Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy
Speaker 1: here with today's guest Jay Morton. Jay served in the
Speaker 1: British Parachute Regiment and then in the Special Air Service,
Speaker 1: multiple deployments to Iraq in Afghanistan, and today he is
Speaker 1: an ambassador for Delta three Oscar, which we'll get into. Jay,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on the show today.
Speaker 2: Awesome, thank you for having me. Jack.
Speaker 3: Whereabouts in the world? I here, We're in Brooklyn, amazing.
Speaker 3: I've never been to New York. To Brooklyn's New York right.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, come visit. Man, be happy
Speaker 1: to have you here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love the US. I was recently out in Montana
Speaker 3: in Whitefish.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, beautiful out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. San Diego, California.
Speaker 3: I was there for the NASCAR race and then spent
Speaker 3: some time in Laguna Beach.
Speaker 2: But I'm going back out in August.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm potentially gonna to stay over there for
Speaker 3: the three months on my esther during winter because our
Speaker 3: winters are pretty pretty rainy and wet over here in
Speaker 3: the UK.
Speaker 1: Well, it looks pretty nice where you are now.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: We're midsummer and I live in a place called Bournemouth,
Speaker 3: which is on the coast, so my apartment's pretty much
Speaker 3: opposite the beach, which is good stuff.
Speaker 1: That's great, So Jay, I guess we'll start at the beginning, right.
Speaker 1: I usually ask our guests what their origin story is,
Speaker 1: if you tell us a little bit about you know,
Speaker 1: what your upbringing was like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, so British born. I grew up in
Speaker 3: a town called Preston, which, if anyone knows the football
Speaker 3: team Manchester United, it's probably about an hour north from
Speaker 3: Manchester United, just a small working class city. Grew up
Speaker 3: with normal parents, mother and father, older brother, and went
Speaker 3: to school, loved playing sport, hated school, So there was
Speaker 3: I think I'd always wanted to go into the military.
Speaker 3: At some stage I wanted to join the Royal Marines.
Speaker 3: Growing up, or before that, I wanted to be a fireman.
Speaker 3: I think as a kid full of testosterone, I was
Speaker 3: always driven, driven or drawn to kind of dangerous jobs.
Speaker 2: And yeah, at the time, there was a mate of.
Speaker 3: Mine at school that we were like two of the
Speaker 3: fittest guys in school and we're always kind of competing
Speaker 3: and battling in sports, and he actually joined the Parastreet
Speaker 3: Regiment when he left and went and enjoyed three Para,
Speaker 3: which is one of the battalions, and he come back
Speaker 3: on leave and always tell me these stories about what
Speaker 3: he was up to, and it was mainly around shooting
Speaker 3: guns and going out and getting pissed with the boys.
Speaker 3: But weirdly you kind of draw into that, and I
Speaker 3: think look back retrospectively, it's more about the teamwork and
Speaker 3: the camaraderie ship and being part of a you know,
Speaker 3: a shared purpose and a shared goal that you're more
Speaker 3: drawn to. But as an eighteen year old, nineteen year
Speaker 3: old lad, hearing stories about fighting in the town and
Speaker 3: like getting pissed and all that kind of stuff is
Speaker 3: what it's kind of masked as.
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, I ended up joining in the Parachute.
Speaker 3: Regiment age nineteen, which was a massive shock to the system.
Speaker 3: It was probably the first time I've been away from
Speaker 3: my hometown and traveled and went to live in a
Speaker 3: different place in the UK and they're based in Essex
Speaker 3: in Colchester. And yeah, shortly after, obviously we deployed to
Speaker 3: It was kind of the back end of the Second
Speaker 3: Gulf War and we deployed out to Iraq for three
Speaker 3: months on a short deployment, and it was the back
Speaker 3: end of that or that obviously you guys over across
Speaker 3: the Pond were talking about going over into Afghanistan. And
Speaker 3: we literally came back from that short deployment. We all
Speaker 3: got pulled into a tent just before we flew back
Speaker 3: and got told that the US are looking at going
Speaker 3: into Afghanistan and there's a potential that our battle group
Speaker 3: and battalion we're going to be the first ones to
Speaker 3: go in two thousand and six. And we flew back,
Speaker 3: had a short period of leave and then I think
Speaker 3: we had, you know, three or four weeks leave. We
Speaker 3: got pulled back in flown out to a man for
Speaker 3: a six week training package, had like a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks leave, and then deployed out to Afghanistan, and that
Speaker 3: kind of kicked off the Afghanistan deployment specifically for the
Speaker 3: UK and for you guys as well.
Speaker 1: Just to back up a little bit, what was the
Speaker 1: sort of selection process like to get into the parras.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we run a selection process. It's in total,
Speaker 3: the training block is six months long. So we call
Speaker 3: that basic training. I don't know what you guys call it.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, it's a six month long period to
Speaker 3: take you from being a civilian, you know, an eighteen
Speaker 3: year old scrot all the way to being a well
Speaker 3: to join in a professional soldier in unit. Whether you
Speaker 3: can call yourself a professional soldier at the end of
Speaker 3: six months is debatable. And yeah, I mean the first
Speaker 3: six weeks it's pretty much shock of capture, shave your head.
Speaker 3: Give you a set uniform that you have to wear
Speaker 3: every day even when you're not in military uniform. When
Speaker 3: you're out in military uniform, it's a set of like
Speaker 3: blue Ronhill joggers, so the kind of leggings that the
Speaker 3: runners used to wear in like the seven tees and
Speaker 3: a maroon jumper. And then the kind of selection process
Speaker 3: for it. It's called Pea Company, So that's a week
Speaker 3: long selection process and it's passing, pass or fail, and
Speaker 3: it consists of a series of.
Speaker 2: Tests.
Speaker 3: So we've got the ten mileer, which is done I
Speaker 3: think I think it's one hour and fifty I'm not
Speaker 3: quite sure. We have a twenty miler. We have a steeplechase,
Speaker 3: a log race, and a stretcher race, and there's other
Speaker 3: things like the Trenasium, which is an assault course, and yeah,
Speaker 3: you're not allowed to fail or come off one of those,
Speaker 3: And to be honest, being nineteen years old, it was
Speaker 3: pretty fucking hard. I played amateur rugby growing up. I
Speaker 3: played rugby league, I played football, I played volleyball, and
Speaker 3: kind of nothing prepares you for for military basic training
Speaker 3: and specifically PEA company. You know, I wouldn't class myself
Speaker 3: as being one of the fittest people there. I definitely
Speaker 3: wasn't the weakest. I think personally, I have like an
Speaker 3: ability to just be able to hang on and not
Speaker 3: be the person that comes in first every time, but
Speaker 3: never fall off anything. And I think as a soldier
Speaker 3: in the parachute regiment, we're kind of looking for that
Speaker 3: those people that not only can do ten miles or
Speaker 3: twenty miles, but those people that can continuously push for
Speaker 3: forty to fifty miles, you know, with limited amount of sleep, water, food,
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. So yeah, so I got
Speaker 3: through first time, and but yeah, it was pretty hard.
Speaker 1: And for our American listeners, if you could explain a
Speaker 1: little bit about the history of the British paras and
Speaker 1: sort of what their mission is, how it differs from
Speaker 1: some of the other units like the Royal Marines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so our powers the equivalent of your airborne And
Speaker 3: I'll get the dates completely wrong, but we were formed
Speaker 3: in World War Two. I'm going to say nineteen forty two,
Speaker 3: nineteen forty four, but I'll probably get that completely wrong.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we were.
Speaker 3: Formed as an airborne unit that was designed to be
Speaker 3: dropped behind enemy lines in World War Two and cause
Speaker 3: absolute havoc. So yeah, you know the kind of missions
Speaker 3: that we were.
Speaker 2: Done back then, we did just that.
Speaker 3: You know, because an infantry unit or a mechanized unit
Speaker 3: could be seen coming from so far out in terms
Speaker 3: of ground sign and movement and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: they could be picked up by aircraft. An airborne unit
Speaker 3: was simply designed to just drop either behind enemy lines
Speaker 3: were close to and just go straight into combat. Obviously
Speaker 3: it's not used as frequently now, but I think the
Speaker 3: kind of ethos of the parachute regimen is still there
Speaker 3: in terms of we train to be able to deliver
Speaker 3: the fight at any moment's time. So even though we're
Speaker 3: not getting dropped behind enemy lines, we still carry that
Speaker 3: tenacity as a fighting unit into anything that we do.
Speaker 3: Hence why you know, we were the first unit that
Speaker 3: got picked Guard into Afghanistan in two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I will also get the dates and names completely wrong.
Speaker 1: But as I recall, our American Airborne got our berets
Speaker 1: from you guys. It was during World War Two, and
Speaker 1: I think it was the British commander's wife, who was
Speaker 1: a poet, thought the boys would look very sharp wearing
Speaker 1: maroon berets, and so we got the maroon beret from
Speaker 1: you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. You guys also have it as well. I noticed, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: I So fast forward a little bit back to that
Speaker 1: first deployment to Afghanistan. You said it was two thousand.
Speaker 2: And six, correct, two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: And so we talk about like the unit carrying that
Speaker 1: tenacity with it in the combat. What was that mission
Speaker 1: set and where were you guys deployed to in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, initially Afghanistan was looked at from a
Speaker 3: peacekeeping operation, and I don't think anyone knew that Afghanistan
Speaker 3: was going to turn into what it turned into. And specifically,
Speaker 3: you know, pre deployment, I was a private soldier and
Speaker 3: you know, twenty years old, and you didn't really have
Speaker 3: an idea of strategic position of why we were going in.
Speaker 3: You know, from my eyes, it looked like you guys
Speaker 3: were going in for whatever reasons, and we were just
Speaker 3: backing you up as allies across the pond. And initially
Speaker 3: when we deployed, it was there was obviously no fighting.
Speaker 3: So the UK built a huge military base called Bastion.
Speaker 3: So the US main one was was Kandahar Airfield, and
Speaker 3: then we built one called Bastian. At the time, Bastian
Speaker 3: hadn't been complete, it was still under construction, and we
Speaker 3: were living in those green army six by nine or
Speaker 3: whatever they're called tents, the campus ones that a bit
Speaker 3: a pretty much since nineteen forty two. So we were
Speaker 3: living in those, sleeping on camp cots, eating ten man rations.
Speaker 3: There weren't established kitchens, and they were constructing this camp Bastion,
Speaker 3: And I remember the first kind of week we were
Speaker 3: out there, we were just going out for some acclimatization
Speaker 3: runs because the heat was we were out there in
Speaker 3: the summer, so the heat was, you know, forty fifty degrees,
Speaker 3: but I always remember there was this fine dust everywhere
Speaker 3: and almost like cement, and we'd be out on runs
Speaker 3: just running through this cement dust whilst these diggers were
Speaker 3: like building walls and Mesco bastling walls, and yeah, we
Speaker 3: were just inhaling it like dumb twenty year old, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: It was soft posture.
Speaker 3: And we actually took two forty sevens into a town
Speaker 3: called Gesch and landed just outside and we put a
Speaker 3: patrolling through the town and nothing happened.
Speaker 2: It was reasonably pleasant and friendly.
Speaker 3: I actually remember there was an old man that was
Speaker 3: selling ice cream on the side of the street and
Speaker 3: he actually made me a mister whippy. And I was
Speaker 3: stood on one knee with my GPMG facing all arcs
Speaker 3: making sure the bad guys didn't come, and he just
Speaker 3: walked up to me and passed me this ice cream.
Speaker 3: I like to say, lad, you think I should eat this?
Speaker 3: Or is just like poisoned to what? And I ate
Speaker 3: it in the end. But but yeah, I mean that
Speaker 3: goes back to Afghanistan. You know, It's like I think,
Speaker 3: deep down probably you know, regardless of what happens there,
Speaker 3: I'm sure they're a friendly, welcoming group of people with
Speaker 3: a solid culture. I mean they're stone women as well,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure there's there's other good sides of their culture.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were in Gosh for a week or two
Speaker 3: weeks and then we got deployed. In fact, we were
Speaker 3: our role was CQ.
Speaker 2: Not cqb.
Speaker 3: Q RF, so Quick Reaction Force whilst we were in
Speaker 3: the camp and at this stage we'd move to proper
Speaker 3: accommodation I think, No, we hadn't. Were still the in
Speaker 3: the tent and our patrols unit were OUTE. So our
Speaker 3: kind of brigade or our battalion WRECKI force were out
Speaker 3: in vehicles the old school limis, so the old land
Speaker 3: rover defenders that had a fifty calor a GPMG on
Speaker 3: the back and a GPMG on the front. And they'd
Speaker 3: been hitting a contact and one of the vehicles had
Speaker 3: been hit by an RPG and they'd extracted from the
Speaker 3: vehicle and were you seeking cover somewhere And they put
Speaker 3: a call out to the Quick Reaction Force and it
Speaker 3: was myself and my company, so a company we got
Speaker 3: task for the job, jumped on two h forty seven
Speaker 3: lifters and landed in the middle of this farmers fielding Nawzad.
Speaker 3: And this is probably about three weeks into being in theater,
Speaker 3: and we all ran off the back of this helly
Speaker 3: and ran towards this wall, and I literally remember as
Speaker 3: the Helles were lifting, you could hear the crack and
Speaker 3: thump of rounds flying over our head. And obviously that
Speaker 3: got louder as the hell he lifted. And I remember
Speaker 3: just looking to the lads to the left and right.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're all just burst out in laughter with
Speaker 3: that kind of you know, that laughing in the face
Speaker 3: of adversity kind of thing. We we had no intention
Speaker 3: or idea that this operation was going to go noisy,
Speaker 3: let alone Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: Afghanistan was going to go noisy.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that turned into a probably a seven to
Speaker 3: nine hour contact of I was trying to fight forward
Speaker 3: to get to this women. At one stage, one of
Speaker 3: the one of the sections in my platoon when left
Speaker 3: flanking on a on a position on a compound, and
Speaker 3: I always remember prig Pol was the section commander, and
Speaker 3: he literally turned around to his team and when if
Speaker 3: you've got wife or kids, stay here, the rest of
Speaker 3: you come with me, and he took the guy's left flanking.
Speaker 3: And yeah, they they obviously went round engaged in with
Speaker 3: the threat where needed, and yeah, it was it was
Speaker 3: an interesting one.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a long day.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and
Speaker 3: we flew back in and and.
Speaker 2: That was pretty much it.
Speaker 3: That kind of launched into into that Afghanistan two thousand
Speaker 3: and six conflict of a lot of those style firefights.
Speaker 3: You know, it was pre Ied era, so it was
Speaker 3: pretty much going out and just getting into scraps every day.
Speaker 1: This is like one of those firefights with the Taliban
Speaker 1: or just sort of like trying to encircle you, going
Speaker 1: around the hedgerows and things like that, and sporadic fire
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 3: You'll know yourself track. It's like, you know, ninety five
Speaker 3: percent at the time, you don't even see the enemy.
Speaker 3: You just hear them. You very rarely see them. I'd
Speaker 3: imagine it's the same as if an enemy force came
Speaker 3: from a different country to my hometown. It's like, I
Speaker 3: know all the ins and outs, the nuts and crannies,
Speaker 3: the ditches, the back alleys, you know everything. You're not
Speaker 3: trying to close with and kill these people that are
Speaker 3: in your town.
Speaker 2: It's like you're just trying to get them out.
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Speaker 1: of like winding down the tail end of that deployment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was that was pretty wild time.
Speaker 3: It was after that we went to sang In Valley,
Speaker 3: and I mean, for anyone listening that deployed and went
Speaker 3: to sang In Valley, we landed to so the Fob Jackson,
Speaker 3: which was actually one of our boys, Damian Jackson. We'd
Speaker 3: actually been tasked to go out to the Governor's building
Speaker 3: to support the governor because he was getting death threats
Speaker 3: from the Taliban. I seem to remember about him sexually
Speaker 3: abusing kids. Probably true, but at that time, you obviously
Speaker 3: you have to support the government. So we went out
Speaker 3: and set up shopping the governor's house which is now
Speaker 3: obviously not now but turned into Fob Jackson. And at
Speaker 3: the time it was this building and next to it
Speaker 3: was this orchard with this other kind of weird building.
Speaker 3: And we were there for about three or four days,
Speaker 3: and there was a river that went down the middle
Speaker 3: of it, and we used to wash in the river,
Speaker 3: and we put like positions all around the area. So
Speaker 3: we had three hundred and sixty three hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: degree defense And yeah, I always remember kind of probably
Speaker 3: about four or five days into it, so we were
Speaker 3: actually a while we were in afghanist at the same
Speaker 3: time I.
Speaker 1: Was there two thousand and four into two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: That winner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there were wild times, weren't they. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I'm like jogging them memories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were.
Speaker 3: We dug like a shell scrape in this orchard, and
Speaker 3: our position just looked onto a wall and it was
Speaker 3: like a six foot wall, maybe a little bit less,
Speaker 3: you know, like the thick mud walls. And I always
Speaker 3: remember because the icon Chatter and the the J two
Speaker 3: would suggest that they were going to attack from this
Speaker 3: this wall one night and they said they were just
Speaker 3: going to flood the place with fighters and send them
Speaker 3: over this send them over this six foot wall.
Speaker 2: And all night we were literally probably.
Speaker 3: Fifteen meters away from this wall, maybe less, and we
Speaker 3: just sat in the shell scrape, staring at this wall
Speaker 3: like eyes eyes on stalk, like literally match sticks in
Speaker 3: our eyes. Just I remember like a couple of the
Speaker 3: lad smoked cigarettes and like I was like, give me
Speaker 3: one of these cigarettes. I need to I need to smoke.
Speaker 3: None of us slept the whole night thinking that we
Speaker 3: were just going to get flooded with Taliban. But nothing happened,
Speaker 3: but probably around four or five days into it, we'd
Speaker 3: built like the positions up a little bit more, and
Speaker 3: we'd ran out of sandbags to build the positions up,
Speaker 3: so we were building them up with big cardboard boxes
Speaker 3: and just filling it with dirt and dust and hoping
Speaker 3: that that would catch around. And I was actually on
Speaker 3: top of this rooftop looking out onto if anyone's been there,
Speaker 3: that's listening, So it was trying to think where it was.
Speaker 3: It kind of looked so it was I'm trying to
Speaker 3: remember the Cardinal. I don't think I can. I think
Speaker 3: it's to the south of.
Speaker 2: The west, kind of looked away from the bizarre and
Speaker 2: the town area and into kind of the bush. And
Speaker 2: I was on the side that was on the opposite
Speaker 2: side of the Governor's building with the river running down it.
Speaker 2: And I always remember this car drove past and it
Speaker 2: had like three or four heavies in it and they
Speaker 2: had the windows down and they were just staring up
Speaker 2: at this position. I I just remember thinking, that's that's
Speaker 2: not you know, they're not friendly.
Speaker 3: And probably about an hour later, we literally got hit
Speaker 3: three hundred and sixty degrees like all around the fob
Speaker 3: machine gun aka RPG one bat shells.
Speaker 2: And that kind of that was it.
Speaker 3: Then it kind of kicked off in Sanging and we
Speaker 3: pretty much stayed in Sanging for the for the duration
Speaker 3: of the the six month tour that we did. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean there's a million stories to come out of
Speaker 3: just that one that on that one location. I'm sure
Speaker 3: for a lot of people that served in Sanging listening,
Speaker 3: it was it was a hell hole and you would
Speaker 3: go out most days and most days you'd end up
Speaker 3: in a scrap and you'd be calling a tens, you know,
Speaker 3: your guys, a tens, which were phenomenal. And we had
Speaker 3: apatche helicopters from the UK and from the US as well,
Speaker 3: which were also you know, a godsend. If you heard
Speaker 3: that thing in the sky, you were pretty much free
Speaker 3: to roam wherever you wanted to go. But as soon
Speaker 3: as you went off station, just all hell broke loose.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was it was an interesting time being
Speaker 3: twenty years old. I turned twenty one over there, and
Speaker 3: yeah it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we could probably talk well podcasts just about
Speaker 3: being in Sanging if I'm being honest, Joe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's one of those sounds like
Speaker 1: one of those formative experiences like you were also learning
Speaker 1: your job as you went, you know, like actually becoming
Speaker 1: a professional soldier.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, one hundred percent, it's becoming a man
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Right, it's.
Speaker 3: You cross that path of of boy to manhood and
Speaker 3: specifically becoming a professional soldier. Like you said, it's you
Speaker 3: get into to prove yourself in in combat. Whether you
Speaker 3: like that or not. It's the arena that you chose
Speaker 3: to show up in. And also I always look back
Speaker 3: at it with with with good memories. I think you
Speaker 3: learn a lot in those type of situations. You develop
Speaker 3: a lot. It's a bigger growth than any any state
Speaker 3: university would would get you. And it also it's something
Speaker 3: that you'll never take away, you know that. I think
Speaker 3: as men personally, and I don't know what your views
Speaker 3: are on this, but I think as men were we've
Speaker 3: been at war since the moment that we've walked out
Speaker 3: of caves. I think it's so inherent for us, and
Speaker 3: we can we can imagine all we want that we're
Speaker 3: going to live in this super peaceful world, but we
Speaker 3: can and see by modern press that that's just that's
Speaker 3: never going to happen. It's a it's a dream to
Speaker 3: think that the human race is going to get on
Speaker 3: with with with it with each.
Speaker 2: Other on Earth.
Speaker 3: So it's like for you to go out and actually
Speaker 3: do that as a man, I think there's something there's
Speaker 3: something in that that's quite quite special.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also crossing over that threshold where you're doing
Speaker 1: something now that could get you killed, and also if
Speaker 1: you don't do your job, you could get somebody else killed.
Speaker 1: And I think that tends to mature people very quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And and actually, like how amazing is it is it
Speaker 3: that you've worked in a team that does that that
Speaker 3: you have to you know, whether you're a medic, whether
Speaker 3: you're a shooter or whatever, it's like you've been part
Speaker 3: of an integral team and a key part of that
Speaker 3: small team that you know, if something doesn't go right
Speaker 3: or if you make a mistake, not only may you die,
Speaker 3: the consequences are that real. Not only may you die,
Speaker 3: but someone else may die. And that person's could be
Speaker 3: a father, that person could be a husband or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's with those real consequences become kind of and those
Speaker 3: real responsibility comes a lot of like self growth and
Speaker 3: self actualization.
Speaker 1: And what was it like coming off of that deployment
Speaker 1: and redeploying back home.
Speaker 3: So we I mean we'd gone to Cypress for a
Speaker 3: period of decompression and so it was three days decompression.
Speaker 2: They fueled it with alcohol, which.
Speaker 1: A great idea.
Speaker 3: There's a good thing and a bad thing because we
Speaker 3: got to decompress. But it's actually a funny story because
Speaker 3: so literally, I think the first night you get there,
Speaker 3: you get they stick a barbecue one for you and
Speaker 3: it was like unlimited booze. They make this this barbecues
Speaker 3: and it was the first one that the British Army
Speaker 3: had done, so I think they just thought that booze
Speaker 3: was the answer.
Speaker 2: Everyone got absolutely battered.
Speaker 3: And I remember we'd have the barbecue, desserts were out
Speaker 3: and there've been like a couple of like drinks, nothing heavy,
Speaker 3: and like a couple of cans had flown over.
Speaker 2: Some people have got hit in the face.
Speaker 3: I remember being stood at the dessert section helping myself
Speaker 3: to a Army issued black currant cheesecake and I just
Speaker 3: kind of turning around and there was like fucking cans flying,
Speaker 3: drinks flying, food flying like left.
Speaker 2: And I was like where the fuck has this come from.
Speaker 3: I remember just grabbing like handfuls of dessert and like
Speaker 3: launching it into the crowd, and the next minute and
Speaker 3: throwing it, and the next minute people are grabbing tables
Speaker 3: and chairs and it was absolute carnage, like literally erupted.
Speaker 2: I remember it being on It was on YouTube in.
Speaker 3: The early days, and like one of the lads is
Speaker 3: like naked wrapped around with like the Saint George's flag.
Speaker 2: There's Union Jack's everywhere, and.
Speaker 3: It was fucking carnage, mate, And like the med center
Speaker 3: where the doctor was I think the doctor was also hammered.
Speaker 3: There was a queue of about eleven blokes outside with
Speaker 3: like eyes hanging off and like broken noses, teeth hanging out.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think we fully got to decompress, and
Speaker 3: the next day they just put like water squats on
Speaker 3: and but yeah, I mean, like to get to the
Speaker 3: serious point of coming back from from from a theater
Speaker 3: like that, I mean personally, like I I mean I
Speaker 3: felt fine. I mean I was probably you know, there
Speaker 3: was death the I mean PTSD and stuff like that
Speaker 3: was never spoken about back then, even kind of exposure
Speaker 3: to trauma and what that that can do. And you know,
Speaker 3: personally for me, you know, I was I didn't suffer
Speaker 3: with it coming back from that that deployment, but I
Speaker 3: always remember the guys got back into Colchester and I
Speaker 3: actually had a girlfriend at the time, so I jumped
Speaker 3: on a train and went straight back to see her,
Speaker 3: and the lad stayed in the block. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you call it the block, but the army camp
Speaker 3: and obviously got on the booze again and I spoke
Speaker 3: to them the next day and literally every window in
Speaker 3: the block got smashed, and like you talk about, you know,
Speaker 3: like equally the next day that the sergeant major just said, lads,
Speaker 3: as long as you replace all the windows, nothing will
Speaker 3: be said, like don't stress it, because.
Speaker 2: Equally, I think as a there's a.
Speaker 3: There's a what's the word, there's a way that our
Speaker 3: body processes what we've just been through and done, and
Speaker 3: whether that's anger, aggression, whether that's and to do that
Speaker 3: with your whole team in that kind of setting, whether
Speaker 3: it's throwing cans at each other or cake or like
Speaker 3: smashing windows, I think there's a process that your body
Speaker 3: goes through to release or whatever it is that it's
Speaker 3: that it's storing, and that's how it came out. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously you see the obvious, and you probably saw this
Speaker 3: as well, Jack. You know, lads go straight on self
Speaker 3: destruct mode and they stay on the piss the whole
Speaker 3: the whole leave and get into fights and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. And in fact, on the two weeks
Speaker 3: off that we got from the six month deployment, in
Speaker 3: the middle of it, I'd actually come back and ended
Speaker 3: up getting arrested whilst I was I was drunk just
Speaker 3: for being a complete idiot, if I'm being honest. But
Speaker 3: I think there's this like whether it's an anger inside
Speaker 3: or like we've been doing this and do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, It's like there's a there's a feeling
Speaker 3: inside that unless you've kind of experienced that level of combat,
Speaker 3: you'll never kind of be able to relate to.
Speaker 2: But we'd come back and ended up again alcohol fueled.
Speaker 3: But yeah, just we were shouting and all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 3: and my friend got like ces gassed in the face
Speaker 3: and he's got thrown in the cell for a night.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, apart from that was great. I came back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to turn it off.
Speaker 1: Isn't it. I mean, you're going one hundred miles an
Speaker 1: hour and then suddenly you're back home. You're in the
Speaker 1: UK in this case, and it sounds like you probably
Speaker 1: hadn't gone into even a training cycle yet. You're just
Speaker 1: sort of like refitting, getting ready for the next thing.
Speaker 1: And so the guys are sitting in the bears board
Speaker 1: out of their minds and yeah, they get into the
Speaker 1: booze and this is this is what ends up happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's completely that, and it's you know, I've had
Speaker 3: at times where I've struggled in the past, more so
Speaker 3: during during my Special Forces career, coming back off operations,
Speaker 3: and you can logically, when you're out of it, you
Speaker 3: can logically look at it and see what happened. It
Speaker 3: was a very kinetic time working all hours. Your body's
Speaker 3: stressed anyway because you're working night shifts. But then you
Speaker 3: know the job that we were doing. We were going
Speaker 3: out on day operations and night operations. Plus we had
Speaker 3: to provide training for the Afghan force that we were
Speaker 3: that we were training, and it was just a busy,
Speaker 3: kinetic period.
Speaker 2: I didn't get any decompression.
Speaker 3: I literally told that I was going to fly back
Speaker 3: on a C seventeen and be back in the UK
Speaker 3: within twenty four hours. And I went from being on
Speaker 3: the ground, being on the ground on a job doing
Speaker 3: the handover to the next squadron handing my weapons systems
Speaker 3: in jumping on a plane and being back in the
Speaker 3: UK within twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: And that's that's where I struggled because.
Speaker 3: My body, brain, nervous system, whatever you want to call
Speaker 3: it was just like where the fuck is going on?
Speaker 3: It by like you're on a train, like like what
Speaker 3: is what is going on? But again, you know, you
Speaker 3: don't realize when you're in it because the education is
Speaker 3: not there, the awareness wasn't there. We didn't really know
Speaker 3: what it was, so you kind of just had to
Speaker 3: live with it. And for me, it was it was drinking,
Speaker 3: you know, I albeit not a crazy amount. I mean
Speaker 3: we all used to drink when we were younger, but
Speaker 3: it'd be the only thing that made me feel normal
Speaker 3: again within a very short period of time. It kind
Speaker 3: of dissipated within two weeks. But for those two weeks,
Speaker 3: you know, the feeling that I had inside was like this,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's like an energy here or like
Speaker 3: a you know, a feeling here, and it was it
Speaker 3: was kind of hard to like settle back into normal life.
Speaker 3: But the only thing that could kind of normalize that
Speaker 3: was just drinking. So I just drank and then I
Speaker 3: just noticed the feeling lift and myself start to feel
Speaker 3: normal whatever you want, a class as normal. And then
Speaker 3: two weeks I just I felt just like I usually do.
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Speaker 1: apply see site for details. So you're back. You're back
Speaker 1: from deployment. Did you deploy again with the paras or like,
Speaker 1: when did the sas start to come into your thought process?
Speaker 3: So deployed again in two thousand and eight, back out
Speaker 3: to Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: It was a quieter deployment.
Speaker 3: The main battlegroup was two Powers, so that the second
Speaker 3: battalion of the Parachute Regiment and they kind of took
Speaker 3: the brunt of the main kind of fighting battalion within
Speaker 3: that operation. Ourselves, we were based out of calf We
Speaker 3: just provided QRF and we did some of the kind
Speaker 3: of jobs. It was quite interesting, quite an interesting operation,
Speaker 3: but again not as connectic as the one that we
Speaker 3: had in two thousand and six. And then it was
Speaker 3: towards the back end of that two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: operation when I started.
Speaker 2: Thinking about joining the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: And you always get you always get a few members
Speaker 3: that have been on selection and failed and found their
Speaker 3: way back to the battalion and would always talk about
Speaker 3: the stories about being on selection and what it's like.
Speaker 3: And if I'm being honest, I was around twenty three
Speaker 3: years old. I thought I was too young to an
Speaker 3: experience to go on selection. The average age was like
Speaker 3: twenty six twenty seven. And it was a platoon sergeant
Speaker 3: then at the time called Dan Jarvi, who was this
Speaker 3: Scottish jock from Dundee who was hard as woodpecker's lips
Speaker 3: and yeah, just an excellent man, an amazing soldier, was
Speaker 3: opportunity sergeant and I was his driver. In the back
Speaker 3: end of that two thousand and eight or and he
Speaker 3: just kept saying, you know, j going selection, and I
Speaker 3: just you know, would say excuses like too young, and
Speaker 3: maybe I'll go and join the brigade Rereky Force and
Speaker 3: do that for some time and then then go on selection.
Speaker 3: And he just kept saying, just go on selection, going selection.
Speaker 3: And so I applied to go on selection when I
Speaker 3: came back from that deployment. And then yeah, it was
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine in summer when when I went
Speaker 3: on Special Forces selection, So twenty four years twenty four
Speaker 3: years old, and yeah that's six months, so a six
Speaker 3: month selection period and yeah, broken into certain phases. So
Speaker 3: the Hills phase would be the navigational testing phase, carrying
Speaker 3: big packs over you know, retraining in the Welsh Mountains,
Speaker 3: so it'd be over over the Welsh Mountains, big packs
Speaker 3: navigating through you know, twenty thirty kilometers of ground per day,
Speaker 3: and then we go out to the jungles of Brunei
Speaker 3: and train out there for six weeks where we deploy
Speaker 3: for fully tactical for four weeks, and that's considered the
Speaker 3: pinnacle of Special Forces selection where if you get the
Speaker 3: pass or the fail from that to fail post jungle
Speaker 3: training or jungle phase is pretty it's an anomaly. Once
Speaker 3: you pretty much get the tick in the box for
Speaker 3: the jungle, you're pretty much in albeit you're not a
Speaker 3: badge desef operator at that time.
Speaker 1: The jungle is where you guys really like focus on
Speaker 1: the patrolling skills, right and those like troop leading procedures
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you look at areas in the
Speaker 3: world that are difficult to operate, you've got the Arctic
Speaker 3: the jungle is two of the most difficult places to
Speaker 3: operate as a soldier. If we just take the jungle,
Speaker 3: you know, simply just living or operating or living just
Speaker 3: doing the basics is is pretty pretty difficult. You've got
Speaker 3: one hundred percent humidity and you know, thirty forty degree
Speaker 3: heat on a daily You're wearing full kit, full belt
Speaker 3: kit with you know, live live AMMO scales of you
Speaker 3: know your self, you know yourself six mags of bandalier
Speaker 3: plus you know water, you know, shovels, messings, five days rations.
Speaker 3: You think of the amount of water that you need
Speaker 3: to drink in a day, you're carrying probably around seven
Speaker 3: liters of water.
Speaker 2: That's seven kilograms.
Speaker 3: Or sixteen pounds if you're in the US of Water,
Speaker 3: and then or your patrol kit, so or your sleep
Speaker 3: kit you're sleeping bags. Especially patrol kit. We had a
Speaker 3: radio which was just a massive block of wood which
Speaker 3: was heavy and didn't actually transceiver or or transmit. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, you're it's pretty pretty difficult to do anything.
Speaker 3: I mean, you take navigation through the jungle. All the
Speaker 3: maps were produced thirty years ago. If that were produced
Speaker 3: on you know, on a very basic thought process of
Speaker 3: what the ground looks like underneath the canopy, So it's
Speaker 3: a difficult thing to navigate through the jungle. You're kind
Speaker 3: of navigating on ridge lines only. And you know, if
Speaker 3: you think the jungle's flat, think again, it's very very
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Contoured.
Speaker 3: So you've got to stick to the ridge lines because
Speaker 3: it's the only thing that doesn't have a million trees
Speaker 3: and wildlife and fauna and flora flaorna and for whatever
Speaker 3: the word is on it. And then you're navigating on
Speaker 3: a map that's thirty years old with all that kit,
Speaker 3: So it's difficult. Plus the fact that it's fully tactical
Speaker 3: from the moment that you go in there in the jungle,
Speaker 3: to the moment that you leave. So if you want
Speaker 3: to go for a piss, you're going with a buddy.
Speaker 2: Buddy.
Speaker 3: If you want to go to the toilet, if you
Speaker 3: want to go and wash or filly water bottle up,
Speaker 3: it's buddy buddy. If you're cooking, one of your cooks,
Speaker 3: the other stands there with his weapon making sure you
Speaker 3: don't get attacked.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's it's it's difficult there.
Speaker 3: They're looking for if you've got what you've you know,
Speaker 3: if you've got the skills and the resilience and the mindset,
Speaker 3: and if your face fits within a Special Forces fighting
Speaker 3: squadron or a team and you're tested on general soldiering,
Speaker 3: live firing kind of receiving missions and carrying them out,
Speaker 3: and yeah, it's it's tough.
Speaker 2: But I actually enjoyed the jungle. It was it was
Speaker 2: I felt like it was.
Speaker 3: Just a good place to showcase soldiering skills and I
Speaker 3: felt like, I, I think, away from all the noise
Speaker 3: of you know, and it's like jacking a normal Green
Speaker 3: Army unit. There's a lot of noise of wanting to
Speaker 3: go on the piss, like girls or training or whatever
Speaker 3: it is, and you know, without all that noise and
Speaker 3: all you had to worry about every day was you
Speaker 3: your buddies, eating, drinking, making sure your weapons clean, making
Speaker 3: sure your parang was clean, showing up and doing the
Speaker 3: best that you can do every day. It's like when
Speaker 3: you simplify it to that, it's take all the noise
Speaker 3: of modern day life out.
Speaker 2: It's I don't know about you. I tend to thrive
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was what you signed up for, really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, completely to be a professional soldier and to showcase
Speaker 3: what you can do and sure if you're capable of
Speaker 3: be in the Special Forces.
Speaker 2: Was it was fun?
Speaker 1: And then what were the additional phases that come after
Speaker 1: the jungle?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so straight after that you come back and you
Speaker 3: get told whether your pass or fail and the majority
Speaker 3: of the people.
Speaker 2: So we start with around.
Speaker 3: One hundred and fifty applicants at the starter selection Hills
Speaker 3: phase might get rid of half, if not seventy of those.
Speaker 3: So on a healthy select you want to be going
Speaker 3: into the jungle with around fifty applicants. Sometimes it could
Speaker 3: be thirty, just depends on what that year has been like.
Speaker 3: So you come out of the jungle and you've probably
Speaker 3: got anything from ten to twenty applicants, so huge attrition rates.
Speaker 3: And then you go into kind of the continuation phases
Speaker 3: of it. So there's a period called surveillance of reconnaissance,
Speaker 3: which is your kind of traditional surveillance and reconnaissance, so
Speaker 3: observation posts, so bush hides, subsurface observation posts. I think
Speaker 3: that lasts for about three weeks. There's probably a week
Speaker 3: of training, and then or a week and a half
Speaker 3: of training, then a deployment task where you break down
Speaker 3: into teams and going but a subsurface or a bush
Speaker 3: hiding somewhere. And actually at the time, at the back
Speaker 3: end of the jungle phase, literally on the final attack,
Speaker 3: I'd picked up the heaviest bloke that was on selection,
Speaker 3: an officer that went to serving the SBS, an ex
Speaker 3: rugby player. He was a big old boy with a
Speaker 3: fat head, and he'd gone down as a role play
Speaker 3: casualty on the final attack, right next to me. So
Speaker 3: obviously I dropped everything, you know, not dropped everything, but
Speaker 3: ran straight towards him, grabbed him and proceeded to throw
Speaker 3: him onto my back, and at which point my back popped,
Speaker 3: and you know, having just spent five and a half
Speaker 3: six weeks in the jungle carrying a massive bergen your
Speaker 3: back kind of arches like this as opposed to like that,
Speaker 3: and yeah, my back popped and damaged the disk, and
Speaker 3: meant that, you know, in that stupidity moment of being
Speaker 3: a twenty four year old kind of thirsty parachute regiment
Speaker 3: soldier wanted to be in the Special Forces, I just
Speaker 3: disregarded any the fact was in severe pain and not
Speaker 3: wanting to not wanting to come off, and wanted to
Speaker 3: complete selection with the lads that I was on it,
Speaker 3: and not wanting to come off and go into medical
Speaker 3: rehab and come back on selection again. So I gritted
Speaker 3: my teeth and cracked on, which meant that surveillance of
Speaker 3: reconnaissance with a full size O P burg and with
Speaker 3: all your chicken wire and tools and camera kit, you know,
Speaker 3: huge two hundred or six hundred lenses, the big bird
Speaker 3: spotting ones and all that kit, meant that I had
Speaker 3: a bigger rocksack for surveillance of reconnaissance than I did
Speaker 3: in the in the jungle. Plus the fact that it
Speaker 3: was in Hereford and it was probably around October time
Speaker 3: and pissing down with rain, so that trying to insert
Speaker 3: into a farmer's field to put a bush hide or
Speaker 3: a subsurface ope. With all that kind of kit, you're
Speaker 3: slipping all over the place and probably causing you back
Speaker 3: more damage than good. And actually we'd we'd spend the
Speaker 3: whole night trying to get into this position. And everyone
Speaker 3: wants to do a bush hide, because obviously with a
Speaker 3: bush hide, all you do is you go into a
Speaker 3: big thick bush, you cut it out and create create
Speaker 3: an observation poster and ope in the bush. No one
Speaker 3: wants to dig a subsurface ope because it takes all
Speaker 3: night to dig a massive hole and then you live
Speaker 3: in it for the rest of the rest of the week.
Speaker 3: And the sun came up in the morning, we thought
Speaker 3: we had this amazing bush hide. And one of the
Speaker 3: instructors we come directing staff, he was he was a character,
Speaker 3: and he stood over us and he's just.
Speaker 2: Like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 3: And he looked around and it was like, we're all
Speaker 3: soaking where, we've all got all this camera equipment out
Speaker 3: and we're literally just lead leading a load of like
Speaker 3: nettles and thorns. So he kind of give us the
Speaker 3: give us the day in daylight.
Speaker 2: To dig a subsurface op. So we dug this probably.
Speaker 3: Two foot by five foot hole in the ground, went
Speaker 3: down probably a meter, cammed it up and lived in
Speaker 3: it for the rest of the for the rest of
Speaker 3: the week, seven days, and we had two guys observing
Speaker 3: the objective, which was an old farm building. We had
Speaker 3: one guy on rest or cooking and then one guy
Speaker 3: on rear century And needless to say that for the
Speaker 3: majority of the time most of us were asleep. It
Speaker 3: kind of works in our favor because like it kept
Speaker 3: the elements off as and it was pretty warm. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so you do you do surveillance and reconnaissance, and then
Speaker 3: you do counter terrorism, so we train in you know,
Speaker 3: CQB and global domestic counter terrorism.
Speaker 2: That's I think four weeks. And then.
Speaker 3: Escaping evasion so resistance to interrogation, which is what it's
Speaker 3: called now we'll see it.
Speaker 2: Where you go on the run for a week.
Speaker 3: You get twenty four our hours of food so twenty
Speaker 3: four our rations, limited kit and equipment, limited navigational aids,
Speaker 3: and you have to get from through a series of
Speaker 3: checkpoints until you reach the final checkpoint, at which point
Speaker 3: you are taking captive and interrogated for thirty six hours.
Speaker 3: And I think at that point, you you know, there's
Speaker 3: nothing really that they can throw at you that's going
Speaker 3: to pull you off selection, so you're kind of still
Speaker 3: trying to do the best best you can, but your
Speaker 3: head's in it and all be at thirty six hours
Speaker 3: of interrogation sounds pretty hellish. At that point, you're you're
Speaker 3: just you're getting through it and surviving it. And you know,
Speaker 3: if anyone's done any kind of mocker interrogation cereals you
Speaker 3: just got to ask for food and ask for warm clothes,
Speaker 3: and ask for new shoes, and pray that they don't
Speaker 3: beat you up, and ask for coffee and stuff, and
Speaker 3: the more you ask for, the more you get. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so obviously you're pretty pretty tired and knackered by the
Speaker 3: end of that.
Speaker 2: And in interrogation, if anyone doesn't know.
Speaker 3: You're either in a stress position or being interrogated for
Speaker 3: that thirty six hours. So standard two stress positions everyone
Speaker 3: probably knows them, is stood leaning against a wall or
Speaker 3: sat cross legged with your hands above your hands on
Speaker 3: your head. So either you're doing that with you know,
Speaker 3: some cultural music in the background being played or specific
Speaker 3: to whatever theater or operating in, or you're having coffee
Speaker 3: thrown in your face or being asked where your parents live.
Speaker 3: So it was good to get that one out of
Speaker 3: the way and get some sleep. And then the final
Speaker 3: phases is parachuting, so just heho parachuting to Special Forces
Speaker 3: standard and at that level you kind of come back
Speaker 3: and we've done our parachuting out in the States, so
Speaker 3: we went over to California and trained at an air
Speaker 3: base called El Centro, and yeah, you come back from
Speaker 3: that and pretty much you've got a week in camp
Speaker 3: just doing regular stuff, and you have a badging Day parade,
Speaker 3: which is at the clock tower. You get your sandy
Speaker 3: color beret and your blue stable belt, you take the picture,
Speaker 3: and then the next day turn up at the squadron
Speaker 3: as a new blade. And then you kind of realized
Speaker 3: that selection was nothing. And you know that for the
Speaker 3: last six weeks you thought you were an SAS soldier
Speaker 3: and you're at the bottom of the food chain and
Speaker 3: you're go and pick up the bacon butties and the
Speaker 3: tearns in the morning and do all the shit jobs
Speaker 3: as any new bloke does.
Speaker 1: What was it like being a new guy showing up
Speaker 1: at your squadron. What were some of the other guys
Speaker 1: like that you were working with.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because my troupe was at the time a
Speaker 3: little bit older. So there's some guys in the late thirties,
Speaker 3: and there was one guy that had come up two
Speaker 3: years before me, and then before that was probably about
Speaker 3: four or five years.
Speaker 2: So it was a senior senior team.
Speaker 3: And if I'm being honest, no one really gives a fuck,
Speaker 3: as in, everyone's just cracking on doing what they need
Speaker 3: to do. No one stops, and you know, people will
Speaker 3: be like, oh right, mate, I'm whoever. But I think
Speaker 3: at a time and it's probably changed now, there's no
Speaker 3: one really to just take you aside and go, you know, mate,
Speaker 3: this is the this is what's going on, like you
Speaker 3: know this is you know, you've got a room and
Speaker 3: the TL at the time, the team leader was he
Speaker 3: gave you a little bit of insight, but it was
Speaker 3: almost like you just turned up on day one and
Speaker 3: were expected to know what weapons system you're fire in,
Speaker 3: how to zero it, and you know, you just had
Speaker 3: to ask questions and kind of almost try and blend
Speaker 3: in and just copy what the lads were doing. Albeit
Speaker 3: I don't like to do that myself.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: If there's a new guy, I like to take him
Speaker 3: under my wing and make sure that he feels welcome
Speaker 3: and introduce him to everyone and make sure that he
Speaker 3: knows what he's doing, because you know, I turned up.
Speaker 3: I was twenty four years old. It's a pretty daunting
Speaker 3: place to turn up to, an essays Sabers Squadron and
Speaker 3: then find out all your.
Speaker 2: Teammates are in the late thirties.
Speaker 3: And all some pretty like big units as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it was just that era of that.
Speaker 3: That's how men did it, you know, you just turned
Speaker 3: up and cracked on kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that timeframe, I imagine a lot of these
Speaker 1: guys were pretty salty, like they'd been in Iraq doing
Speaker 1: raids and all kinds of counter terrorism work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's probably part of it, right, is like
Speaker 3: you turn up and at the time I've done you know,
Speaker 3: two Afghan tours that were pretty heavy. But these lads
Speaker 3: have been out on you know, on TF TF Night
Speaker 3: or TF Black or whatever it was, and you know
Speaker 3: they've all seen some stuff and they're all bonded by
Speaker 3: that and teammates and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 3: you throw in some young twenty four year old and yeah,
Speaker 3: they're not interested in you. Just at that moment, it's
Speaker 3: like you've you've got to earn your gravy and you've
Speaker 3: got to earn your your place in that team because
Speaker 3: you're surrounded by a bunch of alphas and they're not
Speaker 3: going to look at you until you prove.
Speaker 2: Why they should look at you.
Speaker 1: How did you go about that?
Speaker 2: I mean the same way you.
Speaker 3: Go about anything, right, Like I I I like being
Speaker 3: a soldier and all you've got to do is do
Speaker 3: you best.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Luckily for me like that, the guy that had been
Speaker 3: in for two years prior to me, he was kind
Speaker 3: of mates with all that side, but he was still
Speaker 3: trying to like come to like chat to me and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. And if I'm being honest, like the
Speaker 3: first six months, you're kind of on your own. It's
Speaker 3: like you're volunteering for everything.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: If you get to the end of the brief and
Speaker 3: all the lads live in town and you're going you're
Speaker 3: going on the range that day, then you just go right,
Speaker 3: I'll grab the I'm in the cookhouse in the morning,
Speaker 3: so I'll grab all the all the lunches and coffee
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 2: And then you offer, you know, don't want a coffee
Speaker 2: whilst you're driving up.
Speaker 3: It's like you just make you just show that you're
Speaker 3: a valuable asset to that team in as many ways
Speaker 3: that you can. And if you do that and you
Speaker 3: don't you avoid making any fuck ups, and you show
Speaker 3: them that you know you're a valuable asset and that
Speaker 3: you're capable of being in that that team, then you
Speaker 3: know they all come around to it. And slowly but
Speaker 3: surely they all they all did. And as actually it's
Speaker 3: quite funny. As we deployed out to Norway because I
Speaker 3: went into mountain troops, so extra extreme cold weather warfare
Speaker 3: was part of our remit. And one of the team
Speaker 3: members I won't say any names, but uh, he's a
Speaker 3: he's a big old boy, like covering in tattoos, involved
Speaker 3: in like football, who are going to them.
Speaker 2: And all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And I got teamed up with him in as a
Speaker 3: as a tent buddy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's interested. He was. He was.
Speaker 3: He was sadly ended up being r T L and
Speaker 3: I became really close to him in the end. But
Speaker 3: it's like your first your first trip away with with
Speaker 3: the lads in Norway and it's just me and him
Speaker 3: in a tent at night, trying to like cook and stuff,
Speaker 3: and let's just say conversation was limited. I don't think
Speaker 3: he wanted to speak to me. But but yeah, all that,
Speaker 3: as soon as you kind of blend in with the
Speaker 3: team and they realized that you're you're a good asset,
Speaker 3: then all that changes and then you replace them, right,
Speaker 3: you become in that position that you're now the senior
Speaker 3: person and and you get a chance to do it differently.
Speaker 2: And for me, it was like all the new lads
Speaker 2: that ever came up.
Speaker 3: Even to this day, if someone's there, it's like I
Speaker 3: think probably because I never had it like that. It's
Speaker 3: it's important to take them under your wing, regardless of
Speaker 3: how good or shit they are.
Speaker 2: As a soldier.
Speaker 3: It's it's imperative because you know, you don't necessarily get
Speaker 3: a soldier that turns up that's incredible, that can tick
Speaker 3: every box and that's that's amazing at what they do.
Speaker 2: It's like in the Special Forces, it's it's.
Speaker 3: A diverse unit and every soldier's got a different background,
Speaker 3: a different upbringing, a different skill set. And that's the
Speaker 3: beauty of the Special Forces is that we train hard,
Speaker 3: and we become professional soldiers at what we do from
Speaker 3: that point on. But you know, if someone's a medic,
Speaker 3: if someone's an r MP, if someone's a you know,
Speaker 3: a vehicle mechanic or whatever, it's like they bring a
Speaker 3: skill set that's valuable to that unit and doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: mean that day one there this perfect soldier, but there's
Speaker 3: a chance there that that person could be molded into
Speaker 3: a you know, an amazing soldier in the future, and
Speaker 3: it's your job and responsibility to do that as a
Speaker 3: senior member of that team.
Speaker 1: And so lucky you are getting to be assigned to
Speaker 1: a cold weather team, which I'm sure was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. What was sort of did your troop have
Speaker 1: like a deployment schedule? Was there something that they were
Speaker 1: looking to kind of like work up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, so the Special Forces itself rotates on a
Speaker 3: two year schedule. So as a as a Saber squadron,
Speaker 3: you're generally on either operations.
Speaker 2: You've got a UK role or you're.
Speaker 3: On you know, operations around the world, and if you're
Speaker 3: not on any of those, then in between it's just training.
Speaker 3: And then there's also a training whast you're in that
Speaker 3: but yeah, I mean Afghanistan was still the flavor of
Speaker 3: the month when I joined, So that was the deployment
Speaker 3: whilst I was in, and then you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's a it's a very busy life. It's it's a
Speaker 3: lot of time away from home. It's a lot of
Speaker 3: time out your bed, it's a lot of time spent
Speaker 3: training and drilling and different scenarios and different places.
Speaker 2: And it was, you know, the best thing I've ever done,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Genuinely had an amazing career and being someone who joined
Speaker 3: when I was twenty four, I left when I was
Speaker 3: thirty four, like for those years like to do that,
Speaker 3: It's like I wouldn't if I had the choice.
Speaker 2: I do it all again in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: And you're still obviously a young guy, but you're also single,
Speaker 1: no kids, and I'm sure that helped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. You know, some people managed to.
Speaker 3: Form a relationship and keep a relationship whilst they're serving,
Speaker 3: but it's it's difficult. I always said I wouldn't want
Speaker 3: kids whilst I'm in because you just don't get to
Speaker 3: see them grow up. And I know by speaking to
Speaker 3: some of my friends that are stealing or looking at
Speaker 3: getting out now that you know they missed out a
Speaker 3: massive chunk of their kids' lives growing up just because
Speaker 3: they're away on six month deployment. They're away even whilst
Speaker 3: we're in the UK, it's likely deployed to different parts
Speaker 3: of the UK, around the world, training and different roles.
Speaker 3: So yeah, definitely being single and not married and no
Speaker 3: kids helps for sure.
Speaker 1: And so what was it like when you guys got
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan. I'm guessing this was like twenty ten or so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this would have been twenty ten, twenty twenty ten,
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, might have even been twenty eleven, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Different. I think by that time.
Speaker 3: You've definitely seen this phase change of you know, like
Speaker 3: in two thousand and six, we didn't see one ied.
Speaker 2: It was all.
Speaker 3: I'll shoot guns at you, you shoot guns back at us.
Speaker 3: And then you've definitely seen this this shift now of
Speaker 3: advanced technology within IDs, or at least not advanced technology,
Speaker 3: but advanced tactics in terms of where they placed the
Speaker 3: place them, how they funneled you into areas, and you know,
Speaker 3: you're starting to see these IDs that you couldn't pick
Speaker 3: up with metal detection and all that kind of stuff, reduced.
Speaker 2: Metal or whatever they were called the they were called.
Speaker 3: Which you know, I mean, it was a pretty dark
Speaker 3: side of Afghanistan up and being honest that that whole
Speaker 3: ied warfare game. I was pretty lucky to steer way
Speaker 3: away from that and never really experienced tea mates getting
Speaker 3: hit by them more, but obviously that they were all
Speaker 3: around us at the time, and in fact, during one
Speaker 3: of the deployments on whilst I was in the SAS,
Speaker 3: we literally specifically just went after a whole i AD
Speaker 3: network and took it down whilst I was working there,
Speaker 3: which significantly reduced the amount of Ied attacks that were
Speaker 3: being carried out on our own rural marines that were
Speaker 3: based in the same area at the same time, and
Speaker 3: probably had a knock on effect for US troops at
Speaker 3: the same time. So probably one of our prouder moments
Speaker 3: of operational deployment that we that we were a part of.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we'd I mean luckily our operations were mainly
Speaker 3: carried out in the darkness of night, very limited day
Speaker 3: operations specifically because at night time we hold the upper hand.
Speaker 3: We have mvgs, we've got you know, helicopters and different sy.
Speaker 1: Mostly helicopter insertions, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, helicopters, a lot of walkings, so yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: we trialed around with some parachute operations as well, which
Speaker 3: were which were more kind of to prove prove the
Speaker 3: point that we do less less about the actual objective.
Speaker 1: So like some like some soft targets to show that
Speaker 1: this is possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Strike Despike kind of stuff. But I mean still,
Speaker 3: I mean, jumping into Afghanistan as a hole completely different
Speaker 3: from jumping into the West coast of America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I've heard stories where the American
Speaker 1: side special ops guys have they messed around with it
Speaker 1: or looked at it, but they're like, our squadron is
Speaker 1: going to get spread out over this whole valley because
Speaker 1: there's so much wind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you've got to take in the human
Speaker 3: element of it as well. And albeit we were proficient
Speaker 3: in in in free fall and halo heho at that time,
Speaker 3: it was never like when we carried out the Afghan jumps,
Speaker 3: we weren't specifically looking into it as as as we
Speaker 3: weren't as specialist as we should have been for that
Speaker 3: level of jump. The air troop lads are always going
Speaker 3: to be skilled enough to do it, but to then
Speaker 3: expect a full squadron to land, you know, on that
Speaker 3: on that drop zone, you know, within a solid group,
Speaker 3: and it's a big ask for you know, forty you know,
Speaker 3: thirty to forty soldiers. Some of the lads don't even
Speaker 3: like it. Some of them aren't even good at it.
Speaker 3: That's that's just a given, you know, you get we
Speaker 3: can't be good at everything, and that's kind of what
Speaker 3: those jumps proved.
Speaker 2: But actually at the time.
Speaker 3: We we started to put non air troop guys on
Speaker 3: on on the hap See course, so we start to
Speaker 3: get them free fall trained and myself I was literally
Speaker 3: on that first course, so as a mountain troop operate, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was on the first course, the first HALO HEH
Speaker 3: course out in the in the States, which which was
Speaker 3: great and now you know, I think every every badged
Speaker 3: operator is is free fall trained.
Speaker 2: But actually coming.
Speaker 3: Back from being qualified as as as HALO, i'd literally
Speaker 3: just done the course and then we deployed that on
Speaker 3: that on that job and I got picked to jump
Speaker 3: in with the the air troopers as the first stick
Speaker 3: on the black Light DS to mark the DZ for
Speaker 3: the rest of the squadron, and there was only six
Speaker 3: of us that jumped. And yeah, needless to say that
Speaker 3: that didn't go all too great. It was complete red
Speaker 3: I looms so zero moon state. He struggle to see
Speaker 3: a hand in front of your face. And yeah, we
Speaker 3: we we dropped out, had a bit of a split
Speaker 3: in the sky for whatever reason. And I had actually
Speaker 3: never jumped onto a d Z that was being marked
Speaker 3: by a strobe from from the drone from the Reaper,
Speaker 3: and we'd I mean, yeah, we we kind of felt
Speaker 3: that there was a way stronger wind that pushed us back,
Speaker 3: that pushed us way beyond the drop zone. And by
Speaker 3: the time we'd realize that we we were going a
Speaker 3: little bit too fast and we'd gone past the strobe
Speaker 3: that was getting emitted from the the Reaper of the Predaco,
Speaker 3: which one by the time we turned back into wind,
Speaker 3: we weren't really penetrating. So we ended up landing a
Speaker 3: can cana half away from from the designated drop zone
Speaker 3: mark where the DZ and then brought the rest of
Speaker 3: the squadron in. But like I said, you know, you
Speaker 3: expect you know, thirty to forty you know, HEHO qualified
Speaker 3: operators to land on a tea in red a loom
Speaker 3: state in Afghanistan. It's like you're having a laugh, and like,
Speaker 3: especially with the conditions that we jumped in, it was
Speaker 3: tricky for us as trained free full operators to land
Speaker 3: on the in the right spot. And yeah, people landed,
Speaker 3: you know, not everyone. The majority of the lads landed
Speaker 3: within that area, but there was some that were all
Speaker 3: over all over the place. So I mean, again, you know,
Speaker 3: you learn from from these kind of situations. And I
Speaker 3: know that what that meant was obviously everyone getting trained
Speaker 3: in freefall, and then specifically squadrons looked at how we
Speaker 3: get proficient at being free full operators considering looking at
Speaker 3: the look at the operational theater that we're in or
Speaker 3: that we were going into. You know, if helicopters aren't
Speaker 3: an option for certain weapons systems, parachuting in is still
Speaker 3: a very you know, credible option.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's the kind of direction that it went.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I's going to ask, so did was the conclusion
Speaker 1: that airborne operations like this aren't really feasible in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: or more that like we need to elevate the level
Speaker 1: of training that we put the guys through to get
Speaker 1: more proficient at it.
Speaker 3: I think, I think airborne operations are totally feasible, and
Speaker 3: just I think the level of training needs to be
Speaker 3: increased so that you minimize kind of the jump compromising
Speaker 3: the actual operation. So for example, for a hostage rescue,
Speaker 3: that's like a perfect method of infill, right because for
Speaker 3: obvious reasons. So yeah, I mean that that was the
Speaker 3: kind of the fallout of that piece was that we
Speaker 3: need to be way more skilled. But again, a great
Speaker 3: one to run out and to test and see how
Speaker 3: it goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And another thing I want to ask, were you
Speaker 1: guys operating mostly around Hellman Province at this time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we we actually operated within all of Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: So yeah, so yeah, the whole, the whole of the area.
Speaker 3: I mean there wasn't that there's no other UK. I
Speaker 3: mean we had the SBS out there at the same time,
Speaker 3: but yeah, we were pretty much the whole of the
Speaker 3: Afghan battle battle area. I mean Helmand was the hot spot,
Speaker 3: but Kandar as well, but yeah, all over pretty much.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned going after a ied network where the
Speaker 1: other targets, like high value targets getting called up. You know,
Speaker 1: kind of like around the entire country.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, so, I mean the main battle
Speaker 3: group of the main objective was was HVTS, so high
Speaker 3: value targets, and then yeah, you kind of had like
Speaker 3: a load of smaller teams that would work with Afghan
Speaker 3: National Special Forces units. Smaller teams dotted over around the
Speaker 3: AO that would carry out like training training roles, but
Speaker 3: also have an operational side to them where you're trying
Speaker 3: to hand over the responsibility to the to the Afghans.
Speaker 3: You know, they can at some point take over and
Speaker 3: start doing detention operations within their own battle space.
Speaker 1: Well, you guys were doing unilateral operations mostly, but you're
Speaker 1: you're saying you had other elements that were doing what
Speaker 1: we call foreign internal defense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, same thing. So, yeah, like an S triplet
Speaker 3: similar to that. So small team of three would go
Speaker 3: and embed themselves with a local strike team and train them,
Speaker 3: develop them, fund them. Obviously, the bigger picture would be
Speaker 3: that someday we would, you know, give Afghanistan back to
Speaker 3: a government that would be able to stand up and
Speaker 3: provide some sort of democracy and freedom for the Afghan people,
Speaker 3: and these small training teams would stand up and be
Speaker 3: the special forces, of the elite units of that providing
Speaker 3: protection and all that kind of stuff to the people.
Speaker 3: Obviously didn't go that way, but that was the objective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask, you know, what was
Speaker 1: sort of your perception as you know, you go on
Speaker 1: these deployments to Afghanistan. Of course, you know, yeah, rolling
Speaker 1: up an ied network is a tangible win for any unit,
Speaker 1: But did you have any thoughts or observations about how
Speaker 1: like the larger war was going in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was always in the back of
Speaker 3: your head, even like in those early days in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six. It was almost like I remember having
Speaker 3: those conversations with the lads and just going like what
Speaker 3: we're actually here for, Like what's what's the objective?
Speaker 2: But again, look, it's hard to a couple of things.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's hard for us to be able to
Speaker 3: it's hard for us to put today's thinking on something
Speaker 3: that happened twenty years ago. And I think this is
Speaker 3: like a flow of modern society right now. Is we're
Speaker 3: trying to we're trying to almost say, right two hundred
Speaker 3: years ago, when life was completely different and neighbors were
Speaker 3: probably killing each other, over a loaf of bread or
Speaker 3: something like that. Let's put today thinking on that and
Speaker 3: just because you know that person said this or like
Speaker 3: had that or whatever, it's like, now we should you know,
Speaker 3: completely disregard amount of human existence. It's like the same
Speaker 3: thing with Afghanistan. It's like we can quite easily fall
Speaker 3: into a trap now when we've got this free, like
Speaker 3: abundant world of like you know, you want anything and
Speaker 3: you get it, and like, you know, we've all got
Speaker 3: money and we've all got like freedom to be able
Speaker 3: to have ideas and thoughts, to be able to say, right,
Speaker 3: going down too Afghanistan is the wrong thing to do.
Speaker 3: That's like you can retrospectively look at it and say,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you know, maybe we should have reconsidered
Speaker 3: going into Afghanistan. Maybe you know, what were the real
Speaker 3: legitimate reasons for going into it. But like I you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think that anyone sat in any of those
Speaker 3: high political war rooms and when you know, let's go
Speaker 3: in here for for ships and giggles.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It was like there was some serious reasons why we
Speaker 3: went in there in the first place. And as a
Speaker 3: soldier on the ground, you know, Afghanistan is a barbaric place.
Speaker 3: It's not a place where pride flags can be flown
Speaker 3: or women have the same lights as what they do here.
Speaker 3: It's barbaric. Women still get stoned to death. You know,
Speaker 3: women can't show any any any skin, right, not even
Speaker 3: their eyes. And not only that, right, but they can't
Speaker 3: even see them. You know, I'm gonna going around to
Speaker 3: like Afghan houses. I was doing some rogue stuff whilst
Speaker 3: I was in that go around, like the houses with
Speaker 3: the interpreter, and like all the women had likely stood
Speaker 3: at the door staring at you, but they're all covered,
Speaker 3: like their eyes are covered everything, gloves on their hands,
Speaker 3: like nothing can be shown. And like, you know, tell
Speaker 3: me that that's not oppression. And not only that, but
Speaker 3: they can't see another human. And for that short space
Speaker 3: of time that we were deployed in Afghanistan, did you
Speaker 3: start to see university schools? Kabul became Western? You know,
Speaker 3: women in Kabul went from being fully covered up to whearing,
Speaker 3: you know, just a hijab or just the scarf. And
Speaker 3: you know, you started to see early signs that Afghanistan
Speaker 3: was a more peaceful place to live. And if you
Speaker 3: ask the interpreters or people that live there when it
Speaker 3: wasn't ruled by the Taliban.
Speaker 2: That that's the case, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And now it's gone back to rule under the Taliban,
Speaker 3: it's gone back to the old school ways.
Speaker 2: That was as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think also it's maybe worth pointing out that
Speaker 1: no one really expected or thought that we're going to
Speaker 1: be in Afghanistan for what did it ended up being
Speaker 1: like twenty two years? You know? I think one of
Speaker 1: the criticisms actually of the war is that every commander
Speaker 1: came in and thought we were eight months away from victory,
Speaker 1: and we did that over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: especially after after we killed Bin Laden in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: I mean, who thought that we would be there for
Speaker 1: another decade? That's pretty crazy, you know. Like now again
Speaker 1: in retrospect, as we sit here today looking back on it,
Speaker 1: it's like, what were we doing one.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent if you look at again retrospectively, like the
Speaker 3: amount of money that we spend as two nations and
Speaker 3: what do we actually achieve within there? Like if anything,
Speaker 3: we stirred the hornet's nest. But again, like it's just
Speaker 3: the way the world, and you learn the lessons from
Speaker 3: you learn the biggest lessons from the biggest mistakes, and
Speaker 3: and we get now the privilege because we still live
Speaker 3: in a free world to to decide what the next
Speaker 3: twenty or the next forty, the next fifty looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was reading through your bio, it mentioned
Speaker 1: you also got involved in like the Clindestine side of
Speaker 1: the job as your career progressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you mean by clandestine?
Speaker 1: Sorry, I think you said it said that you did
Speaker 1: like two covert deployments.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, probably three and then yeah, they're just obviously
Speaker 3: countries that you can't talk about the deployment. But yeah, again,
Speaker 3: like super interesting stuff to see that part of the job.
Speaker 2: And it was kind of about the time.
Speaker 3: That that Afghanistan had started coming to an end for
Speaker 3: US anyway, And yeah, it's interesting. I mean you look
Speaker 3: at the battlespace now in the world and how that shifted.
Speaker 3: And you've obviously got what's going on in Israel, Gaza,
Speaker 3: Palestine and Iran and the wider countries Lebanon and every
Speaker 3: involved country and state, and then you've got you know,
Speaker 3: the Ukraine and Russia thing and how that looks it's
Speaker 3: it's an interesting space right now, and I think it
Speaker 3: brings a lot of uncertainty just because there's there's bigger
Speaker 3: powers that be, there's bigger nations at being known, really
Speaker 3: knows what the outcome is.
Speaker 2: Going to be.
Speaker 1: Was that sort of your job on those deployments like
Speaker 1: confirm or deny, you know, a WRECKI of assorts to
Speaker 1: go out there and you know, be the eyes and
Speaker 1: ears for the British government.
Speaker 3: A little bit, yeah, a little bit of reporting, a
Speaker 3: lot of it's a little bit of just like this, uh,
Speaker 3: this kind of military entrepreneurial ship of just go to
Speaker 3: a different place and set something up and just see
Speaker 3: what see what's there. Whether there's always going to be
Speaker 3: an element of reporting in everything that we do, but
Speaker 3: it's it's a little bit of a little bit more
Speaker 3: of just right, this is your job, this is the team.
Speaker 3: Go over there and just see what you can make happen,
Speaker 3: like make some connections, build some stuff, find some people
Speaker 3: to train and report back.
Speaker 1: And was that something that you enjoyed by comparison to
Speaker 1: I imagine this is like a singleton mission or maybe
Speaker 1: you go out and two's but did you enjoy being
Speaker 1: away from your troop and doing this type of work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's I don't get me wrong. Being
Speaker 3: in a squadrons good. You've got a smaller role, not
Speaker 3: necessarily a smaller role, but you've got a more defined role.
Speaker 3: You know, your job that evening might be to be
Speaker 3: a sniper on the high ground if that's your job.
Speaker 3: Your job might be to be a ladder man. Your
Speaker 3: job might be to just be in a team. It's
Speaker 3: it's pretty pretty linear and binary. I think when you
Speaker 3: go out on those smaller jobs and tasks, it's a
Speaker 3: little bit more creative.
Speaker 2: You don't have specific role.
Speaker 3: You're working there as a team trying to figure out
Speaker 3: what it is that you know, where can you have
Speaker 3: an effect or how can you how can you make
Speaker 3: this situation better?
Speaker 2: Or do you know what I mean. It's it's a
Speaker 2: way more interesting job role than just.
Speaker 1: It's all it's on your shoulders and you have to
Speaker 1: come up with creative solutions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah. And again some of
Speaker 2: that can be.
Speaker 3: Traditionally very boring and it's not as exciting as what
Speaker 3: what people see it as. And some of it can
Speaker 3: be can be fun and you can do some you
Speaker 3: can get yourself into what some wacky situations and the
Speaker 3: stuff that know no one, no one gets to do
Speaker 3: in the world. So yeah, it's it's it's.
Speaker 1: Interesting are I know you can't mention any like places
Speaker 1: or dates or anything, but can you mention any of
Speaker 1: these wacky experiences?
Speaker 3: I mean, uh, less on an operational standpoint, but you
Speaker 3: know you're a team in the middle of like some
Speaker 3: country where there's a war happening and living in a
Speaker 3: safe house and you know you'd be a going out
Speaker 3: and having fun, drinking beers and sometimes getting into a
Speaker 3: little bit of mischief and stuff, and it's like that
Speaker 3: kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like being on the set of Star Wars
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just it's good fun. You know, you like
Speaker 2: work hard.
Speaker 3: You try and you try and find things that you
Speaker 3: can do or build things, and you know that there's a.
Speaker 2: How should I how should I put this?
Speaker 3: You know without obviously, when you've got the whole squadron,
Speaker 3: it's very formal, official, and then when you're in these
Speaker 3: small teams, it's it's a lot more relaxed. You know,
Speaker 3: you fires in the evening, sundowners, barbecues, like it's you know,
Speaker 3: working with other agencies and working with other nationalities as well,
Speaker 3: and yeah, driving around in places that you shouldn't be
Speaker 3: and seeing some things that you shouldn't necessarily see or
Speaker 3: being part of, and it's just, yeah, it's a very
Speaker 3: interesting side of the job for sure, if you get there.
Speaker 2: If you get that again, it could be very boring.
Speaker 1: And what was that sort of like the tail end
Speaker 1: of your time at the essay assert.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so kind of the last four years.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, and then.
Speaker 3: I'd i'd actually we send guys away in the Mountain
Speaker 3: Troops to we send two guys every four years, I
Speaker 3: think it is to go and train in.
Speaker 2: In Germany to be a mountain guide.
Speaker 3: So i'd i'd managed to get myself on that course,
Speaker 3: so you have to learn German that the whole course
Speaker 3: is done in German. And and yeah, you go out
Speaker 3: to Bavaria and live in the Alps for two years.
Speaker 3: So i'd done that, and you know, it was kind
Speaker 3: of being in the Alps for that period of time
Speaker 3: and you know, seeing something different that wasn't just soldiering.
Speaker 2: Kind of like shifted my outlook on stuff.
Speaker 3: And before I was very much pcifically a green soldier
Speaker 3: and wanted to stay in the Special Force and all
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff and progress my career, and having
Speaker 3: gone and done that just opened my eyes to a
Speaker 3: completely different way of life, or a different way of living.
Speaker 3: And it was actually when I come back from that tour,
Speaker 3: we deployed on one of those operations and I deployed out.
Speaker 3: I'd actually spent three months in a in an OPS
Speaker 3: room somewhere in the middle of summer, and I used
Speaker 3: to just come out of this ops room.
Speaker 2: I was, I was the team leader in the ops room.
Speaker 3: And you'd go in about five in the morning and
Speaker 3: come out at about seven thirty at night, and it
Speaker 3: was like sunny during the day. And I remember coming
Speaker 3: out and I stood out. I stood somewhere as one
Speaker 3: of the lads to walk past me, and it's just like, yay,
Speaker 3: you are right. I was just like staring at the sun,
Speaker 3: just trying to get some vitamin D because I've just
Speaker 3: been staring at screen for like the last eight hours
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: And then I deployed out and the the lads were just.
Speaker 3: Like I think. I think I knew straight away at
Speaker 3: that point that my my career was going to change.
Speaker 3: And you know, there probably wasn't long before I had
Speaker 3: to leave the Special Forces.
Speaker 2: And go and do go and do what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was pretty much four years when getting
Speaker 3: getting back from that course, and then there was a
Speaker 3: few reasons of why I decided to leave. It was
Speaker 3: mainly because of that seeing a different way of life.
Speaker 3: And I think the longer you're in the Special Forces,
Speaker 3: it's like the job can be quite monotonous. It's you know,
Speaker 3: you're doing the same thing day and day out, albeit
Speaker 3: at this variety, but it becomes very much, it becomes
Speaker 3: very it can be can be very saving. And then
Speaker 3: you know, I'd always joined joined to be a soldier,
Speaker 3: and the longer that you stay in, the more you
Speaker 3: just end up sat behind a desk, which ultimately we
Speaker 3: all do it some stage, but I think at that
Speaker 3: time I felt like I if I left at the
Speaker 3: age of thirty four, then I'd still have a good
Speaker 3: run of life or setting something up outside. And sure, yeah,
Speaker 3: there was a few things. There was a little bit
Speaker 3: of like structuring of the regimen and people getting in
Speaker 3: charge in positions that potentially shouldn't be in those positions.
Speaker 3: There was like a few funnels that kind of led
Speaker 3: me to just to led me to leave.
Speaker 1: And when it was that class you took in the Alps,
Speaker 1: was like that you fell in love with mountaineering or
Speaker 1: was it more like that you fell in love with
Speaker 1: way of life in the Alps and the civilian life
Speaker 1: out there?
Speaker 2: Probably both?
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably probably first taste of freedom Jack, gotcha?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, you know what I mean, like real freedom, like.
Speaker 3: I've been not driving back to camp on a Sunday
Speaker 3: night for the tenth weekend in a row.
Speaker 2: But also also the beauty.
Speaker 3: And awe of mountaineering and the mountains and something different adventure.
Speaker 3: And I think I'd always been hardwired for adventure just
Speaker 3: the reason that I joined the military.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, it was it was something.
Speaker 3: That that's always kind of been something that I've always
Speaker 3: been drawn to.
Speaker 2: So to do it in the arts was amazing.
Speaker 1: And I mean it sounds like you were ready and
Speaker 1: made the right decision at the right time in your life.
Speaker 1: But was that transition out of the military still a
Speaker 1: challenge for you?
Speaker 2: Yes? And no.
Speaker 3: I think I think I had a plan when I left,
Speaker 3: and I started working for an outdoor for a clothing
Speaker 3: brand that was set up by two sbs Special Boat
Speaker 3: Squadron guys. Oh are you talking about the Yeah they're great,
Speaker 3: yeah sick. Yeah they got they're based out in it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're doing really well now. But I started working with
Speaker 3: those guys when I get out, when I when I left,
Speaker 3: So don't get me wrong, there was like periods where
Speaker 3: i'd left and I was like sat in a flat
Speaker 3: in London, that's where I lived at the time, and
Speaker 3: and you're just like you're like day five into not
Speaker 3: really knowing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: And I sat in the flat just like.
Speaker 3: Okay, because at the time through dark like the guys
Speaker 3: had just kicked it off. I mean when I joined them,
Speaker 3: they they just designed three garments, so it wasn't like
Speaker 3: there was loads of work to do. So you were
Speaker 3: kind of just like sat there thinking like all right,
Speaker 3: what we're going to do today. But then I think
Speaker 3: I don't know about you, Jack. I think like that
Speaker 3: whole getting out process isn't just like within the first
Speaker 3: week or two weeks or three weeks if you leave it.
Speaker 3: It's a process of years of like this shedding of
Speaker 3: like the skin that you built up within the military
Speaker 3: to you like now becoming like a civilian and like
Speaker 3: doing civilian things and like softening up emotionally and all
Speaker 3: those kind of things. It's it's like a shift over
Speaker 3: you like every year. I noticed different things. I think
Speaker 3: when I first came out, I very much thought I
Speaker 3: was still Jay the Special Forces soldier, and I probably
Speaker 3: did for like two or three years. And it was
Speaker 3: an ego thing, do you know what I mean. It
Speaker 3: was like I'd be like the fucking guy, I don't
Speaker 3: know who I am in the in the back of
Speaker 3: your head, that's what you were kind of thinking. And
Speaker 3: it took me a long time to you know, to
Speaker 3: like shed that skin. And you know, there's it was
Speaker 3: an amazing career and you know, it's still such a
Speaker 3: big part of my life now in everything that I do,
Speaker 3: because you'll never be able to take away those fourteen
Speaker 3: years of military service.
Speaker 2: But it kind of doesn't define me now. So many
Speaker 2: other things do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, no, that's absolutely true. And I mean
Speaker 1: you spend your young adult life in the military, and
Speaker 1: it's normal to go with what you know. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say until you earn a different way of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely.
Speaker 3: And you know, going back to the big you know,
Speaker 3: two things, like the big thing that was was that
Speaker 3: drew me to leave. Leave was was freedom was having
Speaker 3: autonomy over your life and your decisions and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. And I can't remember this, I think
Speaker 3: that I was going to say, but yeah, freedom.
Speaker 1: I and so, I mean that is pretty great that
Speaker 1: you got a job working with true darc right out
Speaker 1: the gate. What what is kind of like your civilian
Speaker 1: life and career sort of progressed over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. What does that look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's been a lot of trial and error.
Speaker 3: I I still like to keep my foot into the
Speaker 3: veteran community and in.
Speaker 2: The military community.
Speaker 3: Like I think we spoke about before, Like I worked
Speaker 3: with this brand Delta thrie Oscar helping them as an
Speaker 3: ambassador but also developing their military line of product. So
Speaker 3: for example that that they produce, they've got this really
Speaker 3: cool patent that so that that their main company D
Speaker 3: three zero has this got this shock resistant or shock
Speaker 3: absorbing product that's flexible so you wack it with the hammer,
Speaker 3: it goes all hard. And they're in kind of extreme
Speaker 3: sports skiing, motorbikeing, biking, all that kind of stuff, mountain biking,
Speaker 3: and they've now got don't three Oscar, which is their
Speaker 3: military line of products.
Speaker 2: So they've got a.
Speaker 3: A plate that goes behind a ballistic plate that if
Speaker 3: your ballistic plate gets hit, it reduces the chance of
Speaker 3: blunt blunt force trauma, dissipates the energy of the round
Speaker 3: and reduces the chance of you know, broken bones and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. They've got some pretty cool
Speaker 3: helmet mounts, sorry, helmet pads that reduce the chance of
Speaker 3: shock and reduce the chances of TBIs and brain injuries.
Speaker 3: So like, I still like to keep my foot into
Speaker 3: the military kind of side of things. On a I
Speaker 3: work with a veterans organization doing some stuff for those guys.
Speaker 3: And then my kind of day job is I've got
Speaker 3: a company that runs premium adventure travel for mainly high
Speaker 3: net worth clients, so pretty much anything it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be adventure travel. For example, I just had a
Speaker 3: lady climb Mount Kenya and go in Safari in Kenya.
Speaker 3: I'm flying out to Monaco to talk to someone about
Speaker 3: climbing Everest next week, so it's quite diverse.
Speaker 2: And then I do.
Speaker 3: So I work for all I'm a partner in a
Speaker 3: company called Houdares Group, which provides special forces corporate training
Speaker 3: and experiences. So we have a lot of companies come
Speaker 3: to us for specific training to kind of make their
Speaker 3: teams better, or it could just be a company that
Speaker 3: wants to run like a one or two day Special
Speaker 3: Forces style experience package. So yeah, quite quite diverse, but
Speaker 3: still kind of keeps the old skill set.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, yeah, you keep your hands on a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff.
Speaker 3: I only started shooting guns again recently when I went
Speaker 3: went back out to the States because albeit we have
Speaker 3: guns in America, in the UK, we don't have them
Speaker 3: the same as you guys, which is unfortunate. So it
Speaker 3: was good when I was in Montana, we went down
Speaker 3: to a range there and got to shoot some ails
Speaker 3: and glocks.
Speaker 1: And you're still mountaineering, You're still working as a mountain guide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still still mountaineering.
Speaker 3: Loads out to the Alps this year out in September,
Speaker 3: still doing a lot of that stuff. Still have a
Speaker 3: lot of projects that I'm working on for myself, like
Speaker 3: out next year to Dinali and Alaska, potentially K two
Speaker 3: in in in Pakistan, and then yeah, just still trying
Speaker 3: to do things that keep.
Speaker 2: The old excitement. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And tell people where they can go to find these
Speaker 1: different services that you offer, whether it's Delta, Delta three Oscar,
Speaker 1: or the corporate training or the adventure travel. Where can
Speaker 1: people go to find that stuff?
Speaker 3: I mean Instagram is the main platform, Like either on
Speaker 3: my page, Juble, Underscore Morton, Concept Expeditions on Instagram, you
Speaker 3: can email us if you're interested in doing anything either
Speaker 3: one on one group trips or experiences. And that's just
Speaker 3: in for Concept Expeditions dot com. And then yeah, check
Speaker 3: out Delta three Oscar obviously their website, they're at their
Speaker 3: social media all that kind of stuff. And yeah, it'd
Speaker 3: be good to speak to some of the guys that
Speaker 3: listened and always came for a chat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. Anything else that you'd like to talk about,
Speaker 1: anything that you know, I didn't ask during this interview
Speaker 1: that you'd really like to get into, not.
Speaker 3: That I can think of, Jack, I mean, I'd love
Speaker 3: to read your book at some stage.
Speaker 2: I just see the background there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah the novel. Yeah that came out in June. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a fun read.
Speaker 2: I hope good stuff. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: And likewise, if you come through New York, please let
Speaker 1: us know.
Speaker 2: Let's see cigars and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah we can't. We don't. We don't really have
Speaker 1: the thing with guns. We sort of have that same
Speaker 1: problem here in New York City. You're not going to
Speaker 1: do too much shooting around here, but you might have
Speaker 1: to go upstate. You have something. Dates question, What was
Speaker 1: it like going, uh, summoning Everest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so first summited in twenty seventeen, and.
Speaker 2: It was, I mean, the journey to it was.
Speaker 3: We tried to climb the mountain before that called Manisley,
Speaker 3: which is the eighth highest. It was the first time
Speaker 3: I'd ever climbed an attitude mountain. And I think, being
Speaker 3: like a Special Forces soldier, you think you can do anything,
Speaker 3: but out issued like as a different story in that.
Speaker 3: And so to climb in eight thousand meter peak you
Speaker 3: need three six weeks. And I'd arranged to go out
Speaker 3: with this guy called John, who was an ex SAS
Speaker 3: soldier who is now older, been successful in business, and
Speaker 3: last minute John told me that he couldn't go out
Speaker 3: for the six weeks, but he could go and do
Speaker 3: three weeks.
Speaker 2: So I was like, mate, don't about it. It's a mountain,
Speaker 2: we'll crack it or whatever. And then.
Speaker 3: So I went off and you know, did whatever for
Speaker 3: three weeks and then we met in Nepal. Obviously, this
Speaker 3: was the first time that I'd ever been exposed to
Speaker 3: altitude at that at that height, and we skip the
Speaker 3: normal base camp trek, which is ten days for Mansleu
Speaker 3: similar or probably less about eight to nine days similar
Speaker 3: to the Everest one. And if if you look at altitude,
Speaker 3: so the body can ad just probably around every five
Speaker 3: hundred meters, and what happens is you go a little
Speaker 3: bit higher, triggers the body to produce more red blood cells,
Speaker 3: you can carry oxygen around the body more proficiently.
Speaker 2: So we kind of rush this mountain and float.
Speaker 3: You know, John wanted to helen concentrate into base camp
Speaker 3: and then we just had to go for the summer bush.
Speaker 3: We got stuck at camp turing a huge snowstorm and
Speaker 3: there was probably around a foot of snow outside the tents,
Speaker 3: and we got stuck in these tents with these German
Speaker 3: guys that I, funnily enough knew from my time out
Speaker 3: in Germany. There were military guys from the KSK and
Speaker 3: they were the only ones with tents because they funnily enough,
Speaker 3: we're trying to do like an unsupported expedition and they
Speaker 3: were going up at when everyone was coming off the
Speaker 3: mountain because our tents were had a camp higher up,
Speaker 3: and we're stuck in these tents with all these these
Speaker 3: Germans and like we you know, we were running out
Speaker 3: of food and John looks like he's going to die
Speaker 3: because he's probably got you know, altitude sickness, and he's
Speaker 3: knocking on the door of cerebral edema. And then we
Speaker 3: obviously the snow clear and we cracked. We decided to
Speaker 3: crack onto the summit and obviously a lot of fresh snow,
Speaker 3: cold temperatures slopes around, you know, thirty four to thirty
Speaker 3: seven degrees, it's like prime avalanche terrain. And anyway, we
Speaker 3: ended up just below Camp four, just narrowly missing a
Speaker 3: huge slab avalanche, at which point we turned around, came
Speaker 3: back down and both survived coming back down.
Speaker 2: So then we went out to Everest. Everest seemed like
Speaker 2: a bit of a breeze.
Speaker 3: We gave ourselves the amount of time, so eight weeks
Speaker 3: we acclimatized properly. And actually the when we got up
Speaker 3: to Camp four, which is the final camp, it's called
Speaker 3: the South coll to Ad eight thousand meters, there was
Speaker 3: a huge storm, like a windstorm that was whipping through
Speaker 3: the coal and there was a load of teams turning
Speaker 3: around and coming back down, and there was teams that
Speaker 3: had stayed there twenty four hours and they were considering
Speaker 3: going up that night or turning back around, and we
Speaker 3: decided to take a punt on it and went for
Speaker 3: the summit bush.
Speaker 2: And the wind dropped down halfway up, and it was.
Speaker 3: Actually a beautiful day, clear blue sky, perfect conditions. But
Speaker 3: because of this storm, no one else had gone for
Speaker 3: the summit push. There was probably I passed probably four
Speaker 3: people on the way up. As I got to the summit,
Speaker 3: we had one sherper. Two of them had turned around.
Speaker 3: The idea was John would climb with two, I climber
Speaker 3: with one. So John was climbing with a sherpa a
Speaker 3: little bit for a little bit behind me. I was
Speaker 3: just on my own and there was no one on
Speaker 3: the route. Literally passed four people on the way up,
Speaker 3: and when I got to the summit there was two
Speaker 3: Korean climbers getting the picture, and I rushed over to
Speaker 3: them and was like, guys, can you take a picture,
Speaker 3: pulled out my squadron flag with the emblem on and
Speaker 3: they took a picture and got off the summit, and
Speaker 3: that was the only picture that I had of the
Speaker 3: squadron flag and it came out blurry. So I was
Speaker 3: literally stood on the summit of Everest on my own,
Speaker 3: no sherpers, like no other climbers, and it was pretty surreal.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, you know, how do.
Speaker 3: You make the most of like being on being the
Speaker 3: highest man in the world at this point, And I
Speaker 3: don't think there is a way. It's like, you're just
Speaker 3: excited to be on there. And John came up a
Speaker 3: little bit after and we got some good pictures and
Speaker 3: got off the mountain. But yeah, it's a pretty special mountain.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's changed over the years. When up again in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen and you started to see the crowds build.
Speaker 3: I was up on there in twenty twenty three, but
Speaker 3: on the up to Camp three, but again you're seeing
Speaker 3: massive swaths of people now going there. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: everything's becoming more accessible and people want to push themselves
Speaker 3: more and get an Instagram picture in more wackier places
Speaker 3: than Everest is just one of those places.
Speaker 1: Everest is obviously the highest, but I was as a
Speaker 1: mountain guide a venture travel Guide. What are some like
Speaker 1: lesser known mountain ranges that are just as beautiful that
Speaker 1: you would recommend to people.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd recommend the Himalayas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, e risk is obviously super busy, but you can
Speaker 3: get up to there's some pretty beautiful like six and
Speaker 3: a half thousand meter six five hundred meter peaks to climb.
Speaker 3: The Pool's beautiful, Like there's literally the Himalayas is the
Speaker 3: biggest mountain range in the world. It's like phenomenal even
Speaker 3: just to go and see it and experience it, and
Speaker 3: even if you hike up to five thousand meters on
Speaker 3: one of the passes, it's a size and scale that
Speaker 3: you will never experience anywhere else in the world. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the Alps on my doorsteps amazing, super busy, though you
Speaker 3: can get some quieter places, but in the summer it's
Speaker 3: really busy. Scotland like epic, epic place, and be prepared
Speaker 3: for insanely harsh winters where you will see every single
Speaker 3: season known to man, and you'll be absolutely drenched for
Speaker 3: the whole duration of whatever it.
Speaker 2: Is that you're going to do. Where else.
Speaker 3: I've not done that much in America. I'd love to
Speaker 3: like I'm going to spend more time in America over
Speaker 3: the winter. Pata Gourney is obviously beautiful, insane, very desolate,
Speaker 3: very isolated, not that busy even just to go there,
Speaker 3: and Trek is absolutely beautiful. So yeah, there's there's lots
Speaker 3: of lots of amazing places around the world to go.
Speaker 1: Next floor, Absolutely well, Jay, thank you for taking the
Speaker 1: time to do this interview and sharing your story with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, appreciate it. Jack, thanks for thanks for the thanks
Speaker 3: for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, any final thoughts before we get going today.
Speaker 2: Good, appreciate it. Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and thank you everyone who joined us and
Speaker 1: watched the show today, and we'll see you again next week. Hey, guys,
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