Jocko Podcast - 270: Are You Who You Are Capable of Being? The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence w/ British Special Forces Soldier Frogman, Dean Stott

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:06:00 - Dean Stott, British SBS3:21:42 - How to stay on THE PATH.3:37:00 - Closing Gratitude Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 270 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I'd made a mistake that was going to cost me my life. I turned to the man beside me. He was a Yemeni. We called him H, and he was the only passenger in the beat-up local car I was driving. The air around us was stiff, with heat and tension.

The vehicle almost rocking as the press of humanity outside began to shove towards me, pointing. I kept my eyes down, not out of fear, but so that they didn't get a good look at them through the dirty glass. I knew exactly what had happened, how they'd spotted me. I was dressed head to toe as a local from flip-flops to a turban. I had a dyed beard and my skin colored, but what I hadn't added to my disguise was my brown contact lenses, and now my bright blue eyes were drawing the locals in to point and stare. I knew it was only a matter of minutes before the neighborhood bad guys started slipping out of their hiding places and tonight I could look forward to an orange jumpsuit.

The last thing the world would see of me was the image of a former special forces soldier about to meet his end, courtesy of an enemy unfamiliar with the Geneva Convention. Bullocks. I wanted to talk to H. I wanted the local man's opinion. But if the people outside saw my lips moving in a funny way, then we were truly fucked. And so instead, I raised an eyebrow and hoped that people would just think I was commenting on the traffic that had packed us into this bustling marketplace.

H gave a shrug and reply, as if to say, what can you do? What could I do? Get my head chopped off or go out fighting. Those seemed to be the choices. I knew which one I'd choose if it came down to it, but I couldn't help but hear the voice in the back of my head, the voice that had told me always, you'll never last two minutes in the army.

Well, if this was the end, I'd show them how wrong they were. I'd been showing them for years. This wasn't my first covert mission as a civilian. I'd cut my teeth as a special forces soldier, and as such, I'd had my metal test. again and again. I tried to remember that as yet another local pointed at me and began waving towards my door.

I pretended to be busy looking ahead at traffic and checked the mirror behind me. No sign of our second car. I wanted to rub my eyes. Despite the danger, I was knackered. Maybe that's why I had made the mistake. Maybe that was why I had to get on my radio, hidden away, out of sight from the Yemenis who continued to walk by peering in and pointing it. me. I kept my message short, trying to move my lips as little as possible. I've been compromised.

My mate Sam came on the net from the second vehicle. He was out of sight, but I was sure that he couldn't be more than 100 meters away. Are you compromised? Over? He asked. I confirmed that I was. Are you happy with the immediate action drill? Over? I knew that drill off by heart. The first part would involve me pulling a snub-nosed machine gun from beneath my seat and emptying a full magazine into the windscreen. This would send a very loud signal that it was a good idea for people to get away from me. It would buy me seconds to grab my wrapped-up assault rifle, wedge between the seat and the door, and exit the vehicle. Then me and my flip-flops would be racing for the nearest safe house. Sam came back on the net.

Your call. out my call when it comes down to it the biggest moments in your life always are i thought about letting out a deep breath but looking ice cool in front of h was important to me fear is contagious and so i put mine on a shelf until i got clear of the situation instead i imagined everything that was about to happen in this shit storm bloody hell i almost laughed to myself all this over a pair of contact lenses. I looked at H, gave him the slightest of nods. He was probably sending up a prayer at that point, maybe more than one.

My own thoughts went to my wife and children. If someone wanted to stop me seeing them again, then I promised it would be a fight like no other. And then, with the thought of my family pumping like fire through my veins, I reached below my seat and took hold of my weapon. And that is the opening of a book. The book is called Relentless and is written by someone named Dean Stott, who is a British soldier who served as an engineer in the commandos and eventually went on to the British Special Forces selection

and became one of the first Army soldiers to opt into joining the Special boat service counterpart to the British SAS. And that is just the beginning of this story. And luckily for us, Dean is here himself to help talk us through his experiences in the military and beyond. Dean, thanks for coming. Thanks for coming aboard. No pleasure having me. It's been a long time that we have been getting requests to have a Brit on here. So you're the first. Well, we had we had one photographer who had been to Iraq, but I think you're our first British military person. And there's been a lot of requests. Oh, brilliant.

Great. So glad to have you here, man. Yeah, no pressure. Yeah, the whole nation is riding on your shoulders. So that's the beginning of this book. And the beginning of the book starts off. It's sort of the middle of your operational career. when you talk about the military operations and then civilian operations.

But I guess we should start at the beginning. I always like to start at the beginning of, you know, where you came from and how you ended up in this particular situation in life. And yeah, let's get to it. Yeah. So I was born into military family. My father, he was in the Royal Engineers. And so I was very much immersed in that environment.

And I grew up in a town called Oldershot, which was the home of the British Army. so it's just airborne heavy. You had two parridae, you had three power there. I'd never even heard of the Royal Marines or the Special Boat Service. I mean, it was just SAS and airborne. My father and my mother, they ended up splitting up when I was quite a young age.

By the age of eight, my mother left my father and took me and my sisters to Manchester up north. And we ended up in a homeless home in Moss Side. And Moss Side back in the 80s was the roughest estate in the whole of the UK. Now, when Brits say a state, yeah.

When Americans say a state, they're thinking of like a country estate with big houses. When Brits say a state, you're talking about the ghetto. Yes, it's a ghetto, yeah. And it's a government housing, right? Isn't it a government housing estate? That's where the word estate comes from? Yeah, they call them council estates. And yeah, obviously, to get your name on the housing market, you have to then go into a homeless home.

So that's what we did. We ended up in a homeless shelter in Moss Side. and, you know, I was the only white, me and my sisters, the only Caucasians in the area, so we were attracting attention from an early start. The, you know, this soon ended up with me learning how to fight with my fist quite early, you know, protecting my sisters in the school playground. Actually, I ended up having to leave that school because there's too many fighting, and we moved to another place within Manchester.

My mother, we then got housing. My father, however, used to travel up and pick us up every other weekend. It's about a 240 mile drive one way and take us back down. Me and my father were very close. My sister was very close to my mother. And three years later, my father got custody, you know, of me and my sisters. Wow, is that hard? I mean, America, it's pretty hard for especially a military dude to get custody over the mom.

Yeah, no, there was. I think, obviously, you know, he put his career on pause. He got promoted to regimental sergeant-major and was posted to Germany, And he said, no, I want to stay in the UK. I want to look after my kids. And so he put his whole career online. And I think the judge at the time didn't want the siblings splitting up. You know, he didn't want like two sisters being in Manchester and the son down south.

So the judge said, no, the children make the decision. And being the eldest at the age about 10 and a half, I had to make that quite hard decision. And so, no, I want to live with my father. And he got custody. And, you know, even to the day, I remember. the day that my mum dropped us off and the reaction she saw when my father took us away, you know, that sticks with you, something like that. But for me, we moved back down to Oldershot and, you know, I'm very close to my father.

I never actually wanted to pursue a career in the military myself. I actually always wanted to be a fireman. But we grew up around there, but my dad is, it was a Scotsman. It was old school Sergeant Major. It was old school through and through. And I remember finishing junior school and we went on. on to what you call high school, secondary school. So this is what age?

What age is this? Well, I would have been about 13 at this age. So at 13, you've been living with your dad for a few years now. A couple of years. And you're seeing the military, but you're still not quite, you're not quite, like, enthralled by it. Yeah. Yeah.

And as I say, when I was immersed, our school playground was where the Red Devils used to take off, which is the British parachute in free. default teams. Every day you'd see the parachutes. The guys would be walking around in their uniforms and their maroon berets. And it was just, it was almost like the norm living in older shots. So, um, but my father was now going to transition out the military. My father, his career wasn't very, um, he was more sports. He was what we would call a track suit soldier. He was very good at a sport. And soccer was his. So he was the army manager, coach and player. So I very rarely saw my father in Green Kitt, you know, it was more

tracksuits trainers and on the football pitch. So I didn't really know much about the military and the layout of the military. Was he going on deployments? He went on deployments to like Norman Island, but that was, but when he then got custody

of the kids, you know, that obviously stopped him going on on any deployments. And this was a period of time, actually, you know, the last conflict was 982, which was defaulted. And so there was a dry period up until now. We had the Gulf War in 91, but that was still to come, actually. It was two years later.

So other than Northern Ireland, there wasn't really any sort of overseas deployment. So it didn't really affect him going away. But he was now coming to the end of his career and transitioning to Civy Street. So growing up in Oldershot in his military schools, he then decided to put me in secondary school in the local town. It's called North Camp. But being old school, my father dressed me up day one. in a blazer carrying like a briefcase, a leather briefcase. You know, it wasn't even real leather.

That's what I was more upset about. But my hair was a crew cut. You know, rather than going downtown and paying for a normal haircut, my father would take me to camp and just put me in straight at the front of the queue with all the recruits. That's legit. Yeah, so I really stood out. When I turned up at school day one, I stood out.

Wait, so is this school, what kind of, is this school like a, what we call in America a private school where you have to, to pay to go to or what was different? No, it was a public school, but it wasn't in a military town. It was next to the military town. So the children that went there, their parents weren't from the military. Because it was so close to Oldershot, there was a lot of rivalry between. And so their haircut just, I just stood out.

And, yeah, unfortunately a week later, I got suspended from that school for fighting. Like, were you just an angry youth or what? No, I just think I'll just put in some really awkward positions and that being one. But I always remember my father, I know you guys do Brazilian jiu-jitsu. My father, again, always taught me to fight with my fists. And as soon as the guy was down- We call that Scottish jiu-jitsu. But as soon as the opponent's down, that's it.

You know, you stop. You've got the better of them. And there's no follow-up like there isn't nowadays. So I was so nervous when I got home. and I sort of left the letter on the table and quickly ran upstairs to the toilet. And my father, you know, screams out my name. And I come down. And his one question was, did you hit him when he was down?

I said, no. He said, that's fine. And then I had to, I then explained to me. I said, look, you dressed me and this, this. And he just thought he was doing good by me when, in fact, he was bringing far too much attention. We then left actually not long, a few months after that and moved. out into the country, totally away from any sort of military town. And that was almost the start for me.

That was the start of a new life. You know, I'd left that military background behind me. So how old are you now? I'm probably about 14 now. Right on. And then you get to, where did you move to when you got this new start? So it moved to, into Surrey. So it's just south of London, but it's more, very, very green.

The country. The country, exactly. And now did you How was that? Was that like You said it was a new start Because you were able to fit in a little bit better Your dad didn't shave your head to send you to school

Yeah, exactly There was no military barbers But it was also that no one could judge you You sort of left your past behind you You know Manchester fighting And you know It's almost like This is the baseline

You start from now So And again it was actually nice To socialize with kids parents weren't in learning stuff that was out of that military lifestyle you know all my friends back in Oldershot their dad's all airborne because my dad wasn't

they called him a hat you know what I mean it was just like he didn't have any of that I didn't have to prove anything to them or feel like you know because your father's career you're you're part of that and that's what older shot was like it was like what ranks your father is he power is he not and it's like oh god

I had a friend who was uh who is Australian SAS and he was saying you know him his wife we were talking and he was like, they're having an expression. It was like, oh, their wife wears the rank of the family. So it's like, oh, he's a lieutenant colonel. Who are you? It sounds like, but I can't imagine little kids telling me my dad's not airborne. Oh yeah. That's pretty great. Why they call them a hat? It's just thing that the parachute regiment call them

a hat. I don't know. We say heli airborne troop, but it's, it's not. They just call them a hat because they don't have the maroon berry. And then, you know, some of the army commandos also take on that terminology and call them, call them hats or screamers. We, in the army, the American army, they call someone that's not airborne a leg. And it said with such disdain, I remember when I went to airborne schools, I come here, you nasty leg. And then in the, the, in the Navy, the, the aviation guys, people that are in helicopters or jets or whatever planes, they wear brown shoes.

It's part of their uniforms. So they call, in a derogatory way, they call anybody that's not a brown shoe, which no one's uses that term, but they call everyone else a black shoe. And so then in the teams, we take that one step further and like the derogatory,

who's that guy, some shoe came over and told us if we couldn't wear that, whatever. So that's, it's funny how you get these little, little words that stick, but hat. Yeah, hat is the parachute regiment.

And then the Marines, Obviously, from the army, it's pongo. No. You had little kids telling you your dad's a hat. Yeah. And again... No wonder you had to fight on a regular basis. Yeah, if it was airborne, I'd probably been all right.

And then, so you end up in Surrey. You're in the country. Do you feel like your life's taking a better direction? So your dad was a great athlete, apparently. Did you inherit that athleticism and love for the game? I did, yeah. I think that's where, you know, I'm very competitive. I like to compete and I think that's, you know, from my father. You know, even to, on Christmas Day with the board game, it got that competitive. You had to win, you know, and, you know, so I did inherit that from him. Sport-wise, and I followed in his footsteps, you know, played football as well. I wasn't great at sport, but I just tried everything, you know. I was very fortunate at school. I ended up getting sports personality. year order, it sounds amazing. That does sound pretty amazing.

Yeah, but I wasn't the best at football. I wasn't the best at rugby. You know, I just helped out, you know, if they said, right, we need someone on the basketball team. I don't really know basketball, but I would step in. So I sort of had that from my father. But, and I think that's what helped later on in the military career. You know, I always found myself competing with others or having to prove, prove a point or

be an ambassador. Well, that's two different things, actually. prove a point or be an ambassador. I don't know how that's like that's two different things, right? If I'm trying to prove a point, that's one thing. If I'm trying to be, it's like one's going to come at you. The ambassador is going to be cool.

So you found that nice middle ground between those two things. Yeah, well, I found myself that, you know, when you're in the army and you were working alongside Marines, you're an ambassador for your cat badge, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? And then when you go to the SBS from the army, you're an ambassador for the British Army. When you're on Jocco's podcast and you're the first British guy.

You're an ambassador of the British Army. So I was proving a point to myself and to them, but almost representing your unit or your catbatch. So you talked about you wanted to be a fireman. And in the book, in the book, you, it sounds like at some point, you realize there's a lot of applicants to be a fireman and like thousands of applicants to be a fireman. It's sort of like in America.

We get a similar thing here. But you realized it's probably not going to have. happen? Yeah, well, back to the school in, my father, again, being old school, he wouldn't let me go out and play unless I did my homework, so he would check everything. So in school-wise, I did quite well. I didn't look beyond school. I didn't look at college. I thought I was just going to join the fire brigade. And he had to be 18 anyway, so I was still underage. And at the time, there was a big recession, and it was 2,000 applicants for one job. I went to college. But every summer holidays as a young kid. My father would take me and my sisters down to the southwest of England to

Cornwall and we would go surfing. So I've been surfing since, you know, a young boy. So during college, we had a two-week summer holiday. So me and my mates were, right, let's go down to Nukki. None of them surfed, but they just wanted to try and find girls. So, you know, we all went down to Nuki for two weeks. I was in the water all day and they're just, just sat on the beach, doing their thing and I met a Norwegian guy called Jan and we just got chatting and he was a silver surface waiter

at the local hotel so Fistral Beach is actually on the surf tour at the pro surf tour and Fistral Beach Hotel is on the peninsula and he said well I'm getting 30 pounds a day I serve breakfast I get a free breakfast I serve all day

and then in the evening I serve the evening meal and I get a free meal I get a 30 pound in my pocket is any 10 pound for the hospital still, I thought brilliant, you know, being an entrepreneur, I thought, I'll have a piece of that. So two weeks later, my father came to pick us up and this is now, what are you talking, 94, long before any mobile phones and things like that. And I wasn't in the car park with my friends.

And my dad said, well, where's Dean? And they said, oh, he's staying. So my friends met your dad? Yeah, my dad dropped his off and he came back to pick us up two weeks later, but I wasn't there. Damn. Yeah. So, again, I just didn't want to confront. my dad and I didn't want to go back to college. So I just didn't want to get into an argument.

So when you got done with what we call high school, how old are you? So we're about 16. Okay, so then your college starts after that and this is taking place during this two week break. You go down there, you're surfing. Yeah. You're living the dream and you see this Norwegian cat that's got it all figured out. And you figured you're in. Yeah, that's it. That's my life all planned out of the roadmap. My father then came back six months later. you know, looking for me. And he found me working in a local surf shop. And he said, you know, right, you know, you've messed up your education.

That's it. Your life is over, you know, giving it all these little one-liners. So for me to really just silence him, I just said, well, I'll join the army. And you normally expect some, you know, warm, comfort, and words from your father, but I sort of met with a response. You'd last two minutes. Probably wasn't the response I wanted. But I thought, okay, you know, there's no point in getting into an argument.

And the best thing to do is try and prove him wrong. But I was about 5'7 and 65 kilos, so I could probably see where he was coming from at the time. But he drove me back down to Surrey, and then the following Monday, you know, I went into the careers office. Did your dad go with you? No, he didn't, but his office was only 400 meters from there.

So I walked in, and it was in Older Shot, obviously para heavy airborne, and I came out and went to my dad's office, said, I'm joining the parachute regiment. He says, you're bloody not. And march me straight back in. I didn't, obviously, he was raw engineers. I didn't know much about the raw engineers.

I didn't know that you actually can do P-Company and be an airborne engineer or do the All Arms Commander course and be a commando engineer. All I'd known was him playing football. So when he actually explained a bit more to me, I thought, okay, that's a good idea. And he wanted you to go engineer so you'd have some kind of a civilian skill set, whether it was building or pouring concrete or whatever skill you're going to get. Yeah, he was thinking, obviously, short term, I'll probably do minimum three years, you know, be a bricklayer, a plumber. So, but also within the military, there was A trades and B trades.

Your B trades in the engineers were your artisan trades, which is like carpenter, plumber, you know, everything else. And then your A trade was like your electricians and plant operators, so the big JCPs and diggers. So my dad said, what about a plant fair? So I was out, gardener. I didn't even know what he was on about. He said, no, you then explained. But again, before that, once he'd marched me back in the office, a week later, I had to go in and do this touchscreen test. And basically, I passed it, and they said, you can choose any trade you want.

Obviously, back in 94, I was thinking more with my penis. And I was thinking, bomb disposal. That sounds sexy. I said, let's go bomb disposal. So I went to my dad's office. I said, I'm going bomb disposal. He said, you're not. And he just marched me straight back in.

And then he said, right, why don't you be a plant fear? And again, you know, he was, he was sort of carving my path or put me in the right direction, you know, if I stepped off. And that's it. So then you're enlisted. How long was the weight between when you enlisted and when you actually shipped off to basic training? It wasn't long at all. It was about two, two to three months. I went to a place called Purb, right?

You have like a, it's almost like an acquaint, you know, three days there. You do all your fitness tests and then you speak to other recruits, you know, get their perception. on basic training. So I was actually, I think my dad pulled a few, few strains cars, seemed to get quite quick to start point than others. And then in the book, you say, you basically say that basic training is what basic training is.

Is there anything that shocked you about it? Did you feel like you were pretty ready for it? Again, my father, you know, he's starting to steering things. I had to turn up a place called Bazinborn. And all I'd known about Bazinborn is where they filmed full metal jacket and Memphis Bell. And that's the only research I'd done on this place. But you had to be there from 0,800 in the morning to 1,700 at night.

You had to parade on the Sunday, actually, between those times. My father had me dropped off at 0.7.55 with my hair already cut and my bag already packed. Because he knew it was all about first impressions. You know, if you start coming in, you know, just over five or about half four, you know, I mean, the instructors were already marked your cards. but I arrived at 5 to 8 and I stood there from 8 o'clock till 5 o'clock in the evening so in reflection going back

I know why he did it at the time it was raining I didn't appreciate it but you know it's a culture shock training everything you're you're sort of used to having your home comfort is taken away from you guys who did have hair soon lost their hair and we all look the same but it's good you know

it instills that discipline from the off How long is British Army boot camp? So it depends what cat bad. So for the Royal Engineers, we do 10 weeks basic training. And literally that just is, as what it says, it's basic training. We then have phase two combat engineer training, which is about 14 weeks, and then you go on. If you then want to go do the commando course, the commando course is 10 weeks as well. So if you start putting them all together, it can be quite long.

If you join the Royal Marines, that's nine months from start to finish. So, yeah, it all depends on what cat badge you're going to. But originally basic training is about 10 weeks. And then you got picked up to become, when did you get picked up to become a physical training instructor? Yeah, so I... It seems like they had a lot of faith in you out of the gate. Or was that your dad working behind the scenes? No, well, what it was, when I finished my phase two training, I got my posting order.

and I remember ringing my dad and my stepmom, Penny, and I said, yeah, I've got posted to 2-8, and then she starts crying on the phone, and my dad picks up the phone, he said, what have you said to Penny? I said, I've been posted to 28, and I can hear him in the background, and he said, 2-8, not Q8, like that.

But what it was, because my father was the army manager, 28 engineer regiments were in Germany were the army champions, football champions in Germany. So it was like, your Stott, son. So you're coming out to Germany. So I got posted to Hamel at the age of 18, which at the time was good. You know, it was the Deutsche Mark before the Euro.

It was like, it must cost about $7 for a crate of Bex of 24. You know, you know, I was seeing Germany, which is now collapsed now. Everyone's back in UK. But as soon as I arrived, my son major knew they call us kissballers, the footballers. You're a kissballer. He goes, I'm not going to see you. literally it was almost semi-professional you didn't work you trained every morning between eight and 12 on the astro turf and you had a big a big match every Wednesday afternoon and then we

used to all play semi-pro for local teams so he knew that he was never going to have me as a soldier so he said well I need to fill a slot a billet in the gym so you're going on your ptie i course and that's how I managed to get it fast track so so quickly and then what that course consists of so I flew back to hold a shot and it was right next to one of my old schools. And it's basically you, they get into a position that you can, you can teach physical training. So when you go back to units, there's different types of training you can do. You can do gym, uh, PT. You can do green PT. Um, the hardest thing is gymnastics. You actually have to do gymnastics and it's like, you know, it's like a flying track suit. Just throw a t-shirt and yeah, it probably look more elegant than me. Um, but it's just so you're in

a position when you go back to the unit, you can run PT sessions. And then you end up from there, you get done with that, and then you, now is when you check into 59 Commando? Yeah, there's a little period between that. So when I was in the gym, I was like, I could see, I could see me almost mirroring my father's career. And I was like, I don't want to be a tracksuit soldier. You know, I want something different.

So you saw the possibility of mirroring your father's career and something about it, you didn't really, you wanted to be, you wanted to, you wanted to get after it in a different way. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I wanted to do something different. And so I actually filled out the application form for Nine Squadron and Five Nine. But actually on reflection, so Nine Squadron is the airborne engineers, which is back in Oldershot, where I grew up.

And Five Nine Commando is down in North Devon. And it's, you know, surf heaven down there. You know, got Sawton Beach, Croyd Beach. So for me. We are in San Diego and he's from Hawaii. So maybe it's not quite surf heaven. Probably, yeah. England, we'll give it to you.

For England, it is. I'll give you that. But for me, you know, you join the military because you want to see the world. You want to experience new things. I didn't want to go back to Oldershot. So 5-9 commander was well suited for me. So I applied for 5-9 commander and you have to go do a four-week beat-up with the unit before you can go on the All-Arms Commando course.

So you go to the unit first and they kind of do an assessment? That's it, yeah. And then from there you go to, who? That's sort of like Rangers School in America. you can go to a Ranger Battalion and you haven't been to Ranger school yet and then you go to Ranger school. That's it.

Yeah, it's like that. But back in Germany, during this process, when the paperwork was in, one of the squadrons had just returned from Northern Ireland and they had like a welcome back party in the camp bar.

There's a course called assault engineers where infantry can come do engineering courses and there was an infantry unit called the fuseliers who were on camp doing that. But they had trouble. lawmakers basically they'll ban from downtown because it always causing troubles so they were on camp

this evening that they had the big uh the family get together they were in the bar as well and me my friend could see they're being quite rude to some of the we call them pad's wives you know the lad's wives you know so me and my friend you know decided to open up on a couple of them so we ended up you know putting down free guys my my my sergeant major came in he's that right you boys go bed you know it's brushed under the carpet I was then rudely awoken by a military policeman two hours later, saying you're under arrest. And so before I went over to 5-9 commando,

there was possibility that I could be getting court-martialed for this fight. So I went over anyway. I did the first week of the beat-up. Then the course staff sergeant pulls me in. He said, you've got to fly to Germany. They're doing an ID parade. I was like, okay. ID parade is some kind of investigation?

Investigation with the police. They wanted to line you up with other. other guys and see are you are you like totally distraught at this point um i'm not totally distraught i you do worry about your career how this can can affect your your career so i i flew over and me at the time i still hadn't grown into my ears so i just stood out like you know a sore thumb and and they all knew me as the ptie so straight away they just beeline yeah that's the guy my friend who did it with me however his his brother was in the squadron as well so he never got picked out so i was Okay, great.

So I flew back to finish the beat up. They said, yeah, you're fit enough, you're ready. So I went on and did the commander course. And when we finished the commander course 10 weeks later, we go back to 5-9 Commando. And the O.C is like that. He said, right, guys, you guys are going across the water. And the squadron were in Northern Ireland.

So I thought, perfect. We're off to Northern Ireland. He said, not you stop. You see, you're going across the other water. You're going back to Germany. He said, we need to get this cleared. So I went back to Germany and basically they said, look, you can go court martial and it probably would get thrown out. But that's going to be another 12 months to 18 months.

You know, I've just passed the commander course. I wanted to go be with the commandos. So I just pleaded guilty. I got charged. And so I spent 56 days in the military correction training center, which is Colchester Prison known as the Glasshouse. But the commanding officer actually, because everyone knew it was me and the other guy. You know, they, and they knew these guys were troublemakers. They're like, yeah, just unfortunately, you got caught out.

So the commanding officer was an airborne guy, airborne engineers. This is the commanding officer at Colchester? No, no, this is a five-knit. Yeah, no, this is in Germany. Okay. You know, so I have to leave that unit first. And so the RSM matches me, and the RSM was one of a football player with me. And he's like, right, no, sapost.

I was going to give you 60 days. But because you've done the All-on's commander course. I've taken four days off. Any questions? I said, yes, if I've gone airborne, what I got more days off? And he sort of giggled. And they said, like, you know, it's time for you to go.

So, yeah, I spent 56 days in Her Majesty's Creative Training Center. Yeah, I was looking, I didn't know what Colchester was, but it's basically the same term, Echo Charles, when you hear somebody say Leavenworth, what do you think of? Prison. Yeah, military prison. That's kind of the way Colchester. I think it's the last military prison

in England or something. Everybody knows it, the glass house. It's the equivalent of Levinworth. Yeah, and everyone has, you know, you hear horror stories coming out of the glass house. And what it actually is is because when you have an escort that drops you off and the instructors are there to meet you and it's like it is like a scene out of full metal jacket.

They are screaming and shouting at you. But as soon as they've gone, they just treat you like adults. You know what I mean? They take away all those sort of, those creature comforts, you know, you don't you're not allowed to phone anyone it's um two pt sessions a day it's room inspections all the time i actually really enjoyed colchester um i said if if i got paid full full wages i would i would have really enjoyed it and it got to a stage actually where guys were going into colchester

and coming out better soldiers a lot better soldiers and they were actually getting promoted when they got back to their units and they had to stop that they said no it's you know you're there for the wrong you know bad bad reasons you can't be seen to be be promoted so I did I did my time there and um went back to five nine right rewind a little bit to the commando course yes how was that yeah so I remember my father dropping me off at driving me to North Devon to do the beat up and then you know I've obviously hadn't told him about the incident in Germany at this point and he said you know these guys will you know these guys will will make you a man you know I mean so you obviously really nervous about things like that.

But it is that the beat-up's great. You know, the 5-9 beat-up, they actually is harder than the All-Arms Commander course. So if you can reach their levels or their expectations, then as long as you stay away from injury, when you go on the All-Arms-Commander course, you should be fine. So the All-Arms-Commander course is for any cat badges,

so engineers, artillery, anyone who's going to be serving alongside Free Commander Brigade with the Royal Marines, or any naval, you know, doctors, dentists as well. So you've got a mixture on that course. And you've got guys who are young privates all the way through to quite senior officers who may have just been attached to the brigade. And we also have foreign, foreign militaries there. I remember we had a seal, no, a Marine on our course as well, US Marine on our course. We had some guys from Lebanon. We had

some guys from Russia. We had all sorts on there. And basically they get you to a standard. So you're understanding the raw Marines sort of TTPs, their SOPs. So when you go to a unit, you understand how they operate as well. You know, you do amphibious warfare as well. I mean, you also do their commando tests. So their commando tests, you know, the 30 miler, which is the last one to get your green beret and all the all the other tests that build up to it. And it's 10 weeks long. And I could be a doctor that's going to get attached to. I could be a 39-year-old doctor that's going to be attached to Commando and I got to go through that and get a 30-pound ruck on.

I think for them they volunteer for it. You know, they can still serve with the brigade, but it's almost like, you know what I mean? They see that you've made the effort and you've got to cover it at Green Beret. You know, probably to get less pressure if they've done the course. But actually saying that, the Navy guys were really good because a few years later, which were touching, and I ended up being an instructor on this commander course. So the Navy guys, because they have no military background before this, they've not picked up any bad habits.

So what the instructors were telling them, they were picking up straight away, whereas you may have a sergeant or a staff sergeant who's been in 14 years, and he's already picked up his little bad habits, and it's having to realigning or reset that whole cog. But for us, our course, I didn't learn anything if I'm on. I learned nothing on our course. every one of our instructors got sacked at the end of the course. Our course was very officer heavy,

and it was like we weren't allowed to wear Gortex, if it rained. We didn't learn anything. It was about who could survive in the cold and who was the fittest. Actually learning anything soldier-wise I picked up when I got to the unit. But that backfired on the instructors, because at the end of the course, they do like course critiques. You know, how was your course? And could it was so officer heavy that they went to town on them.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, they went to town. Because enlisted guys get handed a critique and they're like, good, good, good, I'm going to get a beer. Officers like, well, let me state my opinion on this matter. Oh, yeah, it backfired. Every instructor got sacked apart from the two army guys, the engineer and the artillery officer. But for me, I'm still, I'm only 18. You know, you're still developing as a young man.

I wasn't fully grown. I remember the load carries being, you know, really difficult. carrying some excess weight there. And it's very different from like P company, the Paris. That's all more, they're leaner and then they go faster with less weight. With the commandos, they sort of tend to be bigger guys carrying more weight by a slower speed. So I do think that's probably one of the hardest courses still to date, but that's because I hadn't developed yet fully.

Now, I got to pull this one section out of the book because I thought it was worth reading. This is when you're in Colchester. And you have this conversation. You say drink was a big problem in the forces at the time. I'd be surprised if it isn't still. And so when I was interviewed by the officer of the prison, I was grilled about my alcohol consumption. You were drunk when you hit the other soldiers, correct? Yes, sir.

So do you have a drinking problem? No, sir. I'd have hit them anyways. Hmm, what happened to your wrist? And this is another thing you explain. I fell out of a window, sir, trying to urinate, sir. Were you drunk? well, yes, sir.

Hmm, so you don't have a drinking problem. I didn't really know how to reply to that one. As far as I saw it, it was just part of Army life, part of being a squatty. If I had a drinking problem, then maybe the whole Army did. Personally, I felt like it was just being one of the boys. The officer dismissed me. And then you go on to the fact that you enjoyed being at Colchester, which is cool. You had a good time.

But that's one of those things as I was reading it. I've, I had quite a few conversations with young seals. You know, hey, so you've gotten another fight in a bar, right? And that's why you're in here talking to me. Yeah. Were you drinking? Yeah. And you also were here three months ago.

And you were also in another fight in a bar and you were drinking. You see any common things here? No. Any commonalities between these incidents? No, I don't know. I like to fight, I guess. gotta watch out for that one you get to

you get to 59 or 59 59 yeah 5 9 yeah you get to 5 9 and uh I thought this was cool couldn't have asked for a better beginning to my time at 5 9 the admin officer took one look at my report from colchester seemed happy with what he saw and ripped it up fresh start but it was a lonely start the rest of the squadron was in northern island

finishing the tour I'd missed out on doing to my two to my time and collie I was gutter not to be a part of that, but it ended up working my favor. We're sending you on a diving aptitude course. Usually guys have to wait years to get on this, so consider yourself lucky. So because the other guys were deployed in Northern Ireland, you've got an opportunity to go to this dive course. Yeah, that's it.

So in the raw engineers, we have divers. So everything you can do on the surface, be it broco cutting, welding, carpentry, scaffolding, everything. We can do subsurface. Do you guys call that hard hat diving? The OSDS, which is the open supply dive assist and the Kirby Morgan helmets, that's part of it. So scuba's part of it. And so is that.

We group everything if you're not doing combat swimmer operations. Like if you're doing any kind of work, we just call it hard hat diving. It's like hard hat diving. It's like good. Good for you. But like, yeah, that's the way we classify anything that's not Drager, combat swimmer, ship attack. You know, it's like hard hat diving. Yeah, that's it.

Before you dive into that, so this, this going to Colchester, is that on your record? Or when that guy shredded it, was it gone? I think it stays on my record. I think he was just trying to prove a point. You know, we draw the light, fresh start. But actually a lot of guys do well in the military,

a lot of these RSMs, you look back, especially the guards, they've been to Colchester. It was almost, you touched on it then in that you'd brief up a guy for drinking and three months later you come in and he's telling him again. Well, obviously he's making a mistake. I learned from my mistake and I learned at an early stage. Thankfully, it didn't happen later on in my career and then obviously have bigger consequences

because I still didn't have rank at that point. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's I, so in the in the Navy, you have service stripes on your uniform. Yeah. And if you've never been in trouble, those service stripes are gold. So in your dressed uniform, when you see a Navy guy, a Navy master chief or a senior chief, and they're in their uniform, they'll have service stripes. So it's like one stripe for every four years.

So you can have a lot of stripes after 28 years. And if you've never been in trouble, they're gold. But if you've been in trouble, if you have like a captain's mass or something like that, they're red. And it was always interesting to see that there would be guys that would be master chiefs and they'd have red stripes. Meaning they got in trouble at some point in their career. And the reason I asked that is because, you know, as more and more focus sort of, more and more attention to the seal teams, you know, it was like a lot less of a, there was more of a

zero defect mentality. And if you got in trouble one time, it was going to stay with you and it's going to be a problem. So those gold versus red stripes, was it kind of like, it's kind of cool to have the red one? Or is it kind of cool to have the gold one? Like, what is the deal? It depends on your assessment of the situation. That's what I mean. Like, what was the common, like the culture? Like, if you've seen a guy and one guy had a gold, one guy had a red, not a huge deal. Not a huge deal, but like BTF Tony? Yeah, yeah. Red.

All day. He was one of my buddies and he's like, you know, just a break glass in case of war type of dude. And yeah, he had red. So it kind of depends on the person's like personality. Like it's a case by case. Yeah. And this is, you know, back in the day when guys were getting in trouble more because there's also less going on.

And really a lot of it boils down to leadership too. You know, if you're if you're. leadership isn't giving you stuff to do and pointing you in the right direction. Where do you end up if you're 18 years old? If you're 21 years old, if you're 19 years old and you don't you're not giving good direction, where do you end up as a as a young male? Where do you end up, echo Charles? Jail.

Well, possibly, but definitely in a pub. Definitely, you know, being aggressive, definitely doing the, that's what you're going to do. And so if you haven't gotten some good guidance, then it's going to be problematic. And, you know, we're getting better at it. But it definitely is. It's good to hear that you could have a mistake like that. And look, how many times did you not get caught, right? Of course.

Yeah. Plenty of times. This time you got caught, it's good that you could get caught, learn a lesson, and move on. It's also very interesting that people would come out of that highly disciplined environment, highly disciplined environment in Colchester and do better as humans. Yeah. Do better as soldiers. That's freaking legit.

That's proof. Proof of what? Proof that discipline equals freedom. Well, that's kind of a good deal where, like, yeah, you can go to prison, essentially, and get what, I mean, would you call it rehabilitated? Like, if you're improved, when you come out of it, I mean, shouldn't that sort of be the goal? I think so. Yeah, I think so. You know, like I said, it's, you know, we have something similar.

We don't have the bands on our arms, but if you have 15 years of good discipline, you get the long service good conduct medal. There you know. Yeah. You have things, you know, to aspire to. But, you know, I think everyone will get in trouble as long as you learn from it. But it's character building as well. You know, thankfully for me, it was at an early age. My good friend now, he's the RSM and the SES.

He was in Colchester Prison with me as well. So, but that's where it started to be in almost like, oh, people are getting promoted. And it's the wrong reasons for big o'clock in there. Really. But as you, if you come out a different man, different soldiers, but like I said, the instructions in there were amazing. And that's probably, you know, that was reflective on the guys when they came out. Well, it's interesting that you actually call them instructors and not guards, right? When you go into the Navy brig, if you're in the Marine Corps of the Navy, you get in trouble, you go into the brig.

And those are guards. They're not instructors. So it's kind of cool that they were actually trying to do, well, do you think that they were trying to teach you? They were trying to move you forward? Yeah, well, you have military lessons. It is just being on camp, but you're just locked up at night. That's the only difference. You know, you are going to, you're doing drill, you know, the guards.

like today we're going to take off on the runway and they'll just be marching as fast as you can. I mean, you have the gym instructors and then you do aircraft recognition. You'd be on the ranges. You'd go for runs. PT, you would run out at the camp gates. I remember running like,

I thinking, but I knew that if someone wanted to take a bolt for it and you stopped them, it reduced your sentence. I was keeping an eye out, you know, for any sort of sharp movements. If you tackled somebody, you'd get rid of. But I think you have an interview when you go in and they sort of say, you know,

You've got all sorts in there. You've got guys who don't want to be in the military. You know, I've got A-WAT. You've got guys with drugs. You know, there's all things. And when I, you know, you're just honest. I've got into a fight and they'll like, you just got caught. That's it.

At the end of the day. They're probably been in a position you've been in before, but just didn't get caught. So it's like more, I mean, it's like a different approach essentially than like a, you know, like when you think of prison outside of the military, you're like, no, that's your punishment. Straight up. Like you're, it's essentially like. the difference between a beating and a counseling kind of thing. So like, you know, what you're talking about is kind of a counseling. Like, hey, you did this.

Let's kind of re-benefits from this whole situation, improve you. Well, they have programs like this. Now that I think about it, they have programs like this in America. I don't know if they have them in England, but they take kids that are on the wrong track and they put them into like a highly disciplined, military, militaristic environment. And it definitely can straighten them out.

I sponsored a kid going through one of those. things and went up there and saw what they were doing and it's like a lot of those kids really turn around and start doing well yeah so yeah and then but then if you just get the beating it's like you just it's like yeah it's just a different approach right it's more effective i think for the military you know if you come out a different person you know if you come out and then you re-offend and obviously there's a problem um but i think it's almost like yes it's one strike yeah because you you can go in and you have 28 days and under and 28 days and older it's like two different wings and sort of look down at the 28 days.

You said that in the book. You're like, I'm competitive about it. You guys are over here for 28 days. I'm big time. I mean, you've got the ones actually we're going to get discharged from the military as well. But rather than just thrown them out the gates, they would go do plumbing courses,

carpenter courses. So there was stuff there to help them here. Man, that's squared away. Okay, so I cut you off when you were starting to talk about dive school. I'm sorry, but... Yeah, no, it's, yeah. So the raw engineers have divers. I think we have about 450 divers at the moment.

And basically, when I was in Germany, there was always things on orders asking for guys who want to go on a dive course. Because everyone's heard of P company, the Paracourse, and the All Arms Commander course. But the dive course, I think it's probably one of the most arduous and underrated courses. But it's also an additional quo,

so you get more money. Back in the day when I did, it was only £2.65, it's about $5 a day. But now you're talking, you know, 20 pounds, so $30. So there used to always be anyone want to go on the course. Right?

Exactly, yeah, exactly. But they'd struggle to get volunteers from other units. Because of the guys from the airborne engineers and commando engineers, because it's already physically robust, there's a waiting list. You know, you are at the back of that list.

But because they're all in Germany, so all in Northern Ireland, they'll out, or you're going on the apt to shoot. So I literally must have just fast-tracked two or three years. years to get on this course. So I went and did my aptitude and how I've seen diving change over the years. This was back in 97 and it was called a Deska diving set self-contained compressed there. It's like scuba. But it was no comms. We don't have any comms. It was nil visibility. The only way we

communicate, we had a lifeline, a rope around our chest with a bow line and they just do pools and bells. So it's an alien, as you know, underwater, it's an alien environment. So a lot of guys don't like it. But for me, being surfing, and I love the water. It was almost like, for me, I'm more comfortable underwater, but I am on land. So I did that course, came back. And the squadron had just returned from Northern Ireland. So here's me now in this new unit, just stolen everyone's dive course,

which everyone's on the waiting list for. And they've obviously heard I've just come out of Colchester prison. So there was a couple of names within the unit, like, you know, squadron bullies. And they're like, oh, wait till such and such sees you. And I thought, here we go. We had a Christmas party. And one of the lads just comes over. He said, oh, you think you're handy and just full on, straight in the face.

I was like, oh, God. So, you know, I just right hooked him back. And, you know, he stepped back and said, that's all I needed to know. And I think that sort of, you know, gave my foot in the door within the unit. But what a 5-9 Commando used to be the Army Minor Unit boxing champions. And each year, because they won the final, they'd automatically go to the final the next year. And each year our opponents were the airborne engineers.

So this was coming up in January, three mums training. I didn't have a choice. Well, you've been to Colchette's prison. You're on the boxing team. I thought, really? So we went. I just spent three mums. Did you ever box before?

I did in Guilford near Surrey one of my friends from school we went to a place called Bellfields so I did a bit of boxing there and again my father didn't want me boxing and I sort of had an agreement and I said well look I'll box until I get beat and then you know then I'll stop

so thankfully I never got beat I only had about three fights I think when I was when I was there but in the military in 5-9 commando it's it's just pure fitness there's no boxing skill at all and we would have three or four PT sessions a day.

And rather than like lose the weight over a period of time, they lose the weight in a short period and you've got to maintain it. But three months later we had the Army Mine Unit's finals

and there's other guys from the squadron based at other training units and you can see him reading the book like, who's this dot? Who's this new lad? And we thought we were going to walk away with it and at the interval it was two all.

There's seven fights of the night it's two all at the interval. And remember the Sergeant Mayer. you're coming in and he's just like in my chest he said you need to do you know poking me right in the bill of chest and I was like oh my god and um I came out and I think I had tears in my eyes the adrenaline was pumping but I went out and I knocked the guy down three times in a minute and 20 seconds and and that literally you know I'd made my mark within five nine commando and I settled in quite well that's awesome good story um

you go you go here in the book you say it wasn't it wasn't long to my time at 5-9 that I was selected for Recky Troop, a kind of elite within the squadron. It was a huge privilege as Recky was known as being a great stepping stone towards the special forces, an idea that I'd begun to toy with, thinking about my future in the Army. So you end up in Recky Troop. That's it, yeah. So in Free Commander Brigade, you have 5-9 Commando, the engineers that support the brigade. You have 2-9 Commando, the artillery.

and within Free Commandar Brigade, they have their own sort of reconnaissance troop called Brigade Recade Recade Patrol Troop from the Marines, which consists of snipers and mountain leaders. But also part of that group is naval gunfire from the artillery and also 5-9 Recky Troop. So we're almost like eyes on the ground, advanced eyes on the ground, you know, given input on potential combat engineering tasks. So you have to be selected from Rekatroop within 5-9 Commando and they did that in Norway So each year we used to go to Norway for three months And the whole of the brigade

And we do Arctic warfare training It was all due to the Cold War If the Russians were starting to head west Across Norway that we'd be able to stop them So you know And Norway's an equalizer And that separates the boys from the men So I'd got my name had been picked up

To go record troop And so yeah, so very fortunate to get selected again at a young age to go Recuit Troop. And within 5-9 Commando, it's actually classed as a posting. So my time had started again as I entered into Recit Troop. As you touched on there, Recuitrup had 100% pass rate for UK Special Forces selection. So guys, I would see guys leaving and never come back. So for me, it's when I then started, my head started turning towards the opportunity of special forces. You know, my dad told me I'd last two minutes.

I managed to get through basic training. I've done a PTA. I managed to get through Colchester. I managed to get through the commander course. I'm now just about getting my parowings. And you're also then amongst light-minded individuals, those who want to go or aspire to be special forces. So, so yeah, that was Reky Troop for me. Did you go through any official training for Reky Troop?

to go to a school or is it just from the unit itself you get trained up? They had their own selection process within the unit and then you used to have to go do P company which is the airborne engineers course. But when I got there, our troop staff sergeant said there's no need to do P company, you know, would run our own selection process, which disgruntled some of the older boys. They felt, oh, you have to do P company. But there was a big difference as well now in the guys that were going RekyTrope compared to the guys of old.

And so guys of old were like you joker, they were just huge, you know, they were just massive guys. It was all about fitness. Whereas now, you know, the world was sort of evolving. The Balkans had kicked off. And so 5-9 commander went to Bosnia and Recky Troop. We went to Kosovo with Brigade Recky Force. Well, this was the first operational tour for Recky Troop since the Falklands War. So the guys in between that period hadn't seen any action.

And then we then went over. to Kosovo, which was great for us. Yeah, you say here, one day I called home to the UK with news for my dad. He'd probably forgotten long ago about our two minutes conversation in the car. I had, and I had a big smile on my face as I gave him the news. I'm going to Kosovo. I told the old soldier, I'm going on tour. And this is in 2000.

So if you were going to do something real, going into the, going into the, going into Kosovo was as good as it was going to get at that time. At that time, yeah. then what types of missions were you doing there so brigade wrecking force so we were we were doing as a you know forward observation for example one the first i mean it's in the book actually the first op we went on it was like right we're going on the ground we're on ops and so basically there was a 5k buffer zone between serbian and kosovo and they didn't want any sort of any serbians in there any

cosvans in there because that you know that's where it was all kicking off so a lot of our work was on the border. But there was also those that committed horrific crimes, crimes of war as well. So we were also identifying these HVTs, getting imagery from them, and then obviously getting guys to come in and pick them up. So we were having to grab, you know, camera kit, straight off civilian shells, walking in with a great big lens and things like that. And I remember the first job we went on and we inserted. We had our intelligence brief. We inserted. And as we were patrolling, you know, to the F.R.V. I was a rear

man, and I kept hearing something that I was sort of that. Stopped the team. Get down on one knee, you know, all around the fence. We're all looking through our size. You know, there's nothing there, but you can hear almost like the creeping in the leaves. You know, someone's sneaking up on us.

Anyway, this carried on all the way through. We got to the position. Even when we're in the O.P. position, we could hear it. We've got the imagery. we needed and about two weeks later we we extracted through the field for two weeks in the field and the whole time you're hearing this noise at night you hear these probable enemy approaching your position yeah yeah ready for the fight the whole time you're thinking of the worst you know you shouldn't be there and things that and uh so when we extracted um we went back to camp and we we have the

a debrief and like you know any points I'm like yeah you know I don't know whether we were compromised it felt I will compromise but there was a lot of movement you know especially at night and then some you know call them green slime the intelligence core this guy is that oh i did forget to mention it's breeding season for the tortoises so actually what we were hearing was the tortoises coming out to mate but it kept the whole patrol on stand two for two weeks uh so you guys are doing recon patrols how big of teams are you guys rolling out with so we're in six-man team yeah six-man team and and you're staying for up to two weeks out there? We did four weeks once. Yeah, we got to, basically we got an in-report in that there was a

training camp in the 5K buffer zone. The Serbians basically said, you deal with them or we'll do with them. And so we inserted, remember, you know, snow on the ground as well. And because we were at it trained, we were the best guys for the job. So we inserted, did our tents and we're in observation OPs for four weeks and just feeding back all the intelligence and then they were it was a military training school they were doing heavy weapons training small arms training it was quite well disciplined and we were actually then relieved by the Americans Americans you know came in and took over from us four weeks later and I think subsequently from that SF did go in and actually take down the training camp but for me yeah four weeks in in the in the in the

the snow, you know, separates the boys from the men. What is the op tempo like when you'd get back? How often would, how much downtime would you get and then you'd roll back out? We'd be rolling, you know, we'd obviously deservous and resurfaced, but it was, it's everything from urban to rural, you know, we were doing stuff as well in, in, in vehicles. We had snipers in, in the tall buildings in the middle of Pristina. So the jobs would range from that to, you know, we did get into about one of the local government guys. is going to be an assassination attempt on him. So we're obviously having to keep an eye on him all the time as well.

And I remember actually seeing two guys and we got out, we were in civilian attire and we walked up to, walking up towards him. Could we see the guys that we knew were going to take him down? And they caught our eye and they caught theirs and they just went the other way. And actually it was a dry rehearsal. We just compromised a dry rehearsal. They weren't doing it then,

which obviously kept him alive probably for another month. I think he did get assassinate after we left. So you had to be... How old are you right at this point? 99722. Yeah, so you're just all kinds of fired up for this. Is living the dream. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's everything you dream about and read about. Yeah, you're doing it for real. You go through this here in the book as you close out this chapter. We were just about to head home from Kosovo when we were fastballed onto a task. We're going to apprehend a bomb maker, we were told. And the adrenaline began to buzz in my veins. Sitting through the intel brief, we learned that someone had been cooking up bombs that were being used to take out politicians.

The bomb maker wasn't the one using them. He was more like a chef for hire. Understandably, NATO were keen to get him off the streets. I wasn't the one to grab him, but a couple of the other guys bundled him into the back of our vehicles, of our vehicle. His hands were tied behind his back, and despite our orders to keep his eyes on the floor,

he kept looking up and around him. I put a hand on the back of his head to help his concentration. That's bang out of order, the man shouted in a sharp Manchunian accent as I've ever heard. So that's a Manchester accent? Manchester accent. My jaw dropped and I looked around at the other guys in the team. Not for one moment had we suspected that the bomb maker could be a fellow countryman. When we dropped him off for questioning, I bet he wished he'd stayed at home.

There was a solitary chair in the center of a courtyard with two bright spotlights shining onto it. Very James Bond. we left the bomb maker to answer for his crimes. It was time for us to go home. So you guys were running. So those are great ops, you know? Great ops getting bad guys. Who'd you turn them over to?

Who was going to interrogate him? It was our intelligence services, yeah. Relatively gentle then. So then this is the point where you get the offer to or the selected once again to go be an instructor. Yeah, that's it. At Limestone, am I saying it right? Limston, yeah. Limston.

So you go to Limston to be an instructor of that commando course, which you had gone through, and the one that you said everyone got fired. Yeah, yeah, that's it, yes. And so how was that? Yeah, great. Obviously, it's great privilege to go back. So what we used to do with 5-9 Recky Troop,

each troop within 5-9 had to have a guy who did guard duties and things of that. So we were exempt from guys. duties and from that we would send an instructor on the commander course for years so you're actually again it was classed as a post in out of the unit but you're still attached so again when i talk about being an ambassador you're an ambassador now for the cat badge and this was only about four years after me doing my own course so i always remember my course thinking well you know when we were on our course we had to build build up the instructors tents you know we were doing a lot for them when i got there it was night and day now we did our own tents um but the instructors

had changed completely. We were doing everything that the students were doing. We were wearing the same equipment. We didn't have any Gucci kit as well. We were wearing exactly what they had. Because you were, as an ambassador, you obviously had to be seen to be doing what they were doing, which I thought was a great way of teaching.

Don't ask them if you can't do it yourself. And so, yeah, it was night and day. We had a couple of instructors on the course, and, you know, I soon learned how you can get the most out of your students. I know when I was on my course, you know, I didn't learn anything. And I always remember that. I thought, well, I don't want this to happen to these young boys. You know, I want them to be in a good position when they go to their unit.

Because you're going to go back to 5-9 and you're going to be serving alongside these guys as well. But we had a couple of instructors, and they would just come out every morning, just scream and shout. You know what I mean? I think the marine instructors, they felt they had a bad deal. going on the All Arms Commander course. But in fact, actually, they enjoyed it. They really opened their eyes to how good these guys were at Soldier. You know, the Marines, because it's nine months long,

they're so proud of their tradition. And they see these Army guys coming in and doing 10 weeks, but they don't realize what they've done before they've got there. But these guys would come out and scream and shout. And you can see these students' eyes. It was almost like straight in the press-up position, and, you know, they've got nothing back. whereas for me

it was all about the banter it's about a humour you need to have a sense of humour and be approachable so if I had to tell them to do press ups I would do the press ups with them a member also there was a law that we could only do 30 press ups

really a law yeah within Limston yeah they start introducing maximum you can do it's 30 press ups but there's ways you can get around that you know because you can do a press up you can do a half press up you can hold it for a few seconds and then fully down you know so we did that. I mean, there's ways around it. But for them as students, you know, I was seeing a

better product at the end than probably what they did of me four years before. So I did like, I did like that change. Do you feel like you were able, like I was very lucky because I was gotten new instructor roles and was able to teach. I taught everything. It was awesome. I felt like I learned a lot while I was teaching because now you're observing. I mean, from a leadership perspective, you know, I was when I was at E5, so I was like a young junior guy. I was teaching the young officers that were going through our basic, it was called SEAL Tactical Training at the time. So I'm out there telling them how to run immediate action drills

and telling them like, hey, no one's listening to you. You need to step back. You need to take a look around. I learned so much from doing that. Did you feel like you, in this instructor mode, got to learn? Yeah, I got to learn a lot myself. Yeah. And like I said, we call it the sugar pedestal.

We used to have to always do the demonstrations before the students. So it's like, do not mess this up. So our drills had to be slick and quick. But on my first course, we had the first female candidate to do the All Arms Commander course. Yeah. In the book, you call it what, Lieutenant Y? Lieutenant Y.

Lieutenant Y. Yeah, we had to protect her name for legal reasons. But she'd done two, she had two previous attempts. And this was her third attempt. And so the instructors who took her on her initial two courses were dismissed from. the training team and we had another training team sort of come in so you could already see it's going to be it's getting steered that way but basically um what it was is they wanted a female to pass the commander course and people don't realize it's actually basically if a female hadn't passed the commander course

they were going to lower the standards until a female passed but that would be standard throughout male and female so the fact that she went on and passed we we didn't lower the standards so people don't see the bigger the bigger picture behind the scenes so so when you talk about her in the book she didn't pass it's not that she didn't pass there was two ladies on the course it was lieutenant y and i'll say lieutenant x uh lieutenant x uh lieutenant x was a uh doctor who's actually from five nine and she did everything that was asked of her you know she she struggled and things like that whereas lieutenant y was almost playing the system she knew that if she could go to the doctor she would get two days

light duties but the way the timings of that used to always before a commando test so she'd rest up for a couple of days before the commando test

and it was that it wasn't the fact that she didn't it was the fact that she played the system well um lieutenant X

you know she I remember one of the guys uh who went on to be chief instructor the sniper school we were doing some

close quarter CQB and you know you'd follow the student through and then at the end you'd give him a debrief and he's like he comes through with a student he said that guy was brilliant and then

me named him started chatting and as we looked over it was like a scene from a shampoo advert she took her helmet off and just rushed the hair down and with both of us our jaw was hit the floor and there's that I said well if she was good you tell her you know you tell it if she was good and he did yeah you're excellent but unfortunately week five you do your your bottom field test it's like an assault course and you have to climb a 30 foot rope and she was about a foot and a half just below that robe so she didn't progress on that course but I do think you know if she had non-ad instructed without any qualms at all so was that lieutenant X or Lieutenant Y's Lieutenant X? Okay yeah and but you're saying eventually she did make it through

Lieutenant no Lieutenant Y she she made it through on that course she made it through on that course and it was almost to just dampen the white noise you know white whole we need a female to pass we need a female to pass but you can imagine what the airborne lads were like you know what I mean it was like oh my God You know, you used to get phone calls. My wife's on paternity leave for 10 weeks. I mean, she'd come down and do your course. I was the good banner.

And then you also talked about a guy that was, what, 50-something years old? Yeah. Just a beast. Yeah. So, you know, even when, you know, Lieutenant Y passed, I was getting blueies from the lads who are in Afghan. You know, yeah, well done. You know, I mean, it was like, you know,

the lads from the special forces don't even bother coming on selection. It's like a big thing of female passing. But to be honest, you know, she deserved to pass. I generally believe that if you deserve to pass, you know, you've burnt the right. And so, yeah, the next course, this gentleman turns up Captain Fox. And he's basically going to be the family officer at 29 Commando. This guy's 55 years old. And he did P Company four years before I was born, the airborne, you know what I mean?

So we're there on parade. And the first thing we do is we do a, I think we do a six-mile booted march. And it was spring. And we came back. It's like you just thrown two buckets of water over this guy. And I was like, I said, are you all right, Captain Fawkes? He goes, oh yeah, I had pneumonia, you know, 15 years ago. So I can't control my my sweat.

So I was like, oh, my God, this guy's going to die on me. But this guy, basically, he had like four-wheel records. He was an ultra-marathon run. I don't know what it was called, but basically has to keep moving, has to be physically active. But this guy was old school. I remember when, you know, teaching the students messed up. And, you know, so I had him on Beast. D. Null up and down this hill.

I remember him coming down. Every time he come to me, he'd get in the press-up position. I just to feel really embarrassed. I'm talking to my granddad. I was like, please, please stand up, Captain Fox. I said, what is it? He said, can I take my warm kit off now? I was like, yeah, yeah, please do. But, you know, really humbling being with him.

But I remember he was in my group and we were doing the 30-mile next week. You know, it's the commando test. And the final test is a 30-mile endurance march in eight hours. And at the end, you get, you covered Green Berretel. He said, it's a corporal story. He said, is there a grid reference to the finish point? And the finish point actually is a public car park on Dartmouth. I said, yeah, you shouldn't know it, but I said, this is it.

Fine. So when it came to the 30-mile, I bring him up. And so he wanted to know that. Did he clarify why he wanted to know that? It's because he wanted his wife or whatever. Yeah, he wanted his girlfriend to come along. He said, oh, my girlfriend wants to meet me at the end. Do you mind?

I said, yeah, fine. So we came over. Cut the old man's slack. Yeah, yeah. Much of preseason you. Us older dudes saying, yeah, right on. Thank you. Yeah, I just had so much respect for him.

In fact, the P company four years before I was born. So I said, yeah, of course. And then we did the 30-mile. And on the last phase, you bring them up a hill called Pooper's Hill. You come and bring them in. I mean, you stop him short of the end. And you get them to sort themselves out. They put their cap comfort on.

And we marched them in. And so I was doing that. And as we came around the corner, oh, my God, it was like a Super Bowl. There was banners there, no balloons. How was that acting? I said, I thought it was just your girlfriend. He said, oh yeah, my grandkids as well. My kids.

Brilliant. I did Google. I think this is a good section you had in here just on, on, you touched on it, but just the attitude of being an instructor. You say, I think a lot of NCOs came into their positions on courses and, and at units thinking that being shouty, shouty and swearing was the way to behave because that's how it had been for them. And perhaps they thought it made them feared.

Personally, I didn't want to scare people into learning. If they didn't want to be there, they'd end up failing themselves without me shouting and screaming. I found it far more effective to use humor and to be quiet at times when others would shout. Using that old parents line of, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. Just a look would be enough. They wanted the approval of those already wearing the green lid. And so if they saw that they had failed you, they double their efforts on the next task. No need for shouting or swearing.

When you fill a void with swearing, it looks rightly or wrongly like it's down to lack of intelligence or to anger issues. Instructors were being assessed by their students just as much as the other way around. I always decided early on that I would share in any punishment that I handed out. If I gave them press-ups, then I'd get down in the mud and do them too. Not only did that earn their respect, but it gave them no excuse in their minds to feel hard done by. At the end of the course, those that earned the coveted berets would be serving a long, inside me. And so I wanted to treat them as my equals, even if I was in a position of authority, especially if I was in a position of authority. We need each other. And that's the same,

whether you're on a training exercise in combat or attempting a world record. No person is an island. Yeah. Good, a great attitude that I think a lot of people could use, you know, from a leader's not just instructor, but from just a leadership perspective. You know, that you think maybe you need to yell to get someone's respect. No, it doesn't.

You actually lose respect when you act like that. You get done with that. And now you go to see the careers management officer and he's asking you about what you want to do next. Now, did he chime in about selection? Did he go in a selection? Did he see the one that brought up you possibly go in a selection?

Or did you already have it in your mind? I had it in my mind. So he pulled me in. So the whole period of time now, from joining 5-9 to where I was now, I was now a sergeant. I'd spent eight years in 5-9. And that's purely because of the record troop, the all-arms commander course. So normally in the military, you spend three years and then you move on to another unit. You know, you progress in your career.

So to have eight years there and seven in them with brigade record, it's unheard of. So I basically had to move on. So I'd put my paperwork in for Pathfinders, which was the Brigade Recky for the airborne unit. And each year we have a confidential report. And my report was excellent. And he pulled me in and he said, can you not see the wood through the trees? He goes, you need to go to then come back as the Recky Troop staff sergeant. Going, you know, pathfinders isn't the way.

So he probably like, yeah, gave me a bit of a rollicking. But that afternoon, actually, I got a phone. called from Glasgow. Glasgow runs all our manning records. They tell you where you're getting posted and things like that. And so the Royal Engineer divers, we also have Royal Navy Search divers. There have been a few

deaths recently in the Royal Navy divers, just purely because they're not full-time divers and it was, you know, lack of no, I would say lack of protocol. Yeah, exactly, yeah, protocol training. So unfortunately been in a couple of deaths. But then HSE had now started creeping into diving. You know, when

said earlier that there's no voice comms and things like that now you can't dive unless you've got two-way visual camera and voice comms so hSE was really creeping into military way what's hSC health and safety executive yeah yeah yeah the big banners so they'd introduce a new dive equipment called the saber mod one and so it didn't disrupt the other diving courses they introduced another dive team to come in and train all the current divers within the engineers so I just passed my army diving supervisors and got top students. So, you know, that same day to start majors, like, I haven't been a rollic. I'd then get posted to the dive school. So it was out of both our hands. So I went down there as the senior dive instructor. And then you're

down there as a senior drive instructor. And it sounds like you guys are basically just partying a lot because in the book, I mean, you guys are divers, but you kind of, it's You're training people that are already divers, right? Yeah, yeah. And you're just training them on a new piece of gear. That's it, yeah. They're already qualified divers, but for them, they're going to Portsmouth. It's like probably coming to San Diego.

You've got two weeks in the gas lamp. You know, for these guys, they're saving up their money. They're ready to rock and roll. Yeah, but every two weeks, you get another course of qualified divers. So for them, it was a holiday. They knew they were passing. They were just going through the procedures. So they're on holiday, and they're dragging you on holiday.

Yeah, yeah. You're coming out and I was a single guy Yeah, of course And at one point, at what point did you realize Did you decide you're gonna go selection? So a couple of mates who had gone SAS And we met up about three months later And, you know, it really opened my eyes

And I, you know, I like to party hard And they were like, you're not even drunk And you know, I said, I'm gonna go on selection And it was one of the back, well, no you won't. I said, yeah, well, so that might, Monday, I just stopped drinking and then I train. I went on, I had an attempt at selection before that a couple years before, not long after the D' All Arms Command of course and my knee blew out on the hill.

How deep into selection were you on that first time when you got blown out knee? Within the aptitude phase, the first four weeks on the hill train. So I tore my lateral meniscus. But my training for that selection, I was up and down the North Devon Coastal path, carrying weight, just pounding and pounding and pounding the knee. So for me, I didn't want to have that same approach with this attempt. Also, I was running dive courses at the time. So any time I had, you know, off was the evening.

So I'd spend two hours on these spin bikes. You know, these spin bikes, I'd just be on a spinner for two hours each night for six weeks. How was when you got dropped from selection the first time around, like you're kind of making it like it's no big deal. I only know from my experience, it's a, when you, if, you, if, you, if, you, you. If people don't make it through like basic seal training, it's horrible because you're going to be in the regular Navy and that's not what you're doing the Navy to do and all of a sudden you're doing this other thing.

Or you're doing like a regular Navy job and that's not good. And I can't even fathom like my mindset if I wouldn't have made it. But it seems like it's a little easier on someone that's, you know, so you were you at 5'9? So I was in recoup at the time. Yeah. So you're in recic troops. You're like, okay, I didn't get through it this time.

and I still have an awesome job, so maybe it wasn't quite as psychologically devastating? Yeah, well, you get two attempts at selection, you see. Got it. So I knew I had another attempt. It wasn't the be all or end all, but I learned a lot from that, and it was the approach to training.

You know, a lot, you know, we have the first four weeks, which we'll talk about soon on selection, which is the aptitude phase, which is the hills phase, which is the physical. Once you're past that, it's when the soldering then comes in.

And I sort of knew, I just need to get past that first four weeks, Because soldiering wise, you know, I spent years in wreckage group, you know, I was on the all-arms team, you know, I was quite current. So when I approached, did it the second time, like I said, I was on the spinner bike for two weeks, so it was low impact. And actually, we do a run in the UK ministry called BFT, the basic fitness test. It's a run for a mile and a half. And I got my fastest run at the age of 28. I did it like seven minutes, 10 seconds.

So I thought, right, you know, the fitness is up, up here. So I then went on selection. I decided to go at SBS. I went and did they do a thing called a briefing course because there's two attempts at selection. Days of old, guys, you know, if you weren't from the Marines and Paris, guys would go on selection and get caught out. They'll get a big culture shock.

They didn't realize actually what was involved and what training and preparation you needed to do. So rather than wasting one life, then coming back and potentially getting injured, Both units then introduce a thing called a briefing course, which you can have as many attempts out as you want. And it's a one-week course, and basically it's like an aptitude.

It gives you an insight of where you are, fitness-wise, navigation-wise. Did you get to do that the first attempt that you did? They didn't have it yet. They didn't have that yet. So you had wasted one life. So I'd wasted one life, yeah. So I went and did the SAS briefing course for a week,

and then the following week I went and did the SBS one, because I still wanted to make my decision. But obviously, a lot of more my friends were in the SAS. I sort of knew all them and sort of the way that they operated. And then I went down to Paul, endorse it on our South Coast. And then the guys are there, you know, they've got

frog shorts, T-shirts, they've got, you know, reef sandals and oak, I was that. Yeah, this is me. This is where I belong. So I did both and then you have to make the decision before you've gone to selection. So I said, right, I'm going S-A-S. And that was a new thing. Before, if you were in the Army, you're going to the S-A-S.

if you were in the Marines, or I guess would they take regular Navy dudes into the SBS? There's only ever been one Navy guy pass, although it's the Naval Special Forces, only one Navy guys pass. Up until then, it was 100% raw Marines. So normally, or in the past, you would have been SAS 100%,

not even a choice. You're in the Army, you're going to the SAS. And at some point, during the joint environment of, hey, we all need to work together, they said, pick which one you want to go to. You saw the, you saw a pool, you saw flip-flops and surf shorts and Oakley's and said, I'm heading there. Yeah, that was it.

So what it was was the Marines could go to the SAS. So the SBS were losing candidates to the SES because not everyone likes diving, you see. Oh, yes. And then some guys have head injuries as well. It means they can't go underwater. So they were losing students to that. And so they decided to then open up tri-service that the Navy, the Army, and the RAF can come.

And they'd just literally just done that. So for me, having spent eight years in Free Commander Brigade, having the Green Beret anyway and being the sea and diet, it just seemed the natural transition, the perfect transition for me. But in my head, I thought, well, if I go S-A-S, you know, because I'm a senior dive instructor, I'm going to end up in boat troop. If I go SBS, these guys are all divers.

So, you know, I'm a level playing field. and that was where my mindset was. And so, yeah, I did it much to the disgust of my friends in the SAS. They're like, what you're doing? Because especially like record tree, we had a 100% pass rate. And it was like, you know, if this guy goes, then, you know, people are going to look at those options. You know, UK Special Forces, 40% are UK Special Forces made up of the Royal Marines. That's because they were all in the SBS.

You had to explain this a lot. Here's the book talking to your instructors. Why the fuck do you want to go to pool? One of the DSs asked me, the special forces selection encompassed all of those who want to go to SAS and SBS. So it's the exact same training. You're going to go through the exact same training, the exact same selection course, I should say. I knew I shouldn't give them a real answer.

I didn't want to go to boat troop in Hereford. And I liked the way the SBS guys cut about in T-shirts, shorts, and Oakley's. As a surfer that appealed to me and pool would certainly. put me closer to the surf spots of Devon and Cornwall. I love diving, staff. Shit answer, who likes diving? The DS snorted picking up a rock. Put that in your kit and you better fucking have it when we get to the end of the day.

I had it with me every day. Each morning the DS would ask me the same question and each day I'd be told to put a rock into my already heavy Bergen. Then one day I had an idea. My chances of being the gray man were long gone. And so I decided to deploy a bit of humor. back in the camp that evening I got busy and in the morning I was prepared. Two of the DS walked over to me.

They were both from Hereford and both had been at 5'9. They had a keen eye for horrible rocks. Oh, you? Why the fuck you want to go to pool? I placed my weapon down across my boots so that it was out of the dirt and opened up one of the map pockets in my trousers, pulling out a laminated photo. What the fuck is this? One of them sneered. It was a photo of Bournemouth.

Am I saying that right? Bournemouth. Bournemouth. Born mouth. God, I'm an American. It was a photo of Bournemouth beach during a heat wave. I pulled it off of Google and laminated it in the office. You don't get topless girls on the beach in Hereford staff.

I told them with a straight face and both men burst out laughing. I kept the photo in my pocket for the rest of the course and didn't carry another rock. Actually, one of the main reasons why I grew up surfing too. in the cold water of New England. And I was looking at, you know, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to go into, and one of the things that was seemed like a really good deal was either being stationed in Virginia Beach,

which is good waves on the East Coast and or San Diego, which is San Diego. And either that, you know, are you going to Fort Bedding or Fort Lewis or, you know, just there's some other places to get stationed. So that definitely helped guide me in the right direction. And I didn't know any seals at the time. Otherwise, I would have seen sandals, shorts, Oakley's.

And that probably would have steered me even more in that direction. You continue on here. Despite the rocks, I did really well on the hills. The training on the spin bike worked out. My joints felt fresh. On my last basic fitness test at dive school, I even ran my fastest time ever. 28 years old, avoiding injury on the hills is key. There's no time for recovery.

If you get hurt, you're done. That's that. And so I was pleased that I'd learned the lessons of my first attempt. at selection and adapted my plan accordingly. Yeah, my buddy John Dudley, he's a bowhunter and like he's he spends a bunch of time on the stationary bike getting ready for hunting season and I was like I just put on a rock and walk because I'm maybe not as smart. But yeah, it seems like that's a seems like that works.

Yeah, I think obviously you can have the impact anyway. You know, for me, when I did the first selection, you know, I've got quite big hill legs. So actually ascending hills was not a problem. Where you need to be making up your time is on the downhills and on the straights. And that's where I needed to improve. So that's why I introduced the spin bike. Because I didn't want to inflame that injury again. I didn't want to start in a bad position.

So I just looked at what worked and what didn't. I knew I had the strength in my legs. I just didn't have the speed. And how was I going to be able to improve on that? And that's where the spinning bike was perfect for it. but our aptitude our first four weeks is you know it's 20 to 30 kilometers you know up to 70 pounds you have then then have like the test week and they say you know you need to be moving at 4k an hour which thinks that's fine but that says the crow flies looking at a map so if you've got

a mountain in the way you need to get over that mountain so you need to really be moving about five to six k an hour because if you have any issues navigational wise you know you've got some fudge and you're not scraping in but groundhog day for four weeks doing that on the breck and beacons in wells is uh and you don't know there's no like cut off time they just tell you to go and get it done as quick as you can that's it yeah you basically get to your your your start point you know the ds will give you your grid reference you then step aside work out you know which direction you're going tell him in time speed distance and you sort of working on your your 4k an hour how long it's going to take you and then you go i mean you're going to you're going to

you get to the next checkpoint, which is the top of the hill, where he's always meet the DS telling me to pick up a rock. And then they will just give you the next one. And you just keep going until you get to the finish point. And they also have a couple of little games in there as well where you think you finish for the day. And they're like, right, your next checkpoint. And then you know, you go, you start going. And it caught a couple of guys out.

They were done and didn't realize actually it was just the test. You should have to be self-discipline, you know, self-motivated. Yeah, no, you wrote about that in the book, how they'd come up, you think you're done. Yeah. You've been walking for what, 12 hours, 14 hours or whatever it is, 19th day in a row. Yeah. You come up to the drill sergeant and you say, you know, him checking in. And he's like, yep, here's your next point.

And guys would say, I'm done. And they'd quit. Yeah. And then someone else would come up and say, they'd say, here's your next point. They'd start walking. Say, hey, just kidding. Come back. and then that guy would realize

that they just quit for no reason. Yeah. Yeah, I think on ours, it was a lot of the parralads. A lot of the parachute regiment lads would go as drivers to drive the vehicles on the selections before.

So they knew the start and finishes points and it was actually to catch them out because in their head, they're like, right, I've just got 30 kilometers. I've just got 30 kilometers. And so they built themselves up. And when they get to that point,

they think it's finished. And then when you throw a little curveball in there to like, they weren't expecting it. But then, yeah, then tests, you know it's called the aptitude phase but test week itself you then have five marches and if you don't come in on the times you know you get red cards you get two red cards you're done i think the first three march is about 30 kilometers the fourth march is it's 35 kilometers but then you have four hours rest

and then that evening you do 40 miles with 70 pounds it's called endurance and you have to do that within 20 hours it's called other things besides endurance i can tell you right now yeah yeah so um But you finish that and you think brilliant. You know, I've just passed the hills face. It's quite a big thing. But for the instructors, they call it aptitude, they don't even call you by your name. They don't even know who you are at this point.

It's like, and you probably lost 50% of the course at this point. Either voluntary withdrawal, injury, or actually just not me in the grades. Yeah, injury level's got to be high. Yeah. Because that's a beat down on your joints. I mean, well, it happened to you the first time. Yeah, exactly. I mean, obviously, I broke my ankle as a young boy,

so my nemesis in the military was my my left ankle and so it would go over we can edit that out we don't want everyone to know his is their weaknesses so for me though I knew that and I would take you know I'd tape my ankles up and things like that and I remember on test week um I had these these military boots lowers had great ankle support because you know because lads were failing they were leaving so in the evening you put your boots in the drying room and I remember going in the next day and I'm like that they look a bit small and one of the guys who'd left had taken my boots and I was oh no I still had three more test matches with these with these almost like jungle boot style boots you know running across all these babies heads so yeah but you know it's also administering yourself and looking

after yourself and prevention you continue on you get past that that phase and like you say in here like that was just the beginning um and you also say this you had to be totally self-motivated You either had the mental strength or you didn't. Unlike P Company or Commander, of course, there were no shouts of encouragement from the staff. Anything the DS did say would be an attempt to undermine your confidence and make you second guess yourself. My preparation for the course helped a lot.

I never doubted my decisions. I knew I'd done the work over the years to be spot on with my mapping compass. I knew I'd left enough sweat in the gym to have my fitness up to standard. I'm only human and I'd listen to the DS's cutting criticism, but then I could calmly say to myself, it's just part of the mind games, mate, you're doing fine. Times like those, I'd think back to when my dad had told me I wouldn't last two minutes in the army, he'd been wrong.

And so with the DS. Yeah, they learn what to say to people to get them to quit. You know, they say all kinds of things. And what do you say right there? It's just part of the mind games. Yeah. But man, they go hard.

Yeah, yeah, they do. Yeah, we go to the jungle. So once we finish the hills phase, we start doing some infantry skills as well because basically you're learning all over again. So whether you're a Marine or Para, the way that they operate in UKSF is totally different. And you're introduced new weapon systems.

So the C8, the Marco, is only used by UK Special Forces. You're having to learn a whole new weapon system again. And yeah, but you know from your friends who've done it before you that they're going to start playing mind games with you. And I remember we go to Brunei, spend six weeks in the jungle, And that's a great part of selection. You lose a lot of guys there. You know, some guys really thrive in the jungle,

and some guys, it's almost like it's claustrophobic. You know, you spend a lot of time in there day and day out, and you hear the helicopter coming in to pick up the lads, and you see guys, you just see guys randomly packing their bags. You're like, jeez it. And I'm like, what you're doing? I said, oh, well, you know, I'm going to fail. This instructor said, yeah, I ignore what the instructor said.

But I remember when it happened to me, I remember we were marching up to a range, and everything we do on selections live firing. We don't do blank. Everything is for real. You know, because on a day of the race you don't fire blank. And it's all about weapon handling that you're safe but, you know, effective.

And I remember one instructor's coming straight up to me, fucking in my face, screaming and a shower, and he's like, if I see any weapon handling like that again, because you'll be off. You'll be on the next helicopter. And I just said, yes, stuff. I didn't get into an argument. I hadn't even been on the range yet. He didn't be like that. You know, I didn't even been on the range.

So I knew it was my day. that he was testing me. And you could see it as well, you know, throughout the courts, you can see, oh, he's getting it today, because the instructor would be on you. I mean, you get guys, you know, who don't pass, and they said, oh, yeah, it's because I had a personality clash with the instructors, and a lot of them tend to use that.

But what they do on selection is as great is actually, especially for the final exercise, the last 10 days, they swap your instructors round. So if there is, you know, human beings, there's always going to be personality clashes. If there is anything like that, sort of you get a fair chance at it so um but i enjoyed i enjoyed the jungle for me um you know i was going through a court case at the time my ex-wife and trying to get custody of my my my first daughter

and um i remember passing and we have a barbecue and they always say don't go on selection we have any welfare issues you need to go there fully focused you know so guys guys would get letters from their wives you know blueies and she's having a bad day you know if she's She's at home with a free. What'd you call it a blueie? Blueie. Blue envelopes, which are free, free post. Got it.

And, you know, you write in there, and it's purely just military. So it's known as a bluey. And, you know, if your wife's having a bad day and she's got the kids, and she thinks you're on holiday in Brunei, you know what I mean? And she's like, I mean, you know, plays with your mind. And guys pull themselves off and then phone their wives and all that, oh, I'm actually all right now. You know what I mean?

So they do say, just cut off all the white noise. So when I finish my chief instructors, like, he goes, oh, yeah, guys come on air with welfare. I said, I'm going through a divorce and custody of my kid. He said, really? I said, there's the only place the solicitors can't get letters to me.

And that's what I mean. So for me at the time, it was a big escape. Escape, brother. Yeah, yeah. Just, just, boom. I've got back in a big pile of letters. That's great. But, yeah, you come back from that.

And I got the troop sergeant role for the final five days of the final attack. And that's almost an indicator that you're doing well. So I knew I'd done well on the course. But when you come out at Jungle, you have the barbecue, the instructors get together. They have their little final decisions.

But you don't know for another five days when you get back to UK. They don't tell you there and then. It's like, so, you know, one of the instructors came up to be at the barbecue, a friend of a friend, South African land, drunk, totally drunk. He's out, yeah, you've done well. He said, but you should come here. So it's almost like you've been given the nod un-officially. And so you're telling, lads, have you been given a nod?

Yeah, oh, I haven't. So lads are self-criticking over the next five days. And a member, the same DS came up to me the next day. He said, Stoy. He said, did I give you the nod last night? No, he said, did you pass? I said, I don't know. You said, I was drunk.

I was going to say, that's like psychological. All kinds of psychological games. Hey, it's been nice knowing. You've really made good effort. out here. It's like, hmm. Yeah. But actually the jungle drums, because it's quite a big thing selection.

You know, those instructors will go back. They'll sort of tell things. It doesn't take long before it starts. So I've got a text of my friend's wife saying, well done. I've passed. How does this wife know in Devon that I've passed?

But even though you're feeling confident that you've done it, you still, you're still when you walk in five days later. It's like, you know. Because occasionally guys are getting the down check because whatever. Yeah, that's it. You know, they may have got through the jungle. phase, but it may be, not, not this time.

But with the jungle, you only get one attempt. So that's your only attempt. So, yeah, that's quite a big, big color as well. But once you finish the jungle phase, you know that they want you, you know, so the next three months, you know, unless you're a real, you know, do a Neil Diamond, negligent discharge or something like that, you should be safe. And what's the last three months? What are you doing for that section?

So you do continuation trains. who do sear, survival evasion resistance extraction, running through grey coats around Scottish Highlands, you do your parachute and your squares, you do your communications kit, and then the final phase is counter-terrorism.

So basically they get you into a position that when you join your Sabre squadrons, that you can fit into the team, but that's just your start-up point within the squadrons. So it's a six-month process. It's actually quite long drawn out. And

And we basically, the SBS and the SES, as you touched on, is joint selection. And the accommodations at Hereford with the SES. And you're seeing the guys on the course already being given, you know, what squadron they're going to, told what deployments are going, having to go see the Quartermaster to get kit. And you guys in the SPS are like, oh, my God. You know, not getting anything. So it is quite frustrating that they get their Berri and belt. And then we used to just get given a blue track suit.

You've got then another three months continuation. Oh, it continues on. It does to the SPS. Is it still selection or is it just continuation? It's days of old it used to be selection because if you failed the dive course, they'd accept you in the SES. Ah.

So, you know, the whole thing, you know, what's the difference for the SES in the SPS? I always say, surprisingly, I've had a soldier, slightly better soldier, you know, sort of joking. But, you know, but actually they then introduced that we then got our own sort of unit recognition. We got our own cat badge recently. and we got our own belt because days of old

you wouldn't know who was SBS because it was a raw Marine cat badge that was it yeah the only indicate was his long curly hair go here an elite club it may have been

in the journey to get there was incredibly difficult but all of the other men at the squadron I now joined had done exactly the same so no one remarked on it for me selection had been the most monumental thing in my life

but for these guys it was a tick in the box to get me to work. You the new guy. Are you? All right, simple as that. I'd be exactly the same way once I'd spent some time at pool

and the next cadre of new guys came in. But for now, I was the new bloke and I was about to begin one of the most intense periods of my life. What year is this? So this is 2006. Oh, okay, so it's on. So where were you in September 11th happened?

So September 11th, we were about to go on an ex-high called Save Seria in Oman. It was a big, a big excise. I remember, obviously, seeing the Twin Tiles, you know, getting pulled into the cinema, watching it. And then that afternoon I got a phone call from the dive school, saying that, you know, there's an Army advanced diving course

started yesterday. Yesterday, one of the guys has failed his entrance test. So our diving courses are in phases. You have your basic course, which is six weeks. You had advanced courses, it's 10, and you supervise it. So you have to pass each. you progress. And so I got a phone call to come down to dive school.

So I was heading down the road and then obviously see the Twin Towers. Everyone's going to Oman. I think, oh my God, I'm going to miss out on this. And, you know, so I missed the initial phases. And then I was at Limston on the training team when the lads deployed. So yeah, I missed out with Free Commander Brigade, my Afghan tour. So I was fuming. Fuming.

So my first deployment of Afghan was with the SPS. You say here, I totally understand that some people will be disappointed that I can't divulge details of special forces operations, but our country has enemies and we can't hand them information that could endanger the lives of my former colleagues who continue to operate around the world, selflessly providing the blanket of freedom beneath which we sleep. I know you'll appreciate that, and in light of what they sacrifice, we can sacrifice some stories. Let me just say that those years gave me some of my best friends and that I love

love the job. So this is now you're you're going on deployments with the SBS and obviously we're not going to go into any any any details of them. Were you guys primarily doing like direct action? Yeah. So when we, I was very fortunate my first, you know, I'd missed that opportunity for free commander brigade. So when I went out with the SPS, my first, our first deployment was the first ever operational jump for the SPS into, into Helman. So I was that, wow, it's my first time in Afghan and it's an operational jump at night. So yeah, we were doing, it's called Task Force 42, TF42, which was the door kicking.

But also alongside that, the intelligence services were also picking up agents and things that. So I was having to work between both. Normally the guys who would go on that were from our reservists. And it all failed the course. So when I first got there, it was literally door kicking at night and then in the day dressing up as a local. but for me we then did numerous operational jumps

we were very fortunate on that so we had the most HVTs and any squadron and we had more HVTs in first three months than the last three squadrons back to back because we were just changing the way that that we operated as you know out there you had to change you know they all knew your TTPs and you had to change and adapt to that so for me

I was at the pinnacle you know I'd missed out that time a free commander ago but I made up for it in abundance. And what's your position? Are you like a breacher? Are you a sniper? What's your role? Yeah. So actually one thing I forgot to mention. So when I went on selection, I was a sergeant. When you finish selection, your rank goes. You start again as a trooper. As a trooper. Yeah. Well, actually, they said I was going to be a Marine. I was that, whoa. I said, that's fine. But know that no other army lad, especially Airborne, is going to come in to SPS if you call as Marines. You have to call us troopers. So when I went there, I was almost like the guinea

pick, you know, what works, what doesn't work and things like that. So yeah, but then you do. Were you literally the first army? There was two other guys with me. There was an officer and another engineer lad. In your selection class. Yeah. And so you three were the first army soldiers to go into the SPS. I think there was one before, there was one before us, but first time in this squadron. But from the engineers, especially record of being the first. And I think now 15% of the SBS is now made up of the army. So it was almost like the floodgates had opened,

which I think is good because the Marines, as I said, they're so proud of their background and things of that. But you need diversity. You need diversity in there. And that's what the army brought in. Also the fact that at the time, the SAS were run in Iraq and the SBS were running Afghan. So again, you know, if the guys want to go on selection,

you know, Iraq was starting to wind down. You know, guys were looking towards Afghans. So the SPS was a good option there. Yeah, that's my interaction with, well, I had two interactions with the British special forces in my career. One of them was before 9-11. And it was very cool. And I'll tell you about it later. And then the other one was, it was just in Iraq.

You know, we were hitting target sets. and there was like multiple targets that were all somehow connected. And so I just sat down next to the troop commander and we talked through the plan and really good guy. And obviously just, you know, when people ask me about the Brits, and I've worked with other British units, but all of them, what I say about the Brits, the British are just professionals. Like just professionals, the way they behave, the way they operate. It's just always awesome. You know they're going to be squared away. That was always my impression of the British special forces

and of the British military in general. Yeah. Except for one person that I'll tell you, I'll also tell you about later, which was really strange and he was British Navy. Which is strange, right? Because that's the Royal Navy. That's the Royal Navy, yeah.

Right? Yeah. We should be just totally squared away. Yeah, well, that's probably where the drinking problems are. Yeah, this guy was, I don't know, maybe he could have used a beer at this particular individual. So I cut you off. when you were talking about, I'd ask you, were you a sniper?

Yeah, yeah. So when you join, it depends. So we have four troops, so you have air, mountain, boat, and mobility. I mean, you go in air. And as I said, when you pass election, you think, I've just done six months. You know, you're at the baseline. You're out now another baseline, and you have to then get all these other skill sets. So within the teams, it's where there's any gaps, or whether it's language demolitions.

You know, I was the forward air controller. So mine was anything to do with air was me. So I was the FACC within ours. And then... That means you get to go on every mission. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, perfect. But then you obviously stacking up on the doors, you know, you would be point man.

You know, there's guys out there who've got books like first man in. I'm the leader. Well, you're not. You know, the first man in is the new boy. You know, the section commander or the commander is like number three or four. So, but then obviously when you bounce onto the next door, it just depends who was there. You know, that's what we used to do. You know, we didn't really have to say, right, we have to go in this order, you know, when we did our training.

It was unrelenting. You know, we knew it inside out, the drills. It was just second nature, very slick. So, but you were, so you're just, you guys are doing a rolling point. Doesn't matter who goes in, but did you guys have Breacher? Did you have a special assignment for that? Because you were an engineer. I figured you were going to say Breacher, because we always kind of associate Breacher with engineer.

Was that a no? Yeah, no, it wasn't, actually. When I, yeah, so out there, no, no, it wasn't. Because their demolitions is slightly different from the Royal Engineer demolition. It's like, no, we'll take down a bridge. not put a nice little hole in it. No, we'd probably drop the whole compound with things that. They didn't trust you to be a preacher.

You'd be using too much explosives. But what they tend to do, which I thought was great in the special forces, if you already have skill sets, you've already, you've already got that skill set. Let's give you another skill set, you know, so you sort of build on it. So like the Pathfinder lads who, like the airborne reci, when they go S-A-S, they're already halo train.

So there's no point in them going air troop. They've got that skill set, put them in boat troop, you know. So they try and give you as many skill sets as possible, yeah. And then how long would you guys go on deployments for? So ours is six months. Six months. We used to do a two-year sort of rule month. So six months pre-deployment training, six months training.

You then come back and then you're on the green roll. So you're on the page for any sort of any other situations around the world. And then six months counterterrorism then. So hostage rescue in, you know, domestic and international. And then when you, like I said, I think that's enough broad people can kind of figure out what you were doing. But how long, how many years of this cycle were you on? So this cycle, this cycle, every two years.

So every two years you bid out for another six months. Unless you then you spend four years in your Saber squadron and then you have to move on. You then get like an instructional post. So guys tend to do that. And then they then come back in and slot in as then team leaders. I'm going to go through the whole room on again. So now we're going to jump into one. particular pre-deployment training cycle. I'm going to the book. We were in the desert as part of

our pre-deployment training. I couldn't wait to get back out on operations, nor could any of the other guys being on-ops was the reason we'd join the special forces and nowhere were our skills. Put to the test more than the daily life or death battles with our enemies. We're going on high altitude, high-opening training. I loved jumping. Some guys didn't and just sucked it up. But I always wanted to be the first in the stick so I could stand on the open tail ramp and look down at the earth beneath me. I wanted to soak it all in before I jumped. But on the second jump that day, I was put in the back of the line.

I waddled with my kit toward the door as the others left the aircraft. One guy tumbled out after the next. Eventually, it was my turn. I jumped. And immediately, I knew that I was in trouble. I felt something on my leg. I looked up and saw that it was wrapped in rigging. I knew that as soon as the static line pulled up the canopy,

that rigging would shoot up above my head and the force of it would take my leg with it. I had a second to get my leg clear. Wack. I failed. The static line pulled the shoot. The shoot pulled the rigging. The rigging pulled my leg.

It came up and over my shoulder like I was a yoga guru. Instantly, I felt every muscle ligament and tendon rip and snap. I screamed in absolute agony and almost blacked out from the pain. The rigging worked its way clear and now the leg fell back alongside the other, but I knew that I had no control over its movement. I was lucky to still have the leg. The force could have easily ripped it off and if that happened, I'd have bled to death within minutes and some poor local would have had a one-legged corpse landing in his garden.

Pain was racing through my body, but I knew that if I didn't get my act together, I could still die. I was so far up that oxygen was thin and I could not afford to pass out. I drifted away from my guys. If I drifted away from my guys, I could end up in the middle of the desert or the sea. It would be browners. I had to stay awake. You'd think that the pain would have made that easy, but it was so intense that my brain was trying to send me into unconsciousness. I wouldn't let it. I just wouldn't. Instead, I fixed my focus on the descending parachutes of the stick and followed them in. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. Despite the physical agony, I had enough time hanging in the sky to feel emotional pain too.

I knew that there would be no deployment for me now. I think I knew deep down that there would be no more time on operations at all. 30 minutes is a long time to think about that when you're alone floating through the air. Finally, the ground was getting closer. I saw my mates landing in formation. I wanted to make a good landing out of pride. But more than that, I knew that if I landed badly, I could quote, quite well ruined my good leg too.

The ground came up to meet me. I pushed down on my toggles and flared the chute just at the right moment, dragging in enough air under the canvas to take the speed out of my descent. If you do it too early, you just stop in the sky, then drop like a sack of shit. But I came in like a feather and landed on one leg. There was only one thing left to do. Medic! What year was that?

So that was 2010. So, man, that's it. I mean, your leg, did you know instantly? You were done? Yeah. You know, it was actually the new guys who come to the squadron were getting hayho trained. So our Sergeant Major was that.

We'd already had a hayho train from previous tours. He said, we'll go do fun jumps. You know, I'd like jumping, but there's no such thing as a fun jump in the military. And the reason I got moved, normally I'm at the front I like to frog you turn around and you exit the PGIs which used to always upset the RAF so I then got moved to the back of the stick

and like I said we've done numerous of these jumps just routine but as I exit it got caught in the lines on trying to kick it in time and I couldn't and then when it got pulled up and over you know you probably hear me from the ground screaming so but no one else in the team is aware that's anything going on but because of those thin outitude

I was drifting in and out I was vomiting because of the pain and I just needed to get, I just wanted to get to the ground and see and re-establish what's going on. Assessed the other parachutists, their approach, you know,

took another look over the DZ and landed at one-legged, but no, straight away, I can put any pressure on it, you know, we got a medic, back to the camp. Had a MRI scan, the next day and it was like yeah you've torn your ACL your MCL your lateral

minuscress your hamstring your calf your quad so all the supporting muscles as well so normally with an ACL or MCL you can carry on you see rugby players and just carrying on but it was all the supporting muscles but to add to the issue as well the it was the Icelandic volcano which grounded aircraft all over the world so they couldn't get an aeromed to me so basically I was just thrown into a hotel in muscat the lads went on to tour from there. I was put in a hotel for four weeks with painkillers, you know, sort of deteriorating.

Got back to UK after an aeromed, sent home for six weeks, back to the hospital. And they'd lost all my paperwork. And it was just a spiral of errors within the military medical system. How long did it take for you to get through? I mean, how long to take to get surgery?

And you talk about it in the book, but how long was that? It was 44 weeks in the end. You know, my, when I injured my leg, on the first selection process. It was five days. I mean, I was running again in six weeks. It took me 44 weeks to get this.

So, you know, my whole, my leg had deteriorated completely. And for me, I was then transitioning to civilian streets. So I wasn't really focused on my rehab. It was like, what am I going to do next? Did your, at what point did you know, did somebody say, hey, that's it? You can't be here anymore? Do they offer you medical retirement? Like, what did that process look like?

You'd like to think they'd offer you medical. retirement but it didn't you know I had to almost threaten them that I needed um with legal that I needed the operation and when I left the pay scale they put me out and was one below a medical pension and it said you were fixed within 26 weeks I was like well I was it was 44 weeks so five years later I had a tribunal hearing against the military and what the military tend to do is it's basically guys that appeal it, they'll say no, and you can appeal it again, and they'll say no, they'll lose 80% of people doing that. So I knew a general who said to me, he said, just keep appealing, said they won't even

open your case until it's deferred appeal, which was five years later. So that's what I did. And then I had a tribunal hearing in Edinburgh, and I went down and actually, you had a QC in front of you, and two doctors from the military. I then brought a military charity called the Royal British Legion. And they just sort of ask certain questions, which gets your story out. And then you have a representative from the military veterans appealing you. And normally they can be quite aggressive, but this guy was actually quite relaxed.

But someone did say to me the week before, he said, look, when you go in this, he said, he had one and he didn't get his medical pension. He said, when you go in there, you can't be Dean Stott Special Forces. These guys say, can you walk down the street? You say no. You know, it was one end. So I sort of had that in the back of my mind. I went in and actually they had the timeline that I'd printed out and you know I ended up getting a full full medical pension and then backdated but the fact that I had to go

through it with my own yeah it's crazy so you'd like to think you know especially when you feel like you're the top again you feel like you're a pop star within you know tier one special forces and then just this sort of almost put a cloud over my my career not my career but my last last year in the military yeah it's a bad it leaves you the bad taste in your mouth. Leave me a bad taste. I didn't actually realize until I was successful how, you know, what a weight was on my shoulders. You know, when I got it, I felt I'd been reciprocated for my time, you know, and things. And I could almost close that chapter and move on, but that was five years after leaving. How many years then did you, how many years were you in total?

16. So 16 years in and so you get, from the day you got injured, how long did it take before you said, all right, I'm going to get out because I can't do my job anymore. So it was nearly a year and I had to extend because I hadn't even been operated on. The military have to return you to civilian street in similar condition or best condition than what you entered and I was nowhere near that. So for me, my mindset, you know, my head's now thinking, well, I'm not in the military anymore.

I need to look beyond that, but you still can't progress because you're waiting on this operation. So I got it in the end. And then I finally left in May 2011 is when I actually got out. And then as you're working through this transition, at some point you get a call. It's, can you be in Libya tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

So to add to the pressure, you know, when we talk about identity crisis, you spent all this time in the military working in a tiny knit unit, you know, knowing what you're doing day out, working alongside professionals. or to like, where do I now fit in society? What is my role? What is my purpose? So I had that going on in my head. I hadn't really had that full transition. So guys, when they're getting out, they have like two-year build-up, you know,

to do all these workshops and they set up their companies. Mine was almost, you know, crash-bang, you're out of the door. My wife at this point was eight months pregnant. You know, so I'm like, my God, is there any work out there? You know, what am I going to do? And we're out sounding like Liam Neeson. People with our skill sets tends to be the private security industry. So this was the middle of the Arab Spring and Gaddafi was still in Tripoli at this point.

And in Benghazi, a lot of the oil companies, the security companies, the media were forming up. And my friend who was a director, one of the large security companies said, Dean, can you be in Libya? And I said, yeah, of course I can. So I went straight in. And basically it was a DIFID project, Department for Institute Development, which at the time was the prime minister's little baby. So they would go into these sort of countries and you'd have representatives from the financial sector, from the medical and the military.

And it's to basically advise and help these countries get back on their feet. So they're all preparing for Gaddafi. So he said, can you go in? Can you help set up the Difford project? I'm going to fly 30 private security operators in from Iraq and Afghanistan. So I went in and straight away I could see there was no threat. You know, the Libyans were very hospitable. But they also were quite adamant that they didn't want this being another Afghanistan

in Iraq. You know, one Gaddafi had fallen. They wanted to take control of their country. They didn't want, you know, private security. So we had these MP7s, these weapons. And these guys came in two days later from this herk, you know, these herk from Afghan in Iraq and where's our weapons? And I sort of changing their mindset

that actually there is no threat and it needs to be all low key. I was also trying to find a niche within the industry. I was looking at all these other security companies. A lot of my friends had their security companies were doing anti-piracy of the East Coast of Africa. So I didn't want to tread on their feet. So some of these big security companies

identify with charging six-figure sums for crisis management and evacuation plans. but when you scrape the surface, there was nothing in place. So I haven't spent two weeks set that up. I flew back home and Alana gave birth to our daughter, Molli. And I said, I think I've got a plan. So I went back in to Libya,

and there was a huge proliferation of weapons at the time. It was actually ammunition that was difficult to get all of. So I bought 30 weapons on the black market, and I buried them between tuners and Egypt. I just spent a month in the desert just caching these Pelly cases with comms kits and money and just wrote my own evacuation plans

hoping never to really need them and that's what I did we lived in Aberdeen which was the oil and gas capital of Europe so I had good links to the oil and gas sector and that's what I did I didn't that was my niche I'd found a niche within the industry so yeah now did you set that up where

you were talking to the oil companies and I've been to Aberdeen thankfully very cool Have you ever surfed there? I haven't, no, but I know up Thursday, further off, is one of the great spots. I was there in, like, the winner, and you could have surfed it. Like, it wouldn't have been fun,

but you could have surfed. I was looking at the waves. I went for a little run down there, and I was looking at the waves, and I was like, well, you could do it. You could do it. What would make it not fun? Whoa, it was freezing, choppy.

He's like barely, you could probably surf for about, you know, two seconds or three seconds per wave. You'd have the waves to yourself. though there was no one in the water there was no one even on the beach um so did you did you set that those all that gear up and then go and pitch to clients like hey i've got these plans set up here's what i can do for you and then are they giving you some kind of revenue up front yeah so it's so basically i identified that i'd wrote him up first you know because it's all's like right

i have this plan in place you know i had the cations so my sort of mindset with it was i and i knew that the Libyans didn't want security companies with weapons. So before long we couldn't do that. So my sort of mindset was if there was a situation, we could drive across the border, unarmed, you know, go to the cage points, pick them up if we needed weapons, you know, and then get, you know, the client out and then bury him. That was it.

So it was almost like a retainer, knowing that that service was there. And then we used to have like triggers, you know, you know, if there's a certain situation, we go up to yellow, we go up to amber. So really, you should never, if you're adhering to that trigger system that you have in place, you shouldn't really need to go full on evacuation. The only thing that sort of is natural disasters. That's where you can go from green to red overnight is a natural disaster. So really, if you have that in place.

But that's something I just picked up from the military was these case systems. And these case systems, the IRA and the Taliban use these case systems. That's where it originates. But for me, it just wasn't, I was walking around with weapons, but I knew that I had safe houses, and I knew that are weapons available if needed. And you built relationships, and you talk about that a lot in here.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I sort of, you know, I, when I got out as well, I didn't want to be going out to Afghanistan and Iraq. You know, I've done my time in the desert, you know, I sort of, the security, security isn't risk-reward ratio balanced at all. You know, you could be in, Yemen, Libya or Somalia, on 50% of what you're on taking the UAE Royal Family Superiot from Barcelona to Maldives. So I was at, well, where's the money? And it's in the corporate,

close protection. So I didn't have cargo pants and tight tops. You know, it was like, it was a nice dinner jacket, shirt and brogues. And that was my approach. But everyone has this perception of special forces, as you know, is about offensive action. It's, you know, breaching walls. It's kicking indoors and things like that. That's 25% of what we do. 50% of what we do is support and influence, it's hearts and minds being embedded with the locals, understanding actually what is the situation on the ground, not what I'm seeing on TV,

but what is actually basically going on in the ground. So for me, I really built up good relationships with local fixers. There's 167 tribes in Libya. So my fixer in Tripoli isn't the same fixer in Benghazi. So I quickly understood that, especially during that Arab Spring. and I just returned from the London Olympics I was providing security for visa

and I was in Benghazi the evening that your American ambassador got killed September 11th of 2012 and I got a phone call could I escort help a German oil company eight German engineers get them out of Benghazi so while it was all I think they made a film 13 hours

while it was all kicking off in the city I got these guys safely from Benghazi to Tripoli through safe houses that I had in the desert. And again, I remember we had drivers from Benghazi and we got to the safe house and we could, you know, we could drive to Tripoli in a day

but I said, no, we'll wait here for 48 hours which was worrying the engineers a bit and the Benghazi guys had like big, big beards and they're like, oh no, Mr Dean, we can go. I said, no, no, we wait 48 hours. But they were nervous. I knew they were nervous going into Tripoli because they're from the wrong region.

But what they weren't aware of I was getting drivers coming in from Tripoli to meet us and they would carry on. It's that sort of knowledge knowing who to use and when to use. And I remember the morning we were leaving and these poor guys and Benghazi because I couldn't tell them. They'd shaved all their bids. And then I went outside and the Tripoli drivers had turned up. It was almost like a scene from the OK corral.

They all started going for their weapons. I said, look. I said, I cannot take you to Tripoli. You will compromise us. These guys can do it. And I said, look, you will still get paid. And it's just all about respect. You know, I always say about communication,

but for that operation, I couldn't divulge too much to them. So I got them safely out. And then two years later, I was in Brazil for visa again, covering the World Cup. And I then get a phone call from the Canadian Embassy. So what had happened now? It was the Tripoli War.

It's a civil war between the militias and the government. And embassies, the only reason, reason embassies are in countries, it's all about trade and investment. You know, what can we get for our country, you know, when things start opening up. So October 13, they'd done an assessment, the Canadians, and basically it was costing them $20 million year to have the embassy open. And their sort of assessment was, there's going to be no trade investment for about at least 15 years. So when we see a window of opportunity, let's collapse the embassy and leave. But they couldn't just collapse them because the locals would be questioned

them. So fast forward now summer 14, the Tripoli War, the Americans, the Brits, Italians, they just shut, shot and went. The Canadians aren't going back, so they had to shred everything and stay there. Their protection team was Canadian military,

and they would fly in every four months, rotate, you know, fly into Tripoli International Airport. But during their period of four months, they never left the walls of Tripoli. They just went from their accommodation to the office. They didn't get out the city. So they didn't know what was beyond the city walls.

And it's actually only 100 kilometers, a coastal road from Tripoli to Tunis. So I flew in and we'd already evacuated a couple of people from USAID. And I don't go with the big overt vehicles. I like local taxis. Just keep it all low profile. And the week before the British got engaged at every checkpoint on the way to Tunis, which was obviously worrying the Canadians.

So me and my fixer, we went out. And we just, rather than speaking to the guys who got the weapons, we know, identified who the tribal elders was, sat down with them, no, shared bread, shared coffee. And it was actually all about communication, showing them respect. And, yeah, the following day, they then escorted us safely. So I've got 18 military and four diplomats single-handedly from Tripoli to tune it. Yeah, just to put that in perspective a little bit when I was a young seal before,

before, you know, September 11th, one of the main missions, I did two deployments with the Marine Corps on ships, and one of the main missions that we would train for is called a neo, non-combatant evacuation operation, which is literally to go into whatever, you know, an American embassy, presumably, and go in some hostile or semi-hostile country and evacuate those people. But they would have an entire amphibious ready group with, you know, several battalions of Marines, the air support, the seals, all to go and get whatever that group is out of the country. So when I was reading that portion of the book where you made this happen, that's a, that's a huge deal to do this essentially a mission that normally, that could utilize an entire

amphibious ready group with airframes and ships and the whole nine yards to make this happen. And you're able to do it from a different angle by utilizing the locals, by having building relationships with the locals, going and doing it low profile. That's just a, it's a real credit to the way you were thinking about that operation. Yeah, you have to think out of the box. You know, the fish wagons, there's fish wagons that take fish from Tripoli to Tune's every day. So we used the fish wagons to put the equipment in Because they would just go straight through

Border control They were a bit slower getting to tuners And I can see the Canadians getting a bit worried But yeah, it was just thinking out the box We did have UAV coverage There was UAV coverage to the border And then when we're at the border The Canadians then met

But I did that job for free And the reason I did that was the year before I just finished the year I'm probably going to touch in it Well I mean go ahead it's an interesting perspective. You got yourself into a situation that maybe didn't give the best image

of what you were trying to do. Yeah, so my role within the security industry, I was very ad hoc. You know, when I got out, a lot of my friends went over to work in the UAE and trained their military, which is great, good money and things out. But I wanted to learn more, you know,

outside that military environment as well. I actually did more sensitive jobs as a private secure operator than I did when I was in the special forces. And, you know, I worked all over Africa, Yemen. You know, every time I got a phone call, it was a different country. It was a different job. And I'd just come out with Yemen, and I was in Dubai.

And I got a phone call from my friend. We just set up a new company in London. And he said, can you be in Libya tomorrow? I said, well, I can't. My visas expired. So don't worry about that. This is a different call. By the way, I did that quote earlier.

Did you? Can you be in Libya tomorrow? This is another time that that happened. This is another time. This is what you were doing. doing. Once you got out of the military, you're running these security events. You're providing security. You're doing assessments. You're doing evacuations. And so this is another time when you got the call, hey, can you be in Libya tomorrow? Yeah. Can you be in Libya tomorrow? And I was out. Well, no,

because my visa is expired. And he said, you don't need a visa. I was at fine. So we flew via Manchester, flew straight in. And I got to the airport terminal. And this young guy comes out to me. So you missed a dean. I said, yeah, Mr. Dean said, follow me. So everyone's in the queue for a past and we went in another queue and we went to took me into the city and went to the Tabesti Hotel which is part of the Crimfia Hotel group but I knew that was owned by the Maltese and also by the government and one of the guys that he said right met my my one of my partners there on business partners and he said right you're just about to go meet the prime minister of Libya speaks no English speaks German so the health minister is going to

translate I was okay fine so a bit bit bored on the back story about 48 hours before the militias had seized all the oil terminals to stop exporting of oil in Libya. And so he went upstairs and he sits down and explains this situation to me. And he says, what do we do? And I said, well, I said, what do you want? He said, I want the terminals back. And I said, look, well, we can pull a team together, you know, do four simultaneous assaults. You know, I don't want to do back to back because you're warm, like that.

simultaneous assaults, either from sea or from land, but leave the flank open from to escape. He said, no, I don't want him escape. And I sort of looked over to my friend, and he said, this has been sanctioned. So I was that, okay. So let me just translate this for people that might not be tracking. So there's oil rigs that have been seized. The prime minister of Libya is sitting there telling you, I want these things back from these insurgents or whatever you want to call them. I want these oil rigs back from these insurgents. I want you to do a simultaneous where you said, hey, I can do a simultaneous assault. So you're going to need a lot of people to do this. And then you say, listen, you know, smart thing. You're thinking, hey, I'll give them a way to get out.

So that way they're not going to stand and fight hopefully and, you know, we'll mitigate damage. And he says, no, we don't want anyone to escape. We want you to go and kill all these people that are on these oil rigs. And that's, so that's the mission tasking that you're getting. Okay, so that's the mission task, and full of listeners. So basically in Libya, Benghazi over in the east is where all the oil is. And the politicians are all in the West. And again, different tribes. They do not get on well.

And then in the middle, you've got Mizrata as well. And so there's a big mess. So I walked out at this meeting and on that, right, I'm going to need at least 150 guys, you know, 50 tier one and 70 tier two. And this was being funded. He said, yeah, make it happen. So, no, straight away, so I'm having to make phone calls. I would love to see the invoice on this that you're going to send. And it was, no, the money we were getting for this job was four times your normal daily wage.

You know, and so I had guys on standby in UK on like twice as much they're doing in Iraq and Afghan, just staying at home. It was huge. It started to grow into a beast. And every evening I would go up and speak to the Prime Minister, update where we are. in this situation. And, you know, this went on for like two or three weeks. The problem I had was some guys were starting to come in and it was trying to hide them, you know, to keep them out of view.

Because there was other private security companies there, who I knew. I had a great reputation in Libya. And they're like, oh, what are you doing, Dean? I'm reviewing my evacuation plans. It was like, you know, the guys do look very special forces. So this went on for about three weeks and putting all the planning into place. doing all our recies, using his private jet, you know, to fly over the areas, identifying, you know, if there's any aircraft we can utilize.

You know, we're at the top of the equipment list. We had kit coming in from like plat attack, you know, all over the world. So, yeah, it was a big invoice. And this evening I went up to the Prime Minister, and he said, look, he said, I need to go to New York tomorrow. It's the UN Conference. But each evening he said, please come up, brief up the Health Minister. So it's fine.

So the following evening, I went upstairs and the health minister's there. So now the prime minister went to New York. He's in New York now. And now you're just alone with the health minister. The health minister. Who actually turns out to be not the health minister, but a hospital manager from London. It's the only guy he could trust. So it's very closed doors.

But in the corner over my left was a larger gentleman with a big, bushy tash. And he's just saying nothing. So me and the health minister are chatting away. Next thing, he just starts screaming, Libyan. They start arguing in Libyan. So I just pulled my chair back and let it quiet down. I mean, he just then started talking in the perfect English. He said, who are you?

And I told him who I was. And he said, what are you doing here? And I explained. And he was the head of their SIS, the intelligence service. And he said, no one knows this is happening in government. You know, he's going, the prime minister has gone on his own back. I was like, okay. And he said, where are we with it?

I said, well, this is the stage you're at, you know, one or two more weeks, and we're ready to go. And he said, I'm not saying stop it, but can we slow it down? And I'm thinking, yeah, the daily wage we're on, I can slow it down as much as you want. I said, yeah, of course. So I said, well, look, I'll tell you what we'll do is why not we design a special forces training program for the Libyans in the West and the Libyans in East, because they will never train together. That way, it would be covered a reason why there's equipment coming in. it would justify where there's guys coming in. So we went to an agreement on that.

Keep us all on payrolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, drag this right out. So that's what we did. Anyway, the, you know, the government went paying it. It was a third party. I can't mention it was paying for this. And about we later, they said, look, you know, we are siphon money.

Let's call it a day, because we can pick this up anytime. We can come back and pick up. I said, yeah, perfect, let's do that. So I started sending the guys back. One of my best friends, he stayed out with me. So look, we'll go back tomorrow. That evening we're in the, there's a restaurant at the top of the hotel,

a nice Moroccan open-air restaurant. And we could hear a distinct sound of an AC-130. You know what a Hercules aircraft sound. It is like distinct. And we're like, that's a herk. But there was four AC-130s at Milita Military Airport around the corner. But they were grounded.

They didn't work because we already done the recie on them. See if we could utilize them. Thought nothing of it. Anyway, the next morning, all over the world news, Delta Force had come in and picked up an AQ guy responsible for the Kenyan Tanzania bombings. So obviously the Prime Minister, when you've gone into the UN, had done an agreement with the Americans giving it the green light, which is fine. But of course, everyone thought that was me. You know, me and my mate trying to get out of the airport that day was difficult. And obviously explaining to the other security companies, I said, that wasn't me.

we got out the prime minister got back about three days later he got arrested by the militias he got released in the end again people thought I was responsible for that I wasn't so I kept a low profile for about a couple of weeks and I flew back in

and I was winning contracts I was getting some good contracts but I wasn't getting your oil and gas your NGOs I wasn't getting the big ones and I met a friend who's an ex-SAS guy who's a security advisor for PMC and oh sorry PWC and he says

he says he says Stottie everyone thinks you're a mercenary you're not mercenary I said it was sanctioned by the various governments it was actually a show of force how quickly we could pull

a private team together he said yeah we know that he said but for the general you know corporations who do their diligence they don't see it like that so then when it came to the Canadian embassy one

everyone had gone no security companies were going to come back in and help the Canadians. So when I came in, they said, what, what's the cost? And I said, I think it was about $7,000. And that was to cover the fish wagons, my fixer. And I charge nothing. And I know everyone's that.

You could have made, but for me, it was actually then brushed off. That reputation of being a mercenary and then put my name on the top of the pile as being the number one. You did that up for $7,000? $7,000. We've got $24, sorry, 22 people, whole embassy safely. That's ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. My wife's like that you should have charged.

You could have kept your reputation or earned back your reputation and at least made a little money on the side. But for me it's all about, you know, it wasn't the money. I like to help people and that's what I wanted to get across and is the fact. And yeah, it did. You then became number one in the industry. Yeah. It's a strategic move obviously to do that and take care of those people and and give them

a good deal and and clean your reputation up after it's been a little bit, you know, tarnished by this involvement. And, and, you know, you go into some details on the book on that about just, just the fact that, you know, you can be sitting there talking to the actual prime minister of the country at the time. And it's not what it looks like. No, no, no, exactly. Um, I want to back up a little bit, this, uh, one part in the book. You're talking about your new normal and this is what you're doing. Um, Your dad had been diagnosed with cancer. You drove to the hospital.

When you got to the hospital, your sisters are there, your stepmom's there. They'd been there kind of just toiling with the whole situation. You show up and put them on rotation. Like, hey, I'm going home. I'll be back in the morning. You need to get some sleep because they were at there at the edge. And then you come back and you go into this. The next eight hours was probably the longest continuous amount

time that we'd ever spent together. This is with your dad in the hospital. He's in rough shape. We had a bit of a chat, but it was superficial. He was on pain killers, but that had never been our style anyways. I knew I loved him. He knew I loved him, and I knew he loved me. Anything else I can do for you? I asked him. He told me he had a pain in his leg. I saw he had a problem with one of his pain relief devices. I took a couple of seconds to fix it, and instantly he looked serene and nodded off to sleep. When the girls returned that evening, he was, still peaceful. I've never seen him look so calm, my stepmom said. Well, that's because he hasn't got three women fussing over him, isn't it? I joked. Every squatty knows that dark humor is how you cope with death.

I stood up and gave my dad a pat on the shoulder. When will you be back? When will you be back? One of my sisters asked me. I shook my head. I won't. I'm going back to Aberdeen. They couldn't believe it. I've said my goodbyes, I told them. And my family are up in Aberdeen. That's where I need to be. I knew it would be the last time that I saw him, and I was at peace with that. Back in Aberdeen that night, I got news that I had been expecting. How's your dad doing? Alana asked me the next day at breakfast. He died last night, I replied, and went back to eating my cereal.

I was that blasé about the whole thing. I didn't realize it then, but death had been normalized for me. So too had my ways of coping with it, a complete numbing of my emotions. My father had passed away, and I'd given my wife the news in the same. same way that I'd tell her that the kettle had just boiled. Over the next week or so, I took control of the practical side of my dad's death. I helped arrange the funeral and made contact with the Royal Engineers associations that they could be present. I wore my Levats, one of the ceremonial uniforms of the Royal Marines and the SBS. I wore my green beret, my medals, and my fathers. It was the last time that

I wore the uniform, and I suppose that it was a fitting tribute in itself. My dad had been a huge part of me beginning in my military journey and now he was part of its end. How are you feeling? Alana asked me after the funeral. I need to leave the house at zero 600 hours tomorrow to get to the airport. I told her in reply. In a moment when most people are racked by emotion, I was planning my travel for the job in South Africa. I was relentless, but in pursuit of what and why. now obviously you know it's a something that you know we we have to deal with death on a on a big way and in especially when with with people that you know i don't know how how old your dad was when he died but 67 i think yeah had a had a grown son and and and and kids and had lived his life and you know i i know for me you know for us it's hard because we see we we see our friends that die that are

27, 32. You know, they haven't had that opportunity. And I think that's something that makes a little sense in my head of when someone older dies, of course, it's sad, but you know that they had a good life and they had that opportunity. And then like you said, you know, we unfortunately have to see a lot of people die and you have to figure out how to get through that. And sometimes maybe it's not the, well sometimes I guess we take the emotional side of it and and have to stifle it down maybe not the best thing to do but it's kind of what we do yeah so it's how we deal with things with my with my father you know when I joined the army that was it that was my new family one of my sisters stayed with my dad and my other sister went up to her mom so they they had their

own life so when I joined the army that was it that was my family you know I would only get in touch my dad was old school you know I mean he I remember getting a phone call call. You got to ring your dad. Really? You know, and it was because when a cousin had come over from Australia, he would only ring if it was really, really important. So I would do my normal birthdays and Christmas, and that was enough.

No news was good news in my family. My dad sort of knew to score. He would know about me coming back from a tour. I wouldn't tell him when I was going. So we had that relationship. So, you know, we weren't close, close, but I think it was just after Christmas. We knew he'd been diagnosed and it was terminal and things that.

And my sister said, you need to come down, you need to come down. And I know that she was being a bit overreactive. And then her husband rang me, I said, you now need to come down. So I was like, yeah, I'll come down. And I went in there and literally they're all watching is every breath. You know, their eyes were like piss holes in the snow. They had no sleep for like 24 hours. So I'd just flown in.

I hadn't seen them for months. I said, right, I'm just off to my friends out. I said, because, you know, you guys tomorrow will be useless. You know, I mean, I just, the military just kicked in, you know, like, we need to do centuries. We need to do routines. And I remember my mum calling me for Manchester 13, you need to calm down. It's like, you know, they're upset. You deal with death differently than they do.

But like I said, the eight hours I had with my dad, you know, that was the longest I had. And, you know, for me, I'd said my goodbyes. And, you know, I just went in. But that was 2014. It was the same year that I evacuated the kids. Canadian Embassy. When I came back from that trip, I did the same thing again. I sat down and my normal SOP would be to, you know, deservice and resurface my kit, ready for the next phone call. And one of my shirts was covered in blood. I'd administered first aid at a traffic accident at the

border. So I said to my wife, I said, can we get the blood out? And she said, yeah, I want to know why there's blood in there. And I sort of said, well, I've just evacuated Canadian embassy. And she's like, It's like it's another throwaway comment Like you told me your dad's just died So actually we sat down that evening Down two bottles of port And yeah tears started flowing And really what it was

Is actually I hadn't come to terms With the fact that I'd left the special forces I was still trying to match That adrenaline rush that I had when I was still in So everything even Approaching the fact that my father had died That hadn't sunk in So as you mentioned earlier

It takes a whole brigade to evacuate something. You know, I didn't have that top cover. I didn't have the Hilo support. The guy's coming in. So that's when the pin drop for me, that something needs to change. And it was actually all about communication.

And I'd built it up inside me. And it was that evening that really kicked in that your dad's not here. And you don't have to prove a point anymore. So, yeah, it was a big, I think it's called, the chapter's called Dead or Divorced as well. So, you know, I'd reach that T-junction. I was either going to die or not have a family if I didn't change the way of my lifestyle.

One of the things that you breezed over is when you did the World Cup in Brazil. I'll just jump into it. It was at the Brazil versus Cameroon game that I got a chance to catch up with a friend of mine. He was there representing the football association because his brother couldn't make it. Happy that my clients were secure with the other lads,

I left my place and went to the presidential box to meet my mate from the army. All right, Stoddy, he said, how are you, mate? I asked him. We'd met back in 2007 at a joint tactical air controller, sorry, joint terminal attack controller, JTAC course held at RAF, Leaming. There were 18 students, and when we'd been told to behave towards a certain individual,

as we would to anybody else in the forces, no special treatment. It was on the second day that we hit it off when we were being given our call signs. From the back of the room, I'd made a joke at his expense. And there was a sharp inhalation of breath as everybody waited to see how it would look or see how he took it. He laughed. And that was how I came to be paired up for the rest of the course with Prince Harry, who is one of the most decent blokes you could meet. He's a military man through and through. And I think part of the reason he loved the army so much was that he could just be himself.

He was comfortable in this environment and he could handle his rank and job as well as any other soldier I'd met. It was great to see him in Brazil, not because he was a prince, but because he was a comrade from my days in kit, just like one of the boys. How long was that course? So that's a six-week course. We're going back now to 2007. And, you know, R.F. Lehman, it's got all your fighter pilots, you know, your tornadoes and your Euro fighters, you know, with their brown shoes probably. And the, and literally, the R.F. Leaming, the, the, you know, the J-TAC course is a wooden hut at the end of the runway no one even knows were there

so I remember walking in the room and clocking him he's probably about 23 so basically this is when he he wanted to go on his first tour to Afghanistan but he couldn't just go on tour you know he had to have a role within the unit and his commanding officer was an SAS guy and said well look go on your J-TAC course

you could be the regimental forward air controller so that's what he did he came on the course and like I said could he was there you know, every man and his dog turned up for some face time with him. And, you know, it was cringing. But the back four, the lads at the back, four in the back were two SES and two SPS guys. And he was literally sat in front of me. And, you know, everyone did their opening address.

Harry then left the room. And then the commandant was like, right, gets no preferential treatment. You know, treat him like one in their own, you know, blah, blah, blah. That's that fine. Harry then comes back in. And the first lecture is call signs. So on the course, you call jackpot one. jackpot one eight so at least the pilot knows who the student is and then you know for example the

prefix for special boat service is mayhem so mayhem four free and you know widow maker for the sas so harry puts his hand up he says um you know if successful on this course do i get a cool sign and i just blurt it out yeah your fox piss one like that and of course everyone was just like ah you know you can't say that and i'm just that well you've just told me to treat him like the one so he turned over you know looks at the berry smiles at me i thought oh god I'm going to get beheaded. And that afternoon the Sergeant Major comes back in and he's like, right, I've randomly picked these jackpot numbers.

You'll be working with me. And he pulled an SAS guy, an SBS guy, Prince Harry and an RAF officer. And then the other 14, which didn't make sense, I was that what you've randomly picked those. But you could see on the course, that was when I got my sort of first exposure. So me and him got partnered off,

because they knew he wasn't going to get any preference of treatment. And I think... You made that quite clear. I made that quite clear. But also the fact that he's probably his most comfortable there because he wasn't being critiqued by the media and everyone else. He could be Harry, he could be, you know, Lieutenant Wales and things like that. And he was actually a good operator.

You know, he's clear and precise over the net. He didn't get flustered. So, no, he's well worthy of that role. And we maintain that relationship. After that, we, you know, we did a lot together. We do a lot in charity. And I remember going to, we had a big rugby game called the Army Navy each year at Twickenham. It's like it's the biggest rugby event.

150,000 people turn up. Yeah, yeah. They drink more alcohol on that one weekend than every international rugby game. So he was, my wife, Alana, she didn't really know I knew him. And I'd not long been injured. So my legs in a brace and right, Twickenham. And he texts me, said, let's catch up in a car park. So we're caught up in a car park.

And this was now where he was training to be a pilot. And, you know, we started chatting. And he said, look, I've passed my course. I need to make a decision, you know, whether I fly Apache or Lynx. And Lynx is like a glorified taxi driver for getting generals around. And when we're chatting to the Apache call signs in Afghan,

their prefix is ugly, no, ugly one, ugly two. So I said, look, I always tell the lad to go ugly early. So he then messages me a few days later and said, yeah, I'm going ugly, so he then goes Apache. Fast forward, and we're at a big special forces charity event, and he's a guest on my table,

and they auctioned off a special boat service, like, statue, silver-plated, and we've like 40,000 pounds, and Harry's that, that's beautiful, and I was like, not for 40, I knew the bronze one was only 75 pounds, you know, I was like, so I did, I bought one, and I got it,

I got it laminated and I said Harry I said congratulations on being ugly Mayhem four three got it delivered to the palace but yeah he you know he did 10 years

and he did another tour you know that was where he was he was most comfortable and that's when we started you know building our relationship you know the re you know he's got so tight

who people he can trust and to be part of that 13 years later is a big thing. I think he knows, obviously, the integrity of the special forces. You know, you know, people, I get messages all the time. Can you speak to Harry? And I'll, yeah, okay, whatever.

Delete. Yeah, that's, I just, I wonder, he's going to end up playing a role a little later. He is, yeah. But going back to the dead or divorced section in this book, so you pretty much, you get the message. Like, I'm either going to get divorced or I'm going to be dead. I don't like either one of those outcomes. So you kind of stand down from the security stuff and you've got to get a job like a regular job.

So we're going to the book here. I needed a job and Alana suggested that I come work with her in the property development sector. It would be a chance for me to learn about something outside, kicking indoors and sneaking people out of countries. And because I wanted what was best for my family, I gave it a go. I was about an hour into it before I started to fantasize

about launching myself out of the nearest wind. No, everything that I'd done in my life, I had done with the ethos of unrelenting pursuit, pursuit of excellence. The unrelenting pursuit of excellence. And I tried to bring that attitude into the office, but something was missing. And you spend some time doing that. And then she can tell it you're miserable. Yeah.

And you're trying to suck it up like a good, like a good man. And finally she says, you know, you look miserable and you're like, yeah, I am. And she says, why don't you, why don't you start biking to the office, start cycling to the office. And it's 10 miles each way. You start doing that. You're starting to, that's cool. Hey, you're starting to get after it, you know, on the bike and trying to beat your times and all that. And she says, you know, basically you're still not happy, are you?

And you admit to her like, no, I don't like sitting in a cubicle or whatever it is you're doing. And finally one day she rolls in on you and, you know, she's holding something. What's that? I asked her. She had a book in her hands. A big one. Alana threw it at me. Read it and pick something, she said.

I looked down at what had landed in my lap. She knew me. I smiled, opened to the cover, and began reading Guinness Book of World's Records. So that's what she did. She threw this book at you and said, figure out something to do. Yeah, yeah. So a bit about Alana, actually, you know, when I transition, you hear horror stories when people are transitioned from the military.

Some can be quite turbulent and some quite smooth. So when I met Alana, actually, she was a bank manager for all the three of the biggest banks in Aberdeen. So when I'm worried about, you know, certain paperwork, she set up my first security company on her phone watching TV. And I'm like, for me, it's like whether I've ticked the right box. So she, she knew about the corporate side, which helped my transition. And it is a massive part in moving forward. So when I came back from the Canadian embassy, the dead of divorcing, it was actually, she thought I wanted to go away. And I thought that she needed me to go away to make money.

So it was actually a lack of communication. You know, we sat down, we sort of communicated. And she said, well, look, we don't need money. I've got my own property business, you know, come work with me. So I said, fine. So this is about five years now from leaving the military to this stage of my life. My injured leg was now two kilos lighter than my good leg because of the muscle waist. So when I was away on these security jobs, if there was a gym there, I took my TRX everywhere.

You know, it was a very upper body focus and I was not neglected my CV. So I just bought a push bike. sorry I got to look at that girl about that he's skipping leg days bro he's going on he's just worried about those guns I don't know anything about that kind of stuff so I um so I bought a push bike of Amazon you know

and bought some Batman Lycra thinking it was cool it wasn't um but I didn't know anything about cycling but straight away just it's only about eight miles or eight mile hours but being physically actively and you felt that it was a big weight off your shoulders you know I can't run anymore and I just thought perfect but you know when my backstories sat

And these architects and planners meetings, I was like, I've got no interest in these drawings. And you know what I mean? And my wife could see the glaze over my eyes. You know, I was more interested in the coffee and the biscuits. Actually, when my son was born, I was the one holding the baby, feeding the baby while she was doing all the work. You just felt like, you know, is this it?

Is this all I've got to offer now? I didn't want to be taking those risks that I did before. So I was about a month before my 40th birthday, and I was getting ground, middle-aged crisis, ground. rush and I was like I always remember doing always remember reading Guinness Booker Records so you know I was thinking cycling because it's not impacting my knee you know maybe I should have at 12 Ferreira rushiers in a minute or something something a bit easier but living in Scotland I was thinking me you know maybe Aberdeen to Dundee's about 60 miles my wife and found the world's longest road it's like

from southern Argentina to northern Alaska so I was like I said a joke that she clearly wanted me out the house. I was like, fuck. So it's like, yeah, it's 14,000 miles. It's called the Pan American Highway. Called the Pan American Highway, yeah. So, you know, to give you an idea, because of the curvature of the earth, it's the equivalent to cycling from London to Sydney and then another 4,000 miles. It's that big, you know, it's 22. So I thought, perfect, you know, so having only cycle less than 20 miles, I applied for the world record, which, you know, some people think it's quite arrogant. But I thought in my head, I said, well, no, I had that endurance mindset. If the knee's not going to be an issue, then why not? Why can't I do this? So I applied for the will record.

The will record was 125 days at this point. And then six weeks later, Guinness came back and said, yes, you've been successful on your application. During this period, someone else has already beaten the will record. It's now 117 days. I thought, great. So it already got to take eight days off my original plan. So we mentioned Harry already, which is perfect, rolls into this. So Harry and I, you know, we do a lot in charity stuff. You know, he used to come on my table. I had an intelligence fusion cell based in Mozambique and Tanzania.

So, you know, these guys would give me in reports of where the ivory was going from Africa, you know, to the Far East, you know. So I would be, obviously pushing this information up the line to Harry who then be getting out. So we're doing a lot in charity anyway. So I, I mean Guinness came back. I rang him up and I said, look, I'm going to cycle the world's longest road and, you know, doing it in a wheel record.

What should we do it in? And this was 2016. So his brother and Kate and him were about a launch campaign in 2017 called Heads Together, which was a mental health campaign. In the military, I'd seen it firsthand, you know, some of my friends, you know, but I wasn't aware how big an issue is for the whole of society. You know, it's very much everyone talks about it nowadays, be it from post-nepard. depression, young children, teenagers all the way through.

So he said, look, could I do it for that campaign? I said, yeah, Harry asked, would you do it? You're not going to say no. I said, yeah, of course. So it did that. And then he then introduced me to the rule foundation who'd sort of deal with all their charity work. And the first, you know, you walk in the room and they're like, they're probably like,

oh, you go, one of Harry's mates again. And I sat down and they said, right, first question was, how much you're looking to raise? And I thought, I want to keep them at the table. I said a million pounds. I just shouted it out. But for me, I wanted the enormity of the challenge to reflect how much. You know, you can't go do like the LA marathon, say you're going to raise a million pounds. It has to be in comparison.

I said, fine. I said, and what is your messaging? I was like, shit. I didn't even thought about it. Harry's just told me to come in here. I was like, so I just thought about it. And I said, well, all physical activity helps your mental state. So, you can't use that.

I said, well, why not? I said, well, it's not being scientifically proven. So I'll say, it's fine. I said, but I don't need a scientist to tell me that I feel good when I'm being physically active. So I ignored them anyway and carried on promoting that. And then obviously now is very much recognized as one of the coping mechanisms. So that was the birth of the Pan American Highway Challenge. Sort of fell into it by accident.

And a lot of people doubted you because you had no experience on a bike. You know, these other people that are sat in these records, you know, they, that's what their life is, they're experienced racers and whatever else, and you just decide, yeah, watch this, hold my beer. The sponsored marketing team, we did a SWAT analysis that right at the beginning is the strength, the weaknesses, the opportunities and frets. And the only weakness it came about

was my arrogance towards the cycling community, which I took as a strength. And actually, yeah, cycling had evolved so much from when I was a young boy on a BMX. And, but for me, it wasn't so much about the physical, bit. I thought I'll deal with that on the time. It was the planning. You know, one of the things we're good at in the military is that meticulous planning and the detail. You know, even in the Canadian embassy, I thought, if you have the right plan, then you just bring that in it. So I just

took a military set of orders and put it on in. I just crossed out ammunition. And that's when I started putting the plan together. But I was taking experiences I had in the military from before, and then sort of putting it into this challenge. I love the phrase that you can't be experienced without experiences. So I've had experiences before. And then how can I sort of transfer that onto this? So one thing we used to do in the special forces, which I thought was great.

It's not because we're one of the best in the world. It's because we're always evolving, we're always learning and always changing. And when we used to come off the ground, we used to do a thing called, before we'd even go clean your weapons and admin yourself, it was called a hot debrief, you know, while it's still fresh in your mind.

And the three questions that were posed were, what worked, what didn't work? and if we were going to do that again what would we do differently? So at the time I was reading magazines, I was buying books about cycling. But I wasn't getting those answers that I needed. And I thought, well, the best people to speak to are those that have done it before you. You know, they've been there, they've been on that road. They'll be able to give me the answers.

So I did. I reached out to the previous record holders. And I just posed those free questions. And I'm getting all the information in. All their issues, they would all start in Alaska. and finish in Argentina, but all their issues were in South and Central America. So for me, why take a gamble with the second half? You know, why not get, you know, bureaucracy at the borders, languages, spares for your bikes?

Why not address those issues early? Then when you get into America, we can then reassess where we are. So one of the things I was proud of is that I'd ignored everyone else and I turned it on its head. My start point was from southern Argentina. So that's how I came up with that plan. But, you know, there's a lot more to it than just grabbing a water bottle and a helmet and cycling north. You know what I mean? When you're putting the planning together, you know, I had a support team and a documentary team who were very much more risk-averse than myself.

You have to be considered in their welfare. So there's things you don't really think about elections. You know, what's the best time? You're going to go through a country in the middle of elections. There needs civil unrest. You know, what's going to give you the most advantage season-wise? You know, there's so much, which is what we do in the military. You know, and that's what it was.

And so that's where the planning came from. It's from what I picked up before. And then training-wise, yeah, I then, you know, Harry and I did a little promo video together to promote the challenge. And once the camera's finished, he said, you know, what training are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to do Lanz-en-Johnogroats. Lanz-en-John-Agross is the southern point of England to Norm and Scotland. Because the Pan American Highway was 15 at them back-to-back. So I said, if I can't do one, that was I going to do 15?

So I said, I'm going to do that. And he said, well, I do it with some of the members of the Invictus Games. I said, yeah, of course I can. But I didn't want to do it with them and embarrass myself. So having only cycled three weeks, I rang my mate, and I said, I'm going to go do Lanzin, John O'Grote. And everyone's that, well, you're not ready yet. You don't know, you haven't even been cycling. You're not bike fit.

And I thought bike fit was fitness. It's actually your measurements to your bike. Yeah. So I just fooled me too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I sit off from corner. Well, the first two days was a huge storm, Storm Angus.

The third day I fell off my bike, fractured my scapefoid. I got up to Scotland. It was the coldest it had been in 10 years. It was minus 16. I wrote off the first bike and my friend just went and bought one off the shelf. I did everything completely wrong in the cycling world. But for me, if I couldn't do one, how was I going to do 15? And we then did it six months later with these guys.

and I was bike fit. I knew about cadence and things like that. And I understand more of the listeners in the UK is that Land's Engine on a Gros is on a bucket list for cyclists. But for me, it was a training ride. And I almost had to approach it in that manner. Yeah, well, what I like about all this,

I mean, it's something I've been saying to veterans for a long time, which is, you know, when you get out, you've got to find a new mission. If you don't have a new mission, that's when things start going sideways. And, you know, for you, your first new mission was doing the security stuff. And you did that, you attacked that.

And then all of a sudden you had to pull back from that to take care of your family. You tried the new mission of the cubicle and the drawings, as you, as you called them. That wasn't a mission for you. Then you got this in your head. And now you had a new mission, something to focus on, something to do a positive thing. And, you know, obviously it moves you in the right direction. It's just, it's a really great example of something that I say all the time that you actually executed. This is an interesting section in here.

It's called Who Dares Win? Who dares wins? And you got an unexpected call. And the call of the guy says, my name's Andrew Slater. I'm a television producer. And he had this idea. They're going to take Special Forces soldiers

and going to put civilians through some kind of form of some kind of selection. And as he's doing this, you know, he's interested in having you be one of the guys. And the question was, has this been cleared through the MOD, through the Ministry of Defense? And you start running this up the chain of command and you're asking if this can happen or not. And then you get this, I'm going to the book here. A couple weeks later, I received the letter. It wasn't exactly a pleasant memo from the MOD.

It cut straight to the point telling me to step away from the project immediately. I read over the letter a couple of times to make sure I had everything straight. but it was literally in black and white, step away from the project or become persona non-grada. Yeah. Which is PNG means you're not welcome anymore. When it comes to decision making,

I always listen to my gut instinct, and it was telling me loud and clear that I should comply with the MOD's wishes. I was the SBS ambassador to Scotland, and I enjoyed that role. I enjoyed the SBS Association charity events. I enjoyed being able to visit Poole and Hereford. I had good mates still in both.

Did I want to cut that away in the vain hope of becoming the next Jason Statham? The answer was clear. I can't do the show. I'm afraid, mate, I told Andrew. No worries, he said, we thought this could be a problem. Have you approached the MOD about the show? I asked him, you're going to have the same problem with everyone unless the show gets cleared. and you go on, you end up saying the show went ahead, and as soon as it became public knowledge,

there was a shitstorm at the MOD and in Hereford and Poole. The production company and the guys had pushed on without the MOD signing off, and the SAS and SBS immediately declared them persona non grata. They were not allowed to attend any association events or to be on camp. To give you any idea of how seriously this was taken, I'd heard of a former general who was persona non grata being escorted off camp, in Hereford from his own friends wake. I didn't want to see that happen to the guys, but it was their decision and not for me to question.

Personally, I felt that this sense of community was important for my own happiness, and that wasn't worth giving up. I like the lads, they're very close friends. And so I felt for one of them later that year, when I saw him at a black tie event held by the regiment, he'd come as the guest of someone who was still serving,

but when the RSM saw him, he was asked to leave. He looked absolutely gutted and who am I to blame him? It was in many ways like being cast out of a family. So it's interesting too because the reason that was interesting to me

as well because then you wrote this book but obviously you clear this book through the Ministry of Defense. I've written 49 books or whatever the number is at this point and you know again it's always very I remember the conversations around when I hadn't written a book

and just saying like, we're not going to do anything that sheds any light that puts anything. We don't have anything bad to say about the military, about the SEAL teams. Like, that's not what we're doing. We're obviously not giving away any information that could be useful at all to the enemy. And, you know, that's obviously of, you know, when we ran these books, when I ran these books through the chain of command, you know, we, it was like direct comms. with people that I knew and that were in the military and senior ranking positions and they read them and said, yeah, these are good to go.

And I had a great senior officer who said, you know, we're quiet professionals, quiet professionals, but that doesn't mean we're silent professionals. There's stories that need to be told. There's lessons that need to be passed on. So, you know, look, you can, you never feel good about it because we're, we're not, we don't want the spotlight.

You're never gonna feel good about it. And there's always going to be guys that are going to look at you and say, oh, you know, there you are in the spotlight. And they're totally, I understand them because I was that guy too. And so I get it. And that's just the reality of the situation. But it was interesting to see how you had to go through that and make those decisions yourself. Yeah, I think for me at the time, when Andrew came up, you know, so your name keeps coming up. I was fine.

and there was an old documentary years ago with SASU tough enough and it was a massive failure and I was like oh god it's all out of my head was visions of that so it went on and ended up being one of the most most successful film episode

on Channel 4 and the two guys that he got on it you know one of them he'd just come out you know he got kicked out of the military and then he went to prison you know so him you know there was another other option for him

so him it was a lifeline and then the other guy Foxy I'd say it was Foxy He had postal mites stress. But he had postalmatic stress because his time served in the special forces. He couldn't work in the private security sector. So for them guys, it fitted perfect for them. You know, they had a means of income.

For me at the time, it didn't work because I was smuggling people across borders. You know, I was a close relationship with Harry. So at the time, it then didn't look right that you were on TV. Say it wasn't, you can't do it. It's not because as you touched on it, people, can learn from the military. And these sort of things are great for that. What upset the military with this was that they filmed it and then flanked them.

You know, so I've maybe not get my book out and things that are. You know, I'm still part of the group. I do charity work, but I've been transparent in everything I do. And they understand. I think it was just the way that they'd gone about it in the fact that they caught them out by surprise. But for the two guys that I got on the show, you know, they've now got successful careers in that. And they would probably, if they didn't have this show,

they'd probably really be struggling, you know, coming out of prison, having post-traum of SS. But obviously, the military also need to understand that it's a different world, you know, social media. You know, for me, when I was in, it was a taboo. I was talking about it before, you know, it is a way of communicating. And obviously, as long as you don't give away certain things,

then you can. There's nothing that you can't get from the internet. And that's it. And a lot of it is actually jealousy. You know, a lot of it is actually jealousy from those that are still in. Because they're not in that position that they can do that. But for me at the time,

it just didn't fit right. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. You know, you're just training and you're fundraising and you're getting ready and you're doing all these, taking all these skills that you learn from the military for planning and endurance and, Endurance and mindset and you and you get to a point where you're going to launch this thing and

You know you're you're supported on the ground this is just so you mentioned it but you're supported on the ground by a sports massage therapist a bike mechanic a medic a two-man camera crew that would be gathering footage to make a documentary about the event It was a big team but with the exception of the documentary crew everyone was doing it pro bono so it wasn't a huge strain on our sponsors And then finally we get to shortly after dawn on 1 February 2018. I went with my team to the starting point of the Pan American Highway. I had 22,000 kilometers ahead of me and 110 days to do it. No crowds, no big sendoff. Start freaking peddling. Yeah.

And you cover a lot of this in the book, you know, talking about what that's actually like. What is what you're going through, the wind, the crashes, the traffic, the heat, the cold, the illness, just the mayhem. You know, you talked about you go through four seasons while you do this. You go through all four seasons. And so then you're making progress. And then one time I'm going to the book here, I got instantly worried when I stopped for lunch and saw I'd missed four calls from Alana.

Usually she would just leave me a message, ask me to call her back. I worried that something had gone wrong with the funding for the challenge or worse still, that something was up with Molly or Tommy, your kids. I facetimed her. What's wrong? I asked. What do you wear to a royal wedding? Alana said.

I had no idea what she was talking about. What do you mean? What do you wear to a royal wedding? She said again. Then lifted up a card so I could see it. Alana and I had been invited to Harry and Megan's wedding. I didn't see that one coming. I told her honestly.

Harry was a mate, but a royal wedding isn't for a few beers in the local. When is it? Alana smiled. She knew that I'd know the date was the date I was due to finish in Alaska off by heart. 19th of May, she said, and I heard myself groan. That was four days earlier than I was expecting to break the world record. The last flight you can catch is on day 102. You better put your foot down.

So you get the invite to go to the big wedding. Yeah, so the world record was 117 days. And when I was doing my planning, I thought, you know, there's certain contingencies. But those things that are out of your control, be it natural disasters, coups and things that. So I thought, if I encounter any of them on the challenge, you know, I don't want to eat into the challenge. So my target was 110 days.

And it's because we had that, that fudge. So you give yourself seven days of fudge? Is that right? I gave myself seven days of fudge. So it should be something out of our control, it wasn't eating into the record time. It was eating into that. I mean, I'd done all my planning on that, you know, I had a thing called. Bible. I knew every inch of the road we'd planned it out, had it on paper, had it on digital.

We, you know, South America, I did it in 48 days. The will record was 58 days. So I took 10 days off the first world record. And as you touched on there, you know, you had food poisoning. You had everything else. But there was things that I didn't see as well. You know, when I was putting the plan together, no, the medic I had to send home. You know, it's not in the book, you know, but I had to send the medic home on day 13 because it was bullying the documentary. It's like, my God, the ride was actually easier than managing egos. Because they're pro bono, they all started wanting more from the challenge as they saw it evolving. And thankfully, my wife was the campaign director. She was sort of managing, keeping control of that. We got to, I talked about, you know, going from south to north.

That was a great decision from a cycling perspective. I got a tailwind all the way through Peru. That's 2,500 kilometers tailwind. But every checkpoint, every border, we're having to swap vehicles. That was slowing us down. So the plan was to have. have an RV and a four by four shipped from Fort Lauderdale to to Panama. So then when we did the second part of the challenge, that would take us all the way to Alaska. I was in Ecuador and my wife rang me and she said that the vehicles haven't gone on to the shipping container. She's like, I'll cry. So thankfully my wife and my PA and two of my mates had foresight. They flew over to Fort Lauderdale and they drove the vehicles 4,000 miles in eight days. My wife left the kids on Mother's Day back in

UK and they drove it all the way to Panama I broke the will record in the morning flew across the Darien Gap and they just handed the keys over you know so they're an integral part of the of this challenge you know people see you on social media but it's the team around you that they don't see we then get to Mexico and the mechanic and a soft tissue therapist are like that these are new terms and conditions I'm now the project manager we're going to change the name to this here we go you know this has been going on for like nearly two months now they said you can't do this with ours. I left them in Pueblo City. Hold my beer. My mate then drove the RV and then we just pushed on. We didn't have a mechanic, but we weren't far from the American border. So when I got

to the American border, I got the American border on day 70 and I was 14 days ahead of the will record. I didn't realize how important it was getting to America. I don't know whether it was because everyone spoke our language. I wasn't on Google Translate for the last two and a half months. You know, the culinary options were better or probably because the previous record. cord holders, all their issues were in South and Central. Have I left all that behind me, and now it should be a smooth road. And also the fact that if there is any mechanical issues, we can just get another mechanic. You know, we can find a massage parlor.

That was the hardest thing for my wife, trying to find a massage parlor, which is the right massage parlor. So getting into America, I was at 14 days ahead, perfect. And then I had that phone call. Yeah. Which was great. But I was now going into that phone call was 14 days ahead. 10 minutes later, I'm now a day behind.

So all that efforts I've done up until then, all that drama, not that it meant nothing. It's like you've now got a new objective. So cycling in South America, because of the sport team and documentary team being risk-averse, you know, I had to consider them. So I had to cycle from first light to last light, and that was it, and I was off the road.

But getting into America, it's a lot more safer so I could cycle at night. And I got to Lubbock in Texas the next day, and I'm 60 mile an hour. winds and tornadoes so I was grounded for another another 24 hours so I was now two days behind my new target so again I just looked at the plan looked at the paperwork and there's an app on your phone called windy TV it's quite popular with sailors and it gives you the strength and directions of the winds forecasted every hour for the next two weeks about 95% accurate

it's 95% it's a great it's a great app yeah and it was known as my second wife on this because I was just always looking at windy TV so for me to get out out a love it, I had to cycle 340 miles in 36 hours to miss the next weather window. And that's what I did with North America. I just played chess with Mother Nature through North America. And the majority of cycling was done at night because, you know, the winds. Less wind. Yeah, less wind.

Got to Cheyenne, picked up the 50-mile-an-hour tailwinds. So I covered 260 miles and 11 hours cycling. So I was also using it to my advantage. So I gained up that time. I had about 17 days originally on North America. I did it in 11-5. And I thought, perfect. And then we got to a town called Whitehorse, about a week outside from the end.

And I thought, you know, wheel record secure. I'm going to this wedding unless you get eaten by a grizzly. And then this gentleman's, this guy's come on on social media that day, professional cyclist. He's already got three other endurance wheel records, mid-20s, sponsored by all the big brands, Red Bull. And he's announced that he's going to do the Pan American Highway in August. Be the first man to do it under 100 days. So I was like, great. So every time I thought I had met my objective.

You know, it then moved. But thankfully for me, if I'd known about that at the start at the challenge, if I'd known about the wedding, known about this guy, you know, I may not have pushed, I may have pushed myself too hard. But thankfully, me, when I received that information, I was in a position that I could act on it. So, yeah, I cycle for, you know, the last two days, had 250 miles to do.

And it's Dalton's Highway. It's where to film ice truckers. It's that road there. And I thought, well, I'll do 250 miles today. and 100 miles on the last day and then I'm in and my family of my wife my kids are on the on this oil field

in Prudo Bay at the end so I know they're only a couple of days away did the first 50 miles and I got to this roadblock at noon and the girls like that no you can't pass till 8 o'clock tonight so I was like oh my god so so that evening had to rest for eight hours

and you're not resting and I just cycled from 8 o'clock that night to 7 o'clock the next night 200 miles in minus 18 to make sure that I came in in 99 days and 12 hours. So I talk about the importance of planning, but actually the success of this was being reactive to the situation on the ground.

You have a plan, that's great, you have a start point, you have an objective. But, you know, things change. As you know, best planning will survive first contact. And that's what it was, as being reactive to that situation. And that, even to the very last day, I was having to change the plan.

Yeah, even when you talked about the fudge factor, which some people would have planned that and just had, oh, okay, I got to do it in 125 days or 123 days. Cool. That's what they're going to book. They don't understand all the things. The amount of room that they give you to make those adaptations when you need to is, again, that's something we learn about. Things are not going to go smooth. That's one thing I can promise you. I'm going to read one more thing out of the book here.

athletes talk a lot about visualization and how they had imagined their final moment of victory again and again and again. I'd done the same, but now that I drew close to the finish line, my moment was nothing like I had ever imagined it. This was no ride along the Champs de Lisier with me leaning back in the seat with my hands in the air. I clung onto my handlebars for dear life, hitting one patch of black ice after another. My face was covered in frozen snot. My muscles were shaking from fatigue and cold. and every blast of arctic wind cut through me to the bone But I made it and there you go you skid it to the finish line

I pulled my wife and kids into a hug I was so exhausted that I probably can't remember what I said I was probably talking gibberish But I'd miss them all so much and they got big kisses from their dad's cracked lips Molly was aware of what was going on and full of beans, but Tommy was in a world of his own I thought it was I thought I must be hallucinating when I saw the lady from Guinness was braving the cold in tights and a skirt, but there wasn't one ounce of discomfort on her face as she presented me with my record. I was now the record holder for the fastest cycle of the Pan American Highway completing it in 99 days, which also made me the first person

to ever do it in under 100. I hugged my wife, but unlike in Cartagena, this wasn't the place to stand around for a post-certificate photo shoot. Let's get to the hotel, I told my family and team, as we piled into vehicles, leaving the frost-bitten finish line behind us. So you made it, but that's not the end. That's not the end. It's not the end of the book. And it's definitely not the end of the path that you're on right now.

Yeah. Because you needed a new mission, right? Yeah. Tell us what's up. What's your next challenge? Where are you heading next? Yeah, so my USP is, you know, I take a sport or discipline.

I've never done before and find the biggest challenge. So I've been arrogant towards the cycling community. It's now going to be the kayaking community. So the next challenge is to kayak the river Nile, the world's longest river from source to sea. So it's never been done before. So unlike there where I can speak to previous record holders, it's not been done before.

So the plan was obviously to do it last year. And obviously COVID's, you know, put the scupper to that. And that's why I'm here in America. You know, whilst the world is paused, let's get over here, get set up. get ready for that. So yeah, 4,280 miles, but, you know, unlike truckers and support team, you've got a warrior, I've got crocodiles, hippos, civil war in South Sudan. But one thing I'm excited about this challenge, you know, I talk about, we talked about the successful private security

missions. You know, everyone's quite quick to tarnish certain communities, you know, with one brush from what they see with TV. You know, if it wasn't for those local communities being so hospitable, but I would never have been successful on them. And that's where the African Nile was going to be great. It's because I'm going to have to rely on the locals to help me. And so, you know, it's not a will record. Whatever I do is the world record. But one of the, so that's the next challenge.

But one of the big feedbacks on the book is, yes, great endurance fee, but you are the security guru. Why are you still not in this industry? So for me, I've got a niche security company, you know, very low-key. We help either corporate, ultra height net worth and things like that because paddling and cycling doesn't put food on the table. My wife keeps reminding me. So, but yeah, so I've set a date first of February next year and we set off on that. It's going to be huge.

So you've got a team, you know, obviously that's doing the security work under your guidance. So what's the, how do people get in contact with you for that type of business? So, you know, originally I wasn't going to have a website and things like that. but, you know, we will have a website but it's password protective. Because for me, my approach to security is, you know, there's certain ways of security. Ours is more intelligence-based.

You know, you have the private element. You know, we then have the intelligence side of it and then cyber. You know, we don't, you know, I don't normally walk around with tight black t-shirts with tattoos out, you know, we blend in and things that. And it's just having that approach that I've used before.

So, yeah, if you go to my website, you can get in touch with them, but the new website's getting built. And that's what I've been doing this last four months. It's setting up the business, preparing for denial. And next. And your website is Dean Stott. I was calling you Dean Scott.

I'm sure you've been called that a million times. I was calling you Dean Stott or Dean Scott. My wife was calling you Dean Scott. So it's Dean Stott.S-T-O-T-com. That's it. Is where we can find you. Also, you're on Facebook. Dean Stott, S-B-S-B-S-B-S.

You're on Instagram. which Echo only calls the Graham at Dean Stott. It's real quick on the Nile. What's like the major challenges there? What's the hardest level rapids they have there? So Merchers and Falls is the most powerful waterfall in wheels, grade six, grade six waterfalls.

But the problem you have with the waterfalls there is they take the crocodiles and the hippos from Lake Victoria and put them in Merchison. So when you come down, they're all in the pools at the bottom. So originally when we're going to do it, if it will record, they said,

oh, you can only use one boat. That's just not going to be feasible. In the 93% of Niles quite flat, so we'll use almost like a ski to go on that. But then you use a creek boat for grades three to four, and then a raft. We'll have to use a raft on some of those big ones.

Are you going to have like a sniper overwatch for crocodiles? Yeah. There's going to be a guy coming with a guy called Peter Meredith, actually. He's, he watched his friend get at, a crock kayaking in the DRC you know so he knows an aisle inside out you know he's talking about throwing stones I'm thinking to use something a bit more powerful um but local wise you know I want to bring

as many locals in as I can because especially the fishermen they know them more ways better than anyone so if there's crocs and hippos in that pool I'll just portage it I'm not going to paddle through I'll walk walk around it message wise you know we one thing we're passionate about is modern enslaving human trafficking and we're thinking of using this challenge to promote that but then that sort of channels in just just one campaign the great thing about denial is you know it's the lifeline of Africa we can talk about poverty pollution uh COVID you know so we're going to talk about the so many so many things along the the challenge do you have a date plan to launch that first of February I set off oh dang next year yeah yeah one year yeah yeah yeah wait a second you have to have a start

point. I generally, you have to have a start point. If don't have a start point, then it just keeps moving. Start point becomes never. Yeah, it comes never. It keeps moving to the right. You have a start point and then you can start approaching sponsors and start working back from that. So it gives me a year now to train at Newport Aquatic Center and, you know, then look out, you know, get sponsorship. The book is called Relentless. The subtitle is from SBS to World Record Breaker. Echo, you got anything else? How's your leg from that parachute situation? Yeah, so when I actually started the training,

I went to see a doctor and, you know, I was testing the string for my quads and my hamstring. I mean, it was him that identified, you know, your leg is two kilos light. I was that really. When I set off on the challenge, I got the muscle mass back. My hamstring was 18% less power,

but, you know, it's still good. No, we're good to go. Does it bother you like day to day? and stuff. No, no, I, you know, I joke that my wife didn't marry me because I look like Lance Armstrong or Chris Frum. I try not go in Lycra as often as I can, but, you know, for me, and I still try and push it, push it on the bike now and then. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's awesome, it's awesome what you've done to support these charities as well, the heads together and, and I'm sure you're going to support some awesome charities for this next event, Tattling the Nile.

hopefully you won't support the charity of free food for hippos and crocs but yeah people can get this book on the we'll put a link for it on the website and yeah awesome you got any final any final thoughts dean no I think you know when you see the website you'll see the frog man and everyone's out why the frogman because I always got the question of what's the difference between you and the other guys and going back to my original one my reason for going SBS because I thought no they're always divers and they weren't I ended up being the number one frog man so for me I'm not I'm not a cyclist I love I love the water so we we have the Nile and then another one which jocco you're more welcome and come along it's called surfing with pirates going to surf to Somali coastline

oh yeah that's that's not surfing with pirates that's surfing with sharks exactly but again it's promoting these these countries and you know they're amazing countries as well but obviously being as close to the water as I can yeah I'm game I'd never got a chance to go into Somalia. I sat off the coast of Somalia for months and months in the 90s waiting to go in. I never got the chance. So I didn't get to go operate. I'll go get some barrels.

Let's rock and roll. Well, there's breaks and beaches with no names, actually. So the plan is to, you know, from the north to the south. But, you know, again, people see what they see on TV and make their assumptions straight away. When I was in Mogadishu, again, I work on my own and work with the locals, and I was like spearfishing for lobsters and everything. And you wouldn't think you're in Mogadishu, but because it hasn't been commercially

fish for years. There's a huge abundance of wildlife there as well, yeah. I think my wife, anyone, you'll pick it up when you read the book, you know, it's a team effort, you know, my transition from the military. It wouldn't have been as smooth it wasn't for my wife. We're very much, we know our strengths and weaknesses. Now my wife can't ride a bike. No, I can, but my wife is very good at all the planning. And she was key to success of the challenge and the success of my time in the I generally believe that anyone can break a will record if you take away all those distractions you know the business the mortgage you know who's looking after the kids and that's what alana does does really well and and and then again my my young children of no nine and four I saw a joke that

when my my son was two and a half the challenge when we finished the challenge you know the challenge was older than my sons I think he just thought I was a cyclist and my daughter she was born after I left the military. So when I tell her that, you know, dad was a soldier, she said, Dad, you weren't a soldier. So my son thinks I'm a cyclist and my daughter thinks I'm a Walt and me. So I sort of joke about that. But again, you know, they're very, they very much look up to mum and dad, you know, and they travel everywhere with us. They've been all over the world. They know Alaska, South America, in Australia and things like that. So very lucky to have that. I think people think once you have children, that's it, as you're traveling days over, you know,

don't let them dictate, you know, your life. Awesome. Thanks again for coming on and thank you for your service and great Britain has always been our strongest ally. And we as nations have been through hell and back together in multiple wars. And we know we can count on you in our darkest hour. So thanks for coming on, sharing some of that with us. And good luck. Thank you. Watch out for those hippos.

And with that, Dean Stott has left the building talking about his incredibly incredible journey. Pretty crazy stories. The relentless pursuit of perfection. Yeah. He writes about that in the book. I only read it once today, but it's in there quite a few times. That mindset, the British special forces mindset of the relentless pursuit of purpose. of perfection.

Awesome to have him on here. And thanks Dean for coming on. And echo, Charles. Yes, sir. Speaking of a relentless pursuit of perfection, you have any suggestions that could maybe enable our relentless pursuit of perfection? We're not going to get there, by the way. Yeah.

But we're going to pursue it. Yeah. I will say facilitate. Okay. I said enable. Enable. and facilitate for sure. Look, hey, look.

Are all of us trying to break Guinness World Records for the book? We are not. Maybe, maybe not. No, factually, not everyone is. Not everyone. Correct. So I think factually, you can say that.

But we're on a path, though. We're on our own path, right? And that path is not easy. That's why we're on it. In fact, if it's easy, is it even a path, really? Not really. No.

I guess technically it's the path of least resistance. Yes, watch out for that one. That's a different kind of path. We know that it leads downhill, that path in particular. We're not looking for that path. We're not looking for it. We're not on it. We're not even, that's not our jamming anyway.

But the path that we are on is hard. Obstacles, pitfalls, and traps. Wise men once said. But on that path, you're going to endure or you have to endure some sort of pain in your joints. Depends on what you're doing, obviously. But most people are going to enjoy that. Yes. Endure.

Yeah. And look, I'm not saying you should worry about that. And in fact, if you really don't want to worry about that, guess what? Jaco has some supplements. How about that? For your joints, okay, we got Jock. Do you think there's anyone that's curious about how you're going to bring it all together? At that moment, people are like, oh, here it comes.

Oh, there he did. He did it again. Hey, look, we're over here trying to sensationalize these things to make them sensational. Okay. Hopefully. I don't think there's anything sensational about it. Here's the deal. You don't want to have joint issues.

No. So you want to do things that take care of your joints. Yes. By joints, I mean shoulder. Oh. Elbow, knee, neck, whatever. Nees, yeah. You want to call it if it's a joint in your body.

You don't want it to give you issues. No. You don't want that. Nope. So that's why we made joint warfare. Go to war against that. Joy. That decay.

And krill oil, by the way. Super krill oil, yes. Yeah. So now we don't even have to worry about that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of things that you should be concerned about on this path. Distraction, temptation. if you will, your friends sometimes. And let's face it, your joint.

You don't want to have to worry about that kind of stuff. Take the joint warfare every day with the super cruel oil every day. And you will not have to worry about that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's how it works. Get the subscription. Yeah, so check it out. We are trying to make things easier. So you can stay on the path more.

So right now, everything at Jock Fuel. If you subscribe to it, then the shipping is free. And look, obviously, we are, we understand that there's people that don't want to give their money to some giant companies, right? This is part of it. Also, so they don't want to give money to giant companies, but sometimes big giant companies ship stuff for free because they got this mass, you know, economies of scales and stuff. We understand that. We understand that. So if you go to joccofuel.com and you subscribe to anything, we're going to ship it to you for free.

You don't have to give your money to some big giant company. You don't have to do that. It's fine. We're here. Jockofuel.com. Subscribe. Get joint warfare. Get super krill.

Get discipline. Get vitamin D three for your immune system. Get cold warfare. Any of these things. Mulk. Multi-flavors. I just had. I just rotated milk.

What'd you go into? Mulk shakes. What'd you go from? The peanut butter one. Okay. But no, I rotated. No, not the flavors. I rotated into a daily or more specifically.

nightly. Got it. I put a banana in there. I think that's how for, from indefinitely, that's just how right now. Get the kids on board. Mo,

my kids are all about these different additives, you know? Yeah. I'm good. Oh, yeah. Mo Cal Day. Can you get a subscription for the discipline cans? Yes,

you can. Yeah. So, yep, that's what we're doing. Yeah, so the discipline cans, that's for like us who,

who kind of like are kind of down for the energy drink scenario, but are not down for the toxicity. sugar and all these bad elements that most of the time come with energy drinks. That's what this is for. Well, they do come with energy drinks unless you get these energy drinks. Exactly. Right. And that's exactly my point.

So yes, the discipline go in a can. There's also powder. There's also pills. You can also get this stuff. You can get the cans at Wawa. Yes. And you can get all the stuff at the vitamin shop as well.

And also if you are doing Jiu-Jitsu, which is recommended. Yes. Look, you want to talk about something. You're never going to be. you're never going to achieve perfection in. Jiu-Jitsu is definitely one of them, but it's going to help you in a lot of different aspects. If you're going to do Jiu-Jitsu, go to origin, mane.com,

get yourself a ghee, get yourself a rash guard. And since you can't wear a gie or a rash guard, well, you can't. John Donner, representing a rash guard in the supermarket. He doesn't care. All day. All day. So, what are you going to wear in your legs, right?

Are you going to wear ghee pants to the supermarket? Low probability. Low probability. How about you wear a pair of jeans? Cool. Origin jeans made in America Origin sweatshirts made in America This is all origin

Beanies Whatever All made in America boots I hear some new stuff coming out With the boot scenario I'm in no position to talk about it But I hear good things from a you know Pete Check

We're trying to make stuff happen That's for sure Origin main dot com All kinds of American made products Where we are bringing manufacturing Back to America Get some It's true

Also, jocco as a store. So jocco store.com is where you can get discipline equals freedom stuff, shirts, hoodies, hats, like that kind of stuff. So we got discipline equals freedom. We got good. We got standby to get some. We got to get after it. Anyway, like I said, jocococor.com.

That's where if you see something cool on there that you want to represent while you're on this path, that's where you get it, 100%. We also have something formerly known as the T-shirt Club. It's not really a club, I guess. It's just, it's a solid. It kind of is a club, to be honest with you. But it's called the shirt locker. New shirt every month.

By new, you don't mean like, oh, it's just a new shirt. It's a new design. New design. It's kind of, and okay, I'm going to use a word. I'm going to use it exclusive. Because you can't get it on the store otherwise. You see what I'm saying? So you sign up for this.

So people that are like really into the game. In the game. On the path. Representing hardcore. Yes. That's it. Jocco store.com. Also subscribe to this podcast.

And you can do that wherever you get a podcast. We also have Jockle unraveling, which, which I can tell you, Daryl's in the house. We're on it. I apologize. It's been a while. Daryl's wrapping up a bunch of stuff in his world. And so now we're going to get back in the game there.

Grounded podcast. Are I even making claims on that right now? No, we're not making claims yet. We're your kid podcast. I will make claims on. I owe that one. We'll get on. it. You can also join us at the underground. Underground is where we're putting some

alternative podcasts, maybe some amplifying information, some little behind the scenes. We're gonna do a Q&A. You were just telling me about some Q&A where people can send video questions. Yeah, audio or video questions. And you might be like actually featured like on it like your voice. So you know clear your throat. Submit them, boom. Yeah, it'll be good. I'll make an announcement on where to send them. Yeah on what like a Twitter Instagram scenario. Something like that you'll know. Yeah, you'll know and and this is all from jocco underground.com and look it's cost $8.18 a month. This is the platform that we control

So there's nobody that's going to tell us what to do no sponsors are going to tell us what to do no platform is going to tell us what to do we're going to do we want to do regardless and it's $8.18 a month and if you can't afford that that's okay. We're not here to go Ouch. No. If you can't afford it, email assistance at jaco underground.com. And that's a little idea that I heard from Sam Harris. Sam Harris, same thing. Can't afford it? Cool.

I'm not trying to hold back information. Actually trying to keep information free flowing because if something ever happens to these platforms, we're going to need something to somewhere to go. We'll have it. A little contingency plan is in action. So appreciate the support over there. That's true. Also, we do have a YouTube channel for the video version of this podcast.

I want to see what everybody looks like. You're going to see what Dean Stott, not Scott, by the way. If you want to see what Dean Stott looks like, if you want to see any of these, you can check it out. Well, some excerpts on there. Yeah. And also, I do a lot of work as the assistant director with a lot of these videos. So if you see something that you like, just let me know that you enjoyed my assistant director

I feel like we all kind of enjoyed your 10 list of 10 things that you utilize on the daily business or what I think I think that was kind of a cool little hit that you guys kind of brought you know I mentioned that my daughter kind of drove the the spirit behind that and people think I think people think that that meant that she made it mm-hmm she kind of did well she did but I did editing oh she gets she gets she director credit on that? Yeah, she does. Straight up. Good job.

Just stepping it up. Yeah, I do a lot of assistant directing. Yes, sir. I understand. Also, Origin USA has a little YouTube channel. You can check that out. If you want to keep updated as to what it's like to grow a business. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, they put all kinds of cool stuff on their main tie. Yeah.

Pete. Be little. They're up there getting after it. You know what it's kind of like? Like, you know when you go to work? Like, let's say you go to work every day and you kind of, let's say, I don't I don't know. You're a manager.

I don't know. Whatever. You go to work every day and you kind of get updated when you go in about, okay, what's currently going on? What's the status of this? It's kind of like that. When you watch like the YouTube things or sorry,

the origin YouTube channel, Origin HD. Yeah. That's the one right. Origin HD. That's one I watch all that. Yeah. The interesting thing is like if you watch a reality television show,

what they do is they take a bunch of people with like weird personalities. I'm not saying in all cases, but this is kind of a stereotypical thing. Take a bunch of people and then they can fight with each other about whatever right yeah and so it creates drama for your TV show and then people watch it because they like to watch a train wreck the thing that's cool about about what we're doing at origin when you see behind the scenes it's not it's not the team fighting with the team it's like hey how are we gonna

make this work yeah how are we gonna get the right materials how are we gonna get this in production how are we gonna satisfy this this this clients that we've got or the customers how we gonna take care of them so it's that it's that struggle it's not a struggle against there's no there's no like a reality television drama. Yeah, the producer, like, and this is what they do, by the way, from what I hear,

it's not like I watch this kind of stuff, but I hear that they'll be like, hey, like there's little writers there. That'll be like, hey, look, we're going to send these people on a trip to the Bahamas. And hey, you, like, you got to say that you don't want to go because of what this lady said, like last month on Instagram or something like this.

And you better tell her. And we'll just see how. plays out kind of a thing. See, and just like your point though. How whack that is. Well, you know, at the end of the day, yeah, I agree. But it makes for good, cheap entertainment, you know? But yeah, so you watch the origin one and it's like, yeah, it's not scripted drama.

It's like the actual drama that comes with running and maintaining growing like a business or whatever. So yeah, if you're interested in like how to run a business and what just the whole, that whole environment and the process and all that, oh man, it gets real interesting. Very interesting. Check. So we got that. Also, we got an album called Psychological Warfare.

It's me talking through your moments of weakness. We got Flipsidecanvas.com, which is Dakota Myers company. Hang stuff on your wall. That'll keep you on the path. Got some books. Obviously, relentless from SBS to World Record Breaker by Dean Stott.

We have that up. We have it linked. Links from the episodes. Final spin. A story. Is it a poem? Don't know. Is it a novel?

Don't know. I wrote it. But I don't know what to call it. If you want to try and categorize it, you're going to have a hard time. The literary critics. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to have a field day with that one.

We'll see. We'll see how it shakes out form. Leadership strategy and tactics field manual. The code, the evaluation of protocol, discipline equals freedom field manual. Way the Warrior Kid four field manual. Way the warrior kid. One, two, and three. Mike and the Dragons.

About Face. My hackworth, I wrote the forward. Extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. I also have a leadership consultant consultancy. It's called Eschlamfront.com. We solve problems through leadership. EF online. If you want training for you, for your company, on leadership.

If you want to get aligned, go to EFonline.com. We got the muster 2021. Go to extreme ownership.com. If you want to come and get after it with us, you want to meet a bunch of people that are all moving forward on the leadership path. Everything we've done is sold out. These are going to sell out too. So come early if you want.

EF. Overwatch, if you need leadership inside your team in the civilian sector, and you want someone from the military that understands the principles we talk about all the time, go to EFoverwatch.com. And if you want to help service members, active duty service members, retired service members, their families, gold star families,

check out Mark Lee's mom. Mama Lee, she's got a charity, organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org and if you want more of my if you just you're sitting there thinking i could really use some more of jocco's interminable reading or you need more of echo's unrelated revelations you can find us on the interwebs on twitter on instagram or for echo the gram and on facebook echo is at I'm at Giacua-Chalz. And Dean Stott is at Dean Stott-S-B-S-B-S-B-S-B-S-T-T-T on the Graham. And thanks to all military members around the world and tonight, especially to the United Kingdom.

And I know that we rebelled against you to form our own nation, but we became allies and we thank you for standing by our side on the battlefield. The little island with the heart of a lion and to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service and all first responders. Thank you for your continued service and for being there for us when we call. And to everyone else, let me ask you this. What are you doing? What are you doing? Are you doing everything you can? Are you who you want to be?

Are you who you are capable of being? Are you engaged in a relentless pursuit of excellence? And if you are, good. And if you aren't, well, then you just might want to pick a goal and go get after it. And until next time, Zecho and Jocko. Out.