I've got a special guest with us today.
Our Darryl guy. Bon Jono.
Friend of the pod. Cunt nerds.
Now, I'm I'm excited for this episode,
this patron episode, but at the same time, I'm nervous
because you are far more ruthless than anything.
You look at that with them fucking eyes.
Fucking kill them.
Come out of your mouth.
I'm scared. Cock.
There's going to be very little gaming talk on this episode.
I already know it.
We're just going to see where we fucking roll with it.
Done all that shit. And we talked about games.
Got that out of the way. Yeah.
So here's the nice relax.
That's that's time for talk about whatever the fuck you want.
Oh, you're all you pain bitches out there deserve this.
Actually, I pay.
I know I'm going to start issuing refunds to you and call.
I get one pound twenty five back.
I mean, one hundred and twenty five because I pay shit ton of money.
Well, into this episode, this episode.
You're right. What flavor are these Doritos?
They are. Oh, you fucking Bombay flavor.
And they kind of would like extra extra fire or something.
Extra fire. Fiery hot.
They're nice going in.
And be fucking horrible coming out.
How is how is your first
podcast ever?
First one? Yeah, it was a podcast.
Yeah, as I said on the episode, I've got a what's the buttons boner?
But because you pay extra, you can find out a little bit more.
As I've not only got a can of spicy, what's the button boner?
But I've got a what's the buttons fucking bump?
But plug right up my massive one as well. Huge.
And I went for a shit and didn't wipe my ass.
You can see you can see how any fucking idiot can set up a podcast.
Oh, yeah. It's so easy.
It's so easy. Yeah, it's fucking.
I mean, I'm not going to lie.
We need to pay this guy more money.
There's a fucking shit care.
Thank you. Absolute shit.
This is actually
this is actually the best of the best.
Believe it or not.
Best of the best of the best of what?
In terms of microphones.
Yeah. And interface and show up. Yeah.
Yeah. Which is which is odd.
These microphones are ripped as well, aren't they?
Mm hmm. Yeah, these are these are big boys.
Don't be wrong.
You talk to them outside like that, they're no good.
But you talk to them here, which I like.
But yeah, that's boring anyway. So.
Hit me with some knowledge.
Did you know that when you die in the military,
that they we got they only they they carry you feet forward.
Yeah. You know, that's knowledge.
There we go. Darrell Guy was in the army.
Yep. Let's fucking let's get some shit out of that.
Tap me off for some of that shit.
That'll be some interesting.
I do have to be careful because I have signed an official secret.
This is even a joke. Really?
Yeah. Yeah. When I left.
Oh, my God. Let's talk about that then.
So, yeah, because I specialized, I joined as a military police officer.
Yeah. Still served as a military police officer, but
specialized into close protection.
Yeah. After a couple of years.
And then that was my role. So I looked after
Her Majesty's ambassadors or you would call his majesty.
His majesty. Yeah. But I was in when.
So was you ever actually look at like looking after the Queen or was that just?
No, I never looked after the Queen,
but looked after Prince Charles, Duke of Kent.
Well, like personally, or? Yeah.
Because when they go to military
war zone or conflict, the police there at that time could only carry certain weapons.
So they can't carry fully automatic or they couldn't carry fully automatic weapons.
They weren't acclimatized to the heat.
They don't know that we've been in that country for, you know, weeks, if not months.
So we know all the different routes, the different vehicles.
So they just hand that shit over to us.
They. Yeah, I have to be careful.
I want to talk to you.
And you're like, really, we do double up with them, but they obviously don't really know.
They're not specialized in what we do.
We can carry grenades and smoke.
So like did you in terms of actually getting to protect like those high profile people,
did you ever actually get to speak to them and interact with them?
Or was it just like you get in that car, stand behind the fucking car, makes one arm blows up.
You talk to him and let him know that the engine.
You've got to be so careful.
It all depends who it is and how long they're there for.
I looked after one
Royal personality and they were only there for pretty much a day.
And I didn't really talk to them, but my whole job, it was only me.
So it was an IGB role, which is an individual IBG, which is an individual bodyguard.
And I was attached to them for a whole day in Iraq.
And yeah, it was fucking insane because their itinerary for that day is like boat, armor, personnel carrier, helicopter.
You know, so you're getting to do all that.
And because I know because I've been in country for a while and I know that military hardware, I know how to put a seatbelt on.
I know how to do this.
And whereas you get, you know, a police officer and they will know the fucking cat's key.
I will about an eight sided seatbelt in a blackhawk.
So, yeah, that's crazy.
You do talk to him. You can talk to him like that or you can stand in the background.
I talked to him for a little bit, but not overly because their itinerary was like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
They've got lots of those people hanging on.
So you're so you're basically there of so I'm a I'm a high profile person.
You're protecting me.
You are there for if a bullet's coming, you have to fucking get in between me and it.
Yeah.
The bottom line of it.
No, no, no, no, you can do that.
The idea is split targets.
So when you are under fire, you you put them into a cover.
You move slightly away from that.
So you don't become one target as such.
There are obviously certain places where you can and can't do that.
Speak a little bit louder because I want everyone to this is very interesting.
Yes. And we try and split that target rather than make it one big target because one target is easy.
Easy to two targets than after flicking between.
So there's a lot of different stuff around that.
How you can do that.
What you know, the biggest thing there is you always what if in such a military thing, there's such a very close protection related thing.
You always what if in you know, what if someone attacks us with us, you know, a small arms weapon in this area?
Like, where is the nearest exit?
Where is the nearest vehicle?
What if what if this happens?
What if that's locked?
What if that doesn't work?
What if you do you know, I mean, so your brain is you kind of get used to it.
Start fucking hurts.
Stressful.
Yeah, man.
Like your first week in theater, like because you don't know a lot of the setup, your brain is you're always on read.
You know, there's like they have like a triangle red, amber and green and you're you pretty much should be running at amber most of the time.
So I'll imagine something goes wrong.
You're fucked.
I've been in situations where it has gone wrong.
But your training and who you were with is is fucking key.
Yeah, you're highly trained.
You before you even before you even become an operator, you're doing six months of training.
Yeah, you know, and that is all different types.
That's you in a suit driving in the middle of London to you in combat on the M25 getting extracted by a helicopter.
And they do do that.
Yeah, they shut down part of the M25.
We go to like Heathrow and do play like playing and stuff like yes, we're in there with a lot of a lot of different people.
But obviously, we interact with many different agencies.
So so the I won't press you on it because I know I can't.
So the the end the Asia and the stuff that you sign that says you can't talk about certain things.
Is that certain things in terms of like because things have happened or is that just the operation as a whole?
There's aspects of it where you can't get that into public domain.
Yeah, some of it's like sensitive like kit kit and equipment tactics.
Yeah, that would be I mean, it probably won't be as sensitive now because I've been out what 13 years 14 years.
So yeah, that stuff probably would have been so crazy in it.
But there's also you know, I've been in the car with prime ministers and ambassadors talking about stuff.
So you hear certain things.
Yeah, you get to see like the you know, it's I mean, one thing I know is I don't I don't vote because I know
it doesn't matter what who you get in.
They've got a good and a bad job.
They've got to make really hard shit decisions.
And then I've got to make really easy, comfortable decisions and sitting in the backs of cars or being with them in meetings
where they're talking about this stuff.
There's a lot of pressure on these people and some of it is very time sensitive.
Yeah, it's I find it I find it so it's so fascinating because you're you're the only person that I have ever met
that is in that has been in that setting and is so open about it.
I've met people before they're in the army and that have that have served their country and done various things.
But everyone I've ever met that has done that doesn't like talking about it.
So obviously when when I first met you and then when we started talking about the personal stuff and our own lives and
that the fact that you're so open to talk about it just makes it so much more interesting.
And then all I ever do whenever you come up in conversation, it's the first thing I fucking beeline to because I feel like
everyone else finds it so fucking interesting as well because it's just a different I'm just in the in the sticks.
Little gamer that fucking works in vegetation. You know, I mean nothing bad's happening to me.
And then there's like fucking old Darrell's over here fucking around in Iraq and Somalia and led this entire entire different
life that I've seen on the telly but will never ever experience hopefully in my lifetime.
So I just find it so fascinating because it's there's so much shit going on.
Yeah, I suppose some some lads and lasses find it hard to talk about because it maybe gives them like a hero mechanism,
you know, like they feel like if they're talking about it that they're automatically a hero.
Yeah, I don't mind talking about it because it's fucking interesting.
I know as someone that's interested in a lot of other stuff as well when I hear you know my friend is he's in the police force
and he does count terrorism in there.
And I know I've done stuff that, you know, make that look really, really quite poor, you know,
make them look like they're serving hamburgers in McDonald's.
But I love hearing about it. You know, I'm interested in that.
Like what is the inside scoop? Like what's happening?
Like tell me how they're like it's a different world.
And even though I used to be in that, yeah, I'm still interested.
I still love, you know, guns and how they work.
And I suppose that's a little bit nerdy in itself.
You know, if you understand the mechanics of a weapon, like how it it works intricately,
you you know when it goes wrong, why it's gone wrong and how to fix it fucking ASAP.
Because if you can't, you've got a secondary weapon, which isn't as good.
So if you can understand that sort of side of it, same as mechanics of not literally the mechanics of a helicopter,
but the mechanics of like what type of helicopter, where should you approach from?
You know, because you can't always approach from the behind of a helicopter because of the rotor blades, but some you can.
I've seen videos of people getting fucking down by a helicopter.
And you think about it, if you're running to that, like it's in the middle of night, you know,
you called that helicopter in, it's flown in from, you don't like, they're not going to tell you what that helicopter is.
They're just telling you, yeah, fucking Halo is going to land at this grid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You run out to that helicopter.
If you don't know, like if you can't tell the difference in the dark when there's a like a brownout,
which is what all the dust and shit and because these countries aren't particularly not dusty, you won't.
You won't. You'll have to be like, what the fuck is going on?
You'll have to look, but you know, if you understand the mechanics like, oh yeah, that's like a chin-ergo.
Oh yeah, I know that that's a, you know, a Lynx helicopter.
You know, like in what door I'm going to approach from or where to look for the loady, where to look for the crewman.
And you're going to be banging straight in there.
Whereas that's, I mean, that's the speciality of what we've done is we were so nerdy that we knew that sort of shit.
What type of boat are we going to get?
Like how many seats are going to be in that boat? Who are you going to fucking tip out of that boat because you're going in it?
You got to be ballsy as well, man.
Like, cause my rank was quite sort of low down, but we don't, you don't officially have a rank when you're on a tour like that.
You are just an operator that looks after someone that's fucking important.
So you will like, if he's, you're looking after a freestyle general, you are a freestyle general.
So you have got to have that the nuts, if you know, some captain says, oh, you're going to go in that boat and you're, you just turn around.
No brother, I'm getting in that boat.
He's like, no, no, you're not, you're, you're not assigned to that boat.
He's saying, look, look, fuck nuts, man.
This ain't happening for you.
You got two options here.
You let me in or I'll fucking throw you out.
Yeah.
That's it.
And then that's, that's, that's, that's the thing you've got to have.
So, but, you know, so that's where I get my ballsiness from and my, yeah, my, my outwards sort of characteristics like that.
I've got to be, I've got to dominate.
I've got to let people know that this is the fucking school.
Because if what happens, if people wouldn't just like part of the way, some people do, they know you are, they know what you represent.
And they can tell by the kit that I wear and the weapons that have, you're like, fuck, do you know what I mean?
I'm not going to fuck around with this guy because he's going to tear me a new one.
Specifically, you just go, yeah, all right.
You just can't tell the account for the general or you tell someone.
And that visit then becomes a block on their, on their record.
You know, that official or that person you're looking after is going there for a reason.
If he's going to be inhibited, someone's going to get a ball.
Yeah.
They can fucking heads are going to roll.
Yeah. But you obviously get those people that they take.
Yeah. They think that, oh yeah, this is my setup and I'm going to run it.
You ain't fucking intervening, cunt.
Listen, mate, this might be your train set, but I'm the fucking fat controller.
Get the fuck out of the way and let me on the train.
I just think it's crazy, man.
Yes. It's so fucking buzzing.
Are we still good?
Yeah, I'm still good.
Yeah. All right.
It's just, I could never imagine being in that sort of environment,
but at the same time, I could also imagine thriving in that environment.
Yeah, definitely.
That makes sense.
Yeah. I mean, that camaraderie and, and, and I mean, I'd be getting migraines every fucking five minutes.
I mean, I can't, I can't imagine that if you're in the middle of an operation, I got to go stop.
I'm blind.
I can't see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why sickness in the army has seen as weak, like, because you can't do your mission.
If you aren't doing your mission, then you're fucking no use to us.
Yeah.
But yeah, that you totally, well, I think you thrive or die.
And then it's one of the things, you know, he who hesitates is lost.
So you've got hesitation.
You're really no good to us.
Do you ever, do you ever think back for your, for your military career to where you are now and think that,
like, has there ever been points where you should have been dead?
Oh, yeah, probably.
Yeah.
Once or twice, maybe three or four times.
Yeah, I shouldn't have fucking.
No, no, no. It's not like it's, it's me thinking about on those scenarios.
Yeah.
I've done a lot and I've been under contact, which means like shot out or blown up multiple, multiple times.
Close, but probably the first time, my first tour, we was walking along with a general.
We were with a company of infantrymen and we were just going out on a normal patrol of a certain area.
And we saw a car full of Iraqis drive past us. But you know what?
Your combat indicators like switch straight on.
They're all looking at us. The car was moving slowly.
It's a normal like it's not as a red flag.
Yeah. You start thinking like, what the fuck's going on?
So instinct then tell like we we talk on the PRR, which is a personal radio.
You're always talking, always, you know, like, are you lads? Yeah. Just recognize this car.
Just walk, you know, gone past us at slow speed, obviously like dicking ass, which means looking at you.
Like just watch out for car.
Why? Toyota, Corolla, whatever it is, you know, formals, military age.
And then probably about two minutes later from like a balcony on our sort of right hand side.
Go on, carry on.
Yeah, probably set the scene a little bit. So we got in.
We got out the back of her. So we were originally in an armored personnel carrier, warrior tank.
And then we were patrolling. We were quite near them.
The the warriors. And then all of a sudden we just saw like a spray come through us, like all the dust.
Come through and you obviously did the gunshots.
We're not that far away. So you just straight through the middle of us.
Yeah, there's three of us on the ground with the principal, like three operators, one principal and a multiple of infantrymen.
And this just missed us probably by three quarters of a meter.
Just straight through the middle of us.
Just they're just taking a pot shot. And then for us, our training just kicks in.
We just go to cover, try and target recognition, try and lay some rounds down, see what we can get.
Obviously we're professionals. We're not just going to start like a surprise.
We'll be able to target recognition, but we obviously, but they've gone pretty quick.
It was just a shoot and scoot for them.
And then it's all about like follow up. Like what are they going to do to follow up?
How are we going to do it?
That moves pretty quick.
That's like less than 10 seconds before we figured it out.
It's like, right, throw some smoke, throw some frost, get back to the warrior, pop the boss in there, make sure no one's bleeding out.
And then, yeah, so that's one time, which sets you up.
I think the first time we were sort of like, took us a little bit of time before we started laughing.
Second time, then it's giggles everywhere.
No, everyone's as it's happening. Oh, really?
Yeah, everyone's like, because you get used to that.
Like the first time for me was like sort of rush of adrenaline, like an excitement and then like do your job, like get the boss in there, like check him over.
Like, have you bleeding anywhere?
Because they don't know as well.
Sometimes when you've been hit, sometimes you don't know you've been hit or not, the adrenaline.
So we're like, he's like, fuck off, get off me.
And you're trying to rummage around like a freestyle general.
Like, and he's like, get off me. I know, because you don't know if you've been hit and we're looking for blood and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
You know, adrenaline starts to calm down.
Anyone's like, kill that guy.
Everyone's laughing and giggling.
A bunch of schoolgirls.
But the more you get into that, the more you sort of then recognise the, not to say that, you know, you don't see on Black Hawk down there, they're laughing and giggling, but they were taking hits.
They were taking massive casualties and stuff like that.
That if that's the case, yeah, you'd definitely be like not doing it.
But afterwards, you would probably find that dark humour starts ripping through blokes.
You know, they were taking a piss of, you even see it in those types of films where they're, you know, blown up.
But I feel like that's a, that feels like a decent way to be able to deal with it.
Otherwise, I feel like if you don't see some kind of other side opposed to just absolute like sorrow, then surely that shit will just consume you.
Yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good part of the mental health healing stage.
Yeah.
Because, I mean, I don't suffer with PTSD and not in the slightest.
I mean, I'll talk to you about anything online in more detail with specifics.
But I think that was the key to was with a bunch of lads that understand exactly, know what's going on and talk and shoot the shit and get it out of your system, not let it build up.
And again, that's probably why I think you find probably a lot of infantrymen that have been in those sort of contacts.
They don't talk about, don't have, they probably have a laugh, but they don't talk about a little bit more in detail.
Yeah.
Never gets out of their system, you know, and then they go off the rails wherever, however that is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I can, I can see why.
Because obviously what we do now, obviously I know what you do is, is we're of the same industry in some respect.
But where you're a tree climber and I don't go anywhere near climbing trees, but obviously you do tree works and things like that.
But we're of that, that dangerous scope.
So where you're fucking climbing trees right next to power lines.
I know I'm not doing it at the moment, but the previous job we were fucking crossing live train tracks every day and dealing with train movements and shit like that.
And a lot of the stuff that we were doing at times was dangerous and of a, if you do something wrong, especially if you're dealing with like moving trains, chances are you're going to get hit and you'll die.
Yeah.
And I must admit the couple of times where, where something almost goes wrong or like one time when a train went past me and I'm talking like less than a foot, it's going past me like 60 mile an hour.
And you think like if I slip off of what I'm sitting on now, I'm, I'm, I'm dead.
I'm just gone.
But you find it almost funny when it's done, but not funny.
The giggle comes out without wanting it to.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Like that train fucking come beaming past me and there was nowhere for me to go.
But I was fine as long as I fucking stayed tucked in.
But while it's passing me, there's a little giggle coming out of me involuntarily.
But it's like, I know that if I slip here, I'm dead, but at the same time, it's just funny.
I don't, I don't know how you, I don't know how you explain it.
Yeah, I suppose it's a release of just a mechanism.
But it's the same like when I hit my leg with a chainsaw, I didn't do anything to my leg, but fucking, but enough to tear the trousers.
And again, it's like, like you go fucking hell and I have a little bit of a laugh over that. And it's like, that's not funny. I've just hit my leg with a fucking running chainsaw.
But at the same time, I'm seeing that as, as humorous or Connor being brained by a tree branch and then being put in a coma.
Hilarious.
Yeah.
That is absolutely hilarious.
He's not dead, so it's fine, but that is hilarious.
Yeah, exactly.
And we get to say to piss out of him.
Yeah.
Yeah. And that's another thing is not only you finding it funny, but other people will find it funny and rip you for it as well.
All the things that you, you know, like that's a serious situation. Jesus Christ, Daryl, you nearly got shot by a bullet.
Someone says like, did you, did you shoot your pants, Daryl? Did you get a bit of brown there, lad?
Were you checking the boss to see if he's put his pants on? Has he got a big cock?
You know, again, that's their way of like interacting with you, I suppose, after a fact of like my mate has nearly died.
Yeah.
We've nearly died together.
But I feel like there's, there's an underlying seriousness that you can switch on when you need to with a situation.
Like, if you, you, if say you and me are working together and we're, we're felling a load of trees and everything's going fine, but then tree nearly fucking crushes me.
Chances are we're going to find the funny side of it.
But I feel like if in that moment I were to turn around and not find it funny and be serious, we're of that friendship group where you can also entertain that.
Yeah.
That makes sense. Like if I'm like, no, that was too much for me.
I'm like being deadly serious, then that can be reciprocated as well, which I feel like is the best sort of coping mechanism when you've got a group of friends where we can take the piss.
But at the same time, when, when it, when for one person is becoming a bit much, we can all fucking stop that.
Yeah. I mean, that's a massive sign of like emotional.
I'm gonna try and think of emotional maturity.
Like you can go from many different situations and understand someone else's predicament as well.
You can put yourself yourself in, because there'll be a time like, you know, you might not be serious at that specific time because it hit you.
And then the lads will be like, oh, hey mate, you're all right.
You know, oh yeah, not too bad.
And then two weeks later, fucking shit his pants.
See him get all serious.
But again, yeah, you know, you it's yeah, very, very similar type.
I hear from a lot of people.
I haven't worked for many people that have come from ex military in the tree business, but I'm sure there are frigging hundreds.
Yeah. It's that thing, isn't it? Of danger, you know, working at height with a chainsaw.
There's also with, with it, there's a thing where you are mentally challenging yourself as well.
And yeah, figuring situations out.
Because that's again, is like a sign of a good operator is they are walking into sometimes a situation where they've never been there before or never been in that.
But how are they figuring it out?
What are they thinking about?
And if you get someone that's just, you know, we've worked with many a moron.
Yeah. You know, they've been in the business, whatever, say for one, one guy was in six years and the guy's an absolute fucking terror.
I'll deal with that.
Didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
But should do.
And again, just not mature.
Just just a shit state.
And then someone that comes in that like wants to, wants to have a laugh, you know, no different.
I'm still having a laugh, but take stuff seriously, like cool under pressure.
You know, I've been there and I've done, and I think the military was a massive part of that for me.
Because I was kind of mature, immature before that.
That's because I didn't probably have that much responsibility.
Then all of a sudden you get to carry a live weapon and people are relying on you and you can be immature about that all day long.
And that's just a normal.
That's just a shit soldier.
Yeah.
And then you get later on, you go through a bit more military experience and you get that exactly the same.
A guy that is fucking hilarious, mental, mental, but absolutely outstanding professional.
You know, as soon as the shit hits a fan, you know, we could have a laugh and joke all day long.
But you know, if someone got hit by a chainsaw, there's a couple of blokes in that team that would just be up for the task.
They'd be like, right. Yeah.
Fuck. Yeah.
Stop that bleeding.
Put a tourniquet on.
You know, they would know because they've done some training.
They're absolutely efficient at what they do and they're taking that moment seriously and mature and they know what to do.
And yeah, that's why I like that's probably why I moved moved companies because I wanted to be in that environment.
I was going to say that because I know I know exactly what you mean.
People like Connor, for example, who is in my gang, I work with him every single day.
I know that if shit hits the fan, something happens.
I mean, the likelihood of something happening is so slim.
At the end of the day, we're working with strimmers and hedge cutters for most of the time.
We're not doing anything nearly as dangerous as we used to be doing.
But there's still the possibility there.
And because we're good at what we do, we normally get put on the stuff that is a little bit more high tech and requires more more thought process.
But I know that if something goes wrong, I 100 percent rely on Connor.
Anything goes wrong if I've injured myself, if fucking I need to know something, whatever's happening.
I know that Geyser right there.
My life's in his hands.
I feel absolutely comfortable with that.
And I'm sure vice versa.
That's reciprocated.
But there is definitely people that I work with where I think if something fucking happens here, you are useless to me.
I'm like I'm looking after you.
And that's solely what's going on here.
There ain't no one fucking looking after me.
I've got to look after myself here.
And that that is kind of at one on one point.
I like that because it makes you feel like a bigger person because I'm the only one here that fucking knows what's going on.
But at the same time, it's so scary because it's like if something happens to me, no one unless I can help myself, no one knows what to fucking do here to help me.
Yeah.
And surely that must also revolve around the military with like like you say, immature people.
And there must be thousands of people that that that go to like go to boot camps and stuff like that where they're just dicks.
You know, I mean, like the guys that kind of give it where because I would imagine you get screamed at a lot.
A lot of you you're getting fucking a lot of people.
It's probably a misconception.
It's you reckon.
Yeah, there's you do when you go through your training.
Yeah, they're trying to whip you into shape and get you working as a body of men.
And there's certain criteria they need to get through and change you.
But I think the more professional you get, the more specialized you go.
As I say, like I wasn't in the infantry, so I didn't need shouting out that much.
I've done my basic training.
That's where you get a lot of shit.
You know, you get fucking a show parade.
You've done wrong. So then for listeners, show parade is say, well, let's say my situation is I never got show paraded pretty much
around my whole of my basic training because I was fucking top banana, polished, squared away, absolute model of a soldier.
And then I had this corporate corporal who was just a fucking asshole.
He wanted he wanted a piece of me.
He wanted he was like, this guy's too good.
I need to fucking bring him down a peg.
So apparently one morning I went off and hadn't made my bed.
And rightly so. I hadn't made my bed.
But you're not meant to get inspected until you come back from breakfast, which is when I was going to make my bed.
He said, right, show parade every night this week at seven o'clock with your bed space outside.
So that means I have to take my whole fucking bed space out into the courtyard lockers and everything, everything, absolutely fucking everything.
Bed and show your bed made. Yeah.
So I've done that fucking every night a week for a weekday at seven o'clock.
One night it was his turn to be like duty corporal duty duty.
So I had him. I feel so it was a Wednesday night.
Wednesday night I went outside seven o'clock, come out.
It went, yeah, show parade again at fucking half past seven.
So I had to take all my shit back in.
Come back out of seven. Oh, well, you had half an hour just fucking.
Yeah, just moving my stuff. What happens if you just say fuck off?
Oh, my. Yeah, you don't want to say fuck off.
What can they actually do other than kick you out? What? They just go down like disciplinary routes.
But yeah, the thing about can they do anything physical, though?
They can't just fucking hit you. Can I? No, no, not anymore.
No, I mean, no, no, no.
Off the books that they can slap you about.
Oh, I've seen it. Oh, I've seen it. Yeah, it did happen.
Yeah. But yeah, I'm not going to get. It's not supposed to happen.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's such a bad thing either.
Yeah. If you can't take a punch, then what chance the fuck have you got taking a bullet?
Yeah. Like you got to think you, you know, you got to be in that right mind space.
Like and that's where I was. I found training a lot easier because my head was in that space of, you know,
I was expecting to get fucking based in beating up and all the rest of it,
because that's what makes a soldier. You can't just be soft.
You've got to take a few digs in life. Yeah.
So I back to the show. So yeah, I got show paraded every 30 minutes,
probably until one o'clock in the morning. And it was raining as well.
Imagine that. So now I've got a wet bed. I've got wet shit everywhere.
It's just fucking nightmare. But I just remember looking at a brick like for pretty much that whole entire time.
Just like you won't break me, cunts. You ain't never going to fucking nothing.
I'm just standing out in the rain. Ain't fucking mad to me.
So yeah, I don't know kind of where we skipped off track or where we were going on that line.
But yeah, you know, you will. I think that's where I realised that I was a mature person.
So like going into soldiery, I was going to be I was going to be late.
I was going to be the best at work.
Sort of like once you realise that they like there are dickheads in the military,
but also the shit that I'm forcibly being put through is almost like almost like for your own good in the longevity of things.
Exactly. That's just a building block of what's to come.
You know, you go like, right, get get your shit out of here.
Put it in the fucking soaking rain right now. Put it back in half an hour.
I want it fucking back out there. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, you've had to do that for seven days a week.
But when you're when you're frosted into fucking a war zone, that's I mean, that's so minutely nothing.
Yeah, exactly. And the more you want to specialise that more that that shit goes away, but they put pressure in our areas.
So as I said, it's just a building block of or a byproduct of what you're going to be in the future.
You know, if you are willing to fucking do that every night of the week and still find a finance, still be like, no, man, you ain't got more fucking.
I've got you. I'm living in your if you feel you had to do that.
I'm living in your head. Yeah, I've pissed you off. I've fucking got you. Yeah.
So doing this to me, if I'm just courteous and whatever, I've got you wrapped up.
And then, yes, that just put me in good stead for when I'd done more.
You know, it is it is fucking hard when you specialise, but you've got to you know, many a time I just for like six o'clock in the morning
and you're running through an ice lake like smash like fucking I think that's where I got one of my worst injuries is I smashed my leg.
I was going for a tank pond, which was it was January and that that pond was frozen solid.
They smashed out like frost to run through. I hit my fucking shin and it was probably early on as well.
I think it was only like a couple of weeks in and it was fucking swelled up.
It was horrible. And to run on it was like pain. It was luckily it wasn't like a break or anything, but it just niggles.
Those things niggle because you're constantly doing stuff. But you're in your head then you're like, oh, fucking hell, this is hard.
I've got to get up again tomorrow. And we weren't going to bed till late.
And like the training style is like get dressed in this, get dressed in that, get dressed in this, get dressed in that.
We're going to go here and it's classroom based. It's practical based. It's classroom based. It's practical.
It's physical, you know, just because you've done your PT for the morning. It ain't over.
If you went on the range and you made an error, say, you know, you're you didn't pull your you're doing a transition drill from like your long weapon.
So a machine gun into a pistol and something didn't quite go right for you.
You know, this fucking tank hill was called and it's probably about 70 meters length.
But the gradient on it was a bastard. And you're going for key, probably carrying an extra 10 kilos to 14 kilos worth of kit.
You got run up and down that, you know, so the fears weren't over in the morning.
So if you were fucked to fizz in the morning, like you're thinking, then you ain't got no hope.
But you just got to take it one step at a time. You know, you've probably seen a lot of stuff like on on TV of like buds, which is, you know, the SEALS version of stuff.
And they try and break you in hell week. Yeah. Well, I saw I saw a geezer that they put him on.
They all had to do some massive fucking run and he broke his legs just running. Yeah.
He's like, yeah, just broke his legs. But they he he went down and they tried their like best screaming and everything to get back up.
And he and he did. But then just went straight back down again.
And then, yeah, like had to be taken away and he never is it called passing out or whatever that that thing that they would do.
I think it was for SAS. Oh, yeah. They they call that backscratching frost and rollback.
Yeah, I think it was for the Green Beret. Oh, Marine Commando. Yeah.
So I'm a Marine Commando. Yeah. And yeah, when they like took him away and the defender and then, yeah, fucking broken both of his legs.
Jack Wagon. What the fuck? He's been ran to the point his legs have broken.
Yeah. The fact that you as a human being having now someone who who is an amateur runner, I could never imagine running my legs to a point where they are.
They have broken. Yeah. Because of just running like that is mental. Yeah.
But that's the thing. He probably weren't just running. You know, the guys doing like carrying load. Yeah. Yeah. He's jumping. He's doing a lot of assault courses.
So, yes, that's that's where it comes from. And and also people are so cruel that they made him run.
But I don't know. There's a lot of people out there that just like fanny about. They just use that as an excuse. Oh, my leg hurts.
No fucking until they, you know, and that's that's no fault of their own. They've got to be they'll take that to a limit to fucking getting a getting a getting a Jack Wagon.
But they want to train you in. They don't want to train you out. It's not like any old days. They want to train people in because because of numbers and it looks bad on them as well.
So they try and train you in. But they don't know, you know, until the doctor is like, yeah, you know, the guy's got broken leg and then I'll write a fucking that you would see the edge.
You probably might not seen it in the back screen back scenes, but they would be like, yeah, mate, OK, we're going to roll you back to this group.
And if you went back and they would not so much take it easy on you about that, have a bit more respect.
They're like, yeah, like he's a fucking broke his legs, basically. Yeah. Yeah. He's a geezer.
If he passes out, he's the sort of bloke on a work with. Yeah. Because that is prepared to go to the limits of literally breaking his body.
Yeah. And do this. And you can't like sometimes that is you can't help that shit. And I knew a top bloke, absolute legend, artists, artists, 10 men went, went first selection to to S.A.S.
selection. In fact, no, sorry, went S.B.S. selection. Same thing these days.
He was doing a night now. You would you just for this guy would just piss it. Rolled his rolled his ankle on a stone, snaps his ankle, geezers out.
And you would have you would have put your mortgage and your mom and your girlfriend and fucking dogs and everything on him passing it without a doubt.
But yeah, it will get you. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, you can't you can't help that sort of thing.
But, you know, at the same time, they'll be they'll be pushing you fucking hard because that's what they want. Yeah.
And that's what you know, that's what makes when we go out working and some days you have it easy, then you're like, yes, a 10 a.m.
finish for you guys anyway nowadays. But yeah, like, like, you know, we've done that, PJ.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to sniffle and cry. I'm working till six. And I was just doing it as a bit of a favor as well.
But you put in a fucking day's graft. Yeah, it was a shift. You wouldn't trust anyone to do that with works at the firm.
You know, they'll be fucked by you. They'll be on their phone at half past 10.
What are you doing? You can't come on. You can't get moving. Yeah. You're working solidly for fucking 10, 12 hours to get that done.
So that's what they're looking for. And that's what as a team player, we're all looking for, isn't it?
Like, I'm looking to people. One, I can I can work with. Yeah, I can work with me.
And two, that or three, that they can fucking dig out when it's needed to go out.
Yeah, because it is weird how you get to a point where because I feel like before I started getting myself into shape and taking it more seriously
than previous when I was fucking 18 and a half stone and diet was terrible and attitude was quite poor.
Doing that that hard work was like my attitude towards it was I can't be asked. I don't want to do this.
But whereas now I'm not perfect, but it is a hard day. It's a hard day.
If we've got to do a load of shit, I almost want to fucking do that because I'm trying to look after myself.
So when I see it as a beneficial thing of, right, I've got a graft of a day.
Let's fucking have it because it's going to benefit my body to do that.
And it's it's it's nice when you work with other people who are who are of the same mindset as that,
because, like you say, we've both been in positions where we've worked with teams where some people are like that,
and the rest of the team are just fucking useless and not interested at all in doing any of that,
which I feel like is is that sort of resonates throughout anything that you do in life.
If you're if you're doing anything with anyone and they're putting in fucking a quarter of the effort that you're putting in,
it just makes it so much more fucking difficult with everything that you're doing.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you just.
It's just crazy. Yeah.
As you were telling, I just remember another story.
It's not like overly overly funny, but it's just like the degree of fucking pain that you go through.
I remember we was we've been out with a boss for I think like five, six days solid,
like doing some ops, border ops and visiting separate people.
And there's this fucking helicopter rocks up and it's an old like fucking Wessex type helicopter seeking it was.
And we were fucking uncomfortable anyway.
We've been out in the sand everywhere, up your fucking shit pipe, down your bed.
It is fucking like your skin saw. Yeah, shit.
And we're like, oh, yeah, thank God we've got a fucking helicopter.
We're going to go back on rather than in the back.
We're like I'm a personnel carrier.
But we knew there was always going to be some pain with this helicopter because the exhaust port is right above the rotor,
which is right above the door. So it blows in fucking hot air. Right.
So that we were thinking like, fuck, it's going to be a bit of a painful journey.
I'm but yeah, not that bad. Anyway, we didn't realize is this helicopter have been out because it was a it was a Navy helicopter with Marines in it.
So they've been out doing they do they go out no matter fucking what hats off to the Navy hats off to the Marines.
They will they will go out in all sorts of weather.
And they'd been out a long, long time. Multiple ops refueling picked us up.
And you get into the back of this thing and it was fucking red.
It was hotter inside the helicopter than it was out. And it's Iraq in summertime.
Yeah. And they got these little canvas seats.
So it's like a metal bench. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, like and then it's got like string rope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Through these fucking little seats.
But what you don't realize until about fucking 10 minutes in is the the little eyelets that these ropes.
Yeah. Are fucking roasting.
They've got the exhaust port going into it. And I was sat door front as well.
Yeah. Like I'm right. First one.
Oh, sorry. Last last in first out. So I'm right by that fucking exhaust port.
It's tearing down on me. And it fucking hurt.
It was about two hour trip in this fucking helicopter, man. Yeah.
And yeah, we just just agony. And I knew that it was fucking painful when I looked at my mate.
And I just lifted up my ass cheek and I said, oh, it's like that.
And he was like, yeah, because he's fucking loud as well. Yeah.
And he was like, yes, fucking burning. Anyway, we we got back to the room.
I dropped the boss off, got back to the room and I whipped down my trousers and had a little eyelet burns on my ass.
All down by fucking legs across there and up my ass. Yeah.
And I just bent over and looking at and he's like looking at my ass and I was looking at his ass.
And we're just like, fuck it. That's fucking new. I've never experienced that before.
He's like fucking terrible. It's like, yeah, but so bad.
I was like, do you know what your ass on me?
And he's like, well, obviously you don't.
That is fantastic. So, yeah, I mean, there are things, you know, you can't laugh about that and be prepared for all that sort of shit.
What design flaw, though, let's fucking put the exhaust straight back into that shit.
That thing was designed for the Falklands. You know, I mean, we had a kid that was there, donkeys fucking.
Yes. And yeah. But obviously we can't afford to go and buy a new helicopter.
Yeah. I just use what they've got. And yeah, it's the only experiences as well that you go through in the tree world.
But that's where you make a mate for life.
Like there's no one else that will kind of get that unless they've experienced that.
But you go into, you know, meet up with him or go to a pub with him or whatever it's going to do.
And those are the things you'd be like, you know, that was a fucking hard tour.
Yeah. Do you remember that time? He fucking showed me your ass.
Yeah, that was that was brutal.
When it was terrible time, we all got our nuts out of fucking with a spoon.
Yeah. At least there's a reason for us getting it.
It's a camaraderie in it. Yes, it's awesome. It's like literally the best part of my life.
Yeah. I can best and worst, you know, you see some fucking horrible shit.
There's some stuff out there, you know, that people want to believe and don't believe in.
Did we go there for the right reasons and that sort of shit?
And I, you know, that's your interpretation. I know what I went there for.
Yeah. What other blokes went there for.
But yeah, there's the don't don't people out there don't be disillusioned or, you know, whatever the governments or whatever these people say is.
There's a fucking lot of bad shit out there.
And we ultimately we made a difference.
You know, I think you'd what anyone says like statistics is, you know, we we fought for people that can fight for themselves and we fought for each other as well.
So, yeah, it's it's fucking fantastic job.
And the more you get out, sorry, the more you put in, the more you get out with a military like those people that's out as fucking shit is there.
Those people that were like emotionally immature and they were they weren't, you know, poor.
I know blokes that there's a in the military is a good thing where they say, oh, yeah, put your hand up if you want to do a motorbike course and people and then it put you on different shit.
You know, like this, this story is to specialize.
It's called a coach protection course.
So who wants to do it? And they should breathe the abbreviations for a free day.
Who wants to go on a CP course?
And one lad fucking hand straight up little, little ginger lad puts his hand straight up.
Yes, I want a piece of that.
And he's like, yeah, no worries, lad.
You'd be on it.
There's these your orders gets to this fucking is like this thing, the same where we train CP train.
And it was like, yeah, welcome to your cycle proficiency course.
He could fucking ride a bike anyway, but there's you know, I mean, like so well, waste of time.
They put him on it in the end.
You know what I mean? But yeah, that's the sort of the shit.
You have to volunteer for it.
I volunteered for another job in Canada and majority of it was absolutely shit.
But at the end of it, I got a great experience.
I met new, new people.
I went to Canada and then I got two weeks off in Canada in Calgary and just went fucking mental.
I met these I was there with a couple of lads to two girls outside the hotel room.
When I come back and obviously, yeah, fucking course, we get some push action.
I get some right fucking dirty Canadian maple syrup fucking ass licks going on.
And they come upstairs.
Yeah.
And I think someone's one of them said, oh, have you got any condoms?
Yeah, good military fucking lads always prepared.
Fuck all nothing.
We're like, right.
Yeah.
And they turned out to be just like a couple of crack heads and they just fucking smashed up a hotel.
She got picked up a glass ashtray and free.
And then the hotel staff got involved in it.
Fucking awful.
Oh shit.
This is good.
We hit the fan.
I dragged back and at the hotel guy was sound as a pound.
He's like, don't worry, mate.
You know, we knew they are who they were when you walked in before is a bit strange.
But yeah, and I was, oh, yes, right, man, fucking cracked mirror.
Fucking I think my mate's wallet got nicked.
I was a bit more switched on than I put my wallet and shit everywhere.
Yeah.
I mean, put it in my shoe, put it in my sneaker.
Yeah.
But yeah, I say like that you're not going to get that experience.
Don't put your hand up.
So you've got to go for it.
And again, that's why, you know, if there's a course running where I work now, all there's a go on it.
Yeah, even if you fail it, I was so fucking, you know, if you fail something, you go around next time and try harder and learn from your mistake.
The first time and go and crush it.
So, yeah, you get I think that's probably, you know, good, good thing for life is you're going to get fucking try everything.
Yeah.
Anal, trans, transgender.
Just try it all.
Talk about courses.
Anal.
Yeah.
Anal course, fucking that's a long one.
Long, deep course.
What a fantastic episode.
I feel like I could talk to you about this shit for a very, very long time.
Yeah.
And we do, to be fair, we do talk about it all the fucking time because it's just so interesting.
But I'll probably fucking finish it there.
Yeah.
Well, you know, there's always other time if the patrons want it to happen again.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm always interested in fucking feedback.
I always like to, when we first started doing the patron, I felt like there was this almost strictness of we're a gaming podcast.
So the patron has to be about even more gaming, but more in depth.
But I find that most people tend to like the patron episodes when they're not so much centered around gaming, almost like not a break,
that little bit of insight into the people that you're fucking hearing on the other end of the. Yeah, definitely.
And I think, you know, you have one podcast where you're hammering the shit out of gaming and stuff.
Yeah.
It almost seems like it sometimes just could run into the same sort of.
Same shit.
So if you have two different ones and you know.
It's interesting, man. I like doing episodes like this.
It's almost a shame to have it on a patron, but at the same time, I feel like you can, you're much more free to go more in depth without the worry.
Especially if you're talking about shit where you're on the line of, can I talk about this because I fucking signed a document saying I wouldn't talk about this.
Yeah, like I'm happy to talk more in detail about that.
You know, I can come back and maybe if there's a bit more structure, you want to know about like Afghanistan or Iraq itself or Somalia or fucking another country I've visited.
I say visited, basically gone there, dominated and fucking.
And then come home.
Buried a few people.
It's just mental, isn't it?
Yeah, I'm happy to do that.
Yeah, give you give you feedback, guys.
We really appreciate it.
Yeah. And then I play Call of Duty as well.
So that's the gaming part of it.
Ouch.
You A.B.
See you later, everyone.
Oh, no.