Dan Snow's History Hit - Andy McNab on the SAS

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

From the day he was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital in London, Andy McNab has led an extraordinary life. As a teenage delinquent, Andy McNab kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years – on five continents. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS. Since then Andy McNab has become one of the world’s best-selling writers, drawing on his insider knowledge and experience. As well as several non-fiction bestsellers including Bravo Two Zero, the biggest selling British work of military history, he is the author of the best-selling Nick Stone and Tom Buckingham thrillers. He has also written a number of books for children. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK, works in the film industry advising Hollywood on everything from covert procedure to training civilian actors to act like soldiers. He continues to be a spokesperson and fundraiser for both military and literacy charities.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hits. This is New Year's Day. This is going out on the 1st of January 2021. May it be a better year than last year. That's all I can say. That's what we

often say. That's a thought. Anyway, so we've got a big long episode for you today. Andy McNabb is the name taken by the best-selling author, highly decorated former British soldier, Special Forces operative, and very celebrated figure from the first Gulf War and beyond. Andy McNabb wrote a book called Bravo 2-0 that sold millions of copies about his experiences on an SAS patrol in Iraq during the first Gulf War. He was captured, he was interrogated, he was tortured, and then he was finally released at the end of that conflict. He went on to write lots of other books, non-fiction and fiction. He has the most extraordinary life story, as you'll hear. Thank you very much for him,

for letting me rabbit on for so long to him. This is just, well, it's a remarkable story, as you'll hear. It's not for the faint-hearted, so you might want to have a quick listen before you let any kids listen to it. In the meantime, I hope you get 2021 off to a great start, wherever you are in the world. If you want to take up our January sale offer on History Hit TV, now's the time. Use the code January. It's good for a few more days. January, and you get a month for free and then 80% off your next three months. So please check that out. In the meantime, everyone, here is Andy McNabb. time everyone here is andy mcnabb andy thanks so much for coming on this podcast pleasure thank you oh you've been a hero of mine ever since uh one of those one of the i read bravo to zero and i was a

teenager and it obviously it changed my life you've gone on to write lots more bestsellers and we'll talk about those but you spent more of your life being a writer now than being a soldier is that is that weird it is really really weird yeah really weird it's quite it's quite You've gone on to write lots more bestsellers, and we'll talk about those. But you've spent more of your life being a writer now than being a soldier. Is that weird? It is really, really weird, yeah, really weird. It's quite interesting. Certainly in the 90s, there was a time where it was over 90% of the infantry's intake was because they've read Bravo 2.0 as young men. So now you're sort of meeting those guys.

You used to meet them earlier on, and they're sort of you know they'll be early in their careers and now they're senior ncos and that you've been in the army forever or done their 22 years and out you know and they they joined because of bravo yeah so yeah it's really freaky and do they ever say hang on mate you sold me a dodgy bill of goods i didn't get to cane around the desert in iraq that always goes on absolutely so that it's uh it's the parents of so even now it's parents of the sort of young men I didn't get to cane around the desert in Iraq. That always goes on. Absolutely. So it's the parents of, even now, it's the parents of young men and women who want to join the army because they've read the books and you don't know whether they're sort of congratulating me or warning me. You know, there's this quite sort of weird mixture. Speaking of, when you joined the infantry back in the day, you've written about that beautifully in a couple of your books,

but it was the old fashioned army. They wanted people that were in trouble. They wanted kids in trouble. Qualifications weren't that important. You've written that you were, you know, if it hadn't been for the army, your life would have been very different. Yeah, it's, you know, well, they were recruiting out of the juvenile detention system was called the ball store system at the time. And I was a product of the, you know, the ball store system and then a product of of the army and it was at that stage your sort of levels of of academic achievement wasn't really a a big deal and in fact somebody with a reading age of a five-year-old as a as a you know 17 or 18 yearold, was eligible to join the infantry. And now it's gone up a bit now.

It needs to be key stage two, which is about an 11-year-old. But at that stage, it was like, just get them in. And there was a sort of a social contract at that time as well, because the Borsal system was all about something called the short, sharp shock. So it wasn't about rehabilitation education in theory what it was to to scare but basically you know teenage kids into not reoffending and clearly the system didn't work so there was this movement by you know sort of outside bodies that was lobbying government to say look you've got to get in and do something with these in effect you

know these teenage kids so the army was one one of those groups that came into the ball stores to try and do something, you know, and in effect get some sort of, you know, social mobility. You've experienced social mobility. You know, you couldn't have had a tougher start in life. Can you tell the listeners, you know, your origin story? Well, yeah, I a an abandoned baby so i was i was um found uh outside guys hospital um and i was sort of you know about two days old so they went into care as a baby and then eventually i was adopted into a family and lived in um uh south east london

basically for the rest of my time we sort of went to nine uh different uh primary schools at that time she was always moving around um so never really got any sort of you know consistency continuity whatever you want to call it in you know education and sort of family life and that's why i wanted like everybody else who just wanted the money without sort of realizing you had to get an education to to get a decent job to earn it so that's why i landed up in in in the bookstore system it was all part of i think we were called at that time juvenile delinquents and they were gonna you know sort us all out now that you're you know successful rich famous do you think about trying to find your your your birth family no i don't um it it's it's interesting my my elder brother uh not a natural brother also was adopted, was from the same home. And he sort of, cause my mum was a cleaner at the home and

literally you could, or they could like take kids home for the weekend. It was bizarre, you know, it never happened now. So my, what became my elder brother was in the same home and he would disappear, uh, uh, off to this, this, this couple, you know, the, the, the cleaning lady the cleaning lady and um he sort of you know uh moved in was adopted then i came in and because he was never interested in that um because what he said he said well you know these are these are appearance so why do i have to worry about the ones that wanted nothing to do with your sort of thing so and i understand you know i don't know the reasons why but i understand it probably was sort of you know a quite an emotional sort of you know part in you know with my mother all that sort of stuff but actually they're the ones who who sort of

took me in from the home brought me up exactly same as my older brother so i thought it was good enough for him good enough for me and it's it's never been a major issue although you obviously you weren't that i mean we i guess you weren't happy i mean you got kicked out of schools i mean it was a there was something that was churning up inside you yeah i what it was was always in in in my head even even as a you know since i could remember you know as a four or five year old um you know certainly the home was a uh like a waiting room everything would be all right and then I'll move on. So when I was adopted, it became, again, it was like a waiting room.

And sort of, you know, at 16, I'll leave that home and then go somewhere else. So there was always an urge to go and do or be something else. And always an optimist. You know, everything will be all right sort of thing. So I'll just give it a go. So it wasn't as if it was a, uh, uh, uh, you know, I've arrived. We have certainly one that was adopted. I was arrived. It was great. You know, I wasn't sort of, you know, physically, sexually, mentally abused, none of that, that sort of stuff. Um, in fact, I did, you obviously added loads and loads of freedom in the, in the, sort of in the, in the council estates we lived in. of freedom in the in the sort of in the council

estates we lived in but it was just sort of well when I'm 16 then I'll leave here and then go and do something else impatient yeah there was a bit I did because there was always something there was always something better to do but it wasn't as if I knew what it was. Um, well, certainly as a, until I joined the army, really, I didn't really know anything out of, well, South London, really, you know, I went to Margate once when I was a kid, went to the seaside once, and that seemed miles and miles away. Um, so everything was sort of quite contained. So I didn't, you know, know what was over the, over the hill, but, and there wasn't exactly a burning ambition to do it, but I knew it's there and i'll be having a look one day so that's okay so when i'm 16 i'll i'll go and have a look sort

of thing i read an interview with you a while back and it's funny because you're now you're now a best-selling author but you you could i mean you're reading you you came to reading very late on in your in your teenage years yes yes at 16 and it was it was the army and that's why i'm sort of huge advocate of army education really it's the recruiting film i saw fantastic recruiting film helicopter pilot you know small little helicopter a little scout which was one of these little bubble perspex helicopters he was flying low over the uh the beaches of um cyprus not that anybody knew where cyprus was didn't matter it looked great so he's flying over and then the guy said right, you know, like

he wants to be a helicopter pilot and then you know, yeah we all put our hands up in Borgstall and at that stage you went away for three days to Sutton Coalfield, to the assessment, the army assessment centre and it was very very clear all of us from the Borgstall because the deal was, if you got accepted

into the army, you wait for your release, your joining date, sorry, and then you was released from the institution, you went home. Went back to get your kit a couple of weeks later, but that was about it. So the big deal was we're all going to be helicopter pilots. Got to Sutton Coalfield for these three days of physical and academic tests.

And it was very clear that, you know, we weren't going to get close enough to spit at this helicopter, let alone fly the thing. So I was offered a place in the green jackets. We're happy to offer you a place as an infantryman. As an infantryman. And I thought, yeah, great. You know, it sounded like a football team.

It sort of worked. And again, because I didn't take too much interest in the films that you were watching when you'd done this three-day assessment and all that, you know, about the different regiments and all that like because all i wanted to do was get out of ball store so i went yeah okay and um it wasn't until i joined um what was then called an infantry junior leaders battalion and um uh the part and you know part of that year's training uh which i didn't realize until about three months in was that you went back

to school and i'm thinking right the army's ripped me off now i'm back at school you know but the guy that is the educator at that time the army education uh core guy not only changed my life but everybody there really because he said look you know everybody outside the other side of the wire and he kept on pointing at the fence and there was a place called cheriton a little town a little village um uh over the other side of the playing field he kept on pointing at the fence and there was a place called cheriton a little town a little village um over the other side of the playing field said that all that lot over there think you lot are thick you said it a bit more flowery of course you know he's in the army um uh but you're not he said the only reason you can't read and write is because you don't read and write and today it all changes and it was then, because he explained to us

the reason why we were in the infantry and not flying helicopters, that we all had the reading ages of between a seven and an 11 year old, which is now key stage two within the education system. And it sort of all made sense to me then because it was like all squaddies,

you know, during the NAFI break, you know, this mid-morning sort of break, you just get a stank kidney pie and a pint of Vimto at the NAFI because you can't have alcohol on a working day anyway. But obviously we were, you know, 16, 17-year-olds. So I copied a Sun newspaper. All squaddies read the Sun. And then, you know, clearly in them days, page three,

there wasn't a lot to read anyway. So it turned out to be sports pages. And there were actually, there were words that i really didn't get you know so i used to make up what what they were and obviously get the you know the whole sort of narrative wrong what was going on in whatever it was a sports or a story it it sort of dawned on me yeah okay right i get it now i know why i'm you know i'm in this this this infantry junior leaders battalion and the first book we all read we were all given copy of this um book janet and john book 10 which was a a book for primary school kids and um not a lot of text you know picture on one side a paragraph on the other and you went through there's brother and sister janet and john what they're getting up

to we all uh had the week to go through it and read it because the education went on it was it was almost like night school you know so you do your military training and then three three times a week you then go um to the army education center so on friday individually we went up read the book to the to the educator read the um the vocabulary on the back spelt the words explained what they meant and he went right he said okay close the book which he did yes sir mini army close the book and he said well remember the the feeling you're going to get back tonight in the block um we used to live in these like 24 sort of bed uh blocks and uh uh the feeling is you know what i've just read a book and it didn't

kill me and i went yes sir and uh but right. Absolutely right. And then it was then where I realised, because I was told rather than realised, that you could be the best soldier in the planet. at promotion levels, you're never going to get promoted. So there was this incentive to get an education. But actually, when it started, it became infectious. You know, it was like a snowball effect. And it sort of, you know, it was fantastic. And that's what really sort of kicked it off. And then certainly, you know, even joining the Special Air Service,

you know, the Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion was about 1,100 soldiers, the battalion. You know, the regiment, you know, on a good day, was about 600 then. The education centre there was bigger than the one at IGLB, you know, because it was all about education. You know, it doesn't work unless you know what you're doing. You read Janet and John. Janet and John, book 10.

17, book 10. Yeah, it was just nearly nearly 17 nearly 17 so you're 16 you're now I'm not going to say how old you are but you're very young

and you have written how many books in total now with the young adult books it's about 34 and sold how many million about 33 million

well congratulations for that thank you so but you and the interesting thing about your army career if we're going to talk about a bit of your army career now is that you had a you had a pretty extraordinary career even before Saddam Hussein ever invaded Kuwait I mean tell me a little bit about what you were up to in in the 80s yeah well i it's um obviously i joined an infantry battalion and the and the war of choice at that time was um uh northern ireland and so as i as literally on my my 18th birthday the battalion were already in uh place at a location a town called cross mcglenn

uh in south armagh at that time they got there about three weeks beforehand and by then you had to be 18 to go on one of these what they call the emergency tours because there were so many 17 year old soldiers that have been killed in years previously so I went there on my 18th birthday and then done that you know at that time it was called bandit country and you know because there was no vehicles that would move out around because they were always getting bombed everything was by helicopters and literally you'd be patrolling the town uh that'd be a 24-hour presence on the town so mortars couldn't be driven into to more of the security base you'd be doing these 24-hour patrols in in the town or then patrolling the border so you patrol the border in the daytime and then convention like

conventional infantry work at that stage it was setting was setting up ambushes at night on the border. So it was sort of this straight introduction into this world. And these emergency tours for us were once a year because we were based in Tidworth, the big garrison town near Salisbury Plain on the Hampshire-Walkshire border. And so I came back from that tour and our platoon had taken casualties. Our commanding officer was shot down in a helicopter. Wiltshire border. And so I came back from that tour and, um, you know, the, the, the

our platoon had taken casualties. Our commanding officer was shot down in a helicopter. All these things were going on, but actually come back and I had about a thousand pounds. It was 18 year old thousand pounds. It was amazing because you know, you, you buy a bit of soap and a bit of toothpaste and that's it, you know, for sort of nothing, no more than five months. It's normally about four and a half months something like that all the second-hand car dealers are rubbing their hands when you get back to the garrison town so you buy a heap of a car nobody's insuring them or taxing them or anything because literally within six months you're getting ready for the next tour so again it was back to a place called um keely in in south armagh and it was then

it was the i was not uh 19 by then um so I was going back for the for the second tour South Amar was a was a was a winter tour this was a summer tour so it was a bit better and it was there where we had a few sort of contacts you know firefights bits and pieces but they're always big things you know what happened and you're not really too sure what's going on so there's an element of excitement in that but in uh kidi i had quite a close contact uh with a provisional ira active service unit um so it was the first time that it actually killed somebody uh when i was 19 so there was a there was a big house in the state opposite on the edge of the on the town on the on the uh the side where the border was um because

castle blaney was literally about 10 minutes away in the south so i just turned the corner coming out the the what we call the cuts coming out of the the if you like the countryside coming back into the the southern part of the town um in charge of a what i call a brick which is like a four-man patrol so just come around around the corner and there was a huge amount of civilians waiting on the other side of the housing estate, the other side of the road, which was normal because on a Friday and Saturday night, buses would come and pick them up.

They'd go to Castle Blaney to play bingo and have a night out because it was safer down there. And then they would come back. But then instead of sort of them just being there and not much happening, they all all started screaming shouting and running around and i looked left and literally i don't know it was sort of i don't know seven eight meters away uh there was there was a whole active service unit at the provisional ira you know all masked up uh assault rifles and what they were doing were doing their pr bit to the people in Castle Blaney but they were just

getting ready for a shoot for another patrol that was in the northern part and it was a cattle truck and what they do they'd armor up the inside of the cattle truck and the rear tailgate was about three quarters high up and they would drive past the patrol as it's patrolling the streets ASU'd then pop up and start firing at the patrol and then they would carry on going towards the border and they were literally doing their pr bit getting out their cars to get into the cattle truck so it turned into you know it's uh in the films it's always sort of all quite sort of uh organized it's not it's within the you know the parlance of the infrastructure it's just called a cabbie you know they're just firing because they're not too sure what's going on i'm just

firing i'm not too sure what's going on i run out of ammunition so i had to sort of you know get on the ground trying to change magazines and so this this this firefight happened and there was one dead there was two that were that were wounded um one of them was quite a famous terrorist at the time we didn't learn until later on he got away a guy called desio here got him through the uh the hand um and the joke always was was unfortunately he shot him in the left hand because he's right-handed so he could still uh he could still fight but it was just like this big cabbie and and um uh you know trying to clear the area you've got all the civilians now going you know mad because they you know people are shooting so they're trying to get away.

It became quite a chaos. The interesting thing was that by nature now, we just expect it to happen all the time because of 24-hour news. But this happened about 6 o'clock in the evening. Again, these people getting the buses to go to Castle Blaney for the night. And then by 10 o'clock, it was on the news. And it's Kate Ad80 sort of you know doing a thing with a microphone you know interviewing people around keedy about what happened it was really freaky can i ask what that was like you know taking taking a life

yeah do you know what at the time it's not as if it's all you know training took over and all that you know because you're just firing and doing all that sort of stuff it what it was was when it was all on the news and we're sort of back in the uh we're back in the security force base um and you know watching it on the news already known that the uh the the you know there's one dead two wounded all that sort of stuff's already known and again we're all sort of you know 18 19 20 21 you know sort of all young sort of guys so it was an element of bravado about it. So it was like, great, you know. And also there was credibility for me

because what was happening during that time, if you had what was called an A1 arrest, which was the top 20, you know, terrorists used to get these montages of pictures, wanted pictures. If you got an A1 arrest or you got a kill, you got two weeks extra leave at the end so before you done this called a rip a relief in place where another battalion would come in and take over which was always a pain because literally it'd be hot bedding and you know because everything's got to carry on if you've got two weeks late you would leave two

weeks earlier so you got out of that rip so all of a sudden there was a credibility the first killer that tour i got this two weeks leave all that sort of stuff and the fact that it's happened but what it was was i felt at that stage i couldn't say i didn't like it i couldn't actually say well i don't want to do that again because there was this whole sort of machine you know this bravado thing that goes on and and and actually it wasn't it wasn't until I joined the regiment, quite early on, actually, when I was there, when I was still a trooper, and we'd done a job in Southeast Asia,

and there was a couple of guys who'd been in the regiment literally 16, yeah, 16 years. And they were going, oh, don't want to do that again. That was a bit airy, you know, or, you know, it's another, you know, fruity. They'd go, oh, it was a bit fruity. And then all of a sudden I realized it was all right to be, you know,

not too worried, you know, about not, not showing that you're worried about these sorts of things. But at that stage, you know, I, so I just went with the flow really.

And cause everybody wanted to know what went on and, you know, who was screaming, who wasn't and, you know, all that sort of stuff. So I just went on with it. So that was a weird sort of, a weird thing.

But looking back, well, again, because just a bunch of young men, really. One of the many weird things, I think, about being in the army is you can end up, you can end up having a firefight on a civilian street in your home country, the UK. Or your peers at that time in the on the other side of the world in the south atlantic and the forklifts amidst the you know snowy peaks or in

the desert i mean when you were that young did you just think i'm just go where our majesty sends yeah yeah yeah it wasn't do you know what it wasn't it nothing to do with uh you know queen country and all that sort of stuff i basically basically always looked at it as a mutual contract. So I joined the army, they get out of Borgstor. Again, I thought they ripped me off because I thought you just signed up for three years at that stage. But if you joined the Junior Leaders Battalion,

they wanted you for six years because they trained you for a year and they wanted to get that return out of you. So I'm thinking, right, they're going to rip me off here. But it became apparent during that time at IDLB that what it is, is a mutual contract. This is what they're giving me. And it's everything from, you know, sort of, you know, pay to what I didn't realise at that stage, even pastoral care in that way of, of looking after you, you know, you've got like a platoon sergeant hollering and shouting at you all day when you're doing your training.

And then at night, he's got you all laid out on the bed because he wants to check your feet and make sure your feet are all right. You know, no one's checked my feet before. You know, that's sort of, and all of a sudden there's this sort of, you know, this sort of care. So you get all of the, all of this stuff and even a bed space, you know,

you pay for your bed space, you do all that, you know, food and accommodation, that's mine. You know, and so he gave me that stuff. And then, but this is what they want me to do, so, and I thought, well, it's a, you know, it's a fair, as far as I was concerned, it was a fair contract, I thought it was all right, and, and even, you know, time in a regiment was, well, you know, which is the big sort of, you know, the, the mantra there, well, you know, lads, nobody's making you stay, if you don't want to stay here, you can leave, you know, it's okay, because there's thousands of people want to take your place, it's making you stay. If you don't want to stay here, you can leave. You know, it's okay. Because there's thousands of people who want to take your place.

It's all right. So, yeah, it's a mutual contract. God knows how many people tried to join the SAS after you published your books. But your description of selection... It went on, yeah. ...became sort of legendary. And, I mean, how hard was that looking back?

How old were you when you decided to go for special forces? I was 24. And I actually, looking back how old were you when you decided to go for special i was uh 24 and and i actually uh looking back a bit too young a bit too cocky actually it yeah it was 24 and it's but basically during the infantry i'd done all of the the stuff if you like well what will you do as an infantry so you know that was quite uh by then i was 24 year old platoon sergeant which was was sort of young. So I'd done all of the tactical courses and distinctions on this and, you know, A grades on this, that and the other. And so I'd been, that's it, I think probably promoted above my ability

because I just didn't have the experience. So I was 24 years old, platoon sergeant, and I'd become what is known as, and I didn't realise at the time it's called a pinnacle soldier where basically you've done it and you think well what's next you know so and like everybody else you know I was all full of all of the horror stories of selection from people nine out of ten times people who failed it and then come back and obviously they've exaggerated it to to to sort of give them a reason why that why. So I thought, well, why not give it a go? Why not give it a go?

And there was one person in particular who went for selection, who got in, and we was all absolutely amazed. And we thought, well, there's a chance for all of us. You know, this guy got in. There's a chance for all of us. So, yeah, I went a bit too sort of cocky and slightly over, overconfident. So I was only 24 years old and already achieved quite a lot in the infantry. And did you get in first time?

No, I didn't know. Um, uh, and it was the cockiness that done it. I, the, the selection is just that very first month of the, of the process, which is about a seven month process. So the second to last day is a thing called sketch map, which is about a seven month process so the second to last day is a thing called sketch map which is about a 35 kilometer tab so that first month is all of the things we think of you know black mountains brecon beacons you know we have a bergen a rucksack and a work called bergen up and down the mountains um map reading during sketch map i took a what i thought was going to

be a shortcut through a fire break. And it wasn't. It was a very long cut because they chopped the trees and all the trees were in the fire break. So I landed up at night sort of climbing through to try and make the distance. So that was it. You know, my timings were rubbish. So, you know, the second to last day of that first month, I totally cocked it up. You go for your interview with a training major. And then what they'll do is they will invite you back.

You only got two goes at selection because if you continue to apply and fail, you're taking the place of someone, you know, of a candidate who might actually get in. So you can get invited back for a second selection. And that's normally people who they feel that their timings were good but they got an injury you know they broke something somebody like me when I think

okay right well again he's you know he's he cocked up and so far the timings have been okay so therefore I was invited back so when I was I got a place because normally you have to wait about 18 months I got a place straight into the next selection, which was a winter one. And again, all the horror stories about the winter selections, obviously because of the weather and the snow. But actually, I found the winter one better than the summer one because even the racing snakes can't get through the snow. You know, you're three foot of snow.

Everybody's doing the same thing, trying to fight through it. So I finally got through that winter selection and, you know, very, very happy. Out of the numbers, it's normally about sort of maximum 220 on the selection that first month. And that's purely for health and safety reasons, really. But, you know, that amount of people on on the uh on the hills and um from my selection there was from that first month there was 24 of us left so i was you know very happy to be part of that 24 must be a hell of a thing getting that well what is it about then letter phone call how did how did you how do you get told that you've you've passed into the sas well do you know what it's it's it's really really weird because it is not a big um uh it's a bit of anti-climax really because

obviously you do that that that first month you understand you've got in so once you've done that endurance which is this 62 kilometer uh thing you're getting endurance you've got your watch you know your timings you know you say right say, right, I've cracked it, I've cracked it. So you know, that's okay. Because the next bit isn't so much about the sort of the, if you like, you know, the determination and the physical fitness and the stamina, all those things. It's about aptitude, wherever you can get in. And the freaky thing about it, you know, you'll go go to you spend a month in the jungle doing um uh the uh you know learning how to work as a as a small you know four to six man uh patrol in a jungle you're in there for 30 days and it's all live ammunition all that sort of stuff there has

been casualties over the years that you know people have been killed during that that training process but you're never told how good or bad you're doing because it's all about your effort and literally after that that jungle phase i thought i'd failed i thought that was it so uh and you didn't know until you got back to the uk so we got back to hereford which is you know the headquarters special air service and they say right we're all in this lecture room he said right the following people stand up so the lads who stood up i'm looking at them thinking right they've passed. And then they was told to go.

So it was eight of us that were still sitting down. And I think, okay, right, well, I've passed that bit. And literally went, okay, you've passed. You know, what we're on to now is close court battle training. So you get the weekend off, great. And then you start on that. And it's literally at the end of this process as it as it whittles down with these different sort of things you've got to do we all turned up at the rsm's office to go and

meet the commanding officer because we know we're getting badged but again because we all come from different regiments you know for a regimental start major you stand to attention but everything's so sort of casual we didn't know whether you stand to attention you know nobody knew so it was all a bit sort of weird and basically so he said right you're going to go and see and co is he's going to badger and um uh well that's it and okay so we went to the co's office door was opened and again we didn't know whether he had a marching walk it nobody knew you know it was really really weird and he just had these pile of berries, you know, the beige berries.

But they're, anybody sort of ex-military, no, they were Kangolgs. And they're like, these things are, you know, as big as sort of double duvets. Nobody wears a Kangol berry, you know, because we've already got our berries from a place called Victor's beforehand. But he got these berries out

and he just threw them as Fisbys. And he said, right, remember, it's harder to keep than to get and um you know enjoy going to squadrons and that was it and we sort of all shuffled out and you know was was you know there was guys from the squadrons then who were there ready to meet us just to take us up to the what we call the interest rooms you know the offices uh and you just join your squadrons it was really really weird really weird is it very. Is it very different? Is it a different kind of soldiering? I mean,

you're mentioning, of course, less marching and saluting and all that. I mean, is it, is it, is it just very different to any other? Yes,

it is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it seems casual because, you know, in some cases for months and months,

you, you, you won't be wearing uniform, you know, around Hereford, depending what you're doing. Certainly if you're on the counterterrorism team, there's no uniforms,

you know, and, you know, people walking around with long hair and beards and you know doing different jobs here and there um but it what it's all about is self-discipline so uh say a squadron sergeant major same as any squadron major in in the army go right he'll say right mate what i want you to do is this can you do that for me? What he's telling you is you will go from here to go there and that is what you'll do. He's telling you that, but it's in a different way. And you go, yeah, okay. And off you go. So it's the discipline is a self-discipline. And that's why, for instance, you know, if you got done drink driving,

you get thrown out after you'd return to unit because the argument is well you haven't got the self-discipline to control yourself when you're out so if you get caught drunk you know drunk driving that's that's a lack of self-discipline so what happens it was all about it could be very very casual you know nobody wore rank and you know and everybody called everybody by christian names um you'd call you well, basically you'd call the squadron commander, who was a major, and the command officer, who was a lieutenant colonel, you'd call them boss. Sometimes you'd call, if you had a troop commander who was a captain, sometimes you'd call him boss, sometimes you wouldn't, it all depends what you wanted.

And that was it. But if, you the if if the troop sergeant's going right lads what i want you to do is go down you know be there for nine o'clock well you're there well in fact army time you're there for five to nine and the argument is if you're not there well you don't want to be here so leave similar to that you know so it for me i thought it's fantastic because there was all that other stuff was out of the way. You know, if you like the traditional military sort of discipline. And in a way that, you know, it was up to yourself. There wasn't even any set physical training.

Because the argument is if you can't perform on the day, that's a lack of self-discipline because you haven't been training. So you're out. Simple as that. And then how long were you in the SAS before the first Gulf War? I was in seven, seven years, seven a bit years. Because other ranks, officers would used to rotate through, right? But other ranks could stay in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. So what happens is, is officers do selection.

And then normally at that stage, they're probably, you know, lieutenants or captains. And so they do selection and they're normally at that that stage they're probably you know lieutenants or captains and so they do selection like anybody else actually they have a harder selection because they have a thing called officers week where they're sort of quite sort of put under pressure and then they become a troop commander four troops in each squadron and you know there's never a squadron that's got four troop commanders because of the selection process but basically troop commander comes in is he's sort of you know the troop commander the officer but actually what he's there for he's not there to command a troop on operations because he hasn't got what are called basic patrol skills to go on the ground but you don't need troop commanders what you desperately need is the next level up,

which are squadron commanders, which are the majors. So in effect, troop commanders are on selection again because it's the troop seniors, the senior NCOs, the sergeants and staff sergeants within the troops to show them how it works. Not only what you can do, but actually just as important, what you can't do. And it's their job to if you like

train them up because once they finish their three-year tour they'll go back to their their their respective units but there'll be another selection process that'll go on so director of special forces will go okay right who out of this group do we then want coming back as a as a as a as a squadron commander and there's a form of selection. So troop seniors are involved, the officer corps, especially air service are involved. And it's not total democracy, but there's a democracy in it

because the argument is, if you get a bad squadron commander, well, that's all your fault because you didn't show them and guide them and coach them to be one. So it really works quite well. But so if you like the continuity, the senior NCOs, because what happens is you do a three-year tour, or you do a year promotion,

three-year tour, and then you literally get a little slip of yellow paper asking you whether you want to do another three-year tour, which you tick, of course, yes, they'll tick yes. Then after that, there's a decision made whether you'll become what's called permanent carder so then you're a member fully of the special air service as opposed to having your shadow rank with your old regiment because of that six-year point it might go well no we don't want you as permanent carder so um so for the if you like the the troops that's quite a major major point to become permanent carder and and by then, again, when you join, you lose all your ranks. I become a trooper, you know, a private soldier.

And by then, I was at seven-year point before the golf started. I was the troop sergeant, what I call the troop senior. But were you busy? Because people now, SF hasn't been busy ever since the fall of the Twin Towers and the war on terror, quote unquote. But were you busy back when you were back at Hereford? Yeah, it's basically the, I'm trying to remember the term now, it's the maintenance of UK's interests overseas, basically. So there's two operational cycles and one training cycle. cycles and one training cycle so you have a train an operational cycle which will be the counter-terrorism team which is you know anything between six and nine months you're based in

hereford you're on a half hour standby or a three hour standby and you're training every day you're training um uh you know doing all that stuff that you see on film and tv that sort of thing um ops two is where you do one of two things, or three things really, you go out and you go and fight someone's conflict, you know, in effect what happens is the British government go, right, well come out and we'll help you with that, or you go out and you train the indigenous folks to go and fight that conflict, or you go out and you train them but then you lead them in that in that in that um in that conflict so looking back on it now there's certainly the the 80s and the early 90s were quite a golden sort of era for those sort of operations um so uh uh you know spent a lot of

time in in in uh in africa and and, learned Swahili, which nobody needed because everybody spoke, you know, Portuguese, French or English. Everybody supported Manchester United. So there was this mutual sort of, you know, just if you didn't understand, you go Manchester United and they're off. Colombia, we got involved in the what was called First Strike at that stage, which was the narcotics war in Colombia. So I done a couple of tours down there, which was great. Obviously, the Middle East, there's long-running agreements with Middle Eastern countries where teams go off. They're called team jobs, where you go off and you'll do team jobs with them.

And Southeast Asia. So I was quite lucky in that sort of time to be operating in different continents. So for me, it was great. You know, again, young squaddy, first time going to the Middle East was amazing. You know, never been there before. You know, couldn't believe I was actually there. And then sort of become a troop sergeant and you're back there again for something. You figure, all right, we've got another four months here sort of thing.

And then, but was there always an interest in a big shooting war did that did that feel you had you'd done it done a lot by that stage did yeah is that something you think about you think yeah yeah people do yeah conventional war yeah and everything and and certainly you know the last one was the the the falklands campaign um and And so you'd landed up getting involved in these sort of, you know, these team jobs. And so certainly when the Gulf come up, there was this feeling of all of a sudden, all that stuff that you know,

you know, calling in air support, calling in artillery, all these things, even the C-130 gunships, you know, all these sort of things. All the stuff that you have to do as part of what you need to know, you know, in case there's a major conflict. All of a sudden we think, well, actually, we might be able to do that. You know, calling in fast jets, calling in the C-130 gunships,

all that sort of stuff. So there was a sense of excitement about that. Apart from me, because we were on the counter-terrorism team at that time. So we thought we were going to, B Squadron thought we were gonna miss it um the the first gulf war and it was the commanding officer at the time who moved the squadrons forward and g squadron took over early um because we literally everybody thought we're gonna be well this war carry on for like 18 months two years so let's get the changeover done, get everybody out there, get everything set up so we can sort of crack on. So he was looking for quite a long war in a traditional sense.

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the international coalition to fracture as arab states could not fight on the same side israel and that means caning around the desert looking for these things and that goes right back to the earliest days the ss like you couldn't have made up a more perfect absolutely it was it was incredible it was all of a sudden you know all of the you know what they called it you know the pinkies the you know the land rovers all that sort of stuff was returning you know obviously different weaponry and and and better land rovers but yeah all that stuff was was was sort of coming back and people loading up um because literally it was sort of well certainly and people loading up. Because literally it was sort of, well, certainly the A&D squadrons, basically they were splitting in half squadron groups

and then just like literally caning it to the border, crossing the border before the ground war started and get out in the desert, operate on their own and looking for these scuds. And at that time we were training and doing the planning, preparing for all of the if you like the traditional things uh you know special forces get involved with you know disruptions of communications uh supply lines um forward information there's the thing uh it's

thing called prime target assassination which is basically ieds the thing that they've been killing uh sort of troops in iraq and afghan. So the laying of IEDs, all that sort of stuff. And literally when the Scud started firing, everything was stopped. And the whole regiment's emphasis was about stopping Scud's landing in Israel. And it had to be done within two weeks or 14 days because the Israelis at one stage of the israeli is offensive air force was sort of orbiting around the mediterranean ready to attack iraq because of these scuds were landing in you know sovereign soil so there was a deal that was struck with the israelis and george bush senior who said look within two weeks if the Scuds are still firing,

the Israelis said, look, we're going to attack. It's as simple as that, and we'll do it on our own terms. So that's why everything changed, and it was all about just stopping the Scuds. So even our patrol, we're going out on foot. We had to take 14 days of everything with us because we're going to be out there no matter what because it was all about stopping Scud. And was that incredible?

You were leader of that patrol. That must have been, that's the dream job. It is. is do you know it was all of a sudden it was it was like you know it's well number one really sort of you know happy that we were there on you know on this sort of conventional war sort of thing and then all of a sudden you're getting this this classic sort of you know a special forces job so we're actually in that time there was plans to i was a troop sergeant of the air assault troop in b squad so we were gonna at one stage before it all stopped we were looking at doing a static line jump about two hours before the air war started to try and destroy two electricity turbines and because the airplanes thought they couldn't destroy them so we were

getting ready for that and doing a static jump at 400 feet which isn't a good thing because you know you never use reserves so i said for a joke we won't be needing reserves then they went yeah that's right you don't we're going to jump at 400 cheers lads so all that sort of changed and it was all about this scud thing and it was there was this sense of of excitement without a doubt you know because everybody was out there this big thing going on you know with like you know like dozens of b-52s flying over your head and all that sort of stuff going on you thought well actually yeah a big conventional war on that operation did did everything did everything go wrong um it could go wrong yeah but basically initially yeah i think

that we the the problem uh we had was the lack of information and the lack of kit. But lack of information isn't that major problem purely because you wouldn't need special forces because the primary task of SF is to get information for the main field army. So we all think it's stuff going on, but that's the primary task. So a lot of the times you're going out to get information uh for other sort of organizations so the lack of information wasn't unusual because that's part and parcel of it but the the lack of kit never experienced before because you know sort of you know special forces group getting all the gear all the sort of you know all the party gear but uh and i certainly didn't realize it at the time but for the first time ever in in the in the regiment's history there was three squadrons concentrating on the same operation so

you had g squadron back in the uk doing the counter-terrorism um uh commitment all three squadrons now in saudi doing the same job so we had the you know we had shortages of simple things like claymore mines and even pistols which is the primary weapon of the special forces so all of a sudden there was this this shortage so we you know we made up the you know the the sbs had loads of uh gear that we went and go and see these lads they gave us some gear we made our own claymores that sort of thing again going back to that argument well you know it's pointless arguing about it you know and if you don't like it, well, after this, you can always get out. So we made our own claymores, that sort of stuff.

And even getting out there, we were going to the northwest of Baghdad to find a main supply route, which isn't a road. It's a track system from Baghdad going northwest towards Syria. So the idea was that, or the assumption was that this fiber optic cable would run along the MSR purely because of normal sort of maintenance and administration. So it's easier for them to get to. So get out there because nobody knew where it was, find it and then destroy it because that was, you know, part of the system that was sending the information of where

and when for the scuds to fire because these people you know they just don't rock up and then fire it you know there's a surveyor who does these coordinates all that sort of stuff so cut that line of communication which is a classic sf task well we didn't know where it was we didn't know what to do when we found it you know headbutt it blow it up you know we didn't know so we we were going to we're going to put small um charges along the along the cable because they're quite easy to repair so we have them at staggered timings as we're going on and lay ids initially quite close so as as as as the Iraqi military came down to repair we'd probably kill or wound them uh on on the site on the on the demolition site and then just move them out more and more so it just slows them down for when they want to

repair this cut so that was the plan um we got up there uh the anti-aircraft cover was far more than the plan as anticipated which affected affected us quite badly later on. And also there was two brigades coming from the northwest, coming down to the southeast of Baghdad of mechanized Iraqis who were going down south to reinforce Kuwait, because obviously it was very clear there would be that invasion. So all of a sudden we had lots of mechanized vehicles up and down this this this track initially it didn't worry us because it's our biggest weapon on the ground when you're doing those jobs aren't the weapons you've got you know you had assault rifles and 66s these

disposable rockets um it's concealment so hide up in the daytime get out at night and try and find it this cable so initially uh uh you know, these things happen, but you've just got to get on with it because you're there anyway. It's not a point, you know, you're not going to be sitting down having a moan about it. Big problem really came when we sent our SIP rep out a situation report. So it's basically where we are, what we're doing, what we're going to do. They just want to know you exist.

And we send them out through burst energy, hitting satellites, all this sort of stuff. So you encrypt it all you press the button and there's this little two second burst of energy that sends your encrypted message off and every time we pressed it it went off but it was corrupt so you don't have antenna sticking up you do antenna theory where you work out uh where you are well the signal squadron works out where you are uh and then you lay out your antenna on the ground, the signal squadron works out where you are and then you lay out your antenna on the ground and you can bury it so nobody can see it. So you try to bang it out again,

check the antenna theory, that was okay. And hit again, we weren't getting any reply. So it was a corrupted message. So back in Saudi, as far as they were concerned, they haven't heard from our call sign, Bravo 2-0. So that was the first of our problems, but it didn't really, it doesn't stop you doing from what you're doing.

It just means your sit reps not getting through really. And it was a later date what we found, again, because of this big move from Hereford where the signal squadrons are and they work out on all their antennae. They took all their technology with them. And what've done they gave us the southern footprint for the antenna theory and it works on the a and d levers and the ionosphere and you know at different times of day where you can bounce your signal along the ionosphere so they gave us the southern footprint

around kuwait as opposed to the northern footprint which was northwest of Baghdad and that's why we we didn't get any uh sit reps through which was the beginning of the problems for us but also back in Saudi as well because they weren't getting hold of us and eventually you got you got spotted during the the uh the first night what you do you're trying to find a place called an lup a lie up point so you um uh the the ground one of the bits of information was right was the the uh the undulate uh undulating ground was 14 meters of undulating ground uh on on average of of every nine kilometers so we knew there was little dips in the ground that we we could we could get in again hide up in the daytime and get out at night so found an lup which was basically an old watershed just a small sort of waddy uh dip in the ground near the msr um what you do you just don't sort of you know

rock up there and then sit down you have to take out a clearing patrol to make sure that you know i don't know when you pop right up in the morning there's not a tesco's there or whatever you know so you've got to get out and do your clearing patrols. So I took a four-man patrol out and we started to clear. It was clear we were on top of the MSR because you've got all these mechanized vehicles coming backwards and forwards on it. So we crossed the MSR, eventually got it through. There was some habitation, which is fine. You know, there's, you know, like compounds, you know, the brick brick compounds where you know the the farmers were living um and then about uh about 350 400 meters away there was a a set of s60 anti-aircraft guns

but for us that that wasn't a problem at that stage because uh they're there they were there protecting giving air cover and the air war hadn't started yet but they were giving air cover to the mechanized brigades that were coming down from the northwest and and they won't send out clearing patrols you know they'll be sitting there hopefully just making tea watching all these these these track vehicles come past so that was all good got back so we got into our lup uh and we live on what's called hard routine so there's you know there's no sleeping bags there's no smoking there's no cooking so basically all your kits on you all the time. And, you know, normal infantry soldiers, you know,

your weapon's never than an arm length away from your body. So you sleep with everything. So you just sort of just sit there basically and go asleep. And then during the night it was okay. You know, you've got a stag system where you've got, you know, people on sentry duties, all that sort of stuff. And then that morning start trying to send out the sit rep it didn't happen but that's fine that night we're going to get out and and

look seriously for this this um uh fiber optic cable and it was about sort of late afternoon and we heard goats on our side of the the msr because obviously there had to be our side because you've got these track vehicles going going past past, you know, blocking out the noise on the other side. And at first that was all right. You know, you hear the goats and then this young kid shouting and hollering, you know, what we presume was the goats, the lead goat had a little bell. So he's come up the top of our LUP and he's sort of looking down at us. We're looking at him, more goats came out and the goats are looking at us. And then we heard this kid shouting at the goats to move them along so then he you know from our perspective he started

to get bigger and bigger um as he moved the the top of the lip of the uh of the waddy and uh he saw us eight weapons pointed at him and quite rightly he ran uh and he ran towards the msr and the direction of the s60 guns so there was one of the guys at that stage, Vince, who was close he tried to scramble up to get hold of him but he was too slow this kid had gone so we had to take it as a, well we were compromised

and even if we weren't we had to take it as one so the idea was to, we had about an hour about an hour of light before it got dark Do you ever wonder what would have happened if he vince had grabbed the kid yeah yeah well it's it's yeah it's it's a question that's always asked so basically we would have got him we would have kept him with us we would have strapped him up shut him up and take this with us because part of the planning

and preparation was to go back to an emergency RV where in theory a helicopter will turn up at 3.30 at this this emergency RV we'll get on it and we'll move along the MSR to try and find another place to go and do yeah again because we're out there this 14 day thing we had to stay out try and find it and then we would just leave and go so it'd be far from home he would be traumatized all right but actually he'd be he'd be alive you know because there's a war on um so that's what we would have done and um and and even you know the you know there's always been the debate well would you kill him and all that well actually there's no reason to it because what happens if you for instance you go near that compound that i spoke about the you know the farmer's compound if there

was a dog that was coming out and he was barking, all that sort of stuff, basically you killed a dog. But you're not going to leave the dog there because in the morning, the locals look up, someone's killed a dog, there's something up. Not that it's an SF patrol, but something's up. So what you do is then you take the dog with you, and we have bin liners for that sort of thing. Take the dog, take all the blood, all the sand, and you'd have to carry him, literally carry a dead weight because everything that you have, you take back with you. You never leave, you know, you never bury anything. We even defecate in plastic bags, urinate in, you know, little sort of five litre jerry cans because, you know, never leave anything in an LUP. You might have to go back there again. So you have to carry everything.

So, you know, it was pointless, you know, if we got him, it'd be pointless killing the boy because someone would have to carry him. It sounds quite sort of, you know, clear cut, but it is. But it is. It's very clear cut. So, yeah, just drag him along, let him go. You had an hour to get away. Yeah. So the idea was to try and make some distance uh before it got dark uh and make it to

this this emergency uh pickup point where this helicopter uh would be there it was about half three in the morning so uh and even that we you know the fact is that what you'd have to do is grab hold of the the the load master on the back of the chinook and just hold him so the pilot wouldn't take off because they don't want to be there as well you know so it's then get everybody on board and then fly off and explain what you want done so we're off to this this arv and it was that when we were sort of if you like heading south um towards saudi uh that we started here track vehicles and it was clear what would happen is that this boy had gone off to the the guns or he might have stopped one of these these vehicles so it's saying well there's, well, there's white guys down in this dip.

So there was a couple of track vehicles going down. They've got a lot of old Russian armour personnel carriers. So there's not a lot you can do, quite frankly, apart from staying on your ground, because you're in the middle of nowhere. It's not a desert, as in, you know, it's quite rocky and shaly. It's pointless running because you just die out of breath. um what you have to do is is literally which is the order stand your ground so like any sort of ambush the only thing you've got to do is turn towards it

and um uh and not initially go for it just see what happens you know we can hear the vehicles we don't know if they're going to crest the hill or not so let's just wait and see what happens um but they did so uh two vehicles and a couple of like trucks you know soft skin uh vehicles came over a lad called bob uh initiated the contact with uh with uh with his 66 and so we're just cracking them off really um and getting some rounds down they stopped um uh the vehicle stopped and they've got they got 7.62 um uh guns on on the uh bmps but the lads in there were clearly flapping because they don't know what's going on so rounds are going everywhere which is good for us and the only thing is then is you drop your gear you drop your bergen bergens are off by then you still got your belt kit on and uh just go for it and the exactly same would you do in any any ambush and the idea is that if if everybody's dead nobody would know that it was it was being a major cock

up anyway but the ones who got through um fine and then we'd start moving on because there's nothing else you can do everyone got through we used almost all of our in the trucks we use you know white foster yeah basically loads of white foster all that sort of stuff because it's a burning agent so not only covered us but you know in the vehicles and all that that sort of you know there's a couple of lads in the back of these trucks so basically what it is on on those time as a commander, there's a thing called command and control. So basically you can give the command a stand of ground. Everybody will do that, going back to this self-discipline.

Whether they agree with it or not, they'll do it because they know that if you then start, there's no time to argue anyway, but if you then start having doubts, the integrity of the patrol's lost, so you lose your, if you like, the little firepower that you've got to crack on so everybody get on with it you can argue about it later on so off you go so we used up all the white fox but all these bits and pieces to get through so the command is then go and then in the films you'll see people like commanding it doesn't happen you just people know what they've got to do you can shout and holler that you want to do something they're not listening because everything narrows down and they're just getting on with they

know what they've got to do and they just go on so the big thing afterwards is control trying to get whoever's there back together so you can scroll off so everybody lands up in their own little worlds quite frankly rather than you know what you see in the films it's just getting on with it um what we we done you know you know we're going to stay there and and and sort of you know, what you see in the films. It's just getting on with it. What we've done, you know, we're going to stay there and sort of, you know, crow over it because, you know, we just wanted to use the confusion. So basically, it was clear now we're going to get followed up. We're not going to make it to the ERV.

So we have another system of being rescued. And that's going to what's called a war RV. And a war RV normally would be the American or the British embassy in the nearest country of safety. And ironically, at that stage, it was Syria. It was just a couple of hundred kilometers away. So the idea is then you have these statements that you make um uh you know a series of sentences so you don't knock on the door emcees they won't let you in so you have to jump you know jump the wall hug a tree make sure it show you you're not armed and just keep shouting out these these these

proof statements and eventually you'll you know you'll go through the system so it was clear we're not going to make the erv because they'll just follow us up so we put in we boxed it so we went south and then boxed around then headed literally just on the bearing of northwest northwest going towards the um the border and and then the air war started so there was a there was a there was a an air base I don't know 40 50 kilometers away called t1 technically called t1 within within the you know the planning packs so there was loads of jets screaming off you could hear all jets going over all over over the place we're not too sure if they were iraqi or allied forces um and then now you'll get the you know the distant bombings of of t1 and what happened is this guy one of the guys vince uh was injured he wasn't shot but what did what happened again because it was very rocky it's like really a bit of a gammy leg actually it

was all sort of mangled up um you know because of all the running and running around so what i've done is put a guy out in front and again we only had uh one night viewing aid how about that it's incredible because that's all we could get our hands on. One night viewing aid, put a scout out, night viewing aid, put another guy out to cover him and then this guy Vince and then me. with Vince because he was incredibly slow. And you've got to travel at the speed of the slowest, of course. So there was aircraft coming from the west, coming over. Obviously, we can't see it. We can just hear these fast jets coming over.

So what I decided to do was get on what's called a TACP, which is a small tactical radio that talks to aircraft, international frequencies. So what you do is attack but you pull a pin press the presser and you get on on the air and you can talk to you know the the the fast jets so i told vince say look we're going to try attack the air because we've definitely we got troubles um uh so they knew that we were number one we're still alive because they hadn't had a sitrep so uh got on the tackberry you know uh uh any call sign you know uh this is brother two, we're still alive because they hadn't had a sitrep. So got on the tack, Brie, you know, any call sign, you know, this is Bravo 2-0, we're a ground call sign over.

Didn't get any reply. And then eventually got an American voice coming over, go, Roger that, Bravo 2-0, Roger that, Bravo 2-0, and then sort of faded, you know, as he shot off. So it's almost a line of sight thing with the tack, Brie. And it was then they realized that Vince had carried on and where literally you know you can't you know there's no ambient light so Vince had gone he was probably about you know 50 60 meters ahead the other two

in front don't know but we were now split up and basically I didn't make sure that he understood what was going on so at that, you're in two groups, you know, and it was not a lot you can do about it. Everybody knew where they were going. Everybody knew what was expected of them, you know, get to the border, we're going to the war RV. So now there was two groups, because you're not going to shout out, you're not going to use white light, you're not going to do that, because you don't know who's about. So off we went in two groups towards the Syrian borderrian border literally due you know northwest just on on compass bearing and then we started having trouble with the weather uh we had snow

first it started as rain then it was sleep then it turned into snow and obviously in the south what was happening there was all the rain that was that was sort of affecting this big mechanized attack on on kuwait we had we had snow coming down and uh bob bob consiglio who was the one who initiated the contact with the 66 he started to go down with hyperthermia basically what we we done we got into what was it the the tank the tank berms you know where they dig out uh an area so a tank can go in so it's just just the whole overwoods. And obviously that was facing Iran because this war that had been fine. So we got in one of them. And again, it's it's that that that group decision to say, right. What we've got to do is get a flame going.

We've got to get you know, we've got we've got to get some we've got to get a brew down his neck. We've got to start warming him up because otherwise we're going to lose him because he was going down so it's not as if myself as the commander go right this is what we're going to do it doesn't work like that you know because everybody's got to say so and say right this is what we need to do are we going to do it and they went yeah of course they're going to do it so we dug out and we got a brew going for him which was breaking all of what called sop standing up rating procedures so uh we got a brew on uh so there's white light obviously we're covering up but then we got some you always on

your on your kit you've always got 24 hours of food you know emergency sort of food so uh loads of hot chocolate getting loads of hot chocolate down him you know trying to get him warmed up exchanging body heat all that sort of stuff but the fact is we still had to move. So we got him warmed up. It was okay to move. And then we started to get on because we just had to make distance before first light. And so we then found a, basically, you know, a depression in the ground,

which was a dried up stream. Obviously, by now, it's starting to fill up a bit. The ice had melted during sorry the snow started to melt um uh during the daytime and it was clear bob ain't you know bob ain't gonna make it so we're trying to keep him warm and what i decided to do then was that we could see a metal road a tarmac road a couple of kilometers away uh that was heading northwest you know and there's trucks coming backwards and forwards uh i'm always expecting that part of the world a couple of kilometers away uh that was heading northwest you know and there's trucks coming backwards and forwards uh i'm always expecting that part of the world a lot of technicals you know like flatbed trucks all that sort of stuff and so i said right we're gonna do we're gonna

after nick a vigor we've got to make the we've got to make the border we've got to get over into syria because otherwise bob's gonna go down and so we wait until last night myself and bob took off our belt kit, weapons and all that. I held him. And then we saw some headlights, the first set of headlights that actually came from the way that we wanted to go, northwest, and sort of, you know, waving him down with a torch. So, but instead of like this flatbed or, you know,

four-wheel drive that we was after, because then we could go cross country. It was an old 1950s american taxi um crack windscreen you know the arab was driving in arab dress there was two militia in the back which was a father and son group and then so soon as it stopped obviously the rest of the lads are weapons getting them out so the two militia in the back they were they were going ballistic they're going like we're christians we're christians he's an arab kill him kill him so maybe we just want the taxi so we got them out and got around but we were committed to the road so and we started to make distance it was great getting the heater on and all that sort of stuff it was good so we got

to the 11 kilometer point towards syria so we had about 11 kilometres to go before we hit the border. We clearly weren't going to drive over the border. We would have jumped out and then started to negotiate that night because we wanted to get over the border before first light because we don't want to get stuck around that area. But we got caught in a vehicle checkpoint, lots of trucks, all that normal stuff. And then lads started, Iraqis were just walking down, not weapons in the shoulder sort of thing, all that normal stuff. And then lads started, Iraqis were just walking down,

you know, not weapons in the shoulder sort of thing, all nervous, but they're just walking down, you know, checking cars and all that. So what we had to do was initiate the contact to get out because as soon as they come down to us, then it would be a contact. And literally, again, in the films, there's all these great plans.

It's not, it's like, get out, go left left hit that wall and then start heading northwest and just go for it use the confusion and then just keep together and we just go for it and that's what we've done so we've just got loads of rounds down went left start to move uh and then lots of firing coming from the roads but again they're shooting the shot everybody's just laying down loads of fire so what happened from that point was was that we then uh had about 11 k's to go and we landed up fighting to the border uh obviously there's lots more you know iraqis up near the border they'll be aware what's going on as soon as that initial contact happened so we had a lot of stuff um uh going on by now it was all dark we're out of the way of the road we're out of that and literally as we were moving on these contacts

would happen um and uh you know we'd land up getting all split up bogman sigler got shot i don't know it's about the third third contact so basically he had a minimi which was a it's a light machine gun so uh he had about i don't know probably about 20 rounds left so what you do put the gun up in front so as you're moving so if anything happens all he does is just get that fire down it gives people time to move out and they get some fire down so basically bob was up front contact happened up front so he started to um uh the fire rounds um and i'm a shot uh so so he went down then groups went left and right so uh we landed up in two groups of two by then i then moved moved along with with a new zealander um uh and then the other two groups they were moving towards more towards the euphrates

river we were going left as we split after that big contact and went for a series of contacts where we came up on a rise. And as we came over the rise, then they opened up. He went down. I thought he was dead. He actually wasn't. Later on, I found out that he was wounded. He went down. So I'm trying to look.

It's so dark. You can't see him. So he's down. So I just carried on he was wounded. He went down. So I'm trying to, you know, look, it's so dark, you can't see him. So he's down. So I just carried on. I went right and went round. Can hear the other contacts going off to the right with the other two lads, you know, hundreds of metres away. They were well down by the Euphrates. And I got about two metres from the border before first light.

So what I decided to do was just come back a little bit into Iraq and find somewhere to hide. Because what I didn't want, it's a political border. It's not a social border. There was a town called Al-Qaim which straddled the border. So it's not as if you jump over the border and everything's good. So I thought, right, well, I don't want to get, I didn't physically know what the border was, whether it was barbed wire, you know, I don't know,

serial weapons, careful drivers or whatever. I didn't know. And at that stage, during the planning and preparation, we were told that the CIA will be along the border to take people like us and down pilots to Ratlanfru to get them to the embassies in Syria. So we asked, well, how do we identify the CIA operator who's on the other side of the border? And what they said was that it would be easy because as you go through the towns, if there's a white sheet hanging out the window, that's where it'd be. So I thought we'd give that one a miss and just do it ourselves and go.

So I needed all that night to make distance from the border. So I land up in a drainage culvert on the road, which fed the fields from Euphrates. So there was these diesel engines that would suck up the water from Euphrates, bringing it up to the high ground, and then it would filter down into the fields from Euphrates. So there was these diesel engines that would suck up the water from Euphrates, bring it up to the high ground, and then it would filter down into the fields because it was all irrigated, both sides of the Euphrates.

So I decided to stay there until last light. And then I would have all night to negotiate the border and make as much distance as possible, really. And then it was that day that you got a call? Yeah. Basically, by then, I didn't have a weapon. It was all, you know, points against the weapons.

The ammunition is not compatible with the AK systems there, which was 7.62 short. We're firing 5.56. So you can tell the signatures of the weapons. So during the day, I'm hiding there in the culvert, and I could hear some 556 going off actually short burst 556 you know a couple of hundred meters away towards euphrates so i thought well there's still some other people that that are alive uh lots of shouting in the fields lots

of school kids all that sort of stuff going on vehicles crossing the culvert and i was feeling quite confident and all right actually until later on in the afternoon where another couple of vehicles came over land cruiser type vehicles and this time they stopped loads of lads jumping out and still in my head there was this like disbelief that they'd seen me because there was nothing tangible to say that i've been caught you know nobody's you know shouting and hollering that i'm hiding so i thought well you know i'm not getting out clearly i'm going to stay there but then um you know boots started to come down into into the water um into the you know the front of the culvert lots of weapons uh they started firing around the culvert they wanted me out i'm not getting out because certainly

you know you could get shot through just excitement you know lots of you know they're getting all everyone when everyone gets excited because it was like a lump of steel the top of the culvert as well so there's ricochets going on there's all sorts they dragged me out uh there's a thing the nice term is called tactical questioning so basically it's just beating up so which is sort of you know you you know you've got to take it understand they're number one they they've they've found these people um that are responsible for this this this this problem for the last couple of days cia reports that came back um saying that the iraqis were reporting an israeli attack force which didn't help us um later on and uh the casualties were

roughly about 200 so it was dead and wounded about 200 um iraqis so they're taking frustrations out. I thought I was going to get killed anyway, but clearly not. And later on, we found out that there was a financial reward for capturing downed pilots and people like us. Damage on the right-hand side of my jaw and the teeth were cracked and they were sort of fragmentated and starting coming out. and they were sort of fragmentated and starting coming out, put into a vehicle and driven off to Al-Qaim, which is the local town. And what had happened later on, we found out, was that all the school kids, everybody was pushed out into the field

to go and look for this Israeli attack force, basically. That's why I could hear all these kids about all the time. It was taken into the military location there. and it's then where i saw one of the other group a guy called dinger who was part of the other two that went down to euphrates uh he was already there and he'd got caught when they had that big that not big firefight because it's more because he'd run out of ammunition but that i heard that burst of five five six um and what had happened him and another guy called Steve Lane, the only way they could escape as they were getting followed up

was to swim the Euphrates. And, you know, it was wintertime. It was cold. And they got to the other side, and Steve Lane started to go down with hypothermia. So Dingo got into one of these diesel pump stations and, you know, it's just a shack with an old diesel engine, I suppose. But actually getting a bit of shelter, trying to keep him alive. So when the follow up was carrying on in, you know, during daylight hours, what I decided to do was to get out, get a contact going, see if he can run, see if he can get away clearly.

But obviously, if they follow up they're going to find steve and maybe they keep him alive maybe they don't he died at some stage you know after after capture but he was on his last legs um so dinger was was there and we then we we got like this i was quite happy that was there actually it was there was this relief that someone else had been caught and actually that there's a mate there and then we got taken through the town where people were because the bombing campaign had started by then so then basically that people were allowed to like like kick and punch us basically just you know start beating on us um we thought we were going to get killed at the end of this so we actually messed up

made it worse for ourself by retaliating rather than just take it and move through so um because we thought we're going to die anyway so we got through that they put us in a vehicle um and then there was a convoy that led off towards Baghdad that night, but we had to stop and retreat because of the bombing. So the bombing campaign, and off it went. It was all night, bombing all night all over the country. So we had to wait for a bit, and then eventually landed up in the city centre

into an interrogation centre that was built for interrogation of, of the Iranians during, during their war. And obviously we backed their war with Iran. So we gave them military assistance and, and certainly trained their, their,

their officer corps. So the, the interrogations were, yeah, it's what you expect. You know, you're like, you're in a cell,

everybody was stripped and handcuffed and blindfolded. There was someone else at that time we didn't know it was definitely another uh brit um i didn't know which one of the betrothed was we could hear further down getting beaten up so i knew there was three of us alive and we then went through a system of interrogations where they wanted us to say we was israelis so um which obviously fit their narrative about Israel joining the war. Well, there was this round metallic ball on a stick. It was burnt with spoons because there was no electricity or water running water by then.

So it was all paraffin heaters in the interrogation rooms. So heat spoons and then burn them on you because we're all sort of cut up and messed up a bit so they would burn on that um i had a guy who said he was a dentist from guy's hospital um who'd been there for nine years and he was back now he's in iraq he's back because of the war who pulled the remainder of the uh my teeth out and what we didn't realize at that time was that they'd recovered bob consiglio's body who was a swiss italian and it was it was a raw marine um but swiss italian uh descent so very dark skin curly hair hair and clearly we didn't know he didn't have a foreskin so it really fit into their sort of israeli sort of scenario i don't know it took you know days and days to realize about the you know the whole fact is that i had a foreskin so i said what like you know i'm not

jewish i got foreskin and obviously within the islamic faith as well there's the you know that the the the word doesn't really sort of compute so they're looking in dictionaries you can hear the pages turning so i volunteered to show them so i'm like pulling pulling pulling away um but by now it's like February in Baghdad it's pretty cold so I'm pulling away and literally like they realized it they they all started laughing and they shoved a date in my mouth and I got a date um and then the interrogations changed to okay well what were, well, what were you doing? And we were literally being interrogated by military officers who'd been to Sandhurst. So part of our cover story was that,

well, the cover story in the whole story is that we were part of a search and rescue team. We're all medically trained. We'd all been brought from different regiments to make these teams. We flew out because there was a pilot that was downed.ed helicopter left our officer left us in the end and we were lost so um we could then go back to our own regiment so we got history truthful history there we're medically trained we can do all that my one of them uh one of the interrogators said he said

oh a green jacket okay i was in the in the royal green jacket and he said what battalion i went oh to rgj went on and uh and he said oh do you know uh major sansa and i went well actually yeah because he was my company to ic when i was in the battalion he went yeah he says yeah i was at sandhurst with him it's like it's the whole thing's mad but um so we went for anyway we went through all this, this, these interrogations. And basically because the war with Iran, so everything was very physical because that was the nature of their interrogation techniques with the Iranians. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series,

Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive but to conquer whether you're preparing for assassin's creed shadows or fascinated by history and great stories listen to echoes of history a ubisoft podcast brought to you by history hits there are new episodes every week douglas adams the genius behind theitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity.

Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. All three of us got out of there and we went to Abu Ghraib, which we didn't know at the time. And that was quite a relief, actually, getting out of the interrogation set, put in the prison,

because there was other prisoners there, predominantly Americans, American pilots that had been shot down by now, because, again, the bombing campaign had been going on for nearly two weeks. Some Black Hawk search and rescue crews, helicopters being shot down by now because again the bombing campaign had been going on for nearly two weeks um uh some uh black hawk search and rescue crews you know helicopters being shot down anything so they're all being brought in so when you're captured you still have a job to do so you still from that initial capture during the time in um in in the city in in baghdad so your job it's got the conduct and the capture is to give your headquarter element in our case you know the the the the our h crew uh hq in uh in saudi time to assess

what damage we may have done um uh on you know information wise so when you go on a job you go into isolation when you plan and prepare. So no one else knows what you're doing. And you don't know what anyone else is doing. So if you do get captured, you only know what you need to know. So as you go through the system, you go through the big four, the Geneva Convention. At your time of choosing, you then go into your cover story. And based on true facts, and our cover story and based on you know on true facts and our cover story was you know this search and rescue team because what you're trying to do is give your headquarter element to go okay we haven't heard anything from the very first day from bravo to

zero we must assume that everybody is captured and they're saying everything they know so what do we need to change um or cancel on other operations so because of operational security they know what we know so they because basically then it's keeping other people alive so by the time we got into um Abu Ghraib we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves um that that system had worked because we'd just gone into cover story and there was no interrogation there there was again we're taking you know taking hits in the compound Baghdad getting bombed every night all that all that going on you've still got a job you've still got to try and communicate with

other prisoners um to get names because you never know what's going to happen later on whether you know some people are going to be like killed there or left behind and then people that you can't communicate with um if you see them you're trying to remember if they had any insignia and all that sort of stuff what they look like um so if you ever got released you can give that information in so they can compile because you're right the iraqis weren't giving any uh pow lists out you know it's just loads of lads in in abu grip so we communicate with a couple of of the pilots predominantly where we were were um uh marine corps jump jet pilots and uh and a search and rescue a black hawk search

and rescue team so um we sort of you know as we can do it over the next sort of two and a bit weeks we start to exchange uh names all that sort of stuff no interrogation but it was like when the cats are away the mice are playing they're taking hits their families are getting killed without a doubt you know with a bombing campaign so they would come in um uh and then just beat you up basically i had to eat my own feces at one stage when i emptied this this bucket out um uh and you know i got hepatitis through that because it was a mixture it just weren't mine as well so it was just so uh but that was wasn hepatitis through that because it was a mixture it just weren't mine as well so it was just so uh but that was wasn't some institutional thing that they was doing it was

just the the person who was there just wanted done the iraqi is there she thought it was funny so i think like do you do that or do you take another sort of beating with it with the batons and go well i'll do that uh and what when i was a green jacket i'd done it once uh with my own in a pint of lager for a bet with the Americans during a big exercise in Germany. But not as bad as this one. You're making it sound, well, two things. I'm surprised that you, you know, the professionalism of trying to remember people's cap badges, you know, insignia and things. And then also you're able to have a bit of a laugh about it.

But is that the way that you managed to get through it yeah yeah i think so i think it's going back to that that whole thing of of that mutual contract you know the fact is that by then you know i was loving what i'd done i just loved it in the military i thought it's fantastic and so what happened was then that whole point of of okay very very aware that this may happen it has happened actually the stuff that i'd been taught not only being taught but the listening to other people's experiences which is part of that teaching process it's actually it's helping me do you know it's it's helping me and i think okay so um and it goes back to that optimism it'll be all right everything will be all right

so all i've got to do is get through this bit. I always used to think about an American pilot that I listened to, part of the training, who was a six-year solitary confinement during the Vietnam War, a Navy pilot. Literally, you know, the way he describes it, he says, I'm on an aircraft carrier. I'm playing volleyball in a pair of shorts, donuts, cup of coffee, get a briefing, go and bomb something for two hours. I come back and carry on the game. But I wasn't't i was shot down and this is what happened so i'm thinking okay we've got this guy who you know had a quite a good life really in a way of you know involved in a war living on aircraft carrier but he survived six years of that so i'm thinking okay well by then i've been i don't know been in the army for 15 16 years

or whatever and then i thought well i'm used to being wet cold and hungry i'm certainly used to you know like certainly as young squad is you know garrison fights and beating up all that sort of stuff so i think right i'm on you know week five i know someone's done six years of this and he's still living so you know after two years i might start getting worried about it but at the moment i am worried about it but it's not going to sort of totally sort of you know sort of just drown me with it all because actually we'll see what happens um the war's clearly still on because we're still getting bummed each night so it'd be very clear what the result is let's see what happens after that um eventually, I need to let you go because I've listened to you all day,

but I need to let you go. Eventually, the war is over quickly. You were released. Was that the end of your soldiering? No, no, I served another three years. So I went back to squadron. There was six months where I was in and out of different hospitals. It wasn't overnight. It was going in and getting

checks. Um, got my teeth sorted out in the sovereign base in, in, in Cyprus. When we initially got in there, they put in all the different cavity fillings in all that sort of stuff. So then at a period of sorting that out, um, and I had some nerve damage in my, um, uh, in my hands. Well, that's where the, the, the results of it were. Um, so I had some nerve damage in my hands. Well, that's where the results of it were. So I had some tests on nerve damage, that sort of thing. And then served for another three years. So at that time, there were two, if you like, wings. There was counter-revolutionary warfare wing.

And part of that was the counter-terrorism team, that sort of group. There was another group then was called revolutionary warfare wing. So you've got counter-terrorism who areism team, that sort of group. There was another group then was called Revolutionary Warfare Wing. So you've got counterterrorism who are trying to stop that sort of stuff. You've got RWW whose job is to start that stuff up. So I've done another three years with RWW, which were fantastic. And then I was approached by one of the private military companies because the Americans were going to privatise the war in Colombia. They were going to call it Plan Colombia.

So, again, all these things about private military companies, it's been going on for decades, you know, and it's quite sort of well formulated. So Plan Colombia was going to be put in and so the predominantly american companies that had those contracts were then going to people like myself people in the american sf you know particularly in in delta force that had been down there doing the same thing and saying right let's well you know we've got these these these four-year contracts you're coming out and i had literally i had four years to do then before my 22 was up so i was out where i liked i'm not so there's loads of us you know and it's not bad you know this happens all the time when these these contracts and the people who approach you are from the regiment anyway it's a bizarre sort of situation so i thought okay well i finished our ww and i said right or i might as well just crack on and get out and work for

this american company back in columbia which was you know what i'd done before and is in regiment but now it's been privatised. Hopefully, normal thing. Ultimately, normal thing. So school fees and mortgage. Same thing as anybody else. Same thing as anyone else. And then when did you start to write the book? It really came about, I was approached by a senior who uh i got an invitation to go to his house for uh i think it was half past seven on tuesday but it you will be there sort of thing you know

you get an invitation but you'll be there so the the the uh if you like the proposal was that a writer book in conjunction and they can give the overall picture of what was going on and how it was working how it wasn't working by then sch Schwarzkopf had come over and we had a whole sort of afternoon with him. He was talking about, you know, they didn't know about the Mechanized Battalion. And all this different stuff was coming in. And he said, well, we can do the big picture. You talk about the Bravo 2 Zero experience. And I thought, well, if I'm going to do it, I'll do it myself.

And by then, John Nichols and John Peters, who are Tornado crew who got shot down, they were still serving in the RAF and they'd already written a book, Tornado Down. It was called Tornado Down, about their experiences of being shot down and becoming a prisoner. So I phoned up John Nichols and said,

well, how does all this book stuff work? Not a clue how it all worked. So the process then kicked off so you know went to see the command officer at times said well look yeah i get you know i get i get what the proposal is but if i do it i'll do it myself and then went started that process basically um and then a book was published uh i was in columbia and it become this runaway success so the publisher said well do you want to do another one i thought yeah why not but you know get gets a plane ticket um you know get out of columbia sort of thing and that's how it all started and is there a sadness because obviously

in the in britain when you write about the sas it's very frowned upon you're not you're not allowed to i don't know what you're not actually you're allowed to go back to the the mess it's really interesting it's really interesting because the process was all done. So it all went through the MOD, all the stuff. I actually gave the Sandhurst Christmas lecture the year it came out. You know what I mean? That's how, you know. So then, but within the media, it was really interesting.

It was, you know, you've got some, I don't know, retired colonels jumping up and down who doesn't actually understand what was going on, the process for it to be produced and what was going on. So I'd literally come out of the MOD main building, jumped into a staff car to go to Sandhurst. Some old cavalier, nothing too extravagant, old cavalier or something. There was the newspapers there. So I'm reading, what was it, Telegraph. And some retired generals jumping up and down and say, it's an outrage.

And I go, well, I'm just off to Sandhurst to do the talk. You know, it's a quite interesting dilemma. So the people who are aware of it, great. The people who are not aware about it, about the system that went on, doesn't really worry me. You know, I was working with the MOD for about 10 years during Iraq and Afghanistan, doing different advisory things and all that sort of stuff. So it's, yeah, the whole thing's quite interesting, really. How, how the, if you like the, how the, if you like the system of, of, of making news and entertainment and the way it all sort of works. So initially I was really sort of annoyed about it, but now I understand it's just what it is. It's just what it is. And are you able to hang out and go to readings? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The last one I went to, well, at the moment now, it's normally weddings of mates, children, or their funerals. It's like one or the other at the moment. Certainly that older generation, when I joined, I know we're coming up to the end of the time. There's a couple of those lads now on their last legs so we get

so it's a mixture of both at the moment so I do all of the you know when it comes to raising money put it that way so I'm always yeah all that sort of stuff

goes on of the of the eight of you on the patrol was it three that three were killed three were killed

yeah three were killed one escaped escaped uh made it to um the uh the the british embassy rest were captured one well there's three of us that was in interrogation center new zealand that was shot in the foot actually so they got him and i met him in baghdad when the international red cross got the second wave of prisoners, they done a deal with the Iraqis to bring in Algerian medical staff to treat the civilian population. Because literally, you know, there's no exaggeration on the numbers of people that were killed and wounded in the city. You know, literally on the street as we're driving through with the Red Cross.

So, you know, the vehicles are avoiding them, you know, because they're still in the streets. So when we got to this reception area with with the Red Cross. So, you know, the vehicles are avoiding them, you know, because they're still in the streets. So when we got to this reception area with the International Red Cross, he was there. He had an hole in his foot, but alive. Are you still in touch with them now? No, one of them still. Yeah, Dinger, I think the last time,

oh, same Dinger. It's about, maybe about four years ago, I think. He's out now. He's still working. I think he's working on the association now. One's in New Zealand. The other one's in Australia now. It's like all these things, isn't it?

It's all there, and then it all comes apart. And you've been lucky. I mean, you mentioned friends' funerals. We've heard a lot about mental health and veterans over the last 10, 15 years now. Perhaps we should have heard more about it before. Are you well? Yes, absolutely. The appalling experiences you've been through.

No, do you know, I think it's the optimism. It's an interest in my troop, 7th Troop, which was the air assault troop in B Squadron. More people have killed themselves, have committed suicide through PST and they're actually killed on jobs, which is a terrible statistic. And again, one of the things

that I've always been involved with, as well as doing the education sort of piece with the military and then that extended to schools and prisons and that sort of thing. But it was actually with PTSD. And in the early days, when we finally know we finally

recognized that it actually existed and the people you know not only needed help but they deserved it done quite a bit of work with the MOD just trying to explain it all for the personal experiences of these people have literally have killed themselves within two years of getting out of the regiment. So how we deal with that is an ongoing thing, because what happens is it's good that conflicts stop. That's great. The downside of that is that the world moves on. You know, people have got mortgages and there's COVID and all that. And then we tend to forget that those conflicts ever existed. And then we tend to forget that people are still suffering because of that conflict um and particularly people with mental health because there's nothing tangible there to look at and say oh you know he needs help because you know

but because it's an internal thing so that that that work has got to carry on and now we've actually got people within government you know people like johnny mercer now who are actually in government number one he understands the situation number two he's in a position of power now where he can actually take action and he has done quite a lot since he's got that new position which is good because we need we need that help and we need obviously the finance to give those that that help people and but you put your own resilience down to just a optimistic outlook it's uh yeah it's pure optimism and it's it's pure optimism and it's pure stupidity as well, quite frankly. It's because everything will be all right.

And it's, again, I really do. Ever since I can first remember, it's always been all right. And, you know, the reality of, well, it's like it's a contract. It's a contract. You can look at it technically and say it's like, it's a contract, it's a contract, you can look at technically and say it's a non liability contract, which it is, but actually, it's a mutual contract, they're giving you this, they expect this from you, if you don't like it, get out. And that's why, you know, the people who, certainly in the early days of Iraq, where you got, you know, people within the military are refusing to fight fight and all that sort of stuff.

And actually, you know, I find it quite disgusting because you've been taking the money, you've been taking all the credibility and all those things about it. And then when you want to do your job, you're deciding that you don't want to do it because it's a mutual contract. Well, I think I've taken too much of your time up. It's been great.

Thank you so much. No, a pleasure. A total pleasure. What's your latest book? Whatever It Takes is now in paperback. And there'll be a new one. Well, next year, there'll be a film, SAS Red Notice. That'll come out maybe in the new year here in the United States

which is all good and then there'll be another Nick Stone franchise book in 2022 if I get my finger out and do it yeah come on honestly it's clearly

from everything I've learned about you in the last 90 minutes I can tell you a real lazy you know guy exactly I suspect that book will be on time thank you very much indeed Andy thank you I feel the indeed andy thank you

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