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I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast

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that is Transcend.

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Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did

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for 14 years.

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Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,

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hair loss, etc.

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Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have

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seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely

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incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left,

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right and center.

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So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology

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and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down

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my throat.

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Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason

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why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.

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They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first

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responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.

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So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood

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drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they

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guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.

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In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been

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very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.

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So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology

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knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.

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Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies

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they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.

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So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,

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but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.

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So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that

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you can't come back from.

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So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely

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one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.

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So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the

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Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and I've used their products ever since.

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From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female

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responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've

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worked for.

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Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they

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are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance

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project.

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We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier.

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I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been

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my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.

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One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick

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and mortar element.

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They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching

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100 stores all over the US.

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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts

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you see online are applied also in the stores.

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So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do

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want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around

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holiday times.

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But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every

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time you make a purchase.

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And if you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen

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to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayers.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week

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it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show former British paratrooper, member of

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the tier one special forces, contractor and co-founder of Red 8 Sean Bishop.

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Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the military,

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paratrooper regiment selection, special forces training, leadership, fitness, his deployments

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overseas, fighting amongst the Ukrainian soldiers, the ordinance that took part of his skull,

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his road to recovery, his weapons training company and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment,

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go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said I introduce to you Sean Bishop.

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Enjoy.

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Well Sean I want to say two things.

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Firstly thank you to our mutual friend Dave Sanders for connecting us and secondly I want

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to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?

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So I'm in Florida actually, Ormond Beach in Florida.

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So that's not too far from me but obviously people listening they can tell neither of

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us are originally from here so let's start at the very beginning of your timeline then.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings?

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So I was born in Norfolk in England.

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I have a sister and obviously a mother and father.

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My mum was a housewife and my dad has done kind of a variety of jobs but he mostly worked

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in parish councils.

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Okay so when you were a young boy going through the school ages what were you playing as far

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as sports and exercise?

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So really I've never been a big fan of sports.

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I played football as a youngster as many kids do but I mostly just kind of ran.

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That was all I did.

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What about military families?

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Do you have any aunties, uncles, grandparents that did serve?

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So yeah my grandfather he was an infantry soldier in World War II wounded on Anzio Beachhead.

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He was probably one of my earliest kind of references to the military.

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A lot of that generation are notorious for not really talking about it very much and

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I think that's what we're finally unpacking now in our generation is that we are making

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it normal to discuss what we saw and did.

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When you look back were there any discussions with him about his experience in World War

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II because sadly that's a generation that we're hearing the stories now through the

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children and grandchildren rather than the soldiers themselves.

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He was so everything was kind of age appropriate with my grandfather.

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It wasn't really until he knew I was really serious about going into the army that he

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started to kind of open up on things.

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Did he discuss any of the experiences that he had that you can relay?

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Yeah he kind of, how would you say, he opened up about the battle of Anzio, how he was wounded.

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He would never talk badly about any medical people so he had a real kind of affinity for

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medical people.

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Did he stay in after World War II and if not what did he transition into?

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No, he was DMOBS I think in 45, 46.

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DMOBS came back to Norfolk and kind of just carried on, had a family.

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I think he had three kids and that was him really.

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When you look back at your early life then, we're obviously going to get into special

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forces selection, that kind of thing.

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What elements of your childhood do you think contributed to you having the physical and

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or mental toughness to complete such a vigorous selection when so many people rang the bell?

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Good question.

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I really don't know, it was, how would you say, it was one of those things I just kind

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of went into, got my teeth into and just wouldn't let go.

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So it was, not to put too fine a point on it, it was very difficult.

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I kind of struggled with everything far more than many people who didn't make it all the

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way to the end.

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I kind of hung in there and slipped through one of the holes in the nets.

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So were you dreaming of joining the military and or special forces when you were still

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at school?

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Yeah, I was, so right from maybe five or six years old, that was all I wanted to do.

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So I think I watched A Bridge Too Far, about Operation Market Garden when I was maybe six

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or seven and I was like, that's kind of what I want to do.

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So I did.

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How old were you when you enlisted then?

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You signed up.

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16.

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So yeah, I was pretty young.

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Talk to me about 16 you physically, because I heard you on your friends podcast All in

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Black.

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You made a comment that suggested you weren't the kind of pit bull that you've become as

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an adult.

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No, I actually weighed 52 kilos, which is literally half of what I weigh now.

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So it was, I was in a kind of a weird test time for my unit.

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So you used to have to be 16 years and nine months old to join a combat arm.

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If you joined at 16, you usually went to a thing called Junior Para and kind of did a

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not a tone down, but a kind of version of depo that was age appropriate until you were

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old enough to kind of go to adult depo and finish your training.

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Now they run a thing called Army Foundation College at Harrogate.

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I was in the in between stage, so they had neither thing running and I was in a, it failed

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miserably, but I was in a test program to see if you could put 16 year olds in with

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everybody else.

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Nearly all of us got kind of broken in one way or another.

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And yeah, I just kind of managed to grit my teeth, hang in there and get through.

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I'm about to interview Mick Southall, who was one of the paras on the Falkland Islands.

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And I know he, oh, you do?

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I was wondering if you probably did.

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Another one I had on probably about a year ago now was John Geddes under the pseudonym

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John Graham.

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Yeah, SAS as well.

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But Mick, I know got enlisted at 16 as well and it's fascinating by 17, he was out fighting,

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not on goose green, he was in a different battle.

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But I think about now my son next door is almost 17 and it's just crazy to think that

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that child would be a war.

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When you look back now with this kind of veteran lens that you have, what is your perspective

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on 16 year old soldiers?

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I mean, I have personally, I have no regrets.

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I kind of got through looking at it now.

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I'm a little hypocritical.

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If I had, I mean, I have a 17 year old daughter.

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If she wanted to join the military, I would suck it up and support her.

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But I wouldn't like it.

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It's one of those things, it kind of, it works out.

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But it needs a finer lens.

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You need to kind of magnify everything and kind of take care of kids when they join.

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Someone came on recently who was, I think they were US military and they made an interesting

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point that a lot of the kids that are at the military age now, they grew up and we're talking

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about children of military members, they grew up where all their parents had known was war,

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whether they stayed in the full 20 years, but that was a part of their day to day living.

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Unlike let's say the 1990s, maybe mother or father didn't really deploy a lot over those

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times so the military maybe seemed like a better option.

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But they said that one of the reasons why they thought that the recruitment was harder

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now is a lot of children of military members that saw the last 20 years didn't enjoy it,

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that mom or dad was always gone, that they came back different, whatever it was.

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So what's your perspective through your daughter's lens of her perception of war, not so much

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what you see but from a family dynamic point of view?

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I think it's been kind of difficult.

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It's always difficult to say goodbyes but it's always nice to come home.

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What she kind of feels or thinks about me, I don't know.

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You would kind of have to ask her.

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We've always wrestled with that and just kind of put up with it if you like.

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Absolutely.

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All right, well then let's go to your journey in the military.

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So you're 50 plus kilograms, you enter the military and not just the military but the

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power kind of on ramp.

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So what did those first few years look like for you and how did you create resilience

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in your body and your mind to overcome that initial physical deficit that you had?

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It was really difficult at times.

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All I did was just not give up.

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So I think I started with 50 something people and I passed out with 10.

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Ten of us kind of passed out.

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Got posted to Toobarra.

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That was kind of strange, turning up to battalion.

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I was so small, so light and you could have sneezed and blown me out of the door.

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I was so small but it was a crazy time.

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It was a strange experience.

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So when you were in that phase of your life, where did you find yourself being deployed

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before you went to special forces?

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So my first appointments were to Northern Ireland.

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I think I did a couple of tours of Ireland.

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I then went to Sierra Leone, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

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So I kind of branched around all over the place really.

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When I have British military members and they talk about their Northern Ireland deployments,

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a lot of times they struggle because, you know, it was and I've always said the same

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thing to me, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales were all one little nation.

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Yes, we've got lines dividing the four, but we were all the same people on two tiny rocks

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in the middle of the ocean.

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And so they struggle with policing or soldiering against, you know, really their own people.

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What was your experience in Northern Ireland specifically?

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So where were we?

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So I kind of policed a little bit of rioting around.

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There was a bridge.

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I can't remember the name of it now.

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It was a bridge and one side wanted to cross the bridge, the other side didn't want them

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to.

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We kind of stood in the middle, split the two sides up and got bricked, bottled and

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everything else.

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But yeah, it was, yeah, it was early days, but it was what it was.

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It was a good experience.

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I think by the time I got there, it was all very refined.

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All the SOPs and everything were firmly in place and it probably saved a lot of lives

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00:18:56,440 --> 00:19:01,040
and Northern Ireland and all our experience kind of there.

230
00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:08,960
Probably saved a lot of lives when we ended up getting to Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere.

231
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,600
Apart from Northern Ireland, there was a lot of the training still, you know, what I would

232
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:16,640
think like Salisbury Plain, a little bit more World War II leaning, but then Northern Ireland

233
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,120
gave you more of that kind of urban combat.

234
00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:25,840
Yeah, it was, so how would you say?

235
00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:27,840
It was a different time in the army.

236
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:35,600
So although Northern Ireland was there, it wasn't what you trained towards all the time.

237
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:38,160
It was looked at as something that had just been.

238
00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:46,560
So you just went, did it, kind of sucked it up and yeah, you were always ready for the

239
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:51,760
whistle blowing on the big ones.

240
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:52,760
What about Sierra Leone?

241
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:59,560
I had a young man, Ishmael Bay on the show and he was a child soldier during that conflict

242
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:03,900
and his parents had been murdered and he'd been like so many boys captured and given

243
00:20:03,900 --> 00:20:04,900
two options.

244
00:20:04,900 --> 00:20:05,900
Do you want to die?

245
00:20:05,900 --> 00:20:06,900
Do you want to fight?

246
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:11,240
So you had two options, you know, they're feeding them drugs and those kind of things.

247
00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:15,240
What was that country's perspective at the time that you were there?

248
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:21,480
Sierra Leone was a little bit strange.

249
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:26,120
So I can remember walking into my house.

250
00:20:26,120 --> 00:20:34,320
I can't remember whether it was mum or dad, the answering machine to listen to their messages.

251
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:40,560
There was a garbled message from one of the guys in YP2.

252
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:43,920
Basically you need to get back, we're going to war.

253
00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:52,560
I was kind of sort of slapped in the face a little by that, but we weren't on any standby

254
00:20:52,560 --> 00:20:55,840
or anything like that.

255
00:20:55,840 --> 00:21:00,920
Everybody thought at every stage, this is going to be one of those slow burn kind of

256
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:01,920
things.

257
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:02,920
We'll all come back.

258
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:03,920
It'll all calm down.

259
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:04,920
It'll go away.

260
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:05,920
We all got back.

261
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:10,920
They were like, throw your shit in the bag boys, we're going.

262
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:15,160
So I was kind of like, okay, right.

263
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:20,400
You know, we'll kind of get part way there, turn around, come back, throw all our shit

264
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:21,400
in the bag.

265
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:22,400
Jumped on an aircraft.

266
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:31,760
Got to, I can't remember now where we got to.

267
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:35,640
Kind of got off blazing hot sun.

268
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:40,360
Somebody goes pointed to a Hercules down the end of the runway.

269
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:41,360
See that plane?

270
00:21:41,360 --> 00:21:42,360
Yep.

271
00:21:42,360 --> 00:21:43,360
Get on it.

272
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:44,360
Right.

273
00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:45,360
Okay.

274
00:21:45,360 --> 00:21:51,160
So we all got on it, sat on a Bergen, no seats in C130.

275
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:58,400
We all sat on a Bergen and I can remember somebody like a couple back from me going,

276
00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:00,680
do we make ready?

277
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,320
And it just rattled all around the aircraft.

278
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:08,880
And in the end, one of the Falklands veterans sat on the tailgate, just stood up, clunk

279
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:14,440
click and then we ran off the back into C-13.

280
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:19,600
So it was a little bit strange.

281
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:24,480
I think we'd been there 40 minutes and they were like, patrols and snipers, drop your

282
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:25,480
heavy kit.

283
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:28,400
Someone's just been beheaded in three times.

284
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:32,040
So we all had to go and kind of sort that out.

285
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,160
But yeah, pretty nuts.

286
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,160
Pretty nuts.

287
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:36,160
Crazy.

288
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:40,760
So what was it that took you from Para to SF then?

289
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:44,120
What made you make that decision?

290
00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:48,080
It had always been one of those things.

291
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:53,840
So before that I was in the sniper platoon.

292
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,160
I liked working in small groups.

293
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,960
It was one of those things.

294
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:04,080
I always looked at special forces as the highest form of soldiering.

295
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:08,400
And it was just one of those things that I kind of wanted to do.

296
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:09,400
What about physically?

297
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,960
Like you said, you were 50 something kilograms.

298
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:12,960
What did you do?

299
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:18,080
What were the kind of strength and conditioning philosophies that you leaned into to add some

300
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:21,000
weight?

301
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:22,640
I just lifted weights.

302
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,400
I'm not a technique guy.

303
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:31,080
I kind of just pick the heaviest thing you can move, move it and then technique comes

304
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,160
in over months and months.

305
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:41,280
But it's probably not the wisest thing, but that was kind of how I used to train.

306
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:42,280
So what about 9-11?

307
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:47,960
I mean, obviously a lot of the American veterans, it was an attack on our home soil here, where

308
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:49,760
you're sitting as well.

309
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:54,440
But it was a slightly different perspective for a lot of British serving military at the

310
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,440
time because it was on someone else's home front.

311
00:23:57,440 --> 00:23:59,000
It wasn't on ours.

312
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:05,160
What was that day for you through your eyes and how did that impact your trajectory?

313
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:09,040
So I literally came off century duty.

314
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,640
I was actually in Macedonia.

315
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:13,360
I came off century duty.

316
00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:20,840
We were living in an abandoned factory and I was stood probably two or three people away

317
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,560
from an exchange officer from the 82nd Airborne.

318
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:29,520
So I was kind of right there and there was one little television in front of most of

319
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:37,560
the battalion and I came in in time to see the second tower collapse.

320
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:42,560
I can remember one of the young lads asking, so what does this mean?

321
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:49,120
And somebody goes, you're probably watching the start of the next world war and probably

322
00:24:49,120 --> 00:24:52,280
wasn't too far off to be fair.

323
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:54,320
Now were you in SF by that point?

324
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:56,320
No, no, no.

325
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,560
I was still two power.

326
00:24:58,560 --> 00:24:59,560
So walk me through then.

327
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,280
So Iraq was the next thing that you did under two power?

328
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,080
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

329
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:05,080
Did Iraq.

330
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:11,080
I actually went to Afghanistan before Iraq.

331
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:12,080
So walk me through that.

332
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:16,400
I mean, again, wherever you'd like to go, but you've done these deployments in Africa

333
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:21,000
or Northern Ireland now all of a sudden we are truly at war.

334
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:26,600
What were those first Middle East experiences like when you were still in two power?

335
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,840
Just strange.

336
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,400
It was really strange kind of being in places.

337
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:38,600
You had the call to prayers kind of coming up.

338
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:39,600
It was alien.

339
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:44,800
It obviously became normal over time, but initially it was really alien.

340
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:51,840
But I was in sniper platoon, so we always used to work in small teams, kind of remote

341
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:52,840
from everybody.

342
00:25:52,840 --> 00:26:00,240
But yeah, it was odd.

343
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,600
I can remember, where did I fall to sleep?

344
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:09,720
I can remember having something poke me in the back, picked it up, threw it away.

345
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:15,440
And when I woke up in the morning, it was the top of the human femur actually stuck

346
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,440
in my back.

347
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:22,880
So yeah, that was a little strange.

348
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:27,280
What about when you first went to Afghanistan and Iraq?

349
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:32,520
Because what I've heard a lot is that people that were there early on in the conflict were

350
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:37,440
more often than not received fondly by a lot of the people, the indigenous people of those

351
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,960
countries, not the Taliban or the extremists, but the regular people.

352
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,120
There was a feeling of liberation.

353
00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:48,560
What was the experience early on in either of those two countries?

354
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:55,880
Yeah, I mean, Afghanistan was a little different.

355
00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:01,920
We actually got shot at by the Northern Alliance, who were our allies.

356
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,920
So they kind of had a crack at one of our OPs.

357
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:05,920
It was just a distraction.

358
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,560
They were actually trying to...

359
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:09,560
Nobody was paying them.

360
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:10,560
They were trying to steal food.

361
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:17,480
So they were like just shooting them and then kind of running to steal some food.

362
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,480
So that's all it was.

363
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,800
But Iraq was a little different.

364
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:31,480
So again, I first went to Iraq in maybe 2003.

365
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:38,520
And yeah, it was frosty, to say the least.

366
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:50,560
So I think the initial kind of relief, you know, we were there when Salah got caught.

367
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,280
That caused a lot of celebratory fire.

368
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:58,260
So it was literally like pull all the sentries in, everybody get underneath something because

369
00:27:58,260 --> 00:28:01,680
everything that goes up obviously comes back down.

370
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,080
But yeah, Iraq was a little different.

371
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,120
Now I always ask people one of two questions, and I'll put this to you, and this can span

372
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:12,160
all the way through till present day.

373
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,760
And we'll walk forward, obviously, with the other side of your more special forces focused

374
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:18,440
profession.

375
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:23,920
But as you live in the US now, I would argue that the people here on their news stations

376
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,840
get a very polarized view of war, either very, very pro-war, kill them all like God saw them

377
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,400
out stacking bodies, or they're all baby killers.

378
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:38,760
And in the middle are the men and women, arguably children, 16, 17 year olds, that we send overseas

379
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:43,360
with our flag on their shoulder to serve our country.

380
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:44,840
The first part is a two part question.

381
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,760
The first part, regardless of politics, regardless of what sent you there, was there a moment

382
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,920
as a young soldier where you realized that there were some horrific people that needed

383
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,720
to be taken care of?

384
00:28:55,720 --> 00:29:05,280
Yeah, I mean, really sort of going from way back when I was very, very young, I kind of

385
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:14,000
made my peace with how the world is and who's in it, and the fact that kind of people in

386
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,280
the military need to sort problems out.

387
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:23,680
So that was never a real issue for me.

388
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:30,440
I don't remember a sort of thunderclap reality bites moment.

389
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,880
Maybe the beheading right before you got off the plane is probably fitting that description.

390
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:35,880
Yeah.

391
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:42,080
All right, well then, conversely, because I think this is as if not more important, the

392
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:46,200
way that these conflicts are portrayed is that we're at war with Iraq, we're at war

393
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:47,200
with Afghanistan.

394
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:53,080
Obviously, what you guys are doing out there protecting the people of those countries from

395
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,560
some of the people terrorizing them.

396
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,800
So whether it was the indigenous people or whether it's people that you served alongside,

397
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:05,360
what were moments of kindness and compassion amidst some of those battle zones that you

398
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,520
witnessed throughout the years?

399
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:19,240
So jumping way forward to SF, there was a particular kind of linguist.

400
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:28,440
He was a Kurdish chap that I kind of worked with, who I got kind of pretty close with.

401
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:29,960
He was a decent guy.

402
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:35,680
He was kind of worth turning around and running back for, if it came to that.

403
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:41,360
Brilliant, all right, well then, what year did you transition to SF and then how did

404
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:48,280
that change your perspective of war in the time that you were still in the regular military?

405
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:55,240
So, I think it was 2010 that I was badged in.

406
00:30:55,240 --> 00:31:06,720
I did a summer selection course and just kind of got badged just before Christmas.

407
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:20,120
But that was in the summer, like maybe around about 200 odd people and it slid down to,

408
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,840
well, 10 again.

409
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:31,680
So not very good odds of passing, but it was nice to be kind of stood there at the end

410
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:36,360
of that.

411
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:43,000
So again, with that lens, you're a 16-year-old, you make it through the parachute regiment

412
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,000
selection.

413
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,880
Now you're 10 in 200 odds.

414
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:51,200
What by this point do you think carried you through even greater adversities and still

415
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:55,840
allowed you to succeed?

416
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,120
I think it was probably mindset.

417
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:04,720
I think it was one of those things.

418
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:13,320
I saw an interview and it was an old guy from my old unit and he goes, the best piece of

419
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:17,360
advice he ever got was don't stop.

420
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,120
And that was it.

421
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:24,120
And that sort of stuck in my head, just don't stop.

422
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,640
Whatever you're doing, don't stop.

423
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:34,560
So yeah, it was a strange time, but everything felt very worthwhile.

424
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:36,240
Do you know what I mean?

425
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:41,160
The things that you would get at the end were always kind of worth putting yourself through

426
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,720
the mill for.

427
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:50,280
What was the contrast between parachute regiment and the SF unit that you were a part of ultimately?

428
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:55,800
And the reason I asked that, for example, the SEALs and the Green Berets and some of

429
00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:00,400
these other groups that come on the show, especially if you're talking about SEAL Team

430
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,640
6, they are given all of the latest technology.

431
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,360
Obviously, they're given nutritionists and strength conditioning and they're trying to

432
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:12,840
forge the most elite of elite soldiers who then in turn do research and do training to

433
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:14,960
help the other SEAL teams.

434
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:21,440
What was that lens like through your unit compared to the parachute regiment?

435
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:25,440
Was there an exposure to a higher level of training and equipment there?

436
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,840
Yeah, it was one of those things.

437
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:36,560
You kind of got spat off the back of selection, feeling like you could do pretty much anything.

438
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:42,800
You then went to your squadron and realized that you couldn't.

439
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:51,040
Everything was alright, Jesus, you know the time and place, be there tomorrow with all

440
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:52,040
your shit.

441
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,600
And that was the only brief that you'd get.

442
00:33:54,600 --> 00:34:01,000
And then you were like, turn into guys that you knew, where is the usual place, what time

443
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,000
is it and what do I bring?

444
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,000
They were like, you'll get used to it.

445
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:10,520
And you're like, well, I haven't, I can't, so what do I actually bring?

446
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:19,200
But you did get used to it over a bit of time.

447
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:24,080
It took a lot of working towards really.

448
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,520
I was quite lucky, I think I was a little bit older.

449
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,320
A lot of the guys in the unit already knew me.

450
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:38,160
So I had quite an easy transition when I first turned up.

451
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:45,400
That minimalist instruction, was that because as you spent more time and you got more training,

452
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,600
you already knew what each of these things meant?

453
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,160
Because I know the best fire departments I work for, they would have a keyword and that

454
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,920
meant a whole series of things on the engine or on the truck.

455
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,400
Was it that element that your level, your training and frequency was so high that after

456
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,800
a few months you knew what that meant?

457
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,800
Yeah, you just want to pick it up as you go along.

458
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,800
So I can remember the first exercise that I did.

459
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:19,680
It kind of hit the ground, we jumped in and I sort of collect all the parachute harness

460
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:27,280
off, stood up and was about to go forward and get my rifle, Bergen and everything else

461
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:35,040
and packed my suit up, turned around and squadron commander and the squadron sergeant played

462
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:36,880
you were doing it for me.

463
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,800
So they just walked over and were kind of already doing it.

464
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:46,040
I was trying to like, this is a little different to what I know.

465
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:53,200
But yeah, I think the unit is one of those places, nobody will walk past the broom, nobody

466
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:56,880
will walk past a crisp packet on the floor.

467
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:58,760
Nobody feels kind of above themselves.

468
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:04,120
So everyone's willing to kind of muck in.

469
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,640
What is it about that philosophy in that group?

470
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:11,160
Because it sounds to me like what's happened is there's humility and you hear this with

471
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,480
the SEALs, for example, they take it in terms of leading.

472
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,600
So it seems like the ego gets kind of stomped down a little bit and you have humility because

473
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:22,960
now regardless of rank, like you said, you're picking up rubbish and helping each other

474
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:26,720
pack chutes so that as a group you can get finished.

475
00:36:26,720 --> 00:36:32,840
How was that forged in the SF team that maybe didn't have the opportunity in the Paris?

476
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:40,200
So again, for me, it was a little different having come from kind of sniper platoon.

477
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:46,160
But yeah, it was kind of very much that kind of thing.

478
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:52,360
So because you work in small groups, you can't really afford to have a big strung out kind

479
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:53,360
of hierarchy.

480
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:59,640
The hierarchy is very compressed and things work very differently.

481
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,680
So if you have an officer that feels he's above everybody and he doesn't need to get

482
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:07,120
his hands dirty, well, that's completely not the case.

483
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:17,960
So yeah, it was commissioned officers in particular used to get gripped when they turned up to

484
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,200
a squadron and it was literally like grabbed by the collar.

485
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,520
This is my troop, not yours.

486
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,760
You do the paperwork and shut your mouth.

487
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,320
It's kind of like, okay, right.

488
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:40,040
So yeah, it was, how would you say, a squadron is kind of a weird organism, but it kind of

489
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:41,040
works.

490
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,880
I think it's just been sort of time proven.

491
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:44,880
Brilliant.

492
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,520
Well, what about the next kind of phase of your military career then?

493
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:50,720
How did that shift?

494
00:37:50,720 --> 00:37:54,120
And also tell me about the medic side too, because I know you became a combat medic under

495
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:55,120
that role.

496
00:37:55,120 --> 00:38:01,880
Yeah, so everybody that joins the unit, you go one direction or the other.

497
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,980
You either go heavily into demolitions or heavily into med.

498
00:38:05,980 --> 00:38:09,960
You cross train in both, but you do one in particular.

499
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:15,240
And that's known as your patrol skill.

500
00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:17,680
My patrol skill ended up being med.

501
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:28,480
So I kind of went on numerous hospital attachments and did a fair amount of medical work.

502
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:34,600
Now I've heard you talking, and we'll get into it obviously with the Ukraine, not even

503
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:39,160
deployments, the Ukraine contracts that you've been through and obviously the near life death

504
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,360
experience that you experienced.

505
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:45,800
But while you were under that combat medic role, did you ever have to actually apply

506
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:46,800
those skills?

507
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,080
Yeah, loads of times.

508
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:57,040
So even right from being a young soldier all the way through to actually knowing what I

509
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:58,040
was doing.

510
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:07,000
Yeah, I've treated hundreds and hundreds of casualties over that time.

511
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:12,960
What if any observations have you had between the medicine that you had to use on the battlefield

512
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:19,560
and some of the medicine that you watched in the civilian side when you were training?

513
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:26,840
So I suppose it's really a mechanism of injury.

514
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:33,200
People in the civilian world, they're used to getting people that are very, very poorly,

515
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,800
but there's no sort of visual kind of sign of that.

516
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,920
They're just really ill.

517
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:45,400
And it will be kind of taking people's odds that sort of indicates things.

518
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:51,160
Whereas in the military side of things, you're dealing with fit and healthy people that get

519
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:56,320
torn up by kind of pieces of metal going a bit too quickly.

520
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:03,400
So it's really how you turn the tap off, how you kind of stop bleeding, how you keep people

521
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:08,840
breathing and kind of those kind of things.

522
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:14,360
So now you've become on the SF side, you're working under that banner now.

523
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:19,080
Where do you find yourself and how is that different now versus where you were under

524
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:23,840
2 Para before?

525
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:28,800
I suppose it was just, it was very different.

526
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:33,600
You worked in a lot smaller groups.

527
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,720
When they said things would happen, they usually did.

528
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:43,680
So if they said a plane's going to land on that road in 20 minutes, 20 minutes later,

529
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,040
a plane would land on the road.

530
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:55,960
I suppose looking at it, you got kind of the more dangerous side of soldiering, but it

531
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,000
kind of just worked.

532
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:02,780
People were so good that you didn't have to kind of look to your left and right.

533
00:41:02,780 --> 00:41:06,840
You just knew that people there were going to kind of do what they needed.

534
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,680
So you just sort of concentrated on your bit of that.

535
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:11,680
Where did you find yourself?

536
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,760
Were you back in Iraq and Afghanistan during that time too?

537
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:20,480
Yeah, both of those places.

538
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:28,960
Numerous times, but yeah, with a couple of other ones that we won't go into.

539
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:33,560
Yeah, mostly Iraq and Afghanistan.

540
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:38,720
And what, if any, were the differences between when you went the first time and then when

541
00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:42,600
you went back years later?

542
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:46,040
I think just how things had kind of moved on.

543
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:56,120
So what was all new, and we were kind of trying to apply things that we learned in Ireland

544
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,800
in the early days.

545
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:04,600
Everything had kind of refined and kind of moved on to such a point where everything

546
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:10,080
was established off what you'd learned in those seasons.

547
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:16,220
So everything just kind of rolled really.

548
00:42:16,220 --> 00:42:23,720
And what made you make the decision to transition from that role into the world of contracting?

549
00:42:23,720 --> 00:42:32,840
It was just my time was up, so it was one of those things that I just kind of got into.

550
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:41,840
I actually got out right when the COVID disaster kind of struck.

551
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:47,520
Everybody on camp got stood down, sent home on full pay apart from me.

552
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:52,080
So I was kind of like, right.

553
00:42:52,080 --> 00:43:00,440
I managed to find work pretty rapidly, and I went and worked out in Libya for eight months,

554
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:02,400
actually.

555
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:03,920
What was that transition like for you?

556
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:09,200
The reason I asked that, a lot of our first responders, military members, when they leave

557
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:13,400
that tribe, when they leave that group that they were so close to, and they had identity,

558
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:18,480
they had purpose, they had that tribe, like I said, it can be very jarring for people

559
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:24,840
to transition out during COVID, I could imagine probably was pretty rough to come out expecting

560
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,840
to be able to hug people and spend quality time.

561
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,480
And now you're in that nightmare.

562
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:38,960
No, it was, I think, with a strong kind of family around you, that kind of works out.

563
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:46,360
Plus, I went and worked in Libya with a few ex regiment guys.

564
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:53,440
It was kind of one home to another, really.

565
00:43:53,440 --> 00:44:00,080
A lot of the people that have been on here, British and American and Australian, the withdrawal

566
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:04,840
from Afghanistan definitely stung, for lack of a better word.

567
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,160
And it's not to say that they don't feel like they made a difference, because all of them

568
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:13,800
can recall where they definitely did impact, where they were kind of deployed.

569
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:19,520
But the way that it was snatched out and the interpreters that were left behind, the equipment

570
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:24,520
that was left behind seemed to really sit very badly with a lot of people that served,

571
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:29,840
a lot of people that had trauma mentally and physically that came home, a lot of people

572
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:32,000
that lost friends that didn't come home.

573
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:39,280
What was your perception of that particular event?

574
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:44,040
I would call that an absolute disaster.

575
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:52,000
I kind of looked at it and yeah, it was pretty much disastrous.

576
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:59,640
I mean, all the gear that was left there, all the people we kind of left behind, yeah,

577
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,640
kind of stuck in the throat a little, that did.

578
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,840
But just one of those things.

579
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:05,840
Yeah.

580
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:06,840
All right.

581
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,160
Well, then let's shift it to Ukraine then.

582
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:16,120
Talk to me about now you're on the contracting side, the beginning of that conflict and then

583
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:21,440
when you found yourself deployed there the first time or sent there the first time.

584
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:35,360
So I found work with a company that kind of looks after a lot of guys from my old unit.

585
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:43,480
And I was bodyguarding for a news crew.

586
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:47,560
So I was kind of bodyguarding for reporters.

587
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,440
I'm going to be careful what I'm going to say.

588
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:56,760
But I found out pretty quickly I really don't get along with reporters very well.

589
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,240
They would say the wrong thing.

590
00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:00,240
It would wind me up.

591
00:46:00,240 --> 00:46:05,640
There were numerous kind of days where I would refuse to talk to them.

592
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,400
And when you're shutting that vehicle with somebody for hour after hour, not talking

593
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:12,760
to them can kind of wear a little thin.

594
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,520
But yeah, it was one of those things.

595
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:22,920
So I went out in very late February, literally just after the Russians had kind of come across

596
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,920
the border.

597
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:31,600
Basically I went to look after a news crew that was covering the refugee crisis right

598
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:35,520
on the border with Poland.

599
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:45,440
So I went to a place called Madika and it had thousands and thousands of people.

600
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:51,720
And I'm talking about five or six kilometers on a four-lane road literally jam-packed with

601
00:46:51,720 --> 00:46:59,360
people standing and it was taking them three or four days to get to the front of that queue.

602
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:01,800
That kind of slapped me right in the face.

603
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:10,960
I was kind of at the scale of it and the amount of people was different to a lot of what I'd

604
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,000
seen before.

605
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,320
But it was what it was.

606
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:17,320
It was one of those things.

607
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:23,000
The crew that I was looking after was like, we don't want to go into Ukraine.

608
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,420
And I was like, I need to go into Ukraine.

609
00:47:26,420 --> 00:47:37,400
So I got moved to another crew and walked across the border and then just kind of worked

610
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:42,180
in a lot of places where the Russians had literally just pulled out.

611
00:47:42,180 --> 00:47:49,560
So it was places like Borodzianko, Buzha, places like that and they'd literally just

612
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,600
left.

613
00:47:51,600 --> 00:48:01,400
So kind of went in there, was exposed to a lot of what the Russians had got wrong.

614
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:10,040
Numerous kind of things that sort of messed with your equilibrium a little.

615
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:17,480
There were tons of kinds of crimes that they'd sort of committed.

616
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:25,600
Watch the mass grave in the back of the churchyard in Buzha.

617
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,880
Kind of all the bodies get pulled out of there.

618
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:33,200
Yeah, it was a funny time though.

619
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:37,320
I heard you on your podcast you did with your friend, you made that same comment about the

620
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:44,520
media but you also talked about the way that it was reported only fit a certain narrative.

621
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:51,160
With Ukraine or even going further back, what has been your experience between just that,

622
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,760
what you're seeing versus the way that, and obviously we can't report everything that's

623
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:55,760
going on.

624
00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:00,000
It could be very detrimental to security, but the way that the story is being told back

625
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,760
home versus what you guys are seeing on the ground.

626
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:18,840
So the network I worked for, it used to get told, and this was get told from over here.

627
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:24,720
So they would make a decision in, I think it was New York or LA, wherever their kind

628
00:49:24,720 --> 00:49:30,320
of base was, they would get told what the news is today.

629
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:38,400
They would go out, clip photographs, bits of footage, sound bite people, and just make

630
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,320
it fit whatever they'd already been told.

631
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,400
And you were like, this is absolute bullshit.

632
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:46,480
Do you know what I mean?

633
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:56,800
They completely ignored the big ironworks in Mariupol, which is one of the most legendary

634
00:49:56,800 --> 00:50:00,800
kind of feats of arms that we've had in recent years.

635
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,320
They completely ignored it, weren't interested in it.

636
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:11,240
A female reporter got asked by one of the interpreters, why don't you interview soldiers?

637
00:50:11,240 --> 00:50:15,640
She was like, no, we want to interview real people.

638
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,520
I was like, real people?

639
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:20,000
Well, why?

640
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,240
Because I'm all that's keeping you stood up.

641
00:50:23,240 --> 00:50:30,440
But yeah, it kind of blew my mind a little.

642
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:37,080
What would you tell people listening that wasn't reported through a lot of the TV back

643
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:38,200
home?

644
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:45,280
What were some of the things that, if anything, that were missing from the picture that we

645
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:49,760
were given as far as why we were there, what was actually happening?

646
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:55,860
And like you said, some of the things that the Russians and all the Ukrainians were doing

647
00:50:55,860 --> 00:51:03,440
that the American and British people weren't being told.

648
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:12,960
I think it was probably the raw element, like going right down to, how would you say, today

649
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,040
we are going to have to suck it up.

650
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:16,520
We're going to have to run risks.

651
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:18,960
We're going to push right forward.

652
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:21,960
A lot of them weren't happy to do that.

653
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:26,120
Some of them did it stupidly and were shot.

654
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:32,520
And you're kind of like, if you just listen to your security guys, they could probably

655
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:36,080
keep you out of trouble.

656
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:43,600
There was quite a few, how would you say, really quite brutal crimes that they just

657
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,280
never reported.

658
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:55,920
I mean, there were guys getting pulled out of forests and arms tied together, hands cut

659
00:51:55,920 --> 00:52:01,400
off, tongues cut out, eyes gauged out and bits and pieces cut off.

660
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:08,040
And you're like, we telling this story or no, no, we need to find somebody.

661
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,880
And it's, everything was really weird.

662
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:19,480
It was just a strange kind of air about the whole thing.

663
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:25,400
So with the position that you had now, again, not trying to get too in the weeds, but how

664
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:32,280
did the men that you served alongside in this capacity help bolster the Ukraine forces?

665
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:37,080
Sorry, where are you talking about?

666
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:42,160
In, like looking after the media or later?

667
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:43,160
Yeah, later.

668
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:44,160
So I think I'm transitioning.

669
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,360
Let me rephrase the question then, now that you've educated me.

670
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:52,320
How did you find yourself transitioning from the protection side to actually being more

671
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,600
on the combat side?

672
00:52:54,600 --> 00:53:03,000
So it was kind of, it was one of those moments where, how would you say, I've made a decision,

673
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:08,600
you are not doing enough, not to put too fine a point on it.

674
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:17,880
I think I was making 14 or 15,000 pounds a month looking after reporters.

675
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:28,240
I halved that and went and worked for an American company, ran by an ex-Marsok guy.

676
00:53:28,240 --> 00:53:34,000
Their job was either training up Ukrainian units or extracting civilians out of frontline

677
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,600
areas that were looking at getting surrounded or overrun.

678
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:44,320
So they were too dangerous for anybody else to kind of try.

679
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:51,400
I went and worked for them for a little while, still didn't think I was doing enough.

680
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,440
So I ended up joining the Legion.

681
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:55,440
The Foreign Legion?

682
00:53:55,440 --> 00:54:01,480
Yeah, it's the Ukrainian kind of Foreign Legion.

683
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:06,840
It was a strange transition.

684
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:12,040
One of the older guys that worked for the company I was with, he actually joined it

685
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:17,000
before I did.

686
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:23,160
I kind of got, how would you say, bluffed into it.

687
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:31,120
So I went and met a couple of guys in Kyiv, had a bit of food and a couple of drinks with

688
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:36,120
them and they talked me into joining their unit.

689
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:44,440
The talk was, look, we work behind the lines, we run human teams, we're blowing up trains,

690
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,880
we're kind of living in small groups in the forest.

691
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:52,680
I was kind of like, yeah, that sounds like a bit of me, I'll sign up.

692
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:58,640
They were like, yeah, good to go, I'll kind of claim you, just go do your paperwork.

693
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:07,080
Went and did the paperwork, got up to where they were and the guy that had that conversation

694
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:14,200
with me and basically sold the unit was basically like, looked at me and was like, okay, anyway,

695
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:17,640
I'll catch you later, I'm off to Kyiv.

696
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,920
And I was kind of like, mate, I don't even know where to have a pee.

697
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,560
I don't know who anyone is, like what am I doing here?

698
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:27,600
They literally threw the unit at me.

699
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:31,320
So that kind of happened.

700
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,560
What was your mindset by this point?

701
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:39,440
Because you were a skinny young kid, you get into the powers, that starts building you

702
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:42,720
up, then you join the SF team.

703
00:55:42,720 --> 00:55:47,360
But now you found yourself protecting journalists, which doesn't sound like it was a career high

704
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:48,440
for you.

705
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:53,440
And then now you're in the Legion, that kind of burning why, had that shifted?

706
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:58,720
Did you find yourself kind of looking for that mission or was the conflict that you

707
00:55:58,720 --> 00:56:01,960
were witnessing enough to keep you driving forward?

708
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:09,840
No, it was so I mean, I originally went to Ukraine just to put food on the table.

709
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,600
That was as simple as it was.

710
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:18,360
When I got there, it really kind of knocked me around, kind of mentally and emotionally.

711
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:24,640
So I was kind of like, right, somebody needs their head cracking over this.

712
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:30,880
So I thought I would give it a pot.

713
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:40,320
So I kind of fell forward into the Legion, kind of worked in the unit that I've already

714
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:45,400
smoked about for a little while.

715
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:47,080
Got back off the job.

716
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:56,120
And how would you say the characters in the Legion are a little bit of a random bunch.

717
00:56:56,120 --> 00:57:00,160
So I had everything you could imagine.

718
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:16,400
I had bikers, minor criminals, ex-soldiers, Jews, Nazis, every single thing you could

719
00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:20,560
imagine I had under my small little banner.

720
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:24,440
This was within about 15 or 16 people.

721
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:30,840
And I can remember being like, yes, do you know what I mean, these are a bit of a random

722
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:31,840
bunch.

723
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:36,160
But the majority of them were good, loyal people.

724
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:42,120
They'd all kind of made a choice to come and fight for Ukraine.

725
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:47,280
And they were about as blunt as a house brick coming through your windscreen.

726
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:51,120
So they approached me after a job.

727
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:56,520
And they were like, just letting you know, we work for you, not him.

728
00:57:56,520 --> 00:58:01,520
And that was literally about six feet away from our old commander.

729
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:04,240
And they literally just sacked him.

730
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:09,400
So I had a vote and kind of sacked him.

731
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:18,400
Which kind of left me kind of running the show for a little while.

732
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:28,120
I ended up getting quite close to another friend of mine, who I kind of worked with

733
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:29,800
a fair bit.

734
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:34,760
He was a former Coldstream Guards commissioned officer.

735
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:43,960
Spoke with a plum in his mouth, was a very posh guy, but was always up for a good fight,

736
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:44,960
basically.

737
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:53,600
So we ended up, we volunteered for a couple of funny little jobs, got into some kind of

738
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:56,240
bad scrapes.

739
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:02,320
And they approached the pair of us to kind of lead them onwards.

740
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:09,000
So we formed something we called Grey Team.

741
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:14,480
We said, we'll never turn down a job because it's too dangerous.

742
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:16,280
So here we are.

743
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:17,280
We're a small group.

744
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:18,680
We'll keep it really select.

745
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:21,680
We'll pick who we want in it.

746
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:27,640
And we'll just kind of offer our services to anyone.

747
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:35,400
Kind of way of thinking was, if we're a small group that doesn't mind taking risks, we could

748
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:42,520
just go around the country anywhere to anyone and offer them help.

749
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:50,040
We didn't want any kudos or congratulations, no pats on the back or anything like that

750
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:52,760
for getting work done.

751
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,040
We would hand that over to the bigger unit.

752
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:58,000
And I think it kind of worked.

753
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:02,920
So we had a bit of a reputation.

754
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:06,880
We were actually called Suicide Squad for a little while.

755
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:11,280
And I think people looked at us as kind of like pirates.

756
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:16,440
So that was actually how our CO used to introduce us.

757
01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:20,120
So he used to gavel in Ukrainian and you ask people what he'd said.

758
01:00:20,120 --> 01:00:23,360
And he was like, they're a bunch of pirates, but they're good guys.

759
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,400
So do you know what I mean?

760
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,200
That was kind of how it was.

761
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:31,600
Did that reputation spread to Russian troops?

762
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:36,360
You hear of some of these notorious snipers on the allied sides of World War II that are

763
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:38,000
known by the Nazis.

764
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:39,000
Did they ever kind of...

765
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,720
You ever hear back from the Russians or no?

766
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:48,200
No, it wasn't around for long enough to get a reputation like that.

767
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:59,720
It was kind of very short-lived because both me and Ned were badly wounded, probably seconds

768
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:00,720
apart.

769
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:06,760
So it didn't really go that far after that.

770
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:08,440
Well let's talk about that day then.

771
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:14,200
So tell me about why you guys were called to that particular scene and then kind of

772
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:21,080
walk us through the incredibly tragic events that led to some deaths and your near death

773
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:23,320
as well.

774
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:31,560
So we were already on a pretty rough job.

775
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:33,120
We got the call.

776
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:35,720
Don't ask any questions.

777
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:39,240
Just get yourself to here.

778
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:46,560
So we had to drive hours to get to the outskirts of Bakhmut.

779
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:50,240
Got there and we got told...

780
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:58,520
We were very small at the time, but we got told, look, there are nine Ukrainians stuck

781
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:03,640
in the basement of a building that's full of Russians.

782
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:05,960
We've tried to break them out twice.

783
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:09,880
It hasn't worked.

784
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:17,120
I got asked because I was the only ex tier one guy, are you willing to lead 40 men in

785
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:19,360
to Buster Mount?

786
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:24,600
And I was like, I don't know this area, but if somebody can get me to the building, I'll

787
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:25,760
lead you yourself.

788
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:29,120
So yeah.

789
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:33,600
So I kind of volunteered to lead it.

790
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:36,360
We put in a lot of planning.

791
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:45,160
So the target building, it was quite a big building, probably the size of, I don't know,

792
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:52,560
roughly three detached houses in UK, three floors above ground, a basement underneath.

793
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:56,880
And that's where the non-Ukrainians were.

794
01:02:56,880 --> 01:03:00,440
The building was full of Russians.

795
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:03,720
The whole Russian army was in full assault.

796
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:12,560
So I mean, thousands of infantry, hundreds of armored vehicles, jets, helicopters, drones,

797
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:18,600
everything you could imagine in full assault mode had swept over the top of that.

798
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:26,600
We were kind of hitting the backfield forces.

799
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:32,880
And two attempts had kind of already failed at getting them out.

800
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:35,600
So it was a bit of a strange one.

801
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:43,040
The guys the night before we got there had hit a mine in the dark, took casualties, withdrawn

802
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:46,280
under fire in the pitch dark.

803
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:52,940
So my head's kind of whirling and I'm like, okay, dark is out because some of our guys

804
01:03:52,940 --> 01:03:55,360
didn't have night vision.

805
01:03:55,360 --> 01:04:02,000
The only way you find a mine or an IED at night is to set it off.

806
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:04,360
So I was like, right, that is out.

807
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:09,560
The building itself was in a little row of buildings leading to some big kind of barns

808
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:14,960
that were full of Russians as well.

809
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:22,560
It was in a strip of buildings and it was in a strip woods right next to a train track.

810
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:27,840
So I said, right, the strip woods is out because guys have been hit.

811
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:32,760
We can't see through it with our own drones.

812
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:36,720
So strip woods was out, dark was out.

813
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:44,680
We had a Ukrainian guy who had done sentry duty before and knew some of the nine guys

814
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:48,320
that were already there.

815
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:54,160
He had done sentry duty in that actual building so he knew which one it was.

816
01:04:54,160 --> 01:05:02,160
His job was to take us to it and literally give us that.

817
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:08,880
Wait until we fought to the basement, come forward, speak to the Ukrainians through the

818
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:12,000
door, get them to pop the door, come out.

819
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:19,200
We were then going to bundle them up and get them straight back the way we came in.

820
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:24,200
The way we were going to do that was I arranged for a big distraction.

821
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:30,880
So a lot of artillery, a lot of mortars kind of hitting things near, far, kind of scattered

822
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,440
targets all over the area.

823
01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:40,480
My whole idea was just get every Russian in the area to hit the ground, put his head down

824
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:43,240
and not want to stick it up.

825
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:51,120
Our job was we were going to go straight down the train track, get the target building indicated,

826
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:57,360
hit it with every missile that we were carrying, run forward, fight to the basement, grab a

827
01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:00,440
mace and get them back the way.

828
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:09,040
To say it didn't go quite that way is a bit of an understatement but it didn't.

829
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,840
Did the Russians know they were beneath them?

830
01:06:11,840 --> 01:06:13,800
Yes, they knew.

831
01:06:13,800 --> 01:06:20,800
I'll be honest, looking at it now, I think they were using them as baits.

832
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:21,800
They just left them.

833
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:26,920
They could have easily bust down the door, threw a charge down there and just wiped them

834
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:27,920
all out.

835
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:30,560
But I think they were using that to draw in Ukrainians.

836
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:34,520
They were like, how many of these guys do you reckon we can kill?

837
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:36,940
Just keep them coming.

838
01:06:36,940 --> 01:06:42,600
So that was kind of what I think they did.

839
01:06:42,600 --> 01:06:44,120
And it worked.

840
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,720
It worked pretty well.

841
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:55,120
We the whole thing, the whole distraction and everything, us taking the Ukrainians,

842
01:06:55,120 --> 01:07:00,640
that worked up to the point where he literally indicated the target building.

843
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:04,200
I was just spreading the guys out.

844
01:07:04,200 --> 01:07:12,400
We were about 20 meters away from the building and a Russian just sprints out of the front

845
01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:17,000
door with a red flare in his hands and pops it.

846
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:19,680
So this finder took us a little by surprise.

847
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:24,240
We shot him.

848
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:26,640
He actually managed to stay on his feet.

849
01:07:26,640 --> 01:07:29,080
You could watch dust popping off his gear.

850
01:07:29,080 --> 01:07:32,840
But he stayed on his feet and actually made it back in the building.

851
01:07:32,840 --> 01:07:38,200
He died straight away from the amount of holes that we put in him.

852
01:07:38,200 --> 01:07:41,000
And that kicked everything off.

853
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:47,520
So we immediately came under fire from, I don't know, four or five different positions.

854
01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:49,240
Kind of took care of that.

855
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:54,640
You could see a lot of Russians kind of moving around in the target building.

856
01:07:54,640 --> 01:08:00,040
I gave a standby for rapid, gave a rapid fire.

857
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:07,800
And I went forward alone to find a breach point.

858
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:09,640
Why did I go alone?

859
01:08:09,640 --> 01:08:12,800
Just didn't want anybody to get shot up or grenade it.

860
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:20,240
So I kind of pushed forward, survived, got to the building.

861
01:08:20,240 --> 01:08:24,440
And I was like, right, I need to check this doorway.

862
01:08:24,440 --> 01:08:36,280
So I did a pie maneuver, so you kind of step around the door, pointing your weapon inside.

863
01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:39,680
And it kind of gives you awareness of what's inside.

864
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:43,960
You get to kind of check out for tripwires and everything.

865
01:08:43,960 --> 01:08:48,080
And I literally came, because I couldn't push too far away from the building, because otherwise

866
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:50,920
I was going to get shot from above.

867
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:58,600
I literally came pretty much muzzle to muzzle with a Russian.

868
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:00,400
He went to raise his rifle.

869
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:04,240
I shot him, stepped back out of the doorway.

870
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:11,080
The lads all opened up, so they fired missiles, machine guns, rifles, everything for every

871
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:15,240
opening and kind of put that to bed.

872
01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:19,640
I showed him that I need more guys, got three guys.

873
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:23,880
I'm kind of stacked up on the door, and I was like, we're going in.

874
01:09:23,880 --> 01:09:27,240
Squeeze my shoulder when you're ready.

875
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:31,880
Got the shoulder squeezed, stepped again.

876
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:36,340
Another Russian was stood right where his mate had died.

877
01:09:36,340 --> 01:09:42,000
He actually had his rifle up and fired, hit the woodwork and the brickwork right next

878
01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:43,000
to my face.

879
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:49,520
That kind of stuck a load of brick dust in my eyes.

880
01:09:49,520 --> 01:09:52,640
Got him, laid him out.

881
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:56,480
Was still under fire from further back in the building.

882
01:09:56,480 --> 01:10:03,480
I shrunk in, took a knee next to the door and kind of took care of that.

883
01:10:03,480 --> 01:10:08,640
Then heard the shout, grenade, and grenades started getting kind of thrown out of the

884
01:10:08,640 --> 01:10:11,720
top floor at us.

885
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:17,640
I couldn't get more than two syllables out without a grenade going off.

886
01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:20,720
I mean within feet of us.

887
01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:29,440
It was grenade, grenade, anyway, we're going in that right grenade.

888
01:10:29,440 --> 01:10:33,000
It kind of wore a little thin.

889
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:39,200
I'm like, right, follow me, pull back.

890
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:47,400
Pulled everyone back to the wall or what was left of the wall, about 20 meters away.

891
01:10:47,400 --> 01:10:50,760
Undid the knot in our knickers, gave it another go.

892
01:10:50,760 --> 01:10:53,760
Same thing happened.

893
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:56,840
We were like right fucking pulled back.

894
01:10:56,840 --> 01:11:01,760
Pulled back to the building next door that had been cleared by another team.

895
01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:05,920
We kind of pulled into there.

896
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:09,400
That carried on ages.

897
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:19,560
I think we all up hit it 14 or 15 times, just backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards.

898
01:11:19,560 --> 01:11:22,920
My friend Ned took a bullet through his shoulder.

899
01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:27,640
So actually got shot through the shoulder.

900
01:11:27,640 --> 01:11:28,640
Completely ignored that.

901
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:31,640
He was like my fucking shoulder's stiff.

902
01:11:31,640 --> 01:11:33,960
One of the boys kind of pulled his shirt open.

903
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:36,240
He's like, have you been shot?

904
01:11:36,240 --> 01:11:38,920
He's like, no, fuck it, just put it back on.

905
01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:39,920
I'll carry on.

906
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:46,040
It's just kind of like, right, okay.

907
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:51,360
Then we got to a certain stage and one of the lads actually grabbed me and he goes,

908
01:11:51,360 --> 01:11:54,000
how many times are we going to hit this thing?

909
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:56,600
I was like, yeah, fair one.

910
01:11:56,600 --> 01:12:02,680
So I asked the Ukrainian major who was there, I was like, look mate, how many times do you

911
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:04,880
want us to hit this building?

912
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:07,160
He was up for it, right there.

913
01:12:07,160 --> 01:12:11,560
And then he was like, look, you've hit it enough times, let's go back now.

914
01:12:11,560 --> 01:12:16,800
The captain literally grabbed me and big wide eyes.

915
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:20,080
He's like, that's our men in there, don't fucking leave them.

916
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:24,840
So I'm kind of like, fuck, you've got me there.

917
01:12:24,840 --> 01:12:25,840
Right.

918
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:29,520
Everybody fucking stand up, who could still stand.

919
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:36,680
Had to stand down a couple of lads because they were too badly hurt to kind of assault.

920
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:38,520
On my ass, followed me.

921
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:43,680
So I led one more attack.

922
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:49,880
Ned at the target building, literally, pile drivers me onto the floor.

923
01:12:49,880 --> 01:12:57,520
Grenade goes off, bang, he's fragged in the back, which I like him a bit now, but it was

924
01:12:57,520 --> 01:13:01,080
what it was.

925
01:13:01,080 --> 01:13:07,040
I got knocked back from a grenade blast, so I was actually stacked up on the corner of

926
01:13:07,040 --> 01:13:08,040
the door.

927
01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:09,600
Grenade went off in the door.

928
01:13:09,600 --> 01:13:10,600
That knocked me back.

929
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:18,120
Another guy kind of took my place, shake my head, kind of get back up, re-control me.

930
01:13:18,120 --> 01:13:25,480
Kind of realize this just isn't working, let's pull back to the kind of building.

931
01:13:25,480 --> 01:13:27,640
So we pull back into the building.

932
01:13:27,640 --> 01:13:33,080
Just hit by a huge munition that kind of shook loads of shit off the ceiling.

933
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:41,920
Unlike everyone else, there was kind of a bit of confusion at that time, and then you

934
01:13:41,920 --> 01:13:44,560
get manned down.

935
01:13:44,560 --> 01:13:50,000
So I'm looking at everybody and literally everybody that had come with me on all those

936
01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:51,000
assaults.

937
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:55,200
I thought I'd done fairly well because I wasn't holed up at the time.

938
01:13:55,200 --> 01:14:01,080
So I had no kind of fragments, no gunshot, no nothing.

939
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:09,600
So I thought I'd done pretty well, but everybody else was full of holes at the time.

940
01:14:09,600 --> 01:14:14,520
So I'm like, right, if somebody's manned down and everybody is kind of holed up and kind

941
01:14:14,520 --> 01:14:20,880
of bleeding, Ned had been shot and fragged at the time, and it's kind of like somebody

942
01:14:20,880 --> 01:14:23,280
must be really fucking hurt.

943
01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:31,040
So I run back down the line, I get to Joe who didn't make it, go to Joe, mate, who's

944
01:14:31,040 --> 01:14:34,280
the manned down and what state is he in?

945
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:37,280
He goes, I don't know, brother, not sure.

946
01:14:37,280 --> 01:14:41,680
And at that time, everybody comes kind of spilling past.

947
01:14:41,680 --> 01:14:44,240
I grab one of the guys and I'm like, what's going on?

948
01:14:44,240 --> 01:14:47,960
He goes, mate, the lads have done in, they need to go back.

949
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:52,480
So I'm like, right, if I can you lead them back to the friendly checkpoint, give me a

950
01:14:52,480 --> 01:14:55,520
last man call.

951
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:59,000
So everybody kind of comes blundering past.

952
01:14:59,000 --> 01:15:08,760
Ned, after being shot and fragged, wouldn't leave, just he stayed right to the end with

953
01:15:08,760 --> 01:15:16,040
me, which is pretty decent of him.

954
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:24,680
But we kind of got to that stage where last man goes through, so we kind of chip off.

955
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:31,000
And by this time, you can kind of hear that the Russkies had drones up for ages, so we

956
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:35,000
were getting plastered with mortars and artillery all the time.

957
01:15:35,000 --> 01:15:40,800
You could hear armour moving on both sides of us.

958
01:15:40,800 --> 01:15:50,160
It was a bit of a mess, but we start kind of cracking on back towards the friendly checkpoint

959
01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:56,080
and the Ukrainian major and captain just stop, go down and they're arguing over a radio.

960
01:15:56,080 --> 01:16:02,080
So I take a knee, face the rear because I'm the last man to leave.

961
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:06,960
And in the end, I'm like, Ned, what are they doing?

962
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:14,240
So Ned kind of walks up, listens to them both and then looks at me with this worried look

963
01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:19,760
on his face and he's like, they still got wounded back there.

964
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:21,800
I'm like, right.

965
01:16:21,800 --> 01:16:25,600
OK, well, we've got to go back for them.

966
01:16:25,600 --> 01:16:28,040
So we already had wounded.

967
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:29,520
We had a lot of wounded.

968
01:16:29,520 --> 01:16:36,760
So I'm like, one of the boys, you lead them back to the friendly checkpoint.

969
01:16:36,760 --> 01:16:39,440
We'll go back and grab the Ukrainian wounded.

970
01:16:39,440 --> 01:16:48,000
So the major, the captain and Ned, we all kind of grouped together and kind of go to

971
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:54,960
walk off and Sy, who also didn't make it, kind of latches on the back of us.

972
01:16:54,960 --> 01:17:00,440
Ned looks at him and he goes, he said to go back to the friendly checkpoint and he just

973
01:17:00,440 --> 01:17:03,920
stares at him and goes, fuck off.

974
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:13,560
So that happened and five of us kind of walked back in expecting to literally meet Russians

975
01:17:13,560 --> 01:17:17,080
toe to toe.

976
01:17:17,080 --> 01:17:24,360
I think we get roughly 300 odd meters back towards them.

977
01:17:24,360 --> 01:17:27,160
We hear a lot of crashing and kind of movement ahead.

978
01:17:27,160 --> 01:17:35,360
So all kind of weapons up, waiting for we thought might be the Russians to Ukraine.

979
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:37,800
Ukrainians come blundering through the trees.

980
01:17:37,800 --> 01:17:39,440
One of them's got no weapon.

981
01:17:39,440 --> 01:17:42,520
He's really bleeding heavily out of one arm.

982
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:46,320
Literally grab hold of him.

983
01:17:46,320 --> 01:17:49,160
Mike, you all right?

984
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:51,840
He's like, yeah, so I'm like, right.

985
01:17:51,840 --> 01:17:53,440
Fucking move that way.

986
01:17:53,440 --> 01:17:54,440
Don't hang around.

987
01:17:54,440 --> 01:17:58,400
Him and his mate chip off.

988
01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:03,120
The Ukrainian major gives us a thumbs up.

989
01:18:03,120 --> 01:18:07,040
So I'm like, right, let's go back.

990
01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:13,520
So we start moving back towards the friendly checkpoint.

991
01:18:13,520 --> 01:18:20,320
All the way down, it was a dead straight train track and kind of went on for ages.

992
01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:25,000
And all the way down here, you could just hear explosions really close to us.

993
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:27,640
I'm kind of moving in.

994
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:33,720
You could see the friendly checkpoint from miles away and it was getting hammered.

995
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:36,400
Big explosion after big explosion.

996
01:18:36,400 --> 01:18:40,040
And I'm like, we can't move either side.

997
01:18:40,040 --> 01:18:43,320
We can't kind of alter our course here.

998
01:18:43,320 --> 01:18:46,680
We just need to suck it up and get down there.

999
01:18:46,680 --> 01:18:50,000
That was the safest place to go.

1000
01:18:50,000 --> 01:18:53,360
So we kind of keep cracking on.

1001
01:18:53,360 --> 01:18:59,440
We get to a little slope and it starts kind of pulling up to the checkpoint.

1002
01:18:59,440 --> 01:19:05,120
The Ukrainian major who was leading our little group literally takes a knee and just refuses

1003
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:06,120
to move.

1004
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:08,920
So I again take a knee.

1005
01:19:08,920 --> 01:19:10,240
I'm facing the rear.

1006
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:12,840
I'm like, Ned, what is he doing?

1007
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:14,280
So Ned walks up to him.

1008
01:19:14,280 --> 01:19:16,680
They have a little argument.

1009
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:21,920
Ned takes a pace backwards, raises his rifle and he's like, I will fucking shoot you where

1010
01:19:21,920 --> 01:19:25,560
you're kneeling if you don't get up and move over that berm.

1011
01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:30,680
So the major gives it one of those and then kind of gets up and moves over.

1012
01:19:30,680 --> 01:19:36,920
It wasn't until I got to that point, I could kind of see in his mind why he didn't want

1013
01:19:36,920 --> 01:19:39,320
to sort of push over.

1014
01:19:39,320 --> 01:19:42,520
The other side of the berm was pure carnage.

1015
01:19:42,520 --> 01:19:47,840
So there's dead, wounded, laid everywhere.

1016
01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:50,600
Everybody's voice had raised a couple of octaves.

1017
01:19:50,600 --> 01:19:53,440
I think panic was about to set in.

1018
01:19:53,440 --> 01:19:57,040
There were guys sort of self-torn okay.

1019
01:19:57,040 --> 01:19:58,520
It was a bit of a mess.

1020
01:19:58,520 --> 01:20:01,040
So I'm like, shit.

1021
01:20:01,040 --> 01:20:02,040
Okay.

1022
01:20:02,040 --> 01:20:07,280
So I take literally center stage, just talk calmly to everyone.

1023
01:20:07,280 --> 01:20:08,640
You pull him over there.

1024
01:20:08,640 --> 01:20:09,880
You tourniquet him.

1025
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:10,880
You do this.

1026
01:20:10,880 --> 01:20:19,120
I try and calm everything down, which kind of worked until T-72 round.

1027
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:25,800
So that's a main battle tank, lands within kind of inches of me and blows me completely

1028
01:20:25,800 --> 01:20:28,800
off my feet.

1029
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:32,760
Ned clearly remembers watching that explosion.

1030
01:20:32,760 --> 01:20:38,160
So he said he literally watches the explosion, watches me disappear in the explosion.

1031
01:20:38,160 --> 01:20:43,880
And he's like, his heart fucking sinks because he's like, that's all the control is on him

1032
01:20:43,880 --> 01:20:44,880
now.

1033
01:20:44,880 --> 01:20:54,160
He goes, he kind of keeps looking and he goes, I just pop back up and start working like

1034
01:20:54,160 --> 01:20:55,160
nothing's changed.

1035
01:20:55,160 --> 01:21:02,440
And he goes, that kind of blew his mind a little bit, but you know, it is what it is.

1036
01:21:02,440 --> 01:21:06,160
A few of the guys were looking at me with strange looks on their faces.

1037
01:21:06,160 --> 01:21:13,040
So I just go, no dramas and kind of give them thumbs up and just carry on.

1038
01:21:13,040 --> 01:21:22,280
So I kind of continued to control everything, which worked for a little while.

1039
01:21:22,280 --> 01:21:25,640
Then there's a big explosion.

1040
01:21:25,640 --> 01:21:29,120
And then you hear, man down, man down, it's Ned.

1041
01:21:29,120 --> 01:21:31,480
I'm like, oh fuck.

1042
01:21:31,480 --> 01:21:39,440
So I run down off the little hill that I was on and up his, up the slope to Ned and he

1043
01:21:39,440 --> 01:21:40,960
was in a bad way.

1044
01:21:40,960 --> 01:21:44,120
So he'd been hit full on with an artillery shell.

1045
01:21:44,120 --> 01:21:47,520
He'd kind of blown his legs apart.

1046
01:21:47,520 --> 01:21:51,960
He had kind of bones stuck out of him and was a little bit of a mess.

1047
01:21:51,960 --> 01:21:55,880
He was close to going into shock at that point.

1048
01:21:55,880 --> 01:21:59,680
So I look at him and I'm like, we need to get him down the hill.

1049
01:21:59,680 --> 01:22:02,280
He needs a doctor, I can straight away.

1050
01:22:02,280 --> 01:22:09,800
So four of us kind of grabbed bits of him and kind of dragged him down this slope.

1051
01:22:09,800 --> 01:22:15,760
We get him part way down and it was kind of, there were trees stuck everywhere, kind of

1052
01:22:15,760 --> 01:22:21,240
blown up trees and we kind of hook him on a tree.

1053
01:22:21,240 --> 01:22:26,720
So literally it's bone one side, Ned the other side, which hurt him obviously.

1054
01:22:26,720 --> 01:22:29,960
He let us know it was like, oh shit.

1055
01:22:29,960 --> 01:22:35,800
So we move him back up, unhook him, eventually kind of get him down the hill, throw him in

1056
01:22:35,800 --> 01:22:37,360
the back of the vehicle.

1057
01:22:37,360 --> 01:22:44,760
I grab his head, pull him over, give him a kiss, whisper something in his ear and say

1058
01:22:44,760 --> 01:22:51,440
to the driver, right, fucking get him out of here now.

1059
01:22:51,440 --> 01:22:57,920
There was another big load of artillery, another load of casualties, that all kind of kicks

1060
01:22:57,920 --> 01:22:58,920
off.

1061
01:22:58,920 --> 01:23:02,440
So Ned's vehicle goes absolutely nowhere.

1062
01:23:02,440 --> 01:23:09,160
I take centre stage again, calm everything down, kind of working through everything and

1063
01:23:09,160 --> 01:23:16,520
that's when the second T-72 round literally goes off right in between my legs.

1064
01:23:16,520 --> 01:23:25,160
So I was on one knee and it literally came in and that one really knocked me for six.

1065
01:23:25,160 --> 01:23:33,280
So I can remember being laid on my back, smoke everywhere, fucking feel my head up and just

1066
01:23:33,280 --> 01:23:36,040
look down at a complete mess.

1067
01:23:36,040 --> 01:23:43,240
So it had blown the inside off both legs and the back off my right leg.

1068
01:23:43,240 --> 01:23:48,440
I was like, oh shit, you're not in a very good state here.

1069
01:23:48,440 --> 01:23:53,960
So I remember shouting over and I fucking shout Ned, point down and he just gives me

1070
01:23:53,960 --> 01:24:04,280
a really weak thumbs up, which is kind of funny now but yeah, it was just one of those

1071
01:24:04,280 --> 01:24:05,720
things.

1072
01:24:05,720 --> 01:24:16,520
So after that I don't really remember much but from survivors of the day they said everybody

1073
01:24:16,520 --> 01:24:20,760
was screaming at me, get in a fucking trench, get in a trench.

1074
01:24:20,760 --> 01:24:28,800
So I managed to get back to my feet, walk over to the lads that are taking cover in

1075
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:30,880
a trench.

1076
01:24:30,880 --> 01:24:38,640
There was Joe, George, Sy, Bruce and Kerry.

1077
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:48,920
I kind of move over to them, heard 152mm artillery shell coming in so that started whistling.

1078
01:24:48,920 --> 01:24:55,560
I took a knee on the lip of the trench and put my head down and the round actually lands

1079
01:24:55,560 --> 01:24:56,560
in the trench.

1080
01:24:56,560 --> 01:25:04,000
I killed Joe, killed Sy, killed George, severed an artery in Bruce's arm and knocked Kerry

1081
01:25:04,000 --> 01:25:13,520
stiff and blew four square inches out of my skull and made me look dead.

1082
01:25:13,520 --> 01:25:19,640
So that happened.

1083
01:25:19,640 --> 01:25:24,720
I don't obviously remember any of that.

1084
01:25:24,720 --> 01:25:29,320
Kerry I think jumped out of the trench, ran over to someone else who was kind of hit,

1085
01:25:29,320 --> 01:25:31,080
started treating them.

1086
01:25:31,080 --> 01:25:36,800
Bruce screams my name, tries to drag me in the trench but he's got a severed artery in

1087
01:25:36,800 --> 01:25:38,520
his arm.

1088
01:25:38,520 --> 01:25:44,920
He works out I'm dead because I look dead.

1089
01:25:44,920 --> 01:25:50,080
Runs over to Kerry, Kerry grabs him and goes he's fucking dead and you're hit.

1090
01:25:50,080 --> 01:25:56,360
Torn the case his arm and cazor bags him.

1091
01:25:56,360 --> 01:26:02,800
Then I think somewhere I was left for dead.

1092
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:07,560
I think eventually somebody kind of checked me, I must have made a noise or something

1093
01:26:07,560 --> 01:26:11,440
and they were like fucking hell he's still in the game.

1094
01:26:11,440 --> 01:26:15,160
Patched me up, sent me to a field hospital.

1095
01:26:15,160 --> 01:26:18,040
They saved my legs.

1096
01:26:18,040 --> 01:26:22,080
I was then packaged further north because they knew they didn't have the neuro experience

1097
01:26:22,080 --> 01:26:25,760
to kind of deal with my head injury.

1098
01:26:25,760 --> 01:26:29,560
I went up to Neapro.

1099
01:26:29,560 --> 01:26:30,560
That was the story.

1100
01:26:30,560 --> 01:26:37,760
Out of 40 men that went forward, 14 were dead.

1101
01:26:37,760 --> 01:26:45,840
Nearly everybody else was injured, likely or otherwise.

1102
01:26:45,840 --> 01:26:47,320
Not the best of days that.

1103
01:26:47,320 --> 01:26:50,320
No, absolutely awful day.

1104
01:26:50,320 --> 01:26:56,360
Just before we go to your recovery, when people listen, obviously not just yourself, the men

1105
01:26:56,360 --> 01:27:01,200
you worked alongside as well, I mean the courage and the heroism against the odds that you

1106
01:27:01,200 --> 01:27:05,800
were facing was pretty epic for lack of a better word.

1107
01:27:05,800 --> 01:27:10,680
When you kind of analyze it now, what was it that allowed you to overcome that immense

1108
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:13,320
fear and keep pushing forward?

1109
01:27:13,320 --> 01:27:22,040
Again, I think it was just that don't stop kind of philosophy.

1110
01:27:22,040 --> 01:27:30,840
I think we were always taught when it's a hostage rescue, which it was, all bets are

1111
01:27:30,840 --> 01:27:31,840
off.

1112
01:27:31,840 --> 01:27:38,840
So if all of you die doing a hostage rescue, just crack on, just get it done.

1113
01:27:38,840 --> 01:27:42,400
And I think that was kind of my mindset through the entire thing.

1114
01:27:42,400 --> 01:27:49,440
So it was just don't stop, just keep going, kind of carry on.

1115
01:27:49,440 --> 01:27:52,800
Everybody worked really well.

1116
01:27:52,800 --> 01:27:59,360
The lads that I was with, yeah, I can't speak highly enough of them.

1117
01:27:59,360 --> 01:28:02,720
They were all really good guys.

1118
01:28:02,720 --> 01:28:03,720
You sound amazing.

1119
01:28:03,720 --> 01:28:04,900
They really do.

1120
01:28:04,900 --> 01:28:07,320
What about your road to recovery then?

1121
01:28:07,320 --> 01:28:09,240
I mean, we're sitting here having a conversation.

1122
01:28:09,240 --> 01:28:11,360
You're still extremely active these days.

1123
01:28:11,360 --> 01:28:16,520
Help me through losing four square inches of what one would imagine to be a pretty important

1124
01:28:16,520 --> 01:28:21,960
organ to your kind of journey out the hospital.

1125
01:28:21,960 --> 01:28:30,480
So yeah, I was sent north to the hospital in NITRO.

1126
01:28:30,480 --> 01:28:35,720
My wife came out to see me, which was pretty impressive.

1127
01:28:35,720 --> 01:28:45,440
I was in a medical coma at the time, but yeah, there was, it was kind of a long sort of road

1128
01:28:45,440 --> 01:28:46,440
to recovery.

1129
01:28:46,440 --> 01:28:54,640
I went up to NITRO, kind of stayed there for a little while while they sorted my head out.

1130
01:28:54,640 --> 01:28:59,600
I was moved up to Keefe, stayed there for a little while.

1131
01:28:59,600 --> 01:29:06,880
And then I was packaged over the border and moved somewhere else.

1132
01:29:06,880 --> 01:29:11,840
And eventually I moved all the way.

1133
01:29:11,840 --> 01:29:17,120
Yeah, I moved via London all the way back home.

1134
01:29:17,120 --> 01:29:22,240
But I was in London for the majority of my recovery time.

1135
01:29:22,240 --> 01:29:27,680
So I actually spent four months in hospital, four solid months.

1136
01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:35,880
And that was on a thousand pounds a day of antibiotics.

1137
01:29:35,880 --> 01:29:39,240
What were your deficits, if any, when you first, you know, gained consciousness and

1138
01:29:39,240 --> 01:29:45,240
were able to move, did you have any temporary damage as far as your physicality?

1139
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:50,960
Well, initially, I could hardly speak.

1140
01:29:50,960 --> 01:29:58,400
So it was one of those where my wife was stood there, getting everything kind of explained

1141
01:29:58,400 --> 01:29:59,400
to her.

1142
01:29:59,400 --> 01:30:02,080
They showed her my wounds.

1143
01:30:02,080 --> 01:30:03,520
I was in a bad way.

1144
01:30:03,520 --> 01:30:08,360
I was unconscious, laid on a bed.

1145
01:30:08,360 --> 01:30:12,400
And the guy was saying, look, his speech might not come back for a couple of months.

1146
01:30:12,400 --> 01:30:15,920
It's usually the last thing to come back.

1147
01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:22,760
But, you know, we were kind of worried with his head injury, you know, whether it will.

1148
01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:32,280
And the wife said, I kind of peeled one eye open, saw her, said, love you, and then piled

1149
01:30:32,280 --> 01:30:33,280
in again.

1150
01:30:33,280 --> 01:30:39,840
So that was kind of the first thing that I actually said was that.

1151
01:30:39,840 --> 01:30:43,080
You won some points there, that's for sure.

1152
01:30:43,080 --> 01:30:44,560
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1153
01:30:44,560 --> 01:30:47,200
It was it was a bit weird.

1154
01:30:47,200 --> 01:30:52,000
The whole kind of thing was really odd.

1155
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:59,160
So they actually rebuilt the four square inches with a titanium plate and kind of put that

1156
01:30:59,160 --> 01:31:07,720
back in because I did have a real curved kind of bit out of my head, which looked kind of

1157
01:31:07,720 --> 01:31:10,680
weird when you looked at it.

1158
01:31:10,680 --> 01:31:16,160
But yeah, they kind of rebuilt it and done a decent job.

1159
01:31:16,160 --> 01:31:20,120
And what about getting to the point that you're at operationally now?

1160
01:31:20,120 --> 01:31:22,640
I mean, was there a kind of on ramp again?

1161
01:31:22,640 --> 01:31:25,960
I mean, four months in hospital, obviously, you're losing some of your fitness and your

1162
01:31:25,960 --> 01:31:30,000
strength and you've got the muscles that were damaged in your legs as well.

1163
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:34,800
So how are you able to kind of train yourself back to where you are now?

1164
01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:37,960
That's a good question, really.

1165
01:31:37,960 --> 01:31:46,440
So with the bits of kind of missing out my legs, I think I might like on completely missing

1166
01:31:46,440 --> 01:31:47,440
my adductor.

1167
01:31:47,440 --> 01:31:54,240
So I'll never be able to twist my leg like I twisted it before.

1168
01:31:54,240 --> 01:32:00,200
Yeah, it was it's just one of those things that you kind of have to get used to.

1169
01:32:00,200 --> 01:32:06,680
It was a little weird when I first had a shower and I was like, me, you are missing some chunks.

1170
01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:15,000
But I am only four kilos lighter than I was at my heaviest.

1171
01:32:15,000 --> 01:32:21,280
So when you think of the bits that the Russians kind of blew off, I don't think four kilos

1172
01:32:21,280 --> 01:32:24,280
is kind of workable.

1173
01:32:24,280 --> 01:32:25,280
Absolutely.

1174
01:32:25,280 --> 01:32:30,320
Well, then let's walk to the creation of the red eight then the way we were connected.

1175
01:32:30,320 --> 01:32:35,160
Like I said, Dave, we connected us and you're right down the road from me and you're up.

1176
01:32:35,160 --> 01:32:40,120
Excuse me, you are giving weapons classes in this local area.

1177
01:32:40,120 --> 01:32:45,040
So what made you decide to transition into that space alongside what you're still doing

1178
01:32:45,040 --> 01:32:46,040
today?

1179
01:32:46,040 --> 01:32:55,720
So it was I literally got approached by a friend of mine who I fought with over there.

1180
01:32:55,720 --> 01:32:59,040
And he was like, do you want to start a business together?

1181
01:32:59,040 --> 01:33:02,320
I was like, how do you mean?

1182
01:33:02,320 --> 01:33:06,040
He goes, well, I'll do all the admin and you teach.

1183
01:33:06,040 --> 01:33:09,120
I was like, yeah, good for me, mate.

1184
01:33:09,120 --> 01:33:11,800
We'll we'll crack on and do that.

1185
01:33:11,800 --> 01:33:19,360
So that was kind of where Red 8 came from.

1186
01:33:19,360 --> 01:33:21,720
Yeah, kind of nuts.

1187
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:32,280
But yeah, I actually I've got to go back to Ukraine this week, actually.

1188
01:33:32,280 --> 01:33:42,600
So the Ukrainians, although it's taken absolutely ages, they've given me a medal for that day.

1189
01:33:42,600 --> 01:33:46,080
So that was kind of nuts.

1190
01:33:46,080 --> 01:33:49,760
It was a guy I hadn't heard from for months.

1191
01:33:49,760 --> 01:33:52,440
Just kind of started texting me.

1192
01:33:52,440 --> 01:33:56,440
I sort of text him back.

1193
01:33:56,440 --> 01:34:00,200
We did kind of a bat and ball for a couple of days.

1194
01:34:00,200 --> 01:34:05,800
And he finishes off the one day he goes, I've got something here of yours.

1195
01:34:05,800 --> 01:34:07,920
I'll send you a photo later.

1196
01:34:07,920 --> 01:34:13,800
So I'm just thinking somebody's found an old piece of gear and kind of handed it in.

1197
01:34:13,800 --> 01:34:17,840
And he sends me a picture of my medal.

1198
01:34:17,840 --> 01:34:22,720
Yeah, which I thought was pretty nice of them, to be fair.

1199
01:34:22,720 --> 01:34:26,600
So yeah, turns out I'm getting the gong.

1200
01:34:26,600 --> 01:34:31,560
So I've got to go and collect that, actually, this week.

1201
01:34:31,560 --> 01:34:40,440
So yeah, there's a few lads I actually would have put in for medals, but I don't know whether

1202
01:34:40,440 --> 01:34:42,520
I'll be able to do that when I'm there.

1203
01:34:42,520 --> 01:34:45,080
I'm not sure.

1204
01:34:45,080 --> 01:34:46,080
Particularly Ned.

1205
01:34:46,080 --> 01:34:49,960
Ned's been good as gold.

1206
01:34:49,960 --> 01:34:55,880
He was a tough old boy on that day.

1207
01:34:55,880 --> 01:34:57,160
And Ned's still with us now.

1208
01:34:57,160 --> 01:34:58,640
Have I got that correct?

1209
01:34:58,640 --> 01:34:59,640
Yeah.

1210
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:00,640
Yeah.

1211
01:35:00,640 --> 01:35:01,640
Yeah.

1212
01:35:01,640 --> 01:35:02,640
Okay.

1213
01:35:02,640 --> 01:35:03,640
Beautiful.

1214
01:35:03,640 --> 01:35:04,640
All right.

1215
01:35:04,640 --> 01:35:05,640
Well, then I want to get to what you offer in Red 8.

1216
01:35:05,640 --> 01:35:11,240
But just before we do, through your lens, we have obviously multiple conversations going

1217
01:35:11,240 --> 01:35:12,240
on at the moment.

1218
01:35:12,240 --> 01:35:18,880
I just interviewed Tulsi Gabbard and she was referring to the beginning of the Ukraine

1219
01:35:18,880 --> 01:35:24,760
invasion and what we're seeing now is a proxy war compared to some of the other things that

1220
01:35:24,760 --> 01:35:26,560
maybe we should have been focusing on.

1221
01:35:26,560 --> 01:35:33,280
And we had the whole conversation on who benefits from initiating a war in the first place.

1222
01:35:33,280 --> 01:35:37,080
But then you also have now what's going on in Gaza and that, rightly so, has got a lot

1223
01:35:37,080 --> 01:35:39,020
of people looking that way.

1224
01:35:39,020 --> 01:35:46,360
Through your lens, though, how is the situation in the Ukraine and what needs to happen to

1225
01:35:46,360 --> 01:35:54,880
assist them to finally get the Russians out of their country again?

1226
01:35:54,880 --> 01:35:55,880
That is a good question.

1227
01:35:55,880 --> 01:36:00,560
And I don't think Ukraine will finish quickly.

1228
01:36:00,560 --> 01:36:08,000
I think it's a bit more of a grind.

1229
01:36:08,000 --> 01:36:12,080
It's just one of those things you constantly need support.

1230
01:36:12,080 --> 01:36:18,800
So whatever kind of stuff you can give them, whatever kind of help, and that's everything

1231
01:36:18,800 --> 01:36:23,480
from a pair of warm socks to cruise missiles.

1232
01:36:23,480 --> 01:36:27,320
It's kind of everything in between.

1233
01:36:27,320 --> 01:36:30,600
Just kind of keep supporting them.

1234
01:36:30,600 --> 01:36:36,960
And that's really, you'll eventually have to kind of get to that stage where one of

1235
01:36:36,960 --> 01:36:44,480
them kind of gives up and pulls back behind a line on a map.

1236
01:36:44,480 --> 01:36:48,240
Good question, though.

1237
01:36:48,240 --> 01:36:50,120
Let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

1238
01:36:50,120 --> 01:36:54,680
It's horrendous seeing any of these conflicts and there's so many at the moment.

1239
01:36:54,680 --> 01:36:59,400
So for people listening then, if they are looking for training, which I absolutely will

1240
01:36:59,400 --> 01:37:03,760
be, I'm still a white belt with any sort of firearm at the moment, what training do you

1241
01:37:03,760 --> 01:37:06,840
offer at Red 8?

1242
01:37:06,840 --> 01:37:16,400
So we will kind of bespoke tailor everything from somebody who just wants a day, you know,

1243
01:37:16,400 --> 01:37:24,440
if you are a couple of hours on a range, never shot before, nothing, just wants an experience

1244
01:37:24,440 --> 01:37:33,640
all the way up to kind of tier one soft, one close quarter battle, room clearance and everything

1245
01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:35,100
kind of refined.

1246
01:37:35,100 --> 01:37:44,160
We can kind of tailor or tether any course to anybody that wants kind of any level of

1247
01:37:44,160 --> 01:37:45,160
training.

1248
01:37:45,160 --> 01:37:46,160
Brilliant.

1249
01:37:46,160 --> 01:37:54,920
And where can people find Red 8 on social media and on the website?

1250
01:37:54,920 --> 01:38:04,840
So for the social media, I think we are on Instagram and we also have a website.

1251
01:38:04,840 --> 01:38:12,920
So they're both, one is the Red 8 team, that's on Instagram.

1252
01:38:12,920 --> 01:38:19,320
And I think the website is, I am not sure.

1253
01:38:19,320 --> 01:38:20,320
No problem.

1254
01:38:20,320 --> 01:38:23,680
I'm going to put the website on the show notes for this episode anyway, so people will be

1255
01:38:23,680 --> 01:38:24,680
able to find it there.

1256
01:38:24,680 --> 01:38:26,680
Well, Sean, I want to say thank you so much.

1257
01:38:26,680 --> 01:38:29,640
I want to be mindful of your time because as you mentioned, you might literally be jumping

1258
01:38:29,640 --> 01:38:34,040
on a plane tomorrow to go and get your medal and see some of the people that you serve

1259
01:38:34,040 --> 01:38:35,040
with.

1260
01:38:35,040 --> 01:38:37,960
But it's been an incredible conversation, really has.

1261
01:38:37,960 --> 01:38:44,560
And from some of the attributes that led to your success, some of the heroism that your

1262
01:38:44,560 --> 01:38:50,680
fellow brothers exhibited that we don't have here anymore, it's been an essential conversation.

1263
01:38:50,680 --> 01:38:54,600
And obviously the perspective into Ukraine, which I think most people just don't hear

1264
01:38:54,600 --> 01:38:56,280
that kind of storytelling at the moment.

1265
01:38:56,280 --> 01:38:59,920
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1266
01:38:59,920 --> 01:39:01,600
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1267
01:39:01,600 --> 01:39:02,600
No worries, Mike.

1268
01:39:02,600 --> 01:39:04,240
Look, thanks very much for asking me.