures and whatnot.

1569
01:46:19.560 --> 01:46:25.840
So yeah, and the programs Warrior
Project by through any of these mediums

1570
01:46:25.880 --> 01:46:29.159
you know, LinkedIn Facebook, Instagram, on the website, there will be

1571
01:46:29.479 --> 01:46:32.279
live soon which will be the Modern
Warrior Project dot com. Awesome. Uh

1572
01:46:32.319 --> 01:46:35.720
And just for people listening and not
looking, you'll probably see it on the

1573
01:46:35.720 --> 01:46:41.000
headline, but it's l I N
D s A Y Bruce if you're looking

1574
01:46:41.079 --> 01:46:45.279
for it, if you're looking for
him on Instagram, I think that's the

1575
01:46:45.319 --> 01:46:48.359
show Lindsay. Thank you so much
for joining us tonight. Absolute pleasure to

1576
01:46:48.399 --> 01:46:53.520
be here, guys. Thanks,
yeah, having absolutely appreciate we welcome back

1577
01:46:53.560 --> 01:46:56.960
anytime. Man. Thank you,
and we love your past like your your

1578
01:46:57.119 --> 01:47:00.600
your place gives off such an awesome
vibe. It looks like that's a hul

1579
01:47:00.640 --> 01:47:02.640
place to hang on. It's pretty
cool with it. Yeah. I love

1580
01:47:02.680 --> 01:47:05.359
it here. Yeah, been here
about a year now. It does feel

1581
01:47:05.399 --> 01:47:10.960
it cool. Get a tent on
the backdrop. Well done? All right,

1582
01:47:11.159 --> 01:47:14.560
all right everyone, We will see
you guys on Monday.