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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show Belfast native Royal Marine and actor Tip Cullen.
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from experiencing the troubles as
a child, his journey into the British military, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, his transition
out, his journey into acting, mental health, leadership and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 850 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Tip Cullen.
Enjoy.
the show.
I'm in what we call this side of the pond as the sunny southwest.
So I live in the southwest of England and there's reason for that is when I first my
first commander, you know, I arrived in was in the southwest and that's where I sort of
laid my roots this side off the Irish sea.
Obviously where I'm really from and where my genes and my blood come from are from the
Emerald Isle.
I'm an Irish man who just went to his own path.
Well let's start there because I love to, you know, begin literally at zero on someone's
timeline and walk through.
So tell me exactly where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings?
Right, I joined, well born in late 60s in Belfast in what is Northern Ireland on the
island of Ireland and I was born, I think if you could chronologically measure it, I
was born about six months before the Northern Irish trouble started.
So I grew up in Belfast surrounded by that and thinking that that was, that's what the
world was about and that was the thing.
So I loved it.
It was brilliant.
It was a great adventure and I learned so much even in those days, but it was definitely
in hindsight, it wasn't what you classifies a normal sort of upbringing being brought
up in a, in a bit of a hostile environment.
But again, I'm not, let's say, say I don't have a monopoly on that, especially in today's
world, the way things are happening.
So yeah, I can, I can empathize massively with people that are enduring hardship at
the minute.
So there seemed to, and again, I'm, I'm naive to this.
I definitely got to experience, you know, the threat.
I grew up next to on a farm next to an MOD base.
So we would have to sweep the car for bombs and that kind of thing.
When I was a young man, I was born 74.
So not too long after you, but I didn't live in Belfast.
I've had people on the show.
Some were Falklands veterans.
They served in New Orleans Island as well.
And you obviously get a different perspective.
I had an author on who grew up, you know, as a, an Irishman in, in Belfast.
What lens were you kind of brought up in, in your household because you had, you know,
Catholic and Protestant, then you had, you know, the, the people that wanted independence
for Ireland and the people that were loyal to the UK.
So kind of what, what was the conversation around the dinner table for you and your family?
Oh, man, I'm a, I'm from the Irish Catholic tradition.
So I was brought up as, you know, I'd say in a nationalist family, probably Republican,
but in a, in a peaceful sort of sense, we're very, very strong and very human people, but
they were, yeah, they were, you know, it's definitely a nationalist or Republican background.
And the community I grew up in was, was a nationalist and Republican background.
So that's what I grew up in.
And let's say I enjoyed it.
I really, really did enjoy it.
It may be this extremely strong character, I think, before I had my destiny, which was
to become a Royal Marine.
And through my time growing up, obviously I aspire from a very young age to become a
Royal Marine, but growing up through those years, you, you know, I think it created me
into a non-political type of thing and a non-sectarian and a non-religious type of person, because
you grew up in that.
I think it took me to step away from it, to realize, you know, how being that binary and,
you know, as you're being brought up in, in like sort of religious and political sort
of views, you do need to step away sometimes and have a look in from the outside.
And I'm glad I made that decision and done what I'd done.
And then when I went, joined the Royal Marines, I went back and I served in Northern Ireland.
I'd done four tours there, but for me, it was very much important that I did do that.
I think a lot of people probably critique me for it, but I, I did it not as a, you know,
not as holding the ground for the British Empire or anything like that.
I'd done it to stop Irish people killing other Irish people, killing other people that thought
they were British, killing Polish people, Welsh people, Filipino people.
There's so many different people have lost their lives from different cultures in the
Northern Ireland troubles, but I was purely to stop death and destruction and feed hopefully
a peaceful solution for something that's very, well, it's me, I'm an Irish man.
You know, he was, you know, it's important for me to look after my people, no matter
what their political allegiance or religious allegiance was, it was just stopping people
kill other people.
Ever since I was little, I've always struggled with this idea of Irish, English, Scottish,
Welsh, and people, especially overseas would be like, Oh, you must hate the Irish or the
Scottish.
I'm like, we're on two tiny little pebbles in the middle of the sea, just us, you know,
and if you look at our lineage, I mean, the Celts and all that, I mean, there's so much
into, you know, into relationships between those four countries, there's no real walls,
you know, I mean, maybe in Belfast specifically, but I mean, you know, as far as each of the
countries.
And so then when you look at the fact that there were times when, you know, whether it's
way back in British history or more recently in the troubles that Brits were killing Brits
or, you know, and or Irish, you know, whatever, I wish there was a name for all of us, all
four of us, you know, a non political name for all of us together.
And it just it's so sad.
And I remember even John Graham, who's he was a power originally and then became SAS
and he was in the Falklands on Goose Green.
And you know, he was talking about just how, how weird it was, like, like you said, like,
we were killing ourselves, we were fighting amongst ourselves.
So I've heard you talk, there was a DTD podcast, you're on American veteran and police officer
officer.
And you constantly talk about this humanity, seeing the commonality in people when some
people were drawn down a political path or drawn down a religious path.
What made you stay in that kind of humanitarian middle ground where you saw humans as humans,
even when you were young?
I think it was my upbringing that made me sort of stay on the middle ground as such.
But growing up as a young man in Belfast, I did veer from it.
I did.
I did think sometimes that I was part of the, you know, the rebellion to fight the empire
and everything else.
And I think every young person will get will get pulled into that legion.
And I think that's probably where influences from maybe say bad influences, well as good
influences.
It happens in those formative years.
But for me growing up, I did stray.
I did.
I wasn't, I was not a perfect young child or teenager, but I had, I think I came from
family and, and in a way, so a certain level of faith as well that, that made me, you know,
stay in the middle ground and just respect people.
And understand that human beings are human beings.
And I think that was from my, from my mother and father definitely, that was completely,
you know, press, you know, not press, just, you know, it was, it was enforced.
It was like, it's important.
It was about human beings.
And that's, you know, that stayed with me throughout, you know, my time on operations,
you know, all those years in the core.
And I think it wasn't at that stage when I was younger, my formative years, but as I
got older and I did deploy, I realized that was so, so right.
That human beings are human beings.
And we all wish and want exactly the same sort of things, you know, you know, the simple
things like, you know, food, clothing, shelter, education, all those simple things, no matter
where your culture is or where your background is, where your country is, that's exactly
what you want.
And that was instilled in me, even though I'd say, because the situation in, in Belfast
at the time, there was a lot of things to draw your way, you know, attractions or things,
you know, adventures and to get normally involved.
So we say, we say a civil disorder in some way, or, you know, something you were, you
were breaking the mold with.
And we were gifted by having this threat of being caught up in a, you know, a gun battle
or a riot where there's petrol bombs, there's plastic bullets getting thrown about.
There's, you know what I mean?
There's all sorts of things.
And to be honest, when you're young at that time and you're a young, young man, it's a
bit of a badge of honor, isn't it?
To sort of do those sort of things.
I wouldn't like to go on up too much, like with my parents here and obviously what I
went on to do afterwards, but that was very much part of the culture.
And it was, and I can't say I didn't enjoy it.
I really frowned upon it if, if my sons were in that environment and faced the same sort
of thing.
But the challenges that my parents had, I didn't have those challenges with my kids
growing up.
So it's a very different thing.
So in a way I've been blessed.
I'm so glad to have parents that guided me through the, the minefield of youth in Belfast
and in the Troubles really.
When you look at how your kids grew up, what were the limitations that you were unaware
of as a child growing up in the Troubles in Belfast, if any at all?
Oh no, there's massive limitations, especially to decided by, you know, the cutting of your
cloth or where you were, you know, what, what tribal community you came from.
When I grew up playing the Gaelic games, playing Gaelic football, hurling, handball and basketball.
And they were in my primary school and my, my second school, high school, all we played
was Irish games or American games.
You never played half American football.
We just played basketball, handball we called it, which is a GAA sport, hurling and Gaelic
football.
And I loved them, absolutely loved them.
But what I, you know, even, even though Ireland's got an unbelievable rugby team now, we never
had really had that opportunity when I was young.
I'm the first time I played rugby, we had the opportunity to play.
It was when I joined the Marines and it's very limited because you're busy people in
the, in the core, but I just loved it.
It was magical.
And I just thought, you know, you know, that, that option wasn't, wasn't there for me.
It is not, it is now open, you know, across the thing, but, but in the young days it wasn't.
And also you were limited by the, so the environment in Northern Ireland in those days.
I mean, I remember before I went away and joined the Marines, the only, the only flag
in Northern Ireland, it was illegal to fly, was the Irish flag.
And I had this sort of like logic on why is, why is it that we, this is the only flag that
you can't really fly in Northern Ireland is the Irish flag.
But you know what I mean?
And it was a very, should we say you were very, I wouldn't say, yeah, I would say in
a way you're quite oppressed.
You mean you were, you were, you know, in those periods in the, you know, the seventies
and eighties growing up in that part of Ireland, you were, it was, you know, it was still a
very oppressive regime in the area I lived in.
You mean, and you had to, wherever you moved anywhere, went to do, or you'd be searched,
you'd be stopped, you'd be, you know what I mean?
And there's like, you know, there'd be a soldier like pointing a weapon at you at the end of
the street, which we took for normal and granted.
And well, I think that's not, not with, you know, well, anybody else in the United Kingdom,
you know, or even the insights in the rest of Ireland would be seeing day to day, you
know, and, and hearing the bombs going off and hearing like the runs going down that
you could, you know, it was things that you grew up with.
Jumping forward.
And I'm just interested to get your perspective before we move on with your journey into the
military.
I first came to America in 94, I did summer camp.
So it was like an exchange program that we do for three months, come work on a summer
camp and then go home.
And I remember this real romanticism with the IRA and Mickey Rourke did a film and supposedly
donated all the proceeds, et cetera, et cetera.
Then 9-11 happened and all of a sudden it didn't seem like terrorism was, you know,
revered anymore.
That's just a British kid who had to search for bombs under his car.
And you know, on the mainland we had attacks and, you know, a lot of times it was civilians,
innocent civilians that were killed.
With your perspective, what was it that kind of helped end a lot of the violence there
and try and bring some of the peace?
Was it related at all to money coming from America and 9-11 or is it just complete coincidence
through my eyes?
Like I say, I'm not a politician.
I'm just speaking from my experience.
But from my experience, I think people in that part of Ireland were just completely
battle weary.
And I don't know the sort of like, you know, the strategic or tactical angle from, you
know, the IRA or the army council or things like that.
I don't.
But there's a realisation that the political path or a peaceful process would have to be
the way forward.
And I think this, I mean, it's a spooky thing because just three months ago or in August
I'd done a play about the Falklands war in Jerusalem in Israel.
And the people that we were there and came to see us that knew all of the audience was
veterans, but all they were seeking at the time and a lot of them had done multiple operations,
multiple war fighting roles.
Some of them like were in the Six Day War and the recent Lebanon Wars and the 80s Lebanon
Wars.
All they wanted was resolution and to get that generation.
And you need generations to pass through where talking is the MO, the motor stopper, and
I forget things to happen rather than fighting.
And I think when you're, it's your own people, that's got to be fundamental because it's
just survivability for human beings.
What was the play that you did on the Falklands?
It wasn't Welcome Home by Tony Marchant was it?
No, no, it was called Minefield by Lula Arias and she's an Argentinian playwright.
And the play was first conceived, it had three Falkland war veterans and three Malvinas war
veterans.
And I joined because Lou Armour, who's a legend who I knew grew up when I joined obviously
after but I knew him in the corps, he was an incredible guy, he decided he didn't want
to be part of the play anymore.
And they were coming up for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands war and they were going to
be performing in Buenos Aires over that period and he couldn't do it.
So they reached out for, you know, and spoke to me and said, look, you're a veteran, you're
former Marines command.
I said, well, I wasn't in the Falklands, I joined the Marines after the Falklands.
So we don't really want another veteran, but we want somebody who can act and, you know,
do it.
Played sort of multiple roles as part of the ensemble as well as playing the character
of Lou in the play.
And I did that in Buenos Aires for five or six weeks last year in 2022.
And then this year we took it to Israel.
But before that, when Lou was part of the part of the gang, they'd done a world tour,
they'd been there, they'd been in the West End.
You know, it's a very successful play.
But I have to admit, it's an issue when I get into it.
I had six days from rehearsals from London and Argentina.
There's a script.
You've got six days and then we're opening to the, it was the Deputy President of Argentina,
the British ambassador, the US ambassador, Japanese ambassador, German ambassador.
That was the opening night.
The thousand seat stage at the Teatro San Martin in Buenos Aires.
It's incredible, an incredible atmosphere, incredible people and an incredibly strong
play.
And up at that stage, because obviously half the play is in English and half is in Spanish.
And obviously I was listening to the guys and I do a little bit of Spanish and I still
got to understand, you know, that, you know, you could tell Ruben was on the Belgrano when
it was sunk.
You know, and I could, you know, I could snippet it.
And then, but whilst I'm looking at the audience during the dress rehearsals, the director
said, just, just have a look, have a look and, you know, just read the story.
So you, you, you fully got it.
So instead of being playing my part, I would look, look on Reddit and they were, they were
absolutely, you know, I mean, they would, you know, just hit me and mostly just hit
me straight away how raw it was and how positive these three men were considering what they'd
been through as constricts in the Malvinas Falklands war, the Malvinas war and what they
went through, the whole, the, where that point in time where they were on stage now.
And I still feel like they are like brothers to me as are, you know, my other, the other
two like, with a Gurkha and another former Old Marine movies and incredible guys.
I know when we do, cause every once in a while the play gets stood up and I, I get really
excited just to meet them all again and their families and everyone else.
So it's, yeah, it just shows you a strong play like that, which is purely about the
whole choreographically goes through the battle for the, you know, the Falklands and Malvinas
and it tells tales of stories from each of these individuals piecing together the actual
battle and how reconciliation was so important and how close they are and the bond on stage
is really, really obvious.
And it's things that I think that's why it landed so well in Israel and I, especially
the way things are happening in the world at the minute.
I think it's the importance of that play and reconciliation will be enduring.
And even though it's a play set 40 years ago, cause these are individual real life people
that have now worked together.
Their story is the important thing that just, you know, when you get past it, just realize
that it is human beings that they're on the opposite side.
I was just talking to a friend of mine who's he's American, but he's Palestinian is both
his parents are Palestinian.
He's an amazing humanitarian before this all blew up.
He was in Syria and Greece and Turkey and, you know, helping rescue migrants and being
in immigration camps and all these things.
It's a beautiful human being.
And he was just telling me, you know, regardless of whatever's, you know, anyone's perception
of right, wrong, whatever it is, the horrors that are going on there at the moment for
people that live there that are being shelled is absolutely horrific.
And I've talked about this a lot.
What kills me is that every single time, if you look back from slavery to the genocide,
I mean, you name it, it's a tyrannical few people that then oppress, you know, the masses.
And then ultimately soldiers of one country have to take up arms forced or voluntary.
And then they go kill or try and kill people at the same age of them that happened to be
born on a different island or piece of land.
And I wonder like, how can we finally learn so many lessons from history and nip it in
the bud before it happens?
This division, this nastiness, this lust for greed and power that a few people have that
sends so many of our children off to war.
It's a bizarre thing.
And obviously I'm a product of everything that you said there in a lot of ways, not
only growing up, but deployed in operations.
If we look at the strategic thing, can it end?
I think it will end.
I think technology is pushing the thing.
What we've got to understand is what's happening today has always been the way it happened,
has been the way, you know what I mean?
It's just now we've got cameras that have documented it second by second, what's happening.
And to be honest, I think that's incredible.
What I don't want ever to see that people think that it's because it's so much of it,
it's so prevalent and so many images seen that it blunts the trauma of what those people
have gone through and what their lives are about.
So I don't, it's important that we keep the currency.
And also the devil in the media as well is the blame culture.
You know what I mean?
That to me, and it's very, very, very hard.
I mean, I was forever a supporter of the BBC and everything else, but I'm struggling even
now with that.
Just tell the story what has happened.
And there's so much, you know, that's because of the power of those media outlets now, both
right wing and left wing or whatever, they've all got their own viewpoints.
They've all got their storyline.
And that's a struggle because that creates more tribes of support and waves of for free
the side.
The trauma is still going to happen.
And it is, but it's a weird, weird thing that I remember saying like, you know, the talking
has to happen, but it'll take two generations.
Things that are going on now in Ukraine and in Gaza, that's going to be more, it's going
to be generations, but that could be even longer than that because, you know what I
mean?
That has been felt by every single family, you know what I mean?
In Gaza and a hell of a lot of families in Israel as well.
And in Ukraine and Russia and I'm like, that's going to stay for people's lifetimes.
I might not even be generations.
We're talking about like full generations.
So we're talking like, you know, maybe 50 years at least, if there was no engagement
for this to even filter through where people can like look at each other and talk and go,
you're not to blame.
At the minute, the sort of main players on both sides have still got, you know, still
got, they're still tainted from their past of what they've been involved in and that'll
be enduring.
So I don't think until we get a generation that hasn't been, should we say, hasn't taken
lives from an opposing side that they're still challenging with, I think that's the only
time that people will morally feel right.
They can talk about it.
I agree with you.
I say, but I can't, I can't, I can't say that war is going to end.
I don't think technology is getting such a heightened stage that the term of a fair fight
is never going to be the case now.
Never going to be a case.
And it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, you always have to be thoroughly and well-drilled
and professionally trained as a soldier.
And the more professionally trained you are, you know what I mean?
The more effective you're going to be.
And also your survivability is probably going to be better.
But I'd say now because the techs moved on in such binds that you could be the physically
most robust, hardest, you know what I mean?
Sharp, intelligent soldier in the world, but it's not.
It ends in a nanosecond and it's done through technology, which is unseen.
So I think technology may bring it to the stage where it's, you know what I mean?
It's machine against machine type scenario.
There's still going to be human beings that are lost lives and still going to be innocent
lives are going to be completely underneath it and in the middle of it.
But currently, and this is another one, which may be maybe there are threats to the freedoms
that I fought for and the freedoms that I want my family to endure and love for the
rest of their lives and the rest of my grandchildren's lives.
And after that, there are threats out there where we still need to have the ability where
human beings are able to move forward and deliver lethality in whatever respect.
As surgically as possible is completely right, but we still have to operate and there's still
that requirement.
And until I think we feel that our freedoms are not threatened, that in some way we have
to maintain that capability.
It doesn't have to be massive, but it still needs that and it still has to be survivability.
And also if you leapfrog up into the biggest state players and the volatility at the minute
in the big countries like Russia, like China, North Korea, all these capabilities, it's
the volatility and it's also those freedoms that their state do not have whatsoever.
So you can't, it's just, that's it.
Not aggression and I wouldn't say aggression and not revenge either, which some people
might say, but I think we need to have that ability and we still need to influence and
make sure that those cultures and freedoms that we have are maintained.
Yeah I agree.
And thank you for your perspective.
I know we got very philosophical early in the conversation, but it's an important conversation.
I just went home to take care of my dad a couple of weeks ago in England and I was there
for a remembrance Sunday, remembrance weekend.
And one of my friends had just retired from London Transport Police in the armed division
and the way the BBC was portraying that was there was going to be this protest of a march
of Palestinians and the way they were projecting it was basically the police aren't ready and
all these Palestinian people are going to kick off and it's going to be an absolute
nightmare.
And neither happened.
The police were ready.
According to my friend, there were a few isolated arrests that people were taking care of immediately
and everyone else, it was a peaceful protest.
And I understand now having spoken to one of the most revered journalists that we've
had in the US and he was talking about how we devolved our news by the companies that
once owned them saying, all right, now you need to make money.
So it went from news to trying to keep you hooked on a news story so they can sell the
drug whatever drug company commercial.
The advertising.
Yeah, exactly.
So it's not about news.
It's about advertising.
It's about making money.
But the BBC is television licensed.
So that's what really disappoints me because they don't really don't have an excuse to
have deviated from what I always remember.
And I used to talk about all the time is middle of the road.
Here's what happened.
No opinions.
And I'm just this is what happened today.
And I think for the last I think last five years, it's been that there's like a it's
like a social push for you.
I mean, it's it's not.
It's yeah.
To me, they've definitely deviated and they've got a new I mean, it's not not conspiracy
or anything.
It's just prevalent.
When I was in O.P. sitting up in my in Norway or on operations, we would tune in and listen
to BBC World Service because that would give us exactly truthfully what was happening in
the world.
And now I listen to stuff which is no prevalence or relevance to to you know, I mean, what
I need to know.
But it's yeah.
So I but again, I'm not here to judge the BBC.
I'm just saying I need some further journalism.
That used to be what I listened to.
I can't lie.
So that's the way I have to move on and listen to other things or which I don't like because
it's time.
And at times, it's time is money and things like those.
You have to listen to multiple feeds to get a section average.
You go, right.
That must be really what's happening.
Exactly.
Well, I think just one more thing and then we'll move on.
Someone said to me recently, it was such a profound statement.
They said people are looking at America because we are the advert for democracy.
And he goes, what do you think they're thinking at the moment?
So for me, the safety and security of this country, the happiness of the American people
is centered around real democracy.
People feel like their vote counts, people feeling mostly that we're being pulled together,
that we're a giant community.
But we're seeing the opposite from both sides here.
Both media stations, it's a complete division.
So we've got to understand that if we don't fight to get the BBC back to where it should
be, if you don't fight to get our news networks to actually tell news again and stop putting
fear and conspiracy theory, whatever it is, out into the public, we are getting divided
and conquered.
Therefore, the Russians, the North Koreas, the Chinas of the world are wringing their
hands going, oh, sweet.
They used to be quite strong, but now they're getting fat.
Now they're addicted to opiates.
Now all these things are happening and that's a national security issue too.
So this isn't a political conversation.
When I, for example, had a lot of conversations with some very intelligent people like you
that have been around the world and have seen the highs and the lows and tell it from the
soldier's eyes or whatever field they're in, you start to see again these commonalities,
this middle ground.
This is not good.
We are getting more vulnerable.
We are becoming less of a community, more set against ourselves.
So this whole conversation, I think, is about the wellbeing of the British people, the Australian
people, the American, Canadian, everyone else who's being kind of set upon by their media
outlets and some of their politicians.
Yeah.
I mean, I definitely think that, which is quite a surreal circle, like full circle in
one way, is sometimes it really, it does burn in me quite a bit.
It's just, if you look at those images of people in the trenches, in the second world
war, in Korea and again, still in wars fighting other human beings, but fighting for what
we believe was that freedom and possibly maybe those freedoms and our, you know, our wish
to make freedoms as free and as free as they could possibly be, free be, means that then
you create an environment of obesity, of, you know what I mean, of no duty, no requirement,
no blame, no this, you know that, because it's, you know, that freedom and maybe, but
again, it's one of those things, once a horse is bolted, you'll never get it back.
So it's just that evolution.
We've got to get back under some sort of evolutionary path where human beings in our cultures feel
that they are responsible for every day they've got on this planet and for the people in the
community they live in to give it its best and give it a shot.
But that I think is just going to be so, so hard to do with our, sorry to say our addiction
to social media, to our addiction to, and it's another thing as well.
I spoke about it before, our addiction to social media, but also that reverence held
for people on TV, not TV, just like on that spectrum, whether it be a computer screen
or a phone screen or anything, there's people that, that they, they hero worship these super
thin one bricks thin, no depth sort of like, you know, in fact, I'd say that even though
the human beings are like AI, they're like sort of created things, whereas, and people
revere them, even though they don't know them personally, they've never, they've never sat
in a trench with them.
They've never done a hard day's work.
They've never been on a pump with them.
They've never done this and that.
All I'm saying is that's it.
So that's they revere them purely because, because it's, it's a fashion.
It's a trend.
You know what I mean?
And that I find it hard.
Whereas when we grew up and we never had to do media, we never had that, you know, we
maybe had a few Hollywood heroes like on a horse or something like that or on a motorbike,
but it was always, you looked up to people because you looked at them, you work with
them and you said, and I used to, I mean, I did because you take a little bit off everybody
you meet in your life and they're going, he's good.
I like him.
That's it.
He's got, oh, she's, she's wonderful.
She's that.
I know.
And you know what I mean?
She's sharp.
She's good.
You know what I mean?
You pick things from people, all these different people, and you pull them into your, into
your armory and that, that helps evolve you as a human being.
You're still always yourself, but you need these little good things, especially when people
are good tech or the way they manage people.
I just, you know, you see it all the time.
You follow good people, but not bad people.
But you knew them because you work with them.
You knew the work ethos.
You socialize with them.
She knew where you've seen the dark side of them, whether the good side or the funny side,
she knew everything was not, you've just got this, if it's on that, if it's on that square,
that screen and there's a big following, that's good.
And that, that blows my mind.
Absolutely.
He has us doing a podcast.
I know, I know, but it is, it's, it's, it's using the beast for educating positivity.
I think it's very important and not negativity, but, and again, that's another thing I don't
want to go, right.
Everything's ooh.
And we're, the world's all gone down.
Hell, it's, it's not like that.
I'm just saying that for me, am I sort of like my sort of like life sort of journey
getting to this point here, it's just leaving a lot of worries because it's changed so much
in such a short piece of time, space of time.
It's that worry.
I'm like, well, if it's changed so much in the last like five, 10 years, what's it going
to be like in 20 years time?
And then we've got, you know, everything else compounded in topical warming, demand for
power and everything else.
It's just, there's a, there's a lot of issues that need resolved and there's no resolution
happening at the minute or not, you know, not, not, I'd say not in a measured way anyway.
I think it's, it's, it's important for us to just realize what we've already got as
well.
I don't see a lot of gratitude.
And again, this, like you said, this isn't a doom and gloom conversation.
There's a lot of people that do get it.
A lot of people that are out there doing incredible things in the world.
But if we just go, ah, that's all right.
You know, then we are going to be so far behind it.
So I think these voices are important to just be, you know, grateful for all the things
we have rather than bitching about what we don't have.
But then also understanding that there's a trend, there's a linear line, you know, between
our health, our mental health, you know, the security of the nation, education, whatever
it is.
And that is going to have an impact if we don't intersect it.
You know, it's like a missile heading towards your home country.
If someone doesn't knock it off course, eventually it's going to blow up.
So yeah.
I think the main word you said there was education.
It's just that education.
And I think in those formative years for young people, did they get it?
And like I say, so many of them do, but there's still a, I mean, this is the worrying thing.
What we used to call a working class people, whatever else that they're, they're still
in that low education bubble.
And then again, they're not going to have those opportunities.
So they're, especially in the sort of family cycle and that where they keep bounding around
and everything else that they haven't broke out of that.
So they, they, you know, they see, they see, you know, let's say we say what we've lost
from previous communities, they see what they have now as the norm, you know what I mean?
And that's it.
And it's an endurance sort of thing.
They, they don't get, they don't feel there's a need to break the cycle.
And that's an, I think that's just something that we should, education is the important
thing to make sure that they try and break it, you know, and education can be done so
many different ways, but you know, I mean, it's given them the appetite to want to break
the mold or want to move forward with, with humanity.
Absolutely.
Well, going back to your journey, speaking of education, you ended up in the Royal Marines.
Is that what you were dreaming of when you were in school or was there something else
before that?
Oh no, that's, that's all I ever wanted to be.
I tried to join the Royal Marines when I was seven years old, but because I seen an advert
in the newspapers, which is a bit bizarre, saying that way from, from Belfast.
They sent me the pack back, but I was a bit young to join at the time.
So that's what I wanted to do.
And when I got my exam results, I picked them up, went straight down discreetly to the careers
office and joined up.
And I was a junior at the time, so I had to get a witness to sign it.
So which is, and my parents to sign it.
And I hadn't spoken to my parents about what, I did speak to my dad when I was young, but
he said, you'll grow out of it.
But I didn't and, and that, although finally did sign the forms initially, he was like,
I don't want son of mine joining the commandos.
And you know, and you think about it at the time, it was like, you know, mid eighties,
the 85 actually when I joined up and they, or you went and signed on the dotted line.
And that's a mega brief show for them because they did sign the forms for me, but that was
extremely brave shot coming from, from our background.
And I've got a lovely family, a lovely wider family as well.
But it's, but these are people with completely different, like, you know, political and,
and like natural sort of like national sort of like identity, you know what I mean?
And I, and I won't knock them for it because that, that was, you know what I mean?
You know, there was reason for that at the time, but I was allowed to make my decision
and make my point and do what I did.
And I, I mean, if you, I mean, you know, the score to become a role in Marines commandos,
not, oh yeah, I'm just going to join up and it'll happen.
It's, it's, it's a, it's a tasty little number to do.
And you know, that, that's all I wanted to do.
So I had to do it, but I had to be very discreet.
Nope.
Never told anyone and did it.
I think it was just only one friend or two who later joined later in later year, year
after joined the Royal Air Force.
But generally, you know, I didn't tell anyone and I went off on the adventure.
It was the Royal Marines.
And that was, and I think the only thing I would say for young people that do want to
aspire, you know, to do something.
And I have to make, cause every, everything that's ever happened on the planet done by
human beings, they're human beings.
So the fact is that everything on this planet you can do, you know what I mean?
You can do it, you can do it to the best of your heart's content.
You can do it, but you've got to just focus on it and, and get amongst it and just do
it.
And I was very privileged and lied because, you know, my forms were signed and I can do
it.
So I went off and became a Royal Marines commando.
And as soon as I joined her, the intensity and the arduous nature of training, just,
I was at home.
I was in pure heaven.
It was just, I was at, yeah, like 30, 37 and a half years later, I'm going, yeah, yeah,
it was just, yeah, it was magical.
You know, and I was so lucky to be such a unbelievable gang of people.
And I, I still am really, I will be, I mean, once it's, you know, once a Royal Marine,
always a Royal Marine.
And in the States they say once a Marine, always a Marine.
But for me, you know, that's it, I'm from, with a gang of people that I sort of joined
the Corps with and we will be friends, well, while we're still on this, on this earth.
But what we've, especially, you know, you know, some of the friends, what we've been
through is all those highs and lows and in battle losing friends, as a traumatic injuries,
you know, overcomers, survivors, we've lost friends through suicide.
So we've all been through a journey and our families have suffered in the background,
you know, not in the background, but on the home front while this has all been happening.
So they're part of that, our bigger family as well.
So yeah, it's been a, I've been a very, very lucky man to have had the career that I did
and also to have survived it.
So I feel again, greatly privileged.
I feel the same way about the fire service, you know, but I don't call myself a retired
firefighter, even though I'm not paid to do it anymore.
I mean, I literally did CPR on a plane about two weeks ago and then responded to a crash
about three days ago.
So, you know, as a civilian, but I got to kind of witness what you're talking about
as well.
First hand, I went to see Ben Wadham and Sam Sheriff in Plymouth and Reorg at Ben's gym,
ended up rolling, when I say rolling, getting murdered by Sam for a bit.
And then Junior was rolling with him as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was, I had coffee with Junior the other day, actually.
Yeah, he's brilliant, bro.
Brilliant.
So, but I got to see that and it was beautiful, that little area.
And there were people, you know, obviously quite young Marines coming through and probably,
you know, men that you serve with and they were all cycling through the cafeteria and
it was phenomenal.
I think that's, that was so inspiring to watch because they created a place, no matter whether
you're actually wearing the uniform or if you transitioned out, to still feel like you're
part of the Corps.
Now, the President, you just, it's a massive attraction and it's such a wonderful attraction
for veterans to keep him, stay involved, stay in the community.
Well, you stay in the community anyway, but that gives that a physicality, I think, that
bootnecks and the heat, you know what I mean?
And firefighters as well, you know, and it's just that, you know, it's a good, because
phys is so important to you, I think, you know, when you leave service, you've got to
keep that mindset and that sense of purpose, it's physicality and doing that, you know,
intimately or whatever and mobility and endurance will keep you, it'll give you longevity as
well because again, if you stagnate, then, you know, it's the wrong thing to do.
It's bad for you.
I've heard you talk a couple of times now and each time you seem to be the same way
that I am, acknowledging all the trauma of your service, seeing men and women, you know,
in your case, men, in my case, men and women around you that are really, really struggled,
some of whom, you know, are not here anymore, some of whom, thank God, were saved from a
suicide attempt and, you know, are here to tell the tale.
And when I look back and analyze why was I not there sitting, you know, with a bottle
of scotch and a pistol, the only thing I can think of is even though I had trauma when
I was younger, certain things, just by pure luck, I grew up on a farm, I grew up, my dad's
event resurgence was around animals, you know, he was healing.
There were people of all colors and creeds coming through our farmhouse all the time.
So there were so many positive coping mechanisms that we identify now, you know, from animals
to time in nature, et cetera, et cetera.
So I can hypothesize, okay, well, I was just so fortunate to have equal and opposing coping,
you know, mechanisms inbuilt to my childhood that it allowed me to process that trauma
and it became a strength.
A lot of people that have come on the show who were really, really, really struggling,
a lot of their childhood was traumatic and they didn't necessarily process it.
They just, you know, shoved it down.
When you look at your journey, I mean, you know, 30 plus years, you know, in Royal Marines
and Reserves and you grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, what do you identify were the
elements that allowed you to foster resilience when some of your fellow Marines, you know,
didn't have that strong foundation when they entered the profession?
I mean, I wouldn't say they didn't have a strong foundation.
I think there's a certain level of conditioning that happens when you become a Royal Marines
commando.
But leading up to that, I think family life and community life and the Troubles and the
systematic sort of like security routine or regime that happened in Northern Ireland,
it puts you in this sort of, and again, being a Catholic old boys primary school, Christian
Brothers primary school.
And then I went to St Malachy's College, which was a priest seminary college as well, but
an old boys grammar school.
And I went to that and no matter what we say, it's very, even though it's not because, you
know, there are schools, but quite militaristic and you're conditioned from an early age,
I think.
And I was an altar boy as well.
So I was an altar boy.
So you're part of the Catholic Church and that is militaristic in a way as well.
So, you know, maybe the conditioning happened.
Maybe there's not as much conditioning for the younger members that were coming, but
for people of my age group.
And we were, I think we were a lot more, we had a lot more say common sense, I'd say,
when we joined up and less academic awareness.
You know what I mean?
Our intellect, I think was, you know, it's in our genes or it was maybe from our conditioning
coming from big cities or from islands off Scotland or whatever.
You've got that unique, in your formative years, you have to be, you know, have to be
a scrapper, a bit of a, have a survivability factor in that.
Whereas nowadays you get a lot of younger men that are joining the corps, which even
in the early stages are not as physically robust because they haven't spent as much
time outside now.
And I'm not saying that's across the board.
And yeah, of course you get people that knew have grown up in families where they were,
lived their lives on mountains or, you know, running hills or swimming in sea or surfing.
But we've got a lot of people from inner cities that grew up maybe playing PlayStation games
and their idea of being a Royal Marines commander is watching, you know, Call of Duty or playing
Call of Duty, which is really, really, no, no, it's not, it's not.
And I'm not a Call of Duty player, but you know, I do know what a game is.
It's, you know, we get a lot of people doing that.
So you have to sort of like start their physical conditioning through their journey and become
a Royal Marines commando in a very different way.
Whereas ours was you join and it was shocker capture.
And it was you joining the Royal Marines.
It wasn't, it wasn't the Royal Marines trying to get you to join.
It was you scratching to be in the Royal Marines.
So you'd give a hundred percent all out, but at any stage you could have like been thrown,
you know, I mean, yeah, so I no longer required.
There's across the whole day armed forces now it's very much a, you know, they're actually,
you know, titan for business continue.
They're selling their souls.
Go right, come and join us, come and join us, come and join us.
You know what I mean?
And they're, I think they, as you say, the rigid sort of training regimes that we had
when we joined are a lot more, should we say user friendly, still effective, still a tester,
still all, you know, everything else, but it's, it's definitely a different sort of
regime.
Possibly and society as well.
Society is a very different society.
And that does open, open your eyes when you go on operations, you know, being able to
adapt to things that are, you know, you've possibly came across when you were younger
and you've overcome it through your family and everything else.
But a lot of things that, that came apparent with me with my friends and people that colleagues
I knew that were struggling, a lot of it did stem from childhood years, whereas what happened
on operations, you know, when you have a traumatic scenario, when you was a firefighter, it must
have been incredibly, incredibly sad and traumatic scenes, but they were like triggers, but it
sort of dragged up other issues deeper in the childhood.
And that was, you know, that, that's been a very, very common factor and people have
spoken, spoken with when they, when they said about it.
So I can't, there's no blame for it.
I just think the, the odd, the less arduous nature of life, which again, we've, we've
made makes certain it is, it makes certain people less, no, but I can't, I can't even
some of my friends have come in, so I can't, I can't say, I wouldn't say that they're
less strong or anything else, but for me it's always been when things happen.
And I think it's when it comes into my acting, the reason I understand it, whilst I was going
through maybe a group going up in Belfast and then joining the Royal Marines.
And I've said this before in a chat before, I think we build up a, I subconsciously have
built up a protection to my emotion.
You know what I mean?
My emotional sort of, you know, regime.
So you sort of build it up.
It's like, you know, you have to, you have to resist because you can, you know, you've,
you've had, you know, I mean, things have been tricky and then you move into sort of
like things are extremely hard and then operations are going to be lost.
So you build this up and that, that resistance you build up helps you massively.
I think especially longevity wise, the time I was in the Royal Marines and the things
I'd done helped me get through it, you know, relatively stable.
But my friends that I've struggled with it, they seemed to, when I came across new scenarios,
traumatic scenarios and you lost people, there was a certain surrealism of it.
It didn't, you know, it's still now even seems quite surreal, even though you know, your
mates are dead, you know that they're buried and gone and everything else and that, but
you still got that, you know what I mean?
It's just weird to me.
And it's, it's something I always, you know, I always still visit my friends now and just
like have a chat with them when, especially when I'm doing, you know, active stuff because
there I feel quite emotional thinking about them.
But I like, you know, I need that.
I need those emotions.
So I go and speak to them and just say, I need you today, lads.
Just it sort of comes because their memories come and I don't want ever to dampen that
or make it, oh, I'll just call them my mates today.
I can't because it's too precious.
They're too wonderful and their memories are too wonderful.
So it's one of those things where the resistance built up and we do what we do and we see
traumatic things and carry on with it.
But I still think back and I do have a few tearful moments.
I'm not saying I don't and a few of my mates will say this as well.
And we've had a few times where we were out climbing in Switzerland, we had a hard week
and we came down and me and one of my mates, Steph, pulled out and created a beer and we
put a tune on and the tune went on and it was just the opening chords of the tune.
Just it just made me go emotional.
I was just putting, you know, and I looked into his eyes and we were sitting there and
it was two of us and he just knew straight away what it was.
He was like, don't worry, mate.
Don't worry.
Crack a beer and that was it.
And that was, you know, that understanding and having a friend to go, you're all right,
mate.
And that was it.
And I'd spoke to a couple of other friends who'd be down in the Falklands and they said
they had moments like this and I didn't.
I was thinking, you know, I don't think I'll have that, but it was just something.
It was just a tune or something and it just made it come back to me.
So why, the reason I said I have got over it and overcome it, but I'll never forget
mates, but realizing that I have overcome it and I will have emotional moments means
that I'm not stuck on the timeline.
Whereas my friends that I feel my friends have taken their lives, my friends that really
struggle with things is that they can't get away from that point in time or that moment.
So it's like, you know, instead of, you know, they're stuck on that date and that timeline,
life just moves on and they can't, they try to get away from it, but it just, they're
struggling with it.
And it's just anything I can maybe assist them with, especially in the arts nowadays,
is just to get them to move away from that and just get that timeline moving again and
look forward and not back, but not forgetting, never forgetting those wonderful, wonderful
people that we had to work with.
When I said the, you know, the, that's the foundation, it's not a weakness.
It's not something anyone's aware of.
It's that unaddressed stuff.
And a lot of, a lot of people on the show, you know, they were small when whatever happened
in the household, whether it was sexual abuse or, you know, growing up around domestic violence,
you know, whatever it was.
So they go in with all the best intentions, unaware of some of the fragility inside.
And it's not that they're not warriors.
It's just this kind of element.
So then, you know, you add all these other compounding factors, you know, of service
and, you know, maybe even organizational betrayal.
I mean, you know, whatever factors in some of them, they just get to that critical mass
and everything starts collapsing.
And what's so sad, and I've learned this from so many people now, you know, there used to
be our generation, this kind of conversation that suicide was cowardly and selfish.
And you realize when you hear stories from people that were right there, I've had two
that survived their suicide attempt, you know, and the moment they began it, they immediately
had regret.
But it's because it snapped them out.
But that brain by that point is so miswired that they think that is the selfless way of,
you know, removing themselves because they're a burden to their fellow Marines.
They're a burden to their wife, to their children, which makes no sense to a healthy brain, makes
perfect sense to a broken brain.
So this is what's so sad is no one, you know, no one who gets to that point of crisis is,
air quotes, a pussy quite the opposite.
You know, you wouldn't belittle someone who's FEMA was sticking out the side of their leg,
you know, fucking hell, you just broke your leg.
But when it comes to that mental injury, that injury to the point of completely changing
their reality, it's, you know, we've got to show compassion.
And the reason why I asked you that was another part of the conversation is some people are
doing okay, they're coping.
So it's up to us to then say, all right, what was it?
Why?
I mean, we're no different.
We are, as you said, human beings.
Why am I able to cope this amount?
And my friend took his own life or took her own life.
And so trying to impart some of that too, because if we're not struggling, that means
we're the ones that need to raise our friends up.
Yeah, I mean, I see even like, you know, as you were saying, I understand those words,
which I fully agree with, I fully agree with.
Because I remember some of my friends there and they were, you know, when you were, you
know, mega friendly with them, they all part company or they left the core or whatever
else.
But some of the guys, a couple of the guys, I met not long before they took their own
life and I didn't ping it.
I didn't, I didn't, I didn't grab it.
And I'm thinking, I look back and think, was it something?
And that's why it's so, it's harder, especially when you remember those phone times, you
were smiling or sharing a beer or sharing a, you know, a foxhole or, you know, a shell
scrape together and you have that little giggling sort of smiling and chuckle when you're in,
you know, that dark humor in the face of adversity.
And you look in their eyes and you saw, you know, that's it.
And even as you just get that moment back and then, but you could say, you know, completely
straight eye to eye with no pretense or nothing, just go, right, you know, are you okay?
And that would always, you know, there'd be straight, it would be compassionate and just
to have that opportunity to say, you all right mate?
If you're not, you know, thinking that and it's just, that's the big thing that sort
of gets you when they do, you, and you've seen them recently, you just go on, well,
you know, it's just what, yeah, like why didn't they already, you know, have I never made
him feel comfortable enough for him to say, so Judy, he knows I'm the sort of person that
would listen and yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's hard.
And I've even had people explain it that mentally you have fight, flight, flow or freeze, flow
is when I was missing and freeze.
That's almost like the kind of deer in the headlights.
And then there's almost an acceptance then.
If you think about it, the deer has basically made peace with the fact it's going to get
run over by a car.
And so that is why sometimes I hear people say they, they seem happier than I'd seen
them in months or years, a few days before.
So to try and kind of alleviate some of that guilt, sometimes they've already made peace
with it.
Now, maybe if you looked at them and said, you know, are you okay?
No, no, no.
Are you really okay?
And I think the second question is really important.
Maybe it would snap out of them, but maybe in that, in their mind, they'd already just
made that decision and they were just kind of, you know, tying up loose ends, deliberately
coming to see you because they were, they knew what was going to come.
Yeah.
I mean, I'll take that as a, you know, a little in my pocket for that one.
Cause that's something that I think, and I, yeah, I'll definitely take that one as well
just to use your bit.
And when we do, it's worth, I think just, and it discreetly rather than doing the old
like, I must say blah, blah, blah, it's the old, right?
Yeah.
Look at me, Hucka Jen, just tell me the truth.
You know what I mean?
How's it going?
And if you are, if you're feeling that bad, you need to speak to me, you need to offload
with me and that's it.
So yeah, I've definitely, I'm taking that one.
Cause like I said, it's, it's still extremely prevalent in, you know, in, in my peer group
and people that have been deported in operations.
Absolutely.
And here in America, we lose twice as many firefighters and police officers to suicide
than we do what we call line of duty deaths, you know, all the things that kill us in uniform.
So I want to get back to Northern Island then.
So now you're wearing a Royal Marine uniform.
You go back to your home city.
What was that kind of transition that experience like for you, you know, one minute you're
seeing soldiers in your city.
Now you're one of those soldiers or Marines in this case.
Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't, I wasn't exactly in my city at the time, but, and I guess I, I, I
want to say what, what I don't know what I'm for, but obviously jobs, you know, I've done
either it was, I didn't know.
I mean, I was, I was in a group of, of Royal Marines commanders who were doing our job.
I seen it as a completely a peace support job protecting Irish people from Irish people
basically.
And, and you know, and my, my comrades, and that's why I deployed because I think it would
be hard and I never took my family deployed either.
So I'd done four tours in Ireland and I never took my family because, you know, it wasn't,
it wasn't their burden.
You know what I mean?
But for me it was, I had to go because I was protecting my, my friends.
But also I was educating my friends.
I was telling them what Ireland was about, why it was where we were, why we had to do
this.
And also, you know, if professionally as well, just to make sure that they're focused on
what we were doing.
But I think it was important.
They, they understood the background of why different targets are different people, you
know, we were working against why, why they felt the way they were doing.
Because again, they were human beings, not only human beings, they were, you know, they
were, they were Irish human beings, whether they be, you know, loyalist terrorists or
loyalist, you know, should we say volunteers or Republican terrorists or Republican freedom
fighters.
I mean, that's, that's another thing.
Cause remember the old, you said about 9-11, like when 9-11 happened, they said, all right,
it's terrorism and straight away it's terrorism.
It's the old, it's very, very hard to, it is like one man's terrorists and another man's
freedom fighter, French resistance, terrorists, freedom fighters.
You know what I mean?
It's just so, so many different things.
I mean, yeah, for me it was education and peace support and being professional.
And I think those professional soldiers and Marines that worked out in, in Northern Ireland,
they learned valuable, valuable lessons in their trade in that environment because the
people they were up against were probably the most, I'd say, cunning and covert operators
on the planet, I think, you know what I mean?
And that's whatever side they were following, but they were, their ability to, you know,
basically to deliver operations, you know, both in UK and in Ireland was, you know, I
mean, it was pretty magical.
I mean, it's not, there was no battlefield win, but it was the skills learned there,
but it was in really good stead for future operations in, I'd say Bosnia, Kosovo, and
definitely I'd say in Iraq as well.
And it was, by the time we came to Iraq, a lot of the, it was only the senior people
that had maybe deployed in Northern Ireland.
So they still had that understanding of patrolling in multiples in built up areas, looking at,
you know, all the MOs or the TTPs that the enemy would be using.
A lot of them, it was far more intense, I would say, but the TTPs were similar.
And I think if you were refined and professional in Northern Ireland, it would make it, you'd
be such a more competent operator, I think, in any of the other environments.
When you talk about educating some of the other Marines on the backstory behind the
conflict in your home country, it reminds me of a police officer I had, Nick Colt, and
he was a little boy.
The local Orlando and Orange County police were surrounding his house because someone
had basically done like a home invasion.
And then there was miscommunication, mistakes were made.
It went from, I think, Orange County to Orlando.
Yeah.
So when they'd been there for X amount of hours, they passed onto the city.
The lady, the hostage taker ordered food, they sent a pizza in, the mother was told
to go out to the garage and get it, and the sniper shot her, killed her, Nick's mother.
And Nick became a police officer because he wanted to make sure that that never happened
to someone else's mother.
And it kind of reminds me the same thing, that you put yourself in uniform so you could,
as you said, protect the good people of Ireland and try and mitigate some of the violence.
Yeah, I mean, and that is it.
That is completely it.
I never, you know, that is my island, isn't it?
It's my island.
And I didn't go there to prosecute any politics, purity of lives and help people.
And hopefully I did that.
Well, you mentioned Kosovo then.
So when I'm thinking about post-Falklands, I was literally, I got it, 82, wasn't it?
So I was six.
Is that right?
No, eight.
I was eight when the Falklands happened.
So then, you know, we have the kind of Eastern European conflicts kick off next.
You weren't, you know, you joined after the Falklands.
So Northern Ireland, as you said, was your kind of training ground as well.
Talk to me about getting to Kosovo and then the kind of backstory, because I mean, a lot
of people listening probably aren't aware of the, again, the sectarian elements to that
conflict.
Well, the Brigade 3 commander brigade were due to deploy in 2000, 2001 to Kosovo, to
Pristina and basically as a holding ground, you know, the brigade headquarters would be
working in, just outside Pristina.
And at this stage, obviously the native force had gone in here before and taken over Kosovo
from Serbian influences due to the conflict or they, you know, shall we say the suppression
of the mostly Albanian, you know, so Albanian, Kosovan Albanians rather than the Serbian
Albanians, Serbian, Kosovan Serbians as well, Serbian Kosovans as well.
And you know, it was very much sectarian divide and there was different areas.
It was very, very similar to maybe old school Northern Ireland as it was and the way the
areas were split up and also the Kosovans, the Kosovan sort of forces then had stepped
up were now these sort of like local paramilitary sort of like forces supporting the native
troops to, you know, secure and police the area.
But we got involved.
I was a team commander in the Brigade Patrol Troop, which was like an evolution of the
mountain-archival warfare cadre, which was in the Falklands.
And it was now called the Brigade Patrol Troop, which, and it was the early stages of being
called the Brigade Reconnaissance Force and the three-commander brigade, Brigade Reconnaissance
Force was this sort of like the model or design that the other brigades would follow when
we went on to further operations after 9-11.
So we had a group of mostly Royal Marines, but we had combat, our commando engineers
and commando forward air controllers with this as well.
But generally we were working in what we would call a close observation type role, reactive
role.
So we were doing surveillance of targets, both Serbian, Kosovan, Albanian and Kosovan
and also a lot of criminal activity as well.
Because that was, you know, it was one of those, you know, that sort of void of proper
police authority had left that loop where people could sort of influence a hell of a
lot of things.
And there's a lot of criminal elements linked into the different sort of like permanently
organizations that were happening over there.
And but we've done some seriously good work over there.
And I think as a small organization, we were really punching high above our weight.
We were like, it was just, we were really pushing forward with digital imagery and technology
and we were getting some real good quality results, improvising things and doing, we
also done a few reactive ops, ambush ops.
We got involved in quite some serious ambush ops, getting triggered with some sources we
had.
And a few of them, again, the ambushes themselves weren't triggered.
So it wasn't like we were putting lines down, but we captured quite a few people doing illicit
trade and different bits and pieces rather than saying what we'd done.
But we captured quite a lot of people doing that.
It was a very, very positive tour and we, it was a very successful one for the Brigade
Patrol Troop.
I think we proved our, you know, the last time they'd deployed in operations was in,
after the first Iraq war in operation during freedom.
It was not during freedom, it was in, when they went into Kurdistan, northern Iraq after
the first Gulf War.
That was the last time, sort of the first and last time the Brigade Patrol Troop had
deployed.
So this was our first operational deployment.
So, but then after Kosovo, we got back.
I mean, the first job we'd done in Kosovo was quite a good one actually.
We went in to secure a hotel, which was, it was the hotel belonging to one of the Serbian,
high Serbian politicians, cousins, and we had to secure it, secure him and then we were
closing down a factory and we'd been there three days and we hadn't even got our ammunition
yet so we had to sort of throw everything together.
Disappeared in the back of a big lorry over the top of a mountain and ended up on our
first task within like, you know, days.
It didn't come, it wasn't fruitful.
The factory did get closed down, but it did, there was quite a lot of, shall we say, a
lot of, because it was a Serbian enclave as well.
So there was a lot of Serbian people were deeply upset about what was going on, because
of pollution and everything else that had to be shut down.
So we were securing the manager, securing the sort of management infrastructure and
then we got wrapped up in trying to just make sure that the Serbs never overrun the village
and yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty hurry few hours we had and I think the lads proved
it worth it.
It didn't, it didn't, it could have went dramatically wrong, but I think the professionalism and
the coolness of our team saved the day for us.
But that is definitely a story for another time that is.
Well, you touched on 9-11.
So you know, you've had these kind of urban conflicts up to this point, you know, like
you mentioned there was the first Gulf War, but that, you know, seemingly a lot of it
was an aerial attack in the first part.
Talk to me about your personal experience of 9-11.
A lot of people that come on here that serve, whether they're in first responder uniforms
or military, that was a very pivotal moment for them, but they were Americans.
It was attack on America.
What was your experience already wearing a Royal Marine uniform and being, you know,
Northern Irish slash British Marine?
Well, as I was already, I was pretty seasoned by this stage.
So I'd been in what, 15 years.
Yeah, so I, you know, I mean, I'd done quite a lot.
I was a Sergeant team commander, still in Brigade Patrol troop.
When the actual planes went into the twin towers and the Pentagon, we were live firing
in wheels.
So we were basically preparing to go to the Oman desert.
So we were basically doing fire maneuver and weapon drills with our systems in the Senne
Bridge and the Brecon Peacons.
We had, remember those little mini TVs.
You had an aerial, you pulled the aerial out and you had a little mini TV.
We had one of those and the 18 commanders and one of my make have the color sergeant.
We just watched it happen live.
And it was heart wrenching because you knew at that very moment, just the trauma, it was
like, it was like Hollywood level images we were seeing, but it was real, real life, real
people.
It was honking.
And we knew at that point in time, our world's a change.
Unfortunately, the people that were there with us within two years, 10 of them would
be dead.
You know what I mean?
And that's quite, but we knew and we accepted that things were going to change pretty, pretty
drastic and it's quite, it's quite bunkish.
But straight after that, we were, there's all sorts of like, the jungle drums are beaten,
decisions being made.
So we were racking up.
They said we're going to head, we were going to massive British exercise, a joint exercise
with the Omani forces, a safe siree, I think it was called.
Yeah, safe siree.
And it was in Oman and that was about 2001, about October.
So this is about a month, you know, after like, you know, 9 11 and we went out October
and November time, but I had to stay.
So we put a big six week exercise in the desert.
We're working in a small mobility.
We still hadn't got proper sort of reconnaissance women vehicles or machine gun mounted vehicles.
So we'd like improvise it with, you know, just stripped down a landovers and we were
doing a mobile reconnaissance in the desert, which was, it was great.
We needed that.
We did need that, especially for, you know, it was like, it was, it was like all the,
the training sort of bill landed exactly where it should have been really, you know, for,
for what happened, which is so sad, but so we were, you know, just working out all our
SOPs or reviving our SOPs and working them out, sorting our teams out and doing that
during safe Syria.
At the end of safe Syria, when everyone was returning back, I stayed behind with a couple
of our members to take to run a training package for the Omani special forces down in Salala
with to do combat climbing amphibious assault combat climbing.
So we were doing like teaching them how to lead climb and set up a fixed lines at night
on a cliff faces down in Salala way.
And at this point we met, we met all the, so the Omani special forces guy.
And obviously you got to be aware at the time it was quite as cool.
Weird.
Cause we, we, we'd attached with us with a, a Marsok gunnery sergeant, incredible guy,
one of the, when he still won my best meets and he was attached to us, but he was dressed
as a Brit and his wife's a Brit as well.
So he sort of gave it because of the American thing, it was a bit, it was weird because
we were Brits, apparently it was okay.
Or, you know, we, we were okay, but he was American and he goes, just pretend I'm, pretend
I've got, you know, he's Hispanic looking.
So I said, pretend, pretend I've got Turkish extraction.
All right.
So we were obviously in the first demo when he was my demo man or demonstration and he
was my sort of demo man doing all that.
We were doing combat, you know, runner and placement on a, on a rocks.
And he, he was just about, he was like, you're right.
I said, well, yeah, obviously watch my demo, my crack on this.
And then the liaison officer who obviously spoke fluent, spoke fluent English, he's
like, ah, I see our American friend is doing the demonstration.
And I was like, you just see them all like that, but they all just look straight away
at chunks and just went, and I was like going, Ooh.
And it was a Luke, you know, it was, they are, it was like, he was the devil.
It was mega weird.
I know they're not, you know, they were, they were on side, they were allies, but you could
just see that Luke of venom, find out that he was American.
And I was like, Oh, but he didn't, he didn't let that, he didn't, honestly, he did not
let that get to him whatsoever.
And he just cracked on.
And then because he's such an incredibly strong character, by the end of the week, he had
a, basically all the Omani, you know, special forces lads were his best mate.
They were like, you know, they, they wanted to bring him home to meet the families and
everything.
So he had, you know, he just transformed their opinion off the U S of him as a person.
And that's purely done is strength of character.
He just didn't let it rile him.
You know, you could see initially though, that could create friction straight away,
but it didn't.
He had it and he controlled it.
And he's a, yeah, he's, he's a very talented operator, should we say.
So we had that, and that went on for about another three weeks.
So I've been in the desert, living in the desert for about two months now.
Mind you, down at Salalah, I did get a few like air conditions with the pubs, which was
good, you know, a couple of beers, which was nice.
But then we, we were about to get, get back to the UK because I'd come out with the exercise.
I never had a visa.
So it was like, have you seen that film Midnight Express where he's just gone through the airport
and he gets stopped?
And so he goes, oh, I'll tell so and so.
So we're going through the airport and we've just literally the day before we find out,
right, we're going to Afghanistan nearly soon, as soon as we get back.
So I haven't, I mean, this has happened since 9-11.
We're like going, I haven't seen my family or anything.
And I'm just going, oh, Jesus.
But this guy goes, no, no, you can't leave.
And they put us up in a five star hotel and everything, but we were just looking at each
other as me and, and I was my mate, we just looked at each other.
We were going, we were just like completely broken.
We just thought, this is it.
We might even get to see our families before we just straight on the tailgate back out
to Afghanistan.
And so after 9-11, we did, we got back, we had Christmas at home and then we went out
to Afghanistan and after Christmas in 2002, just, just in the 2002.
And that was, you know, the start of the whirlwind.
So I went over those years, I went five years on operations nearly every year.
So, and when we went to Afghanistan the first time on Objekana and yeah, it was a completely
different operation than what Hellman would be later on, but it was still, you know, it
was on the cusp.
It was still, we were still there.
It was still, we were still hunting the Taliban and everything else and that.
And we, we, it was a hard, hard, in the mountains as well, mostly up in Western Afghanistan,
up in the mountains as well.
So it was quite a, quite a chunky hard, you know, few months we were there.
Then we got back from there and we were on an exercise I had to generate, had a couple
of weeks off, got ourselves a sword.
And then we had to generate an exercise up in Scotland on the Isle of Skye doing that.
And whilst up in that, this is coming towards Christmas in 2002 again.
So we'd come back, got ourselves a sword and then we got a visit from the command officer,
give it the old, right lads.
It looks like we're invading Iraq next year potentially.
And you're going to be, be part of that.
So we literally packed a kit then after Christmas the next year and we were right in Iraq ready
for that.
So this is like, and then, so this is like from Kosovo to Afghanistan, then straight
to Iraq.
And then we, and that's when basically that's when we had, had the big, our big hit, which
was when we, we were flying on the night of the invasion, we were flying forward and our
job was to fly forward off all the, we were the three commander brigade were under the
command of a US Marine Corps division, two star division commander.
And we'd fly forward, 40 commander was flying with the Navy SEALs and secure the sort of
like the oil head done at the bottom of the L4 and clear L4 town.
And whilst they were doing that, we would fly behind the lines and set up observation
posts, OPs and trigger any reinforcements coming down from Iraqis and strike them with
our forward air controllers and FACs and our FU's, our forward air controllers, our forward
observation officers that we had with us.
And as we took off, and this is, this is, this is the, I mean, it's been out there,
when we done rehearsals, I was on a helicopter and I could see, I sent you one of the pictures
not there, but I sent a picture of the helicopter and when we done rehearsals, I was in the
left hand of our, it's flies in an arrowhead formation of our division of helicopters.
And there was one, two, three on the left and two on the right, I think of our division.
I was in the third of the flying forward, the back left helicopter and our alpha, I
was the Bravo headquarters.
So if anything happened to our alpha headquarters, I would swap, basically get all our coordinate,
all our teams back into one and get them back in and off the ground.
So I was in the helicopter.
So we done rehearsals, we had orders, we were observation command, operation command, up
com to four two command at that time.
And we'd be given orders by the commanding officer of four two commando until like, yeah,
as part of that, you'll go forward.
Then they'll leapfrog in behind us and you know, we'd have support, you know, mutual
support as such with the, his commando unit.
And but we've got the rehearsals, gotten a helicopter, obviously went through rehearsals,
landed on quite heavily at nighttime, dust off.
We were flying in US Marine Corps CH-46 helicopters, the CNIC, I think they're called.
And we landed on, got back to the tent.
I was in the tent with all my colleagues who were in the headquarters.
We had discussion, you know, it was all, you know, let's just see how things go.
You know, it was a bit of a, bit of a hairy, scary ride in a helicopter, but we'll be fine.
When we get on the ground, Saddam can stand by as such.
And then the following day we got orders, yeah, Stefan's green light's on tonight.
We were happening, so fully commanded, we landed on.
So they landed on, battle, then we boarded our helicopters.
As we were going back onto the back of my helicopter, the tailgate, my OC in St. Major,
and a few of my mates went, and then I tip, you're on that, you're on that helicopter
over there.
I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second.
You know, we've got orders.
This is it.
Your OP's completely different area of the mine.
You know, we were small teams working, you know, separately.
So a specific OP or landing sites had to be bang on to get the full cover so we could,
you know, protect from the enemy as such.
So I went over to this, the other guy said, are you happy with our LS, where we met the
land?
This guy goes, no, no, no, I have no problems, you know, with you guys.
And he was a, he's a cracking guy, and he'd actually spent time flying with Royal Navy
Helicopter Squadrons 845, 846.
So I shook hands and went back over to the guy and said, right, right lads, so I'm happy
that we'll see.
And after this phase of the operation, we'd all coordinate together and then we'd be clearing
through the L4 and we'd be the forward recce element of the Commando Brigade, of the Commando
units.
And so big hug, big hugs, and that there's a sea on the ground.
That's it.
So I'm, there's the helicopter here flying forward that way, and I'm on this helicopter
here.
I'm on the tailgate with the door gone off the 46 looking straight at the helicopter,
which is just half right of me, you know, out the back.
And they're quite tight in the scene, so you're strapped in.
I was looking at it, we took off from Q8, we're flying in and you could see the track
we're following, you could see the oil fires, and I could check off my map exactly where
we were, went across Boobie and Ireland, we're coming in to land on, and from the front,
I got two minutes running, two minutes running in, and nothing happened.
And then we kept banking and banking, so I'm going, oh, we're back on Boobie, and oh,
we're back in the Q8, so we can back round again.
And then there was, I had this image in my head, which I didn't, the image never registered
until the day after, you know, when it happened.
And the last thing I seen was I was looking at the back and the helicopter with the lads
was on, it just, it went like that, and we were flying at a hundred feet, so, and I just,
just like that, and just, that's the image I've got in my head.
And then it was just a blast, and we were caught in the blast, so it blew up underneath
us, we were caught in the blast, the helicopter, and then we carried on.
But at this point in time, I can't, I couldn't remember that image until the next day, so
all I seen was the old right, hey, I thought we'd been, because we said two minutes run
then, I'd lost the fact we're back in the Q8 again, I thought we'd been struck by something,
there was enemy fire or something.
And then we carried on, and there's this massive sort of light bulb of flames and fire and
debris in the bottom, and I remember seeing my, it's a bit of my signaler, and I said,
look, that's a helicopter, I'm sure it's a helicopter, but it's, this memory hadn't,
that memory hadn't come in yet, I mean, it's such an intense thing, and you're caught in
the blast and the flames and all sorts.
So we, we were gone, and then we got mission aborted, so we, mission aborted, and all the
helicopters, we pealed around back, landed back where we took off from, and I got out
of the back of the helicopter, and the first person I seen out the back of the helicopter
was a guy in civilian clothes, and I was like, and he, he always, he just said, well, you
know, have you got any press, have you got any press?
I said, no, no, but I think Oliver North is on one of the helicopters, he goes, no, no,
I'm Oliver North, and he was the Fox reporter for, it was with us, so he's the guy, he was
the US Marine Corps Colonel who lied for the president, Oliver North type thing, and so
he said, no, I'm Oliver North, he said, what happened to Dash, so and so, and I still can't
remember the number, but I was like, I'm gonna just look straight away, and then it all,
that's it, the memory just hit me, that was that bang, bang, then they're all dead, so
we're stuck, it's still pitch black, I say, look, thanks for that, leave the lads there,
so I left my team there, and I had to walk about, it was about a kilometer in the desert
up to a little infrared dot, which was the command post for 42 Commando, with the second
and commander coordinating the move forward, which we were part of, and it was just as
I was walking in, it's just starting to get daylight, and he knew me, he knew my family,
and he just looked at me, he goes, you were dead, I said, no, no, I'm not dead, but the
rest of the lads are dead, and basically they hadn't changed the white cards, and basically
my stick and my people, it's the same private Ryan thing, same private Ryan, they're in
a landing craft, landing craft, machine gun goes out there, but that would be on a green
card, because that's amphibious surface fleet, and that green card would have exactly who
the names are on it, if you're in aviation or on a helicopter, it'd be a white card,
and that would tell exactly the same, but the white cards hadn't been changed, so there's
no order or track why our helicopters should have been changed, not at all, and that, even
to this day, just, you know what I mean, it's an awkward one, there's no, after getting
a set of orders to invade a country, and then just on a, it just happens like that, and
I don't, I still do this day, maybe somebody out there does know, but I don't, and I've
never found out the truth behind it.
So just so I'm clear, the crew that you did the rehearsal with was the crew that went
down in the crash, and you were switched to the other helicopter?
Yeah, my whole team were, yeah, the teams were just swapped around.
Oh, the team, the whole team?
Yeah, the whole team.
So you think that, and there's no, there's no, there's no, with no orders for it or anything,
it was just 10-9-9, you're on that helicopter, 10-9-9, that was it, which, you know, whatever
you can say about it or anything, it's just, it's so sad, it lays low in my heart because
of it.
So when I was talking to the CIC of 42, like, and saying to him, like, you know, but he's
like, I can't, who was on it, and I explained who was on it on the helicopter and who died.
And he, but as I was chatting to him, the Padre, yeah, the Padre, we call him from
a 42 commando, come up to me, and he was obviously looking at me, I was like, oh, right, and
a few of my friends, they all, you know, as well, the old jungle drums beat, and all of
a sudden, everyone knows what's happened, but as at that stage, everyone thought I was
dead, including the core guys of the officer who was back in the UK, who knew me and my
family, and he was like, he had received notification that I died, my team had, you know, had perished.
And then he said, he sat for like 30 seconds before basically telling the Grim Reaper,
you know, the nudicas to go around and inform people that their loved ones had died.
And in that 30 seconds, he got a phone call to stop, you know, I mean, it was, it was
a wrong one because, you know, we don't know what happened.
But when I was chatting to the Padre, I looked over his shoulder and one of the brothers
of one of the lads died in a helicopter was sat in the desert, and he's waiting to get
on the next sticks to get out there.
And I was saying, you know, unfortunately, his brother's dead, so you have to, you know,
and he had to be informed, you know what I mean?
But obviously once it had to be done professionally and properly, but it was just so sad looking
at him, you know, just because he, you know, he looks so much like his brother as well.
And it was like, you know, and then we just had to re-roll ourselves, get ourselves sorted
out.
We had no American aviation now, so we relied on the RAF to get us dropped off.
They did drop us off, but in the wrong place.
In the wrong place, you say?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course, of course.
And we carried on, but it was that surreal thing that we thought did everything that
happened in the last, you know, because we hadn't, we've had a step knife for like 15
hours, and now we're yomping through the middle of a battlefield because they've dropped the
sight of it and we have to be forward of it.
So we're, we don't know who's shooting at us, whether it's friendly forces or Iraqis
and incoming fire.
And we just like, started off, we used to take a lot of cover and we'd get down, take
cover, get the gun out, everything else.
After that, we're just going to just keep moving, just keep, keep moving.
Cause you know, it's midday sun, got body armor, helmets, you know, heavy kit, lots
of ammunition and observation kit and comms kit.
And we just kept moving and we got ourselves forward.
And there's some incredible mini sort of like serials that happened there, which, which
I'll keep, I'll keep from my book, but you know, just, you know, the surreal stories
of battle where you're watching things and you're, yeah, completely, you know, yeah.
It's a wonder how so many people didn't die rather than, you know, the people that did
die as such.
So yeah, so we've done that, we carried on and we got, you know, we, we were fully involved
with the advance on the Basra.
We were carrying out raids.
We were crossing Iraqi sort of guns, spiking guns, locating enemy positions, coordinating
our aviation and you know, using all the tank systems.
And then we'd back up from tanks when we got towards Basra.
And then we were the part of the lead element, get into Basra and we sort of secured the
gates of Basra palace.
And then my troop had to step back and go and secure chemical alleys house.
That was, that was another thing.
We had to secure the classic chemical alley or comical alley they used to call them.
We had to secure his house.
But as we were driving in the Basra, it was being sort of like, should we say it was just
being really being looted by about 3 million people.
It was like an Ansonest where people just run out with sinks, toilets, everything.
And when we finally secured the thing, I left the team with a 4-2 commander, we're going
to exploit the palace.
And then we moved around to chemical alley size and yeah, it was just fully cleansed.
We just had to secure it until some inspection teams come in, but it was, it was cleansed
completely.
You know, we're talking like metal wires taken out of the wall.
There was a, there was a stairway that was ripped out, which was made of concrete.
They'd done a good job and it must have been in about an hour or something before we arrived.
So yeah, but good on them.
It was, you know, I mean, taking back what really it was.
And that happened.
And then, but yeah, there's, there's, we were very busy people on that operation.
I think we, we, we done our lines, we lost obviously in the air.
We, you know, I think we, we done them justice and, you know, earned some laurels from the
thing.
When I talk to a lot of people that served the state with Afghanistan first, that were
in Afghanistan, I seem to get the same kind of answer from a lot of the people, especially
in the special operations community.
And it almost is mirrored by a guy just had recently Rasul Rasekh, who's a former Musha
Hadin fighter, he was fighting the Taliban this whole time and he's now trying to bring
the Afghan people back together again.
But I hear over and over again that strategically, if we had gone in, taken care of the things
that need to be taken care of, whether it was capturing key targets, shutting down training
camps and then left, that would have been more effective.
What is, you know, obviously 20 years later, we have the withdrawal certainly was subpar
at that point.
When you talked about Basra, you know, we gave up that airport too.
If you were king for a day strategically, I mean, being, you know, in a position that
you are, obviously you were a leader in the Royal Marines.
If we could do it again and that same situation happened, whereas as you said, there are,
there are people sometimes that you have to physically go and take out strategically,
what would you do differently?
I'll not be political, if the task has gone ahead and you have to achieve it, you've got
to have a, you've got to have a depth plan.
You've got to have a, a staged depth plan, which covers the initial insertion, the surgical
requirement, but also whatever void or vacuum is left in structural, socially and governmentally
is filled properly and appropriately with relevant people.
So all your intelligence backup or your, your Intel going through this building up is who
are the personalities, who are they, you know, the people in the communities.
Cause all these communities have senior leads and people that are, you know, and criminal
elements as well, but you want the people that have got the moral fiber to fill that
void.
No, that who's the, who's their opponent.
If there was a democracy, who would be their opponent be?
That's the person you want because he's got the democratic will rather than the gun will,
you know what I mean?
So that, that, that was it.
That should all be, be, be templated.
And then that could be part of the surgical strike could be done with surgical, surgical
influence straight away.
You know, and I think, I think that was, that was tabled and that was wanting to happen,
but you know, obviously things, things, you still have to, there's elements of the ground.
What we find, we've done a, we've done a raid one night.
And after we came back from the raid, so we went in with an enemy location, but between
30, 30 to 30 and 30 year enemy and depth targets.
And we closed in on the location, hit them quite hard, but we broke contact and you know,
got our way back to our lines.
And when we got back to our lines, we re we've rearmored, we got our weapons prepped again.
Like obviously we're, you know, we're within about 5k at the actual point.
We were actually, you know, targeting the enemy and we, we, we got ourselves remastered
and the next day when daylight came, we had about like 30, 40 Iraqi troops come down surrendering
after we'd done the raid.
But when we went back in, cause the next night we were going to do another raid in a similar
sort of target area, but we got to go ahead that we were going to carry out Op James and
that was secure in the actual village.
And then that would be a foothold into Basra.
And when we got that, we would, we went forward and what we found was that the, what was left
of the enemy and I were all, they were fed IAN, you call, which were fundamentalists.
No, they were, you know, somebody say theological sort of fundamentalists who, who, you know,
they, we, we were the infidel and that was, you know, they were, and what, sadly, what
I've seen from them is they were all very young, very poor and you know, they hadn't
got the education, their education had come from people that said that they were, they
were going to become martyrs and they were just, they hated us for, for us being us,
which was sad for them.
And there's no disrespect for me there cause they stood in for, but unfortunately if they
had have surrendered like the regular guys did the day before, that would have been so
much easier for us.
Now conversely, obviously we're talking about combat.
You touched on the humanity of people, you know, that you saw obviously in, in Northern
Ireland and Kosovo.
Talk to me about Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think one of the things that, again, going back to the media that was so irresponsible
was it was presented at, we were at war with Iraq.
We were at war with Afghanistan.
Whereas there were two countries that are being oppressed by extremists that you guys
were in there trying to infiltrate.
So talk to me about that humanity, that kindness and compassion that, you know, the, the similarities
that you witnessed in those two countries, you know, with that same lens that we discussed
earlier.
When I think it's the same in, in, in Kosovo as well, it's that it's human beings.
When we were in Iraq, when we started closing with the enemy and closing with the civilian
population, I can, you sort of, there was like a natural vibe within the population,
you know, the village elders, people come out and I would speak to them.
I mean, and I'd say we did have to be quite reserved of information that we're given
is because there was still a lot of, should we say, inter-tribal sort of structures, you
know, they, they seen, you know, when they're in the little mini communities, they seen
that there was, there was a void now and this could be their, their turn to step up and
make their, their clan, the strong clan as such.
So we had to be quite tempered with our, you know, we never took executive decisions on,
you know, think of, we would hoover up Intel and pass it back, you know, intelligence and
get it passed through.
But for the people, they were exactly the same.
They were the human beings and the people that we found when we started getting into
Basra and they had nothing, they hadn't been given water, they hadn't been given food,
they were getting rationed food.
And because they were, to be said, they weren't Sunni, they were Shia, they weren't, you know,
I mean, they were subjugated massively.
So they were literally, when we arrived, we were, we were liberators.
It looked like some of the scenes in, you know, in Paris and in France, like the second
world war, that's it.
They were thinking out, and we spent, when we did, you know, secure different, you know,
phases of it, we were, we were bringing water in, we were getting sort of supply, we were
getting medical help.
You know, we were just, we were helping people that had been basically persecuted for, for,
for quite a while, you know, and, you know, and similarly in Afghanistan, that was similar
when we, when we got down to the Helmand area and in the Western, when we were in the,
in the Hindu Kutra in the Western part of, you know, Western Highlands, you know, of
Afghanistan, some of the villages we were going to, I guess, taken with a pinch of salt,
we're saying, no, we've never seen the Taliban, never.
And strangely enough, the guy, I remember one guy telling me, and he was, he was about
a foot taller than me, his English was far better than my English.
And it is massive.
He looked like the most classic Taliban fighter you've ever seen in your life, big black disc
dash that.
He goes, no, no, no, the Taliban aren't here.
And he goes, the Taliban aren't, aren't, you know, they're not the enemy.
They're, there's, there's good Taliban and there's bad Taliban.
And I always kept this, I kept this and I thought, well, yeah, fair one.
He says, it means you're a student.
And he brought me into his madrasa where he had all these, these young boys reading the
Quran or reciting the Quran and they're all reciting the Quran in Arab because it's written
in Arab, but they're Pashtuns.
So they speak Pashtun and they, they don't speak Arab, but they can recite the Quran
in Arab.
And this, this was a school and I was going, you know, I'm not, I can't, I'm not, the
measure of protocol, the Taliban.
So we'd search for weapons and everything else in that there and carry on and be as
nice as possible.
Is there anything we can do for you?
And he goes, Oh, we've had, we had a, a well-fitted last year, so we've all got clean water and
this and that.
So, and to be honest, he was, he was a polite, he was a nice guy, but you know, I definitely
think he was, he was one of the students that considered himself a good Taliban.
And we went away from there, but since, since doing that, since being back in, in Southwest
of England, I got a taxi back from the pub once and the taxi driver was from Afghanistan
and he was an interpreter in Afghanistan and he was one of the nicest blokes.
I was just going on, what are you doing?
It was, well, do you know what, they're working at the hospital.
I do this, do this to work with trolleys that at night, got taxing out there because I've
got my family here and everything else.
And I was just mega, you know, it was just, and he was really, you know, he's articulate
and he was, he was great.
I said, like, you know, have you, you know, sad times of what happened.
And he goes, he said, I'm, I'm broken.
I'm brokenhearted.
You know, you know, what has happened?
And I said, well, I said, I did meet this one guy.
He said, there's good Taliban and bad Taliban.
And he went, and he was that really, really got him riled up.
And he said, there's no good Taliban.
It was absolutely, he says, no, they've destroyed everything that Afghanistan means to me.
And I couldn't argue with him.
It was his country.
It was, you know, and he, you know, he's a switch song cookie, but yeah, I, I, and
I keep that one.
I don't, you know, I'm, it does make people say, oh, there's good Taliban, bad Taliban.
I just listen in, but knowing, you know, when you're chatting to somebody and he really,
that, that, that, that was something that, he was the most polite and wonderful person.
As soon as I said that, that was, he said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And then when, when we watched those images, when, and the sad thing is, because I spent
so much of my life being a, you know, a Royal Marines commando, when we leave somewhere
like that, when we've, we've sacrificed so much blood and, and treasure, you know, the,
you know, the, the young men that, that I work with, who died, lost their lives out
there and have lost their lives back, back here, they were incredible.
Absolutely.
I mean, we're talking, you know, I mean, the, you know, I mean, they just, they, they, they
were the, they were all, they were like, you know, the height of their generation.
They were the pinnacle of their generation.
And then for, we knew it was going to be a long, it was a long drought, only because
of the politics and the planning, but we knew the culture and the culture of the people.
And again, like I say, all the other places, the people are exactly the same.
When we used to go into villages, they'd go, obviously take them to the pinch of salt.
Obviously all they want is for the good things for the family, the education, this and that,
all that there, but also if they blame somebody else, say somebody else's Taliban, take it
with the pinch of salt, because it's all that, you know, it's culturally, it's, it's, it's
what they do.
You mean that, that, that, you know, not saying it, but they are human beings.
And when we were out there, we met some incredible, incredibly strong, wonderful people who supported
us.
They were interpreters and everything, and, you know, tiger teams and, and, you know,
people that work with us.
We also worked with some people that were not so good.
And you know, I've, I've lost a few colleagues to green on blues as well, where they've been
killed by, by so-called police forces.
So that, but we fought that.
That's what we done.
We, we, it was our expectations.
We knew it was going to be a hard, nutritional war, but for us to leave at such a, you know,
a quick, it's such a quick way with an expectation that we're going to, they were going to last
longer.
Even, even with hindsight, I still at the time think we, we, we, we obviously failed
massively.
And I think our, our massive organizations that support, you know, the Intel and everything
else and that they failed miserably.
And if in some way I've got to look, my friends that were killed in operations in Afghanistan,
I've got to look, and Iraq as well.
I've got to look the mothers in the eye and the families and say that wasn't in vain.
Yeah.
If you turn around and look behind, you know, I look at Afghanistan, there's not that much
difference now, is it?
Now is that is extremely sad, extremely sad, but it's extremely, it makes me extremely
not only sad, but extremely wary because the fact is we went there for a reason and that
reason tenses backward is, and that's, that's even, I mean, general relation, generational
again, isn't it?
Yeah.
No, exactly.
It's ironic.
Actually, I just took an Uber.
I was in Dallas interviewing two world war two veterans, Iwo Jima veterans.
And on the way there, I had an Afghan Uber driver who was an interpreter for the U S
army.
So I had a very similar conversation with him and, you know, it was the same thing.
And then Russell, who just came on, Oh, like four months ago, you know, what we're not
being told, obviously there's the toll of us just pulling out.
There's the kind of comparison with Vietnam.
But now Afghanistan is about to go through his winter and there are people on all the
borders that are starving to death, freezing to death on top of the oppression from the
Taliban.
And we're not really hearing, you know, the, the, again, you talk about voids, you know,
what happened in that void after we all pulled away.
Yeah.
And that, and that, and let's just say they're proper winters.
They're not in those mountains.
They are, you know, you know, these big, big, big places.
Well, I mean, I wouldn't get one of my friends, which I'll tell you about anyway, but I've
got, I've got a friend who's, who's done a documentary, who's a former all Marines and
special forces guy who was out there when, when Afghan fell and he was filming at a time
him and a, another former all Marine were filming at a time and they, they captured
it all and they're, they've, they've, they've released a documentary called Afghanistan
and it's, it's filmed, you know, it's filmed another time.
I mean, I mean, it's, it's, you know, you're recording and editing anyway, so it's named
James Glancy, but I can, I can, you know, if you, if you Google him James Glancy in
Afghanistan, then that's good.
I do, I do a, I do an American voiceover on it.
Don't critique me.
I was telling my wife this the other day, you know, when I first came to America, you
know, and I worked on a performing arts summer camp.
So I was around the kids and spend some of the teachers were like these actors and like,
oh my God, I do the best American accent.
I mean, the English accent and that'd be like, hello, you know, it would just be awful.
And then you'd just be like, that is by far one of the best Pakistani accents I've ever
heard.
And then be crushed.
But yeah.
So, I mean, I, I, you know, it's, it's a scary thing.
Actually, I just had Sean Taylor on, sorry, Shane Taylor from Bander Brothers a while
ago and he played the medic, you know, so that's impressive.
There's a lot of times where
he's awesome.
And he plays an awesome part as well.
Yeah.
He's one of the saddest moments in the film, isn't it?
Absolutely.
In that church.
So, so yeah.
So, I mean, it's, it's funny you say that because, you know, I think when you're humble,
the accents terrify you because you trying to get it right for the people that are native
to that area.
But it does make me laugh when people say, you know, I'm, I'm so good at Australian accent
X and you listen to it and you're like, oh my God, no.
But, but what I get is, I mean, I, I would say that I'm, I'm okay with doing accents
as long as you've got time to focus on and create it.
But everyone gives it, but just do, do, do a Scottish accent.
No, you're going, it's just not, it's not, you just, it is not the same.
You just gotta, yeah, let's just get back, get back, live it, live the script, live that
there and you do become it.
It's different because everyone's, I love that.
I love it.
Especially you, I mean, you, you come from England, so you, you know what I mean?
Within England, the amount of different accents, it's bonkers, isn't it?
Absolutely bonkers.
Yeah.
Like an hour from it.
So magical, you know, less than an hour sometimes.
So that's, that is the magic of it.
Absolutely.
Well, that's the perfect segue.
So as you kind of get to the end of your career in uniform, you start thinking about drama,
the world of acting.
So what, you know, when, when did that hit you and what made you make the jump into drama
school?
Well, so the, I wasn't focused on drama, honestly.
I was focused on being a bootleg.
And I think it came to the realization that I was in the same commando unit as my son.
I thought, and I was wearing reading glasses and I was sitting in front of a computer screen.
I was the captain now and I'm like, oh, this isn't, and I was lucky enough.
I got to play commandos most of my life, you know what I mean?
Most of my career.
So this is up to near 30 years.
And I thought, I just, and I'd never ever thought of this at any single point up until
this point and went, I need to do something else.
And that was it.
And then I thought about what, what is it that, what skills can map across?
And there's loads.
I mean, obviously I can go off to a far flung hot place and teach people how to be commandos.
And I'm going, I can't do that.
I couldn't do that.
And I have so many friends have done that, but I thought I just, I just couldn't do it.
So what is it, what else do I have to do?
And then I realized it in the forces and you know, this in the fire service as well.
It's all about storytelling, isn't it?
It's all about, it's all about, we call it the ditz.
It's all about spinning the ditz.
So telling the story is called spinning the ditz in the, in naval speak and in marine
speak.
So it's all about telling a story and being, I mean, sailors are saying, Marines are saying
service people, veterans, firefighters and all, and policemen all the same.
They all tell a good story, don't they?
That's when they've been on a gig or on a job and that it all comes in.
It's all about the stories.
So I went to a local university in a, in the Southwest and looked at creative writing.
So I thought, right, I'll be a storyteller and write stories.
That's, that's something I would love to do.
And while I was looking at it, there was a, an acting degree, you know, to do actor training
for three years.
I thought that's the way we tell stories.
You know, that's it.
It's me.
I'm a storyteller.
So let's, let's, let's get amongst it.
So I, I looked at it.
I did quite a bit of prep for it.
You know, you had the audition, get yourself a place and everything else.
And I got on the course and I went to Marjolene university in Plymouth and trained with the
actors wheel for three years.
When I started my actor training, I was 47 years old and the nearest age to me in my,
in my group was, she was 23 and, and she was a mature student.
And as you love to go as well, like, but after that, everyone else were about 18 and they
were all starting her adventure.
And it was a, my partner said to me at the time said, I think you should join, do this
seamless transfer and just not leave them, just join straight into the reserves.
I said, well, no, but I've done my time.
I've, you know, I've, I've sort of fared that the Royal Marine beasts that I'd met needed
to be fed.
And she was, no, I really, I really do think you should do it.
And within that, I reckon about two days, I realized that was probably the most smartest
thing I ever heard.
So whilst I was recently, you know, fusing back into civilian life and, and you full
sort of university life, I was able to sort of like, you know, nip away and do, do marine
things and talk to haggard old horrible guys like me.
And just that, that helped bring my little bit of reality back.
And, you know, allowed me to sort of fuse back into the real world as such, you know
and, and, but I had a great time training with all these youngins and I graduated in
2018 and things started off really well.
Started off on a, doing a national tour with the play, went to Edinburgh festival, performed
in Salisbury, Wales, London and Liverpool, Manchester.
And then, uh, I, well, everything was running.
It was like, you know, back to back, I performed at Shakespeare's Globe and going, right, I
might get away with this one.
And then COVID happened.
And then it was like, Ooh, for the whole world, everyone, stop.
So COVID happened, but I managed to get a few jobs through COVID.
I got a commercial.
I sent you link to the commercial at that time.
I can't remember if you did.
But then, uh, I, I played two brothers and say for a big, uh, massive, so like a international
haulage firm and, uh, I went and flew out to, and it was just in the first little gap
of COVID, flew out to Milan, was obviously completely empty Heathrow airport with a mask
on flew out to Milan, uh, and filmed in Milan and in the Dolomites up in the mountains and
on a mountain lake, uh, over the next week.
And it was brilliant.
Really enjoyed it.
Got back.
So my agent was happy because she's going, there's no work about it.
You got that.
That's a winner.
So I got, I got a commercial in and then I got a job as a, which is good because it's
coming out shortly.
Have you seen the next, Oh, you were talking about you've, you've worked with, you've spoken
with Dale die, haven't you?
Yes, actually just as of two days ago, he's supposed to be calling me and we're going
to get him back on the show.
So wait, just tell him I was that dodgy Irish Marine who was the COVID bastardo as you
can say.
So I, I was the one of the COVID, I was one of the, I was a COVID, my, my designation
was COVID set manager on, uh, or sorry, masters of the air.
So this is the big things coming out in January on, uh, uh, it's on Apple, isn't it?
But it, you know, it's not, it's weird.
It's, it was looking at it, looking at the trailer.
It's incredible.
And that trailer, apart from the sort of internal shots of the, the air shots in the air, nearly
every single scene I'm, I was standing watching it or watching people not wearing the masks.
So I was there as a COVID dude.
So it was, it was well paid.
It was not a very enjoyable job, but I think, I think it was a very important job because
it made the production actually happen.
I don't think I've done my acting career any good whatsoever.
It probably started with this dodgy Irish dude who was the COVID Nazi for the duration,
but I think it worked well and they got the production out in the end, didn't it?
So they'll, they'll probably remember that me at the time, but during that time as well,
we managed to film, start filming Sunray.
So this was like, you know, it's a couple of years now, isn't it?
So yeah, a couple of years ago in the summer.
So it was about just gone two years was when the meat of the film was done for both Masters
of the Air and for Sunray.
So Sunray now is, we managed to get the first film and sort of shoots done first through
three weeks worth done in that summer, then I finished off back in the Masters of the
Air and that's it.
Now after COVID, yeah, I've been generally sort of steady state running.
I've been doing a theatre work, a bit of film work, you know, and just, just keeping at
it.
Like I said, I just come back from Malta filming for the County of Monte Cristo.
Keep your eye for a very sort of like suave sword fencing French general at some stage.
Well, I have a question for you because I went to drama school in the Welsh College
of Music and Drama in Cardiff about, when was I there?
24 years ago.
And it was to follow a girl.
That's basically what happened.
My girlfriend at the time was a set designer and costume maker in that class.
And so I, with zero acting experience auditioned, somehow got in, I think I just wasn't like
you said, I was a little bit older, you know, I was a martial artist and all these things.
So that they were like, oh, we don't have, you know, this kind of person.
Went through the year of acting, discovered that I was really good at the swordplay stuff.
But to this day, I still consider myself one of the worst actors on the planet, hands down.
I just couldn't drop me.
You know what I mean?
I just couldn't get into that space.
Don't say that.
People probably say the same about me.
No, no, no.
I'm telling you, you work.
But when it came to the showcases at the end, it's funny, I talked about Welcome Home, Tony
Marchion, I had a monologue and it went really well.
And I got, oh my goodness, was William Morris.
I got William Morris approach me and say, I really loved your audition, but I'm not
the person who would handle you, so we need to get you with someone else.
Let me know when you get a play.
And this was, I got 2000, I think.
So I was stuck in this vicious circle of you need an agent to get work, you need work to
get an agent.
So with that whole kind of monologue, when you came out of school, how were you able
to be so successful right off the bat?
I mean, firstly, talk to me about how you were able to access the skills that make you
a good actor and secondly, how are you able to kind of break through that revolving door
of leaving drama school?
Rob, what I learned through actor training was because I mean, I started acting because
I want to be a storyteller.
But when you do get these stories and when you start looking at playwrights, looking
at plays, looking at classic films, looking at characters and you look at characters,
you see when you're going through emotional journeys with a character and what you learn
is it's got to be believable.
It's got to be believable, it's got to be credible.
And I, with the emotional characters, I was struggling with it.
I really do.
And I spoke to quite a few people about this, but because I just felt that for me to go
to places that do put me in that saddened state, that emotional state where you've got
tears and for years I haven't been able to do that because of, say, I believe because
of the emotional protection I've put in place and resistance I've put up whilst deployed
in operations and for that long career.
But I had to go into places and that meant thinking about lads I lost and the sacrifices
and family, loved ones and all sorts.
So that played with my moral compass.
That played with the, hold on a second, this is, am I just to create a story?
I'm using the most wonderful people and feelings I've got in my heart and soul to do it.
And I struggled with it.
I really struggled with it.
So I had to sit down and sort of play out why am I an actor?
Why am I a storyteller?
And then I realized for me to be a credible storyteller and to tell the tale properly
was, I had to go back and reach out to my friends who I'm an actor, hopefully a semi-credible
actor, because I can reach out to my friends who are dead and no longer with me and I can
keep their memories alive.
So people go, why are you acting?
I'm an actor.
I'm purely an actor that can achieve the characters because I've got a lot of dead friends that
I can tap into and can come and help me.
So their memories and their sacrifices are kept alive.
So whatever interview I do, I've got to make sure that people are aware of that.
That's so important for me as an actor.
And that goes into what have you learned to become an actor?
Being an actor, I mean, the best one liner I got when I was an actor training was Amanda
Collins, who was one of our lecturers from Ireland, from Wicklow.
And she just went, Roy Tip, get back up there and stop fucking acting.
And that's it.
So the fact is, you know, she's just right.
It is not.
She said it's sorry, right?
Act it part.
It goes back to the old classic Stanislavski and the dog.
They all pretend they're actors, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, acting, acting, acting,
acting.
Dogs are not interested, not interested.
Soon as they stop and they're getting themselves ready to go, dog's up, nose is going.
Why is that there?
It's because they're not acting anymore.
And that's it.
So if you say, if you pretend, right, I've got to act this, if you act something, it's
just, that's it.
It's always acting.
But it's not.
It's got to be.
You've got to, it's all about human engagement and every sort of like every feel and look.
And it, but also the two disciplines like acting for theatre and acting for camera,
they're like polar opposites.
It's like, you know, you are, but they, you still got to get the right, the same message
across, but you've got to do it with a big chunk of you that has been molded and formed
into part of the character.
The character is a character, but no nobody, you'll never be cast as a, well as anything
unless you, there's something in that character that's part of you, unless you're like, you
know, there's what, like 10 actors in the world that give it, they'll get it anyway.
It doesn't matter.
But generally everyone else has given it.
Yeah, that's, that's it.
That's it.
And depending on what, what sort of a memory ship table right down to the, you know, the
bare bones, it's still, they'll go, there's got to be a chunk of you in it.
You mean, so to be that character and, but again, if it's, if it's, if it's absurdist
or you're just doing it for, I mean, like say I could play any character, you mean I
could, but a big chunk of me will still be in that character.
You mean it'll happen, but it's just making it and it's weird.
It's not about acting.
It's about believability and it's about, and the believability comes from real human emotions.
You know what I mean?
So whether that be love, hate, everything, look, they've all got to be real.
And if you act it, it's a classic, another good saying I heard from a good American Marine
of mine is you stand out like a turd in a glass of milk.
You mean, so then you're like, ah, yes, I, I guess I see.
Ooh, ooh.
You mean, so it's a bit like that.
If you, if you're acting, you're going to add sticks out a bit.
You mean, so, so that all these terms I learned from, from my training that comes in handy,
it is, it's about being and I learned that in acting school.
So I did, I learned loads of things, but the meat of everything and I say, and I, I empathize
with young actors, you know, across the board is because I've got a life full of experience
and that experience leans, you know, and that's across the whole spectrum of life, not only
on operations, but, but living and growing up and that passage of right that every human
being should have.
And luckily I have had it.
That's allowed me to tap into memories and, and experiences, which gives credibility.
If you're a young actor, you still have that, you still have your life experience, but I'm
just saying you've as, as years go on, it opens up and doors and the wealth comes there,
I think.
So that's the only, don't as an actor, don't worry about it.
You know what I mean?
It's just, it'll happen.
And I think that's it.
If you don't, if you don't worry about it, it becomes more natural, which again, it's
a bit of an oxymoron because if you're going for an audition, I mean, people do generally
get nervous, but I, I, but I can't get nervous.
And I've worked on stage with established actors who are, they're quite nervous every
time they go on stage and I'm going, how can you be nervous?
You know what I mean?
I'm like, oh, and then again, I've got my friends inside my head.
So they're looking at me going, so you've got to stand at a piece of wood and talk and
you're nervous.
And I'm like, no, and I have to go, that sort of quills my, any apprehension I've got because
I can just go, no, I'm not a cheat.
Cause I can have somebody shooting at me from 30 foot away and full auto glass, that I can
really be worried about, but not if I just have to stand there and talk.
If that's the case, then I'm a bit of a lost cause right now.
And then, but also I've got to look those, those might, might the souls of my mates in
the eyes and going, I'm not a cheat.
I'm not cheat.
Honestly, I'm, I'm a good lad.
I am a good lad, but it's, so that apprehension, you just got to go ditch it, ditch it.
There's no, there's no, no time for it.
And I think if you, if you can do that, that will help you massively.
It was physicality that helped me when I started doing the stunts and I was very successful
in the stunt world and the live show side.
That was it.
You know, if I didn't have to stand there and just say, well, if I could use my, my
physicality, then the other stuff came.
So I'll give myself some grace on that.
But you know, just standing there.
No, no, but James, but honestly, the physicality of an actor, that's it.
You see what that does.
You must admit the, the confidence you get with physicality is brilliant, is wonderful.
And that's, that's something I think is very much, which is not as strong as what it used
to be in society.
So now that ability to understand the limits, how your body can, what it can do.
And you must admit some of the young people, some of the young people, like in all different
forms, whether it be sports, climbing, gymnastics, ballet, and all that, the extremes that they've
got now and the performance, the perfection they've got is mind blowing and stunts as
well.
You mean all that, that physicality is just, you may not, you could sit and watch them
all day that, you know, harder weight ratio and everything.
I just, you know, it blows your mind, doesn't it?
I mean, even think when we grew up as well, the arm and triathlon, that was like, you
know, the, you know, the marathon de sable.
It was now that people do it all the time and you just go on, people are, there are
people who understand it, but again, that the spectrum's changing on it.
It used to be, you know what I mean?
Now you're like, there's some people that can do marathon de sable, but there's some
people that can't get over an armchair, you know what I mean?
And that's, you know what I mean?
That void is, and it was, you must admit from the olden days, it wasn't, it was a bit more
central, but now it's extremes, isn't it?
A hundred percent.
I even have, have that people talking about military recruitment.
You know, they say, you know, we've got a, same with the fire service, we've got a way
smaller pool because, you know, you look at a lot, a lot, and I'm not talking about all,
a lot of kids, you know, I mean, there's, there's a linear 45 degree line on childhood
obesity, especially in America, but I see even when I go home and conversely though,
our fit recruits are really fit.
So the question is, how do we push that line back?
We've got these young phenoms now that are about to be fire, fire, as police officers,
Marines, how can we start recapturing some of these kids that are getting pulled into
video games and donuts and bringing them back into this super inspirational area?
And it's cultural and it's food and it's all these things, but we need, you know, we're
talking about earlier about media and leadership.
I just was talking, listening to an Air Force scientist who's been in the human performance
side his whole career.
He's one of the gurus that works with DARPA and all these high, high performing agencies.
And it's, you know, this is again, a national crisis.
So how can we get the focus away from these kind of clickbait news stories and back to
what's on our streets and in our schools and get these young people healthy firstly, so
they have a beautiful long lifespan, but secondly, that they become able to be of service in
whatever capacity they choose.
But again, like everything you said there is complete bang on, but it is that it's education
and ownership, isn't it?
It's ownership.
When you own it yourself, you know, you know the dynamics of your own body now, but that's
education, but it's empowerment.
You've got to empower kids or young people to get that.
So once they have that knowledge, they know and then it's choices.
But I'd also say the whole industry-wise and corporation-wise, they need to understand
what sugars do, what this, what we're doing, why we create, everything's about maximum
profit.
And that's it.
We've got to flip where the profit is made.
Profit's got to be made in a more, in the positive way and rather than the negative
way.
You know what I mean?
And that's including fuel and everything else.
The profit margins, and this is hard, it's the, I know it's the hunger for certain things,
you know, as in fuel and things like that, but I'm just, it's, if we can get the positives,
are they rewarded as in the profit things in the positive world, you know what I mean,
through industry, that's, I think that's the big question.
We can do that.
That, that, that, because the system and the world is set up for towards positivity, then
that would go down into our kids.
But at the minute it isn't, it's still fixed firmly the other way, but gratuitous, materialistic
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know what I mean?
100%.
Yeah, absolutely.
You talked about tapping into the souls of your fallen brothers.
I had a hypnotherapist on Courtney Starkey, amazing conversation.
And she was saying that the word genius actually means, I forget what they said, like, you
know, spirit friends or something like that.
And I'm writing my second book, which is a fiction this time, and it's a multi-generational
trauma story.
Very, very complex.
I'm a complete ding dong for choosing that to be my first one, but that's the one that's
burning inside me.
But and again, I'm making it to make it into a show or a film because just like you, I'm
not going to be the actor.
Hopefully, you know, when this happens, putting it out there, it'd be cool to do a little
cameo, even more so maybe as a stunt man, that'd be kind of cool.
But anyway, but she was talking about tapping into your spirit friends, your spirit out
animals.
And it seems to me that, you know, a lot of the men that you lost have become your genius.
So have you found an element of catharsis being able to storytell, especially some of
the more powerful stories that you've told in the veteran community, you know, as acting
being your outlet now?
Yeah, I do think catharsis is a good word for it because I think.
But it's the choice thing, it's a choice.
Remember, I said, I'm going to be a Royal Marines Commando.
Didn't fit the mold at the time, but I was going to do it when I sort of knew that I
needed to do something creative and good on that path.
And I went and acting was it, you know, it was like a little light bulb when we're going
what that is what I have to do.
I'm in a position now where I don't mean much in life as in, you know, I mean, I don't,
I don't need much in life.
I've never really done a single thing.
Luckily, I'm stable and happy now, but I've never done a single thing in my life for money.
I've done it purely for, you know, what I wanted to do for the adventure for the, you
know what I mean?
The mere fact that you got paid was a massive, well, it is a bonus.
That means you can do things you love.
And I loved being a Royal Marines Commando.
So now I get paid for being a storyteller.
And again, it's cathartic in a way because it's, it's just bringing me closer after
I've got the resistance and I've gotten this brought me more to my emotional core of who
I am.
And that will, that is very freeing.
That is, that's like the thing when you, you know, I mean, when you're happy with it and
even it now makes me as well, I mean, I don't know, it might be an age thing, but now when
I watch things or I read books and that there, and there's something that I watched something
today actually, I was in a meeting today when it was with the Royal Marines Charity and
there was a couple of videos they showed, which is done off of veterans who, who've
had some hard times, but they've been supported by the charity.
And I just had that massive emotional moment.
And I don't know whether it's my experiences, not like I said, after operations and that,
but for me it's, it's that I like being able to go there now and feel those emotions and
feel those tears well up and go, you know, and feel one with, with those people, whether
it be through love or, you know, through empathy or sympathy or trying to reach out and help.
I really, really, really enjoy that.
And acting has helped me do it.
Yeah.
No, that's, that's a beautiful, I can see that, you know, I think as you talked about
walling up our emotions and this is, this is an analogy I've used a lot recently, the
yin and the yang, you know, you have the hard is the white.
So we go in, you know, I mean, you obviously we've heard, you know, you've got the compassion
that you took through your whole service.
This seeing the commonalities in fellow humans, but when you're in the middle of a firefight,
that's no time for unicorns and kittens and rainbows.
You know what I mean?
You got to do what you got to do.
If I go into a burning building or cut someone out of a car, but then we have to process
that, which is the soft side.
And I think the danger of a lot of us in uniform is we'd become this solid white circle.
We kind of believe in the John Wayne Schwarzenegger bullshit, that that's what a man is.
And we forget that it was kindness and compassion that sent us into service in the first place.
And we have to show ourselves that kindness and compassion.
I found that writing and obviously you found that the acting has allowed us to, to pull
some of those bricks down.
Doesn't mean that, you know, the foundation is there and that's our strength and that
is resilience process.
Trauma is resilience, but you do become stoic in the wrong way sometimes.
And I found that through, through writing, through, you know, even these conversations,
I'm able to really tap into those emotions now and all well up, you know, especially,
oh, God forbid it's, it's a dad or a single dad with a kid, which is what I had most of
my life.
I'm in fucking tears, you know, but that's beautiful.
It's a purge.
You're not, there's no shame about it.
It's like, I can, I can feel.
It's a cleansing.
It's cleansing your soul, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's it, you know, but, but again, and you don't want to, I don't see it as a selfie
thing.
It's a photo with Judith of humanity.
But I, you know, when you said that, but the, what I did find and I is being in, I mean,
and you must have noticed as a firefighter as well, but being in, being in contact and
the buzz and the electricity buzzing through you and the, I've never felt anything.
I mean, that, that to me can be and has been, and I've seen it with my friends, addictive
and needed and like that was, and that's one of the big struggles I see in some of the,
you know, some of my friends is coming back from that because that there's never going
to be anything as euphoric as that ever human ever.
And they, you know, you've got to keep a weary eye on them because they're going to have
to come back from that.
You cannot live life like that.
You know what I mean?
And be as lucky all the time.
Cause no matter what, I know we, we all think we're indestructible, but I realize now that's
a complete nonsense, absolute nonsense.
You know, but I definitely see that, you know, that it's not a John Wayne thing.
Cause I still think you need, especially when you're a leader and you're in charge of people
like a section troop company, a company in theater, whatever else, you have to have,
you are a human being completely, but you have to be, you know, that robust figure that
people you're completely approachable, but people think you've got a bit of it.
And this again, it's not superficial because you've got that training condition.
Mine, it brings you to that level, but people think you're just that little level tougher
to, you know, I mean, to lead and, you know, I mean, so when you turn around and before
you go out the gate and you know that you're going to be in contact in five minutes, but
you could turn around and you look at your guys and you just got the little, and they
look in your eyes and they look about 10 years old again.
They're just looking at you and they're going, yeah, you'll be all right.
Don't worry.
But in your head you're going, no, I might be dead as well, mightn't I?
But you don't, cause that's it.
Are you acting or are you playing a game?
But you've got to be that, that's your role as a leader is to inspire them and make sure
they have that.
And in that moment in time, you not having that could be a failure.
You know what I mean?
And you as a leader, you know what I mean?
So there's, you've got to be that, but they've always got to, you are that, you're that person
who's always going to be there to be.
And it's a classic, but one of my friends, when I was a corporal, became a mountain leader.
And my first, he was a friend of mine anyway, he was a major.
He just said like, when you're in charge of people, you treat them like your children,
you know, you've got cages, you're no problem.
I said, yeah, it'd be fine.
So if they do well, you give them a good job of, you give them a, you know, you congratulate
them, give them a chuck up and say like, you know, and give them, give them a good direction
out there, give them a big thing out there and reward them.
Just give them like, you know, the love that they deserve out there.
And when they, when they don't and they mess up or they're, you know, I mean, and they
completely mess up, then you put them on the street narrow, different ways of doing that,
but you put them on the street now, you still love them.
It's still positive, but it's your duty to put them back on to what their moral compass
is right.
They still own it.
They still responsible, but they know that the moral compass, if you go that way, you're
going to slip off the slope.
You're not going to, you know, you've got to do that.
So you treat, I mean, I've always in command or whatever else, I've always treated my people
same as my kids.
When they're good as theirs, their mission command is yours.
Your adventures, not my adventures, your adventure, you know, and that's it.
They run with it.
But when, when they don't, you're, I'm duty bound to go, you come here, sit down.
And even like, you know, as a Sergeant Major, I've given them some of the best bollock ins
in my life.
Absolutely.
You know, performances that, you know, we're talking like, you know, Lawrence Olivier level,
you know, get them in, you know, shut the fuck door, get them, bah, bah, bah, bah, and
another thing.
You get, right, right, right.
Like get the fuck out of my office.
You know what I mean?
I'd say walk out and you're going, yeah, I was quite happy with that one.
I mean, it'll resonate down the corridor in the lines and wherever else, and I think
of it done with the Sergeant Major.
He's in a mega barb mood and going on point.
And that's it.
Because, because at the end of the day, what he's done, and if you've got a man with a
worthwhile experience in, in my core, you've been there and done it.
You know, exactly before he does something, you, you know what he's doing.
He's only a clever Marine if he doesn't know what you've been doing.
You know what I mean?
That's it.
So it's that, you know what I mean?
So you know, so it's not, you're not in any way, there's no malice or hatred, but if I
don't kick him up the ass and get him on the straight and narrow, that will affect him.
If I do do it, that means he'll make sure that when he's a boss or he's in charge, that
isn't, they keep, they keep, you know, this is what's right, this is what's wrong.
You being on time, you know, just different things.
You just got to keep him on the straight and narrow.
As a Royal Marine Sergeant Major, it's a bit different than being a dad.
You know what I mean?
So believe me, I didn't do that to my kids.
Even though, you know what I mean?
No, no, I didn't.
Well, I want to be mindful of your time.
We've been talking almost two and a half hours, but I want to make sure that we do kind of
explore Sunray a little bit more.
So talk to me about who was behind the production, where you are at the moment, and then when
people can expect it.
Right.
Sunray is going to be a feature length film.
It's based around a character called Andy, who is the Sunray.
And he's the, was a team commander for a, an operations team, a reconnaissance team
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Funny old thing in the Royal Marines.
But times moved on.
He's now settling in the city street and he's like one of our friends is he's struggling
with that fusion and coming off that, that high and that ride and events that happened
on operations.
He's lost his wife.
He's disaffected with his daughter, but he really wants to try and make amends for that.
And his daughter is involved with a young guy who he's not met yet and he's not aware
of, but the daughter goes out.
The guy gets, Oh no, I'm telling the story.
I can't do that.
Right.
Stop there.
No spoilers.
Right.
So basically it just follows a journey as he does.
Things don't go his way, but he's a, he's a man of many talents and he's got a, you
know, a gang of very capable individuals, but it's a, although it's an action thriller,
it's firmly based on mental health and also what's real and what's unreal.
You know, that, you know, that, that storytelling bit of what is and what isn't.
And I think that's important because that is so much part of storytelling.
It was stimulated by a guy called Sammy Sealy, who was a former Royal Marine, became a naval
photographer and now he's a freelance movie maker.
And his wing men came on board with Sir Dan Shepard and James Clark, who are both former
Royal Marines here in our naval movie makers or photographers and movie makers.
And I got pulled in because Sammy, well, Dan was in training with my son and Sammy was
going to coach my son and they're going, Oh, we know you're, you're an actor now.
We've just got the same thing that you're involved in.
So I got pulled in with a few other friends of mine who are, who are now actors as well.
So the main, because the three filmmakers initially are three former Royal Marines, the
four men in the, in the team as such are actors who are former Royal Marines commanders.
So that's the gang that stimulated done it.
We got together down in Portsmouth in a, in the South of England and threw together a
small trailer, which is the one you can see on YouTube.
So we filmed that in about 24 hours.
So have a look at it.
And that was just the old, if you weren't on camera, you were running with a, you know,
the boom mic.
If you weren't, you know, you're making a tea.
So everyone was concurrent activity and we just threw together, made this to reach out
for crowdfunder as filmmakers.
Obviously Dan, James and Sammy are incredible.
The natural, they've got a very, very natural talent.
And when you meet, when you meet good cinematographers, they, they, they watch the, they watch the
angle of the light.
They watch when things bounce off.
They understand how to manipulate digital imagery, especially nowadays it's open to
the whole world for movie makers.
I'd say for, for the poor man's movie making as well for indie movie making, it's incredible.
And these guys, they own it.
They've got, they've got the skill.
So we got from crowdfunder from our little video you can see on YouTube, we got a, about
120 K I think with a couple of investors as well.
So 120,000 pounds and we were going to make a three episode, a online series as, as like
a pilot for possibly something bigger.
Luckily we had some very accomplished editors, including the editor from Peaky Blinders,
The Crown and Royal, The Crown and Sherlock and he had a look at it and said, you need
this to be a feature film.
You need this to be a movie.
So the guys have re-edited and it's come out as a, as a movie.
It went to the American film market at the start of November this year.
There was interest.
It has been picked up in a couple of countries, I think I believe, but still to be confirmed.
And it's now with a distribution company in London and they're looking to get it out in
the new year.
I mean, it's been a while coming, but you think about for a bunch of, bunch of guys,
I mean, we've both done a lot of professional people and actors, you know, incredibly talented
as well.
So that's what that money's paid for.
And I think we've, I haven't seen the full film yet, but I've seen some of the, the drafted
trailers that the guys have created and I'm impressed with it.
I'm impressed with the work.
You know, they are very talented lads and I hope my acting and the storytelling comes
across well and they can, they can, they can make it work.
But remember it is a, it's a, it's a relatively very cheap feature film, which I think I'll
be punching well above its weight.
So fingers crossed.
Beautiful.
Well, we have to let me know, you know, when it's coming out in the UK when you actually
have a date and a place and then the same for the U S and obviously I'll share it on
my end.
No, that'll be lovely.
That would be, be wonderful.
Well, I just, like I said, I want to be mindful of your time.
So just before I let you go though, I'm sure people are intrigued.
You know, you have, you know, such a, a library of work that you've done.
Where are the best places to find you online and on social media?
All right.
So it's, it's Tip Cullen, at Tip Cullen, I think Insta, there's not, again, famous last
words but Tip Cullen on Instagram and Facebook.
I've also got a Vimeo, Vimeo, Vimeo?
The Vimeo?
Vimeo.
That's the word Vimeo.
Vimeo channel.
But, and I do have a website, but it's getting just re-budded at the minute.
My mate, my mate does it, does it for me.
Who's a bit of a guru.
Again, a former Romerian who's a guru.
But yeah, so, and that's it.
And I've got IMDB.
I'm on IMDB and my agent is Judy Fox Associates.
So if there's any filmmakers out there that need a honking great Irish actor that, you
know, can, can tell a good story, get hold of Judy Fox.
She'll sort, sort you out.
Brilliant.
Well, I said this to, to Bobby Burke, who's a firefighter actor friend of mine.
Putting it out there, when I write this, the story, one of my kind of fantasies is all
the people that I know that are already in that industry come together, you know, like
Ben Sirer from The Stance and Shane, you know, I mean, who knows?
So maybe one day I'll actually get to walk on set with you.
We'll see.
No, no, but James, lovely meeting you.
I mean, thanks very much for, for having me on the, on your podcast.
Cause it's great.
I like, you know, you said purging or cleansing the soul.
I think chatting with you does help massively.