Jocko Podcast - 444: When Outnumbered and Outgunned, FIX BAYONETS, Attack, and KEEP ATTACKING. W/ Brian Wood.

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

>Join Jocko Underground< former soldier in the Princess of Wale's Royal Regiment who was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in the Battle of Danny Boy.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 444 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Before I knew it, we were heading down Route 6, getting ready to extract casualties. The back of the warrior, as always, was hot, dark, sticky, uncomfortable. Stick was giving me Taylor and J.C. Constant updates what we were going to do when we got there, when boom. Out of nowhere, the vehicle is hit by overwhelming fire.

power. The armor of a warrior is thick, but as I knew from previous engagements, it is not impenetrable. The vehicle skidded to a halt as the ambush continued, rocking from the ratat-tat of gunfire and the boom of RPGs. Jesus, Stick! I could hear Jean-Claude Fowler, the gunner, shout, contact, wait, out. Stick issued a fire control order, then J.C. started to return fire engaging the militia stronghold. We'd been shot so many times over the previous weeks. The fact that someone was firing at us didn't phase me. What was difficult and what made me more concerned was where we were being fired at from.

It was normal for someone to take a pot shot from a window or a rooftop. It felt unusual for it to happen in the middle of nowhere. Where the fuck were we? The only info I had was that we were going to extract two casualties. but this firefight was nowhere near our rendezvous. It was all a bit mixed up and confusing. Stick and JC continued communicating with each other while they tried to work out what was going on

and how many enemy positions there were. All I could do was sit there, listening to the rounds spraying up against the vehicle. With a clunk, I could hear the chain gun failing to fire, a fuck from JC and a grab for his LM. He switched from using that on the turret, dropping down and firing the 30 millimeter cannon. I kept my mouth shut.

That's your job at that point. There's so much radio feed and the gunners really need to concentrate so you have to give them that time. Let them get on with it rather than bombarding them with questions. Eventually, after what seemed like an age of being bombarded, I asked Stick what was going on. A stronghold, he told me. Looks like they were dug in.

There were a lot of militia fighters, 10 to 15, Stick estimated, and a load of weaponry around their position. Wait, out, Stick said. The firefight continued. I sat there, poised, taking in the information stick had just told me. Then I passed on to the others in the back. There's a stronghold, 10 to 15 militia. We are engaging.

Wait out, lads. Woody, Stick said, over the intercom. Prepare you and your men to dismount. Whoa, dismount? Say that again, I said, as the engagement continue to boom away outside. I want you to prepare to dismount, Stick repeated. We're not having any effect here. There's in these zigzag type trench positions, just popping up, engaging, getting down again.

Let me know when you're ready. I'd been told. I explained Sticks' command to the others in the back. They had the same what-the-fuck response I had had. You want us to go out into that? as I was telling them, I could feel my heart going 10 to the dozen, smashing up against my body armor. Holy fuck, I was thinking.

We need boots on the ground, I told the boys, we're going to get out of this vehicle and launch a close quarters counterattack onto that stronghold. Okay? Stand by and get ready to go. And that right there is an excerpt from a book, which is called Double Crossed, written by Brian Wood, MC. Now, if you're familiar with the acronym M.C., MC, you know it stands for Military Cross, which is a British military award for gallantry during active operations against the enemy.

It's the third highest military decoration in the British military. There's only been 375 of them awarded since 1979 for actions in Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf War, and of course the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Brian Wood certainly earned his award, and we will get into that. But on top of that, he and his fellow soldiers were wrongfully accused of war crimes, smeared in the press, shamed in public, berated by lawyers, before eventually being completely cleared of all wrongdoings and restored to their rightful place as heroes. and Patriots. And it's an honor to have Brian Wood here with us tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned. So Brian, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, this has been a long time because several years ago, I read a quote from you on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and somebody filmed it and somebody posted it, and you saw it. Yeah. And that's how we originally linked up.

I was actually running, and I never really look at my phone when I'm running it. I'm in the zone, but it just kept on pinging and pinging in my leg, and I thought there's obviously something wrong with the family. So I've stopped, which I wasn't happy about. I've stopped my stopwatch, and I looked to my phone, and I just see tagged jocco, jocco, and I was like, what? And then I'd like, this is insane. So, and then I message you to say thank you.

It's a really humbling experience for you to read an extra. direct out from the Battle of Danny Boy. And then here we are. A couple of years later. Yeah. It's been quite a few years for that. Yeah, so I'm super stoked that you could make it here. And obviously this book is, it's called Double Crossed.

It came out in 2019. If people don't have it yet, then get it. It's a fantastic book. It's like part war and part, what are those, courtroom drama because of this whole situation that took place, which we'll get into. But, you know, I figure we might want to start time, start at the beginning, start at the beginning of this whole scene, how it all started for you. And like a British person, I guess.

The first chapter is called kicking off, which is a little bit of a reference to what we would call soccer, what you would call football. You say, I didn't want to be a soldier. When I was growing up, I wanted, I was desperate to be a footballer. And so you were good, too. Clearly you were good. you were you were in the headly under tens yeah and then you got picked up a couple of you and your couple of your buddies get picked up by aldershot what's that like a just another town yeah all the shot's just another town up the way with just a better prospect for for developing

as a football player and this is when you're like 10 11 12 years old something like that yeah and it's it's the main sport in england kind of by a long shot yeah it's huge i mean soccer is everything in the UK. I mean, in America, we have baseball, we have football, we have basketball, and those three are huge, and those three are probably all pretty equal. And then, of course, you have hockey. You have so many sports here in America. Yeah.

But in England, it's like soccer. Yeah. That's what you're doing. Yeah, it's the governor of sports. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I was playing at a decent level, and I was getting fastballed, really, to getting pushed because, you know, I was just a little, I don't know, a little bit better than my peers and I actually was playing above my age group as well and then um and you get offered what's what's the chelsea school of excellence so it's for talented kids

to go into this school of excellence which is just then focused on developing the talent and with chelsea being a premier league football club it's it was huge um is are those two attached is the premier club attached to the Chelsea School of Excellence? The Premier League is the league and Chelsea is within the league but it's developed by like the FA which is a football association and there's the Premier League will oversee it with that umbrella. And then you had a hard time getting to that because it was too far for you guys to commute and your dad was in the army. That's right. My dad was serving. My dad, you know, has a vision to be honest. He's like my hero. I don't know. It's a bit of a cliche but my dad really was my idol and I witnessed him from putting on his uniform to looking after himself

physically for really testing himself and he called me his shadow I just followed him everywhere because I just really worshipped the ground he walked on and he was trying his hardest with me with training but it was over the other side of London and the M25 those who you know it's like the biggest car park in the world. So it was a struggle because I would get to training and then I was late. I was having to pull myself up then try and get in this zone

and it's high performing at the highest level even at that young age, you're on it. And it was so difficult for me to get to the performance where I needed to be in such a small space of time when they've had 20 minutes on me. It's just, it was tough. So we had to make a decision after that year. And yeah, my dad just,

I didn't afford to take the time off, and he was relying on friends to take me across, and my mom was working. So it was just, it was unfortunate, but it's life. And then the next step, so you end up playing a place closer to home, right? Is that Reading. Reading.

Yeah. And then you get picked up for the youth training scheme. Yeah. And that you say in the book is the last step before being offered a professional contract. Can you get signed as a footballer in England as like a young kid. Don't young kids get signed.

Yeah, you can now. I mean, it's crazy what happens now. I mean, they are looked after. Cottonwall. They've just, as a young prospect, they're just guided and nurtured. But only like 2% will make it. So it's a small percentage.

A bit like special forces, only a small percentage will make the cut. So you end up getting into that system. And I guess you write about in the book that the system culminates in a match between these two different academies and the match comes. It's a rainy day. And you play kind of okay, but you don't play great. And then you get called by the coaches.

All the players are sat down or going to get called in one by one of the coaches. You say in the book, one after another, the players were called them to see if the coaches who were sat waiting for us, they sat me down and told me what a pleasure did it have been to see me grow and excel while part of their school of excellence. But the coach continued. I'm afraid we're not going to take you on. The reason they gave me was my build that I was too skinny and too lightweight on the ball.

We have got someone else in your position, the coach said, who is a lot stronger and more developed, so we are going to go with him. I was devastated, massively so. So how old are you at this point? 14, 15. So 16 is when you go into full contract mode. And you couldn't go on like a pizza and beer diet

to gain weight. They do that with basketball players. in America. Do they really? Because guys will grow and they'll be super tall and they'll be too small, too skinny, and they'll put them on like a full pizza and beer diet just to gain weight. They didn't have that program for you. But do you know what?

If I had to gone through now, this is what they want. They want zero percent body fat, quick, nimble, strong, you know, with core. And obviously I just missed that cut by a couple of decades. But it was my first experience of, not making the cut and how adversity looks to get over that heartbreak because I only knew football. It was my life. But isn't there you can't say, all right, well, I'll be back next year, I'm going to go gain weight, I'll be better, or is it kind of like once you don't make it, you're probably not going to make it?

No, I mean, my dad brings it up now and again about should away to be patient. But I felt left out at home where my brother was serving within one Scots. My dad was serving. And then there was me kind of not in this conversation. And I'm thinking, right? And I just had the biggest knockback I've ever experienced. And I thought, I'm going to go and do something about this. I want to be on that table having these conversations with the people that I look up to the most.

And that was your dad. Your dad, you talk about in the book. He joined the Army. He grew up in like housing estate or council estate in Glasgow. Rough upbringing. And you say he joined the army. Joining the army got him away from home. But the hardness he experienced there continued in the military.

He lost his mate to an IRA ambush in Northern Ireland. He'd been out patrolling my dad's sections. My dad's section and his mates were covering each other across open ground when there was gunfire. My dad was asked to stop all traffic in and out of town. He then got a message over the radio to say that two men. were down. His friend had been killed by the IRA. The military funeral that followed was something that will stay with him forever.

My dad couldn't bring himself to go back to his friend's graveside until the 40th anniversary of his death and he laid a poppy wreath. So clearly the military had a huge influence on you. Your dad had a huge influence on you. And then you go off by yourself to the Army Careers Office and Aldershop. and there you speak to the recruiter the recruiters have a reputation and the recruiters in america i'm sure i don't know if you know this but the recruiters in america have the reputation of like they'll do anything to get you to join yeah is it the same thing he sold me the train uh he talks to you he's from

the princess of wales royal regiment the pwrr and he tells you you'll feel a part of something he told me you'll feel you'll be fighting along some of the bravest men you'll ever meet in your life the regiment was nickname the Tigers for a reason. You'll forge relationships that will be with you for life. You'll end up leaving the regiment one day, but being a part of the regiment will never leave you. I was sold. I wanted to sign there and then,

but because I was still 16, about three months short of my 17th birthday, I had to have the parent signature to do so. So you have to tell your mom about this, right? How'd your mom feel about it? I tried to get my dad to tell her, but he was like, no, this is something you need to do because my mum already lost a son to the to the army my brother was away serving and I was the only

her son left remaining really and I was like mom she knew she knew she just said when I spoke to her she just had this like feeling of drained us come away from her body when I was like I'm off and and she was like look have you thought about this what about your football and I was like I'm going I'm like gone I'm done I just need your signature My dad was like And this is pre-war

So this is 1997 Yeah So that's it You go Yeah Are you even 17 yet When you actually leave I just turned 17 yeah

You end up going to Basingborn Yeah I'm saying that right Yeah September 1997 That's your basic training Yeah

And you got Physical training This is your boot camps How is boot camp Yeah I mean It was a challenge I was young and I was having to figure out values, standards, which was not a problem for me because my dad's values and standards at home was formidable.

I mean, they were just on another level and it was great because I was moulded quite well from home and then getting to understand the values that the British Army instill and everything what comes with it, the physical fitness, the navigation, the lockers inspections and all that sort of stuff just kind of fell into place. But yeah, it was a little bit of a shock to the system initially, but you have to adapt.

And we didn't have mobile phones then days. So once a week, I'd get on, like, the phone box outside and just made to speak to my mom and dad and said, look, all's good, don't worry. I'm attacking each day. I'm trying my best. And, yeah, it's all good. So you get done with boot camp.

Then you go to the infantry training center at Cataract. Yeah. You say here the training was more fine-tuned and focused on your particular trade. For me, that was infantry being a front-line. That's what you knew. Was your dad infantry? Yeah, I'm my brother. Okay, so you didn't really have a choice in this.

No. That's what you were doing. Yeah. And how was that training? Yeah, it's like my trade training. It was the fundamentals of closing with and destroying the enemy. That's our mission statement. And yeah, it was a demand.

It was like a whole different step up from what I was used to in Bavis. because it was all infanteers. It was infantry instructors and you were learning your craft, sharpish. And yeah, you were tested and you got to feel uncomfortable to the point where you were comfortable being uncomfortable in a long stage of the training.

And just tried to embrace it. I was like anyone, I was making a lot of mistakes. I was figuring my way out, but I made sure I showed up on parade with a purpose. and with a desire to pass. And that was my sort of, yeah, the way I thought about things. Now, are you getting taught by veterans from the Falklands and from Northern Ireland?

So there was guys that have combat experience that are teaching you. Yeah. And there was an expectation because they'd been there. They'd seen it. They'd smell it. And they'd delivered. And there was boundaries. And you just couldn't drop below the boundaries.

Otherwise, you're accountable for that. because they had so much credibility of operating on operations that you listened because it was real and you sat up when they come into the room and yeah just tried to be the best that you could be as an individual and like I said there was loads of times I was on show parade because I got something wrong or forgot something but it's part and parcel of building you up

and creating this character that needs to take hard hits needs to learn from mistakes. But the fundamental is you've just got to keep going and hang in there. So you get done with that and you get assigned to your regiment and they're part of the five airborne brigade. They're down in Canterbury. And you got some good advice from your dad. You say, my dad said to me, remember that you're going into a rigid and structured

organization. Don't open your mouth. Don't say the wrong thing. Keep your head down for the first six months. and you'll be on to a winner. The other bit of advice my dad gave me was to make sure that I kept fit. If you are fit, you'll be sorted, he said. What you didn't want was to find yourself singled out as a weak link at the start.

Once that happened and you identified yourself as a potential target, that's when you'd start attracting unwanted attention. I knuckled down, made sure I was in the top 10 of any physical exercises that we did, and I was left alone. In fact, the only way I didn't keep my head down was with my first. football. So you end up, so you stay in great shape, but you end up playing football for the regiment. Yeah.

And of course, you're going to, there was guys, there was guys that would have that happen in the SEAL teams where they would be good at like swimming. There was a whole team of some country has a event, like a military event. It's running and swimming in this little obstacle course. And if guys were really good athletes, they'd go there and do that. And, you know, for the, for the guys that weren't doing it, they'd say, oh, you know, you're go to train again because we got to go out and lug our freaking weapons around in the desert and yeah so it sounds like this was a similar situation you guys are getting kidded up to go out and train for operations

and you're running around the football field with your shorts off i've got i um an experience we were just about to go away for two weeks and it was a hard exercise and um i packed my kit it was all on the hole underneath the coaches and i was on the back of the coach and then the company start major comes on the coach and says where's wood and I was a private soldier young lad and um the whole coach went silent and I thought oh no and he's like get off the coach you're going to go and play football for two weeks and I could try to do the gornlet because everyone were just smashing me dead legs grabbing me like give me a shake and then I'm a little bit cheeky so when I got off the coach I got my bags off the hold and as it trove past I just stuck my thumb in the

It's like all the best lads. You end up doing some good stuff. You play in South Africa. You end up going to Brazil and playing. It seemed like kind of a cool, kind of cool experience. You enjoyed the experience. Then you say this, but I'd also joined to see some action. It was desperate to experience that.

As the millennium drew to a close and a new one began, I was about to get my wish and then some. So you end up going to Kosovo. Yeah. In 2000, you're 20 years old, which is pretty awesome. You do some pre-deployment training, you know, with your with your platoons, soldiering, tactics, planning. And then you end up on this tour. You say it was a three-prong tour in what we had in that we had three locations that we rotated round each fortnight.

First, we were in base camp as QRF. Second, we were based in the town's police station offering protection to some of the city's residents. On the third rotation, we were based at Gate 3, which was on the border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia. how's your op tempo on that deployment yeah for me it was the foundations of understanding what it takes to go on ops i was 20 i'd not experienced this before and pre-deployment was probably about four months and there is no gray areas you've got to be on it even as a private soldier the hypervigilant listen to what's been told and directed and coached and mentored and um and take action on that so that was a really first time that I knew that I needed to perform at a high level.

And like I said, it was good foundations for me to build me up as an individual, as a young soldier, just about to go on to operations. And going on operations, understanding local culture what were there for, and, you know, what tasks that we were expected to carry out. it was challenging initially to understand having Serbian residents in an Albanian where we were and what that took and the rotations that were involved within that

we were actually staying with some of the grannies so we were actually in their granny's house and she had like all these fleeting cats with our sleeping bags it was so random honestly it's like there's a port-loop that we could use and then we would just garden her because they are opportunities. They don't want them within their country.

So it was different to what I was thinking. I thought peacekeeping. It would be just dominating the ground, getting engaged with village elders or trying to understand what they needed to be restructured or rebuilt and then mentoring their police and their army. But I was stagging on. some granny

for a long period of time. We had two. We had a granny's house and then we had a granny flat. And honestly, Jocco, I stagged on this granny flat for probably four months

and I didn't see her once. And I honestly thought, this is a wind up. There's no one in there. And then one day, she looked and she said something to me, pointed her walking stick and shut the door

and that was the last time I seen her literally once at the six-month tour. Yeah. So that's what it was, a six-month tour. Yeah. You end up meeting Lucy in what was in the year 2000. Yeah.

And that, that, this is, well, she's a huge part of the story because she ends end up getting married to her. Yeah. And that was what? In between, in between tours? Yeah, so actually met her just before I went away to Kosovo. Okay. And then on my R&R, we took a big risk and we went away together because we hadn't been

dated for that long. And then I had two weeks of Reston, recuperation. And we went away. Oh, in the middle of your deployment? Yeah. Oh, sweet. And we went away to Future Ventura and just took a risk because the bottom line is, it's either going to work, Chris, not. Yeah, you're going to find out quick.

Yeah, massively. Also, fast forward a little bit in the book. By the way, I'm not, obviously, we're not reading the whole book. Get the book so you can get all the details. But you say in between the two tours of Kosovo, because you end up going back to Kosovo, the whole political landscape shifted. In September 2001, I was back in the UK training with the Army football team in Aldershot. I was in the showers when somebody came in and said

an airplane just hit the Twin Towers. At this point, I must confess that I didn't even know where the Twin Towers were. In New York, you idiot. I got showered and dressed and went out to watch the events unfold on TV because it was the Army team. It was a real cross-section of soldiers

from all sorts of regiments there from the infantry to the Royal Engineers. Like the rest of the world, it was difficult to take in exactly what we were seeing. But unlike the rest of the world, everyone in that room had a slightly different emotion as well as the shock and horror at what we were seeing

on the screen, there's a definite sense that there was going to be a response to what was happening. As the U.S.'s strongest ally, the British were likely to be there alongside her. That meant war, and that meant us. So did you have that feeling? You know, when you say that meant war, that meant us. What did you think? Did you, because I'll tell you, after September 11th, for me, I thought, hey, we're going to do some strikes. We're going to, you know, hit some terrorist, camps, drop some bombs. No way would I have predicted freaking 20 years of war, which is what we got. What were you thinking?

I knew there was going to be a big response. I knew it was going to be a massive response because what was unfolding in front of my eyes, I've never seen anything like it. And I don't think we will, and hopefully we won't in the foreseeable. But I knew there was going to be a huge response. And everyone in that arena, that area that we, were all watching it from they knew they were like we're going to be going sharpish as well and to be honest that's what how it was and yeah we were sort of packing our kit and figuring out

whether or that were going to Iraq or to go out to Afghanistan it was yeah I didn't think we were going to be there for two decades if I'm honest but I knew there was going to be an overwhelming sense of aggression from us which we were in start to do You end up getting married And then you go back to Kosovo again Yeah You say I went back to Kosovo again for my second tour In June 2002 this time

It was based in Pristina And because of my promotion I had more responsibilities to deal with I had four guys to look after now I'd get clear direction from my section commander Who'd then feed this back down the line To my lads who'd carry out what needed to happen There was more general patrolling on this tour

That was out on foot And in the Land Rovers and Warriors and a lot more stop and search of vehicles. The regiment had some good fines, big lorries full of weapons systems. A lot of the regiment had previously been out in Northern Ireland where they'd been used to this sort of setup and activity. But I was new to it all, so continue to learn. I spent some time listening to others who had operational experience

as the sort of things to look out for. So it sounded like that patrol or that deployment was a little bit of a step up in your soldiering. Yeah. I was in a command appointment so I was a leader instead of a follower so I had more responsibilities

I needed to tune in I was I'm still am now a sponge I need to know constantly all the time if I'm going into a new environment I want to learn I want to know and that's how I was like I knew there was so much

experience within what we had with Northern Ireland the Falklands that I just really wanted to soak up, you know, what they would do, you know, using the windfop theory. For an example, that was used a lot in Northern Ireland. That was basically, if you were the enemy, where would I go? What would I do?

And that was a big thing for us. And we did quite well from just using that basic theory. What did you call the theory? Winthrop. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I actually never heard of that before.

Yeah, it was a big thing in Northern Ireland. So basically, if you were the enemy, where would you choose to lie in weight? Yeah. Well, we definitely use that theory. but I never heard it called that before. Yeah. So, yeah, I was just digging out and desperate for information

and to develop myself as well because it's, I believe no one is the universal soldier. People are very good with what they do and what they deliver, and I was trying to be one of them individuals. I always looked up to certain individuals because they inspired me,

they motivated me to be a better individual and a better leader. So it's important for me to just gain as much as I could at such a young age. And are you, while you're in Kosovo, are you thinking at some point we're going to Iraq or we're going to Afghanistan? Because we were armored vehicles as well. I was just kind of waiting.

So did you think it would more likely be Iraq? Yeah, because of the layout of the ground. And we've kind of been sort of given a pre-brief on that, that it looks like the country of operations will be Iraq just due to our brigade. We were a, I think it was 20 Armour Brigade at that time. And, yeah, because we integrated with Challenger battle tanks. And it was just, it was a perfect fit for us. All right.

So you get home from Kosovo in 2003. And I'm going to go here. Back to the book. On November 5th, 2003, my regiment was called to a scale A parade at the large gymnasium in Tidworth. Timworth. Rumors were everywhere. If there's one thing a military organization likes, it's a rumor.

If you believed everything you heard, we'd be about, we'd be about to be fighting seven wars simultaneously. But obviously, expectations were high. We were in the middle of one of the most active periods of the army had seen in years, if not decades. Kosovo, Afghanistan, now Iraq, following on quickly from each other. As I said earlier, the Afghanistan terrain wasn't an obvious fit for us, but Iraq seemed like it might be.

Like many of my fellow soldiers, I was hoping that we were about to get the call. The gymnasium was packed and crackling with anticipation. The officer sat and rose in front and the rest of us were stood up in company lines behind. After what seemed like an age, our new CO, Lieutenant Colonel Matt Mayer, am I saying that right? Matt Mayer finally appeared. He walked to the front and up onto the stage. There were not microphones or anything, but we could all hear what he said. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Matt Mayer, he began introducing himself to those who he had.

hadn't met before. I'm a new commanding officer and in 20 weeks time we will deploy on operations in southern Iraq. It will be a tour like no other. It was a speech that everyone who is in that room would never forget. Mayor spoke powerfully in a way that really captured the drama of the moment. It was an inspiring talk but also one that made clear the realities of the situation we were going to face. Look to your left and to your right, he said. Unfortunately, there are going to be people in this room who won't be returning home. He confirmed a lot of the rumors that had been doing the rounds and gave us an overview of the situation out there at this point.

Overall, the speech was stirring. This is why we joined the military, he told us. By the time he finished, you could hear a pin drop in that place. There were no questions, just the regimental Sergeant Major, chalky white telling us to fall out. So you get the word. Yeah. It's interesting, too, because,

Because for that battalion commander, it was like, this will be a deployment like no other, which is what everyone thought. When I deployed to Baghdad for the first time, I was like, oh, I'm so lucky to be here. No one's going to be able to get to do this, you know, very few. And we ended up doing this for decades, which is wild and certainly unexpected. So then you guys go into a workup cycle and training and preparing? Yep. And how's that? How's the intensity during that?

Yeah, it's intense because we have. members who were in country fly back and basically assess and test what's going on. So you're under the scrutiny from dismount commanders, which was me, to vehicle commanders to the whole delivery of operations. There'll be officers there watching us go into, you know, I don't know, a deliberate attack or, you know, whatever sort of exercises that we were conducting and it will be observed. and then we'll go into an after-action review and they'll just talk about what's happening out there

and what we need to change, tweak and be better at. So it was all real time, which is great because they've got credibility. They've got, you know, tanned faces. The tanned, you know, where they've been with their sleeves up, they've been away. You can see that. And you can see the look in their eyes that, you know, the level that you need to be at because of what's happening out there.

I'm going to fast forward a little bit. By the time it was announced that we were going to Iraq, Lucy and I were living together in married quarters in Tidworth, and she was expecting. We talked about having kids and wanted them quite quickly. I wanted to be a young dad. I thought that was important because I wanted to be able to compete with them when they were older, not to be some old dad in his chair

when they wanted to go out and play football. Bailey was a leap year baby born 29 February 2004. So you got a lot going on. Yeah. And how old are you at this point? 23. Yeah. Yeah, you definitely have a lot going on.

And then it's time to, again, the book covers all kinds of awesome details about the preparation, about what was happening with relationship-wise. I'm going to fast forward a little bit for your heading to Iraq. You go from Tidworth. You go to RAF Brys-Norton. Is that, I'm I said that right, Bryce Norton? You go from there to Qatar to Basra, a little bit from the book. As soon as we arrived, everyone was told to pull.

their helmet and body armor on. Then we were escorted onto a coach, which was all blacked out with curtains pulled shut. There was no air conner. It was absolutely boiling. Welcome to Iraq. From there, you go to a runway, sparrowhawk. From there, you get picked up,

and you get put in the back of warriors, which are your armor personnel carrier, and you go to Camp Abu Najee. Is that how you say? Abunaji, yeah. Abu Najee. You're home for the next few months. So that's where you end up.

Yeah. You end up in this place, Abu Naji. You get there and you, well, I'll get right into it. If I was under any illusion about the challenge we faced, that soon went away when we were attacked on 18 April. The first full day that our battle group had taken responsibility for the Mason province. Abu Naji was situated about seven kilometers to the south in the center of which was the Simic house, a forward operating base. getting between the two had always has the potential

of being a risky venture. Al Amara was a town on the edge a fortnight before we arrived there had been a riot in the town involving about 3,000 people stirred up by about 300 members of Al Saadr's Madi army. So you and I were talking about this

before we hit record. So I had just left Iraq or I probably was leaving it around I don't know, sometime in April we left. But one of the last missions that we did as seals on the ground was we, so we had targeted, everyone had been targeting Sauter for a long time, but the higher-ups were nervous

about actually going in and snatching him. And so eventually they figured out, hey, well, we'll try and see what happens if we get one of his lieutenants. So one of his lieutenants was this guy named Yucubei and my platoon went and captured Yucubi down in Najaf. and when that happened, it was like,

it really created a firestorm in the country. It was complete, complete chaos after that. Radically different. So one example I talk about is, you know, we had a little base in Baghdad at Baghdad International Airport.

And it was just not that big of a deal. It was pretty, pretty mellow there. And as soon as we did that operation, the gates were getting attacked. I went up into the towers and like, there's just smoking vehicles on the highways.

It was a radical change that took place. Probably not the smartest move. And again, it was, we were, we were, no one knew what's going to happen. But the military should have at least put the word out of what we were doing, or at least as soon as we did it, put the word out. Because a lot of, a lot of ground units got caught off guard. Yeah. And they, they got caught, you know, kind of, kind of a little.

bit relaxed because everything was was relatively calm. So this is what you show up to. And by the way, you know, that area that you're talking about, the area where you are is like ground zero for the Shia and the Madi army. So Muttat al-Sauder, he had this Madi army, this Madi militia. And this is where they were located primarily. So this is what you show up to. You show up to the chaos that had just kind of really kicked off. So going into this thing here when this is happening, you say that day I was in the back of a warrior on a familiarization patrol with some light with some of the light infantry. There were three dismounts from the light infantry along with a commander and three of us from the PWRR in there. The idea was that we should, this was to be a routine patrol where we would be taken to different spot codes, get out, have a look around, get our bearings, learn the landmarks.

And by spot codes, I mean that Al Amara was divided up on the map into different kinds. colors and numbers, so one position would be red three, another would be blue five, and so forth. We got to this particular point, yellow three, which was on route to the Simic house. Just as the door was open for us to get out, the place exploded into a riot of noise. We had barely got out of the vehicle before the air was filled with the boom and smoke of RPG fire and mortar attack. Wow, the attack was deafening and really concentrated. We were getting smashed, so everyone dived back into the vehicle.

We didn't return fire ourselves, but left it to the gunners and the warriors. to respond. I sat there in the darkness of the back of the vehicle. My heart thumping 10 to the dozen and listened to the battle exploding all around us. This is how it's been for the last two weeks, the commander's in the back of the war you explained. So like I said, it's like the last two weeks have been like that. This had to be a little bit of an eye opener for you. Is that your first time getting shot at right there?

And you can't even, you don't even have the opportunity to return fire. who just died back in the vehicles. Yeah. How was that feeling? I was like what is going on here. It was so confused, disorientated, because in the back of an armored vehicle, there's only one glass, thick, armored window,

and with grit and condensation, you can't see nothing of it. So when you're getting told to get out and the noise and everything else what's going on, you're like, what? And then someone else is screaming, get back in. So there was a lot of confusion.

and this was new to you could see it I mean I was doing stuff like knee jerk reaction sort of stuff not having like a bit of a soak period or a bit of a command and control period I was like a bit of like rabbit and headlights and the other lads had been and been there for six months call his cucumbers they're like relax this is what needs to happen get back in chill out let's see where the fire and points are and then we'll make an estimate and I was like like yeah hair on fire sort of material but yeah that was the first real experience of being under fire. And that was, yeah, the first which led into every day. Yeah, you're saying the book,

I ended the day no wiser than I had been before as to the terrain I was facing. I just had the general sense of it being hostile and hard and unforgiving. We quickly got into a routine of doing regular patrols. We were in rotation, a platoon out on the ground on patrol, another on five minutes QRF, which meant five minutes notice to move, then another on 20 minutes notice to move. Only on the last rotation could you take your kit off, your boots off. Otherwise, you were prepped and ready to go.

Yeah, it is crazy being in the back of an armored vehicle. Like I would travel in the back of Bradley's. Yeah. And you just have no idea what's happening. No, I try to do like the map appreciation, the map to ground, but you just have got no idea. It's so confusing. I found it very, very hard.

Oh, yeah. I never liked getting in any vehicles. Yeah. I would prefer to be on feet all day long. Yeah. Well, this is what you end up doing. So this is a pretty hardcore rotation. You're either on patrol or you're on five minutes QRF or you're on 20 minutes QRF,

which is probably when you're sleeping or whatever because you can take your kid off. You talk about doing SNAPVCP's vehicle checkpoints. You're getting stuff thrown at you out in the town. Kids thinking it's funny to throw stuff at you. You talk about this. There were a lot of attempts at hearts and mind stuff. Matt Mare was in the thick of that, trying to have meetings with local leaders, talk the situation through with them. We were given the task of trying to integrate and working alongside the newly formed local police force.

We'd take them and give them training at Abu Naji. We'd show them how to set up VCPs, how to spot something which is out of the ordinary. We tried to give them useful information without giving them too much detail on our SOPs, a steer essentially on what was expected without giving too much information away. Yeah, I remember that feeling. like you know you're training these guys you have to train them in some form or fashion but you can't give them yeah information that's going to put you a jeopardy yeah that's a rough one i i know we we uh we're getting encouraged to teach to form sniper elements and teach these guys like legitimate long range shooting yeah we did not do that we we nodded our heads and kind of

said, okay, for long-range shooting, we got you. Like, how does 70 meters sound? Like, that would be the long-range shooting for them, and that's what we train them in. Because snipers are so scary. And they actually train a sniper that could possibly be used against American forces. Not happening. You say in the book, there's a phrase that did the rounds at that time

that summed up the experience of being a soldier in these circumstances. Smile, shoot, smile. We were there to try and reassure and rebuild this community, and you couldn't do that by being aggressive the whole time. But such was the strength of the insurgency that you couldn't turn the other cheek either. So you'd find yourself switching from a firefight back to shaking hands and smiling at kids and back again. That was how we wanted to approach things. But the longer the tour went on, the harder that was to maintain. Friends of mine were getting hurt by the people you were expected to smile at.

That made it difficult to carry on for sure a real test of your professionalism. Yeah, there's It's difficult to explain that you go out on patrol And you are literally scanning with your weapon Yeah And there's kids and families and then there's like a Mujahideen fighter Or in your case of Madi Army militia guy Yeah

And that's what you're dealing with Yeah And they may or may not be carrying a weapon They may or may not be waving at you Yeah, this is rough Um You say by the start of May it was decided that a stronger response

to the growing unrest and rising insurgency was needed. The consequence of all this was the decision to take the fight to the insurgents, and so you guys end up planning a bunch of operations. The first one, Pimlico, is that right? Pimlico was slated for 1st of May, and they were going to go out in the town, arrest a bunch of insurgents,

you know, bomb makers and Madi militia commanders and whatnot, and there was a group, one company, company one, PWRRR, they were tasked with actually going out and you guys, you were going to be on the QRF ready to go. How was the planning for this? Were you sitting, like,

so what are you? Are you a section leader at this point? A squad leader? What are you? Yeah, dismount commander. So I dealt with anything or dismount outside of a vehicle I'll be in control of.

And how many guys would you have? Initially three because of our manpower. And then sometimes if there was others on the ground, which happened regularly. And with the confusion, I'll end up with a couple of blokes from a different platoon because man away or they've gone in for a strike and someone's not followed up and there's been no comms and communication. So it's a little bit disorganized. How many people can you fit in the back of the warrior?

Eight. And you'd still only have like three or four in there? Yeah, me plus two or me plus three sometimes. Yeah, manpower was strapped. Why was the manpower so strapped? We took 15% casualties within, I think, the first month. and we didn't get the BCRs out until a long time after. I think we were ill prepared for what we were going into

and we sort of took it for granted that it was going to be fine. We'll get out there. We'll have a tear up with the enemy for two weeks and then it will all be settled. We'll take control of the city. Wrong answer. So when these briefs are coming down, who are you hearing the briefing from?

Is it your platoon leader? My vehicle commander. So he'll be on the radio to me, sort of give me a bit of a steer. or if we're in contact, he'll try and PID, the enemy. What about prior to going out? So in the planning, like in the planning for this mission. Yeah, we'll do like rock drills in camp.

So big rock drills and then everyone will go into their own level of detail. So even I would stand up in front of all of these senior commanders and give my perspective from the ground at certain areas, whether it's me conducting SNAPVCPs, a mini raid or, you know, an out of cordon I'll be expected to deliver to deliver what I my responsibilities as a junior commander would be on you know them VCPs or I don't know a snap ambush so you're you're very involved it's very inclusive at this point everyone needs to know their role in responsibilities and then you make sure you question the young 18 year olds who in my case who are with me to make

sure they know what's expected and what's going on and you can get a feeling of the pattern. That's why we do orders, isn't it? Because you want to understand actually where you're at within that full set of orders. And if something goes wrong, which obviously it does a lot. No real plan survives a set of orders. That's why we have to be flexible and have contingencies and courses of action. So I learned a lot because I was heavily involved in things and I would also ask a lot of questions to, you know, full corporals. I was only a Lance Corporals. So if I was unsure, I wasn't too scared. all proud to ask questions if it's going to have an effect and a better effect on the enemy.

So yeah, it was very well planned. It seemed like from when I've worked with the Brits over the years, which it wasn't a ton, but I definitely did some operations with them, they always seem to be just very professional and there seemed to be a lot less, for lack of a better word, like political happenings. You know, I always, and it might be just because you see more behind the scenes when you're part of, you know, like the American military. You know, I'm working with the Army. I'm working with the Marine Corps. And I'm much more embedded with them and the SEAL teams.

So I'm much more embedded with them. I would always see these under like political undercurrents. And I would never see that with the Brits. No. Is that an accurate assessment? Yeah. It's not spoken about. It's we're there to do a job.

Yeah. And there's two different things. in the UK. Yeah. You know, we've just got to get on with our task at hand and, you know,

and a lot of it as well is having a confidence to believe what you're doing is right and it affected me, I know we'll speak about it, but with the inquiry, that affected my confidence to do what was right

because I ended up going on two more tours under allegation. So it's, yeah, but what I always say is we are very, very diligent and professional, like the Americans that I've worked with,

I've got a great story that I'm sure we'll talk about when we had a sealed team attached to us on my second tour which was pretty epic and they lived off I'll digress slightly but I'm on it now so they come and joined us and they'll work in the waterways from the river Tigris and

all my responsibility was as a platoon sergeant at this time was to feed them and give them accommodation in this compound on Leaf Island and they came and within like two weeks they were coming up to me and goes, Woody, are we going to get some rations changed?

Because I was feeding them. And the British rations are basically one menu, corned beef hash, bacon and beans, and something random, treacle pudding. But we had it for two weeks on the balance. And we're kind of used to it.

It's like whatever. But what they did do is, do you know what? I wish I remembered his name. When they were time to Exville, he said to me, he's going to get an underslung and get some Gator Aid,

10 man rations, and do you know what? Man of his word. He did it. He come over, yeah. I mean, we were due, sang a one radioed into me and said, look, we're due an underslung.

And I was like, no, we definitely not. It's not my board. Because I controlled a board of movements to make sure that we were there secure and the drop zone and stuff. And they come over. They kicked these pallets off. And I was like, that is unreal.

But do you know what I did? When I got back to Shai Belog Base, I went and got these buses with my men and we drive over to the American sector. And I managed to get hold of him and say, look, what you did, that small act of kindness was a massive morale because we still had another you know two months on that leaf island so it was brilliant from him but I made sure that I went and said thank you

because it was a big gratitude from from me for him and I know it's like probably easy for him to do but it was just like another sort of two weeks then we didn't have to eat these same menu so yeah it's a kudos to them that's awesome um going back to this mission this first mission that you guys run that's sort of a big sort of a deliberate mission you say the troops set off from abou naji at zero 200 the arrest of part of the operation went well they but when they come back there are they do it under sustained heavy fire the mighty army weren't going to let this incursing go without a response three members of the Iraqi police have been taken hostage and unless the detainees were released immediately they would be killed all interests of the cities had been barricaded to make it worse there The Cemic House was revealed to be dangerously low on both food and ammunition. Now supplies need to get through and fast. So again, just to lay this out, the Cemic House is in the town. You guys are on the outskirts of the town.

The Cimic House is like a forward operating base. They're kind of on their own a little bit. And you, at this point, they're running low on ammunition. And you say, that's where we came in. I was asked to change call signs to be a dismount commander for Whiskey 2-0, the vehicle call sign. because they didn't have a commander. Having already, having been ready to go out in as a QRF overnight, we are now assigned to head into town in broad daylight.

A lot of what happened, a lot of what was happening was out of my control. I was in the back of an armored vehicle and at the mercy of events. As we drove in, I could hear second lieutenant Richard Dean chatting to us over the intercom. He was our eyes as to what was happening. As we approached a point known as Blue 7, it was as clear that our situation was starting to get serious. There's barricades, he said. Burning tires in the middle of the road. I remember him pausing.

This is a come on, he said. At that point, all hell broke loose. The warrior got absolutely smashed in a way I'd never experienced before. Two missiles and a load of RPGs. It's difficult to be precise as to exactly what happened because the wall of noise that exploded and ripped its way into the back of the warrior. There was this blast of heat and a wave that smacked across me. One of the missiles had made its way through the thick armor of the warrior.

and I could feel this burning sensation across my face and hair. My skin pricked and stabbed with shrapnel. It was difficult to see anything because the whole back was immediately filled with thick smoke. But the stench of burning was really strong. I was coughing away. It was so confusing that for a second I wasn't even sure if I was dead or alive. As the smoke started to clear a little, I could see crucifix. Is that how you say his name?

Crucifix. One of the other soldiers in the back who sat opposite me. He'd got this big chunk of shrapnel. embedded in his nose. Irvin also in the back had been hit in the leg and was going wild with his LMG. He wanted to get out there and fight back. Mate, I said, can you hear it out there as the ringing of our ears from the explosion started to quiet down? The heavy noise of gunfire continued rocking and shaking the vehicle. We're staying put, I said. Meanwhile, I could hear screaming. It was Sammy and the gun turd. I'm burning. He was shouting. There's a fire. Someone helped me. I grabbed

for the fire extinguisher that was situated above the back door. It was different to the ones where you press a nozzle down and spray. Instead, you smash the bottom of it and throw it into the fire. It sucks all the oxygen away from the fire and that puts it out. As soon as I smashed it, it instantly froze to my hand. I had to throw it off feeling it ripped my skin in the process. Being in that confined space meant the extinguisher sucked away all our oxygen as well. With that and the smoke, I was finding it difficult to breathe. I got these rags and wetted them down with water from our drinking bottles. The water was hot from being in the back of the vehicle,

but was the best I could do. I passed them around to everyone and told them to cover their faces with them. Throughout all of this, I'd heard nothing from Dean and knew that he must have been hit. In fact, he'd been knocked out by the blast. Sammy, meanwhile, had got himself to Dean's rifle and was attempting to return fire to those who had attacked us. It was a disparate situation. The fact that they'd got through the vehicle's armor was frightening. Fucking hell, I thought.

I'm not sure we're going to get out of this. I shouted to the driver, Johnson B. Harry, saying that right? Yep. B, nickname, just to drive anywhere and get us out of there. Anywhere I shouted, just get us the fuck away from the killing area. With a thump and a lurched, Bherry took us forward. There was an almighty smack and a shutter, and I realized that he must have driven us straight through the barricade that had been set up.

The gunfire echoed on as we lurched forward, and the warrior continued to shake. I kept tabs on the others in the back, and as I did, I heard sloshing coming from around my feet. Then I smelled it. I looked down and saw the floor of the warrior was starting to fill with diesel. The tank must have been hit and the fuel was pouring in. It was like being driven around in a bomb. One spark of flame and the whole thing could go up. I can't remember much of the journey to Simic House to be honest,

quite a while or quite how Barry got us there. Beharry got us there. I knew from accounts afterwards that we'd lost all communication with the rest of our company and that Bahari drove for much of the journey with his half. So he could see out of the smoke that was still billowing out, which was incredibly dangerous given what we were facing He also helped to get Richard Dean down from his turf before safely getting the warrior into Simic house It was outstanding bravery and he was rewarded with the Victoria cross for his efforts I remember when we got there

That the back of the warrior was opened up by Steve Cornhill a much more experienced soldier than me who looked up to what? I? who looked up to what to who I looked up to when I'd first joined he opened the door and the look on his face told me everything I needed to know about how bad the situation was what the fuck he said before helping me get the other dismounts out I got crucifix out and got him some treatment a bit of shrapnel he had in his face was from the rocket strike the size of a credit card where he was bleeding quite badly eventually one of the medics took me aside and had a look at me I had a bit of shrapnel in my arm a bit of metal I thought I

would be able to pluck it out, but the medic had a look and said it was too deep and right into the bone and then I might need to go back where the main medical center was and have it move properly. That's a rough evolution. How freaking, how damn horrified are you when you're in a vehicle that's filling up with diesel? Yeah, I mean, I had no control over that situation, which really panicked me. And that's when I had to be calm and chaos, because there were so many different moving parts but the biggest thing for me was I can't do anything about this situation because the ambush that we were in was so violent I could hear everything getting we've had two 884 Soviet Union missiles come straight through the side of the armored vehicle and penetrated it caused

devastation in the back with fratnil and I just knew the only person I could count on was the driver who was a young private soldier to get us out of this chaos and I was just screaming at him, drive, just gets out of the killing area. And then the diesel was filling up, the smoke from, because we had respirators in there, and they were melting, and it was just so thick. That's the only time that I thought, yeah, I'm testing, I'm testing my nine lives at the moment massively.

This is like three of lives getting checked off. Getting hit with a rocket that penetrates the armor. Yeah. driving around with a bunch of diesel in the back of the vehicle. My gunner was burnt. He had severe burns. He was on fire. And my platoon commander was unresponsive on the turret floor.

And I was just like, right, this is where we've got to really be calm. Because panic and flapping is infectious and it's not good. You've just got to give clear direction and a bit of clarity when all around you is falling apart. And at a young age, I understood that. so I just reassured everyone that it's going to be okay you can't get out and have a fight because Irvin was with his LMG over the top of me wanted to get out of the back door

I was like sit down calm down Crucifix had like his nose was dangling down not on his lips just opened up blood everywhere and I said to me you've got like a bit of a nick on your nose I'm going to sort it out and he just like non-emotional

hard newsie-in-guy unit just looked at me as like yeah okay whatever it's not a nick is a little bit of it. I was like, no, but I'm going to square it away. And then I watched a film called Backdraft, and it was Kirk Russell, and in one of the scenes, they wet cloths. And I watched this when I was a young boy, and in absolute devastation, I remembered this. He soaked all these cloths and used it as a filter. I didn't even know it worked. I just thought, do you know, I remember watching it, and it was so thick, I thought, all right, get this on your faces, put it on my face, and actually,

you know, it felt like it worked. It may be a bit of a mental thing, but it made, yeah, a bit of a difference. And, yeah, like a hard day in the office. Yeah, I would think if you got their vehicle filling up with diesel and you, either you get hit with something, or you start shooting from in there. Yeah.

Or you even get out of the vehicle and you're covered in diesel. Like, you're going to catch on fire. Yeah. This is a freaking nightmare. Yeah, it was a nightmare. Absolute nightmare. And I think by when Stephen Corn, who opened the door

this is someone who's a hard man non-emotion and he was like what is this blood diesel casualties holes in vehicles which like these vehicles

were meant to be unpenetrable two massive gaping holes through the side like of our Chobamama which is our special armour tested to the extreme gone so yeah I was like

well and you didn't you guys didn't even get out of the vehicle and shoot No. This is all just taking it. Yeah.

Taking a beating, massively. And by the way, you also go into this to the book. Even though you took a piece of frag in your arm, also your eyes were messed up. Bad, yeah. Because of the blast. I honestly thought we hit an anti-tank mine because of the heat wave. The heat went through and just burnt. I looked like I had alopecia because chunks of my hair was like gone because the blast

come straight through and I've overpowered us. And I was like, shit. We've hit an anti-tank mine. And I was then trying to get my bearings and then, you know, try to figure it out. But, yeah. And your eyes had been like scratched.

Your irises had been scratched. Yeah, it was basically just the blast and the metal and the fracks just ripped from my face and I was pebble-dashed. And because of adrenaline, obviously, it's just like a... When I deliver talks, I try to put into context that it's a drug like no other. I can't explain it.

It's like an out-to-body experience. And we know a lot of people have been hit and don't realize they've been hit because of adrenaline. And this is like crazy situation. And when I calmed down, because I knew your mind is a weapon system in its own right. So as soon as I was out and I was safe, then the pain started to, like, started to feel the pain in my eyes. were just, I couldn't even blink. It was like glass every time. And I said to one of the lads, I've damaged my eyes quite bad, I think.

I can't even blink properly. And they tried to wash them out with eye wash. And they were just like scratched and damaged. So it's just so painful to blink. And then I was gutted because I was going to end up being extracted as a casualty, which that happened. Luckily, it wasn't that bad. They were just like pretty minor scratches.

Yes. But you did get extracted for a while. You're away from camp for a few days. Fast forward in the book a little bit. They do another operation, Knightsbridge, which you miss, which is on 3 May. And again, this is involving the whole battle group with tanks. This is just to go and resupply the Cimic House again. They also wanted to send a little psychological message to the Madi Army that, hey, we've got power and we're in control.

Yeah. And even though they did get the supplies to the Cemic House, it didn't seem like it left the impact of control. And that made the leadership say, all right, we're going to do another operation. And this one was going to be called Operation Waterloo. So these operations are all London Underground. They're all.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So it's quite cool. Yeah, yeah. My buddy would name his operations from his element. when we were in Iraq all after surf spots around the world. Yeah. So Operation Waterloo's next, 8 May.

And going to the book here, Operation Waterloo involved the whole of Sea Company. That's 12 warriors, together with a further four Challenger two tanks. That's a big convoy, a real show of strength. We met up at Sparrowhawk, the airstrip, and got ourselves into assault formation. At zero, 200 hours, we started to rumble into town. the lights of the Iraqi National Guard camp flashed as we went past. Everybody knew we were coming. Yeah, that's a pretty good little show of force going in.

Yeah. Twelve Warriors, two Challenger tanks. It's on. And fast forward a little bit. We dismounted to check the bridge. I went out with one of the Fijians, Bruce as a pair, primarily to have a look for wires to make sure the bridges didn't have any IDs or anything attached. Suddenly there was gunfire.

We took cover and tried to return fire. Work out where they were, where they had engaged. us from. That's difficult enough, but especially in the dark. All you can see is people skipping from building rooftop to building rooftop. They're never in position for a long period of time, so it's all but impossible to get a proper fix on them. All you could do is engage in the general direction of the gunmen who were shooting at you. A shout came over the radio. Diff, corporal differed, had been hit. Originally it sounded as though he'd been hit in the throat, but it turned out he'd been hit in the foot. He was Kazavac.

Company Sergeant Major Falconer had a warrior which had been turned into a sort of makeshift ambulance, the Millennium Falconer. And he swept diff up. Meanwhile, a message came over the radio to mount up. This was easier said than done. By this point, we were about 100 meters away from our vehicles with gunfire blasting away at us. Running back, you're really exposed.

I ran head down as hard as I could, probably the fastest 100 meters I'd ever run. Luckily, I made it back. We got over the bridge in the Warriors and drove onto Simic House. That was chaos. We remained under attack and just wanted to get the supplies over and back and get back. Remember, at this point, the security of the Challenger battle tanks was sitting on the other side of the bridge. Cimic House can only take a couple of warriors so those that could drive, drove in. The rest of us were ordered to park outside and throw stuff over the walls.

That was mental. We were hurling it over. Between the gunfire, we could hear it land with a fud and someone on the other side shouting, Cheers, mate. That's about an epic, freaking British thing right there. this gunfire and chaos going over. You guys are throwing stuff over the walls and there's a guy's going,

the guys inside saying cheers. Literally like, gato cakes over the wall. I mean, they were just going to be all over the floor, but the morale, I didn't even know who's over the other side of the wall. They're like, any fags, would he? Any cigarettes?

Like, whatever. Throwing them over the wall. Just, yeah, you couldn't write it. It was, but that's how intense it was. It was just like, you're here, undo the back and get everything out over the walls and we're just launching, like, rations of bacon.

They had anything we had, water, ammunition, just over the top of this wall. How many people were in Simic House? Was it like a company? Yeah. So they had a decent amount of people. Yeah. But they reckon Simic House was similar to Rourke's Strift. They were just under the kosh every day.

I mean, there's an incredible book written by Sergeant Dan Mills, who was a sniper, who gives an incredible account of what it was like to operate in Simic House. It was wild. I'll have to check out that book. amazing. Job done. We mounted up. Fast forward a little bit. At one point we got the order to get back in the vehicles and battened down. Someone called it an air support, American AC130 Specter. I think it was the only time we had that sort of cover while out there. It's an amazing thing

to behold. They'd got a lock on some of the mortar teams who've been fighting and blasted them. The explosions were enormous. The whole ground shook. Have you been in an AC130 before? No, but it shook this 33-ton armored vehicle that I was in and like it was a ragdoll. And we were told to batten down. Like this 500 pound is coming in. It was only 500 pound that was dropped in Alamara. And it felt like it was right next to me. The whole thing shook, but it was like it was quite decent.

Fast forward a little bit. There was a real buzz about the place after Waterloo. It finally felt like we were achieving, taking the fight to the Madi army and asserting our control over Alamara. That feeling lasted less than 24 hours. With no let up in pace, we were back out on patrol the following day. and in a convoy with a couple of other warriors and a Challenger 2 tank.

We were heading towards another junction, Blue 8, when there was this huge fireball. It wasn't us who had been hit, but one of the other warriors. Sergeant Chris Broome gave a shout. Then the intercom disconnected. What happened? I shouted. It's Louis, someone said.

He's been hit. He's on fire. Louis was Sergeant Adam Llewellyn, our platoon sergeant, who is in the vehicle in the front. the man we all looked up to a real operator i dismounted and ran out to try and help fuck louis's warrior had been hit by a petrol bomb louis was in the turret and he'd been consumed by the flames somehow he'd got out and extinguished himself it was the most surreal sickening sight

stick was running there as well with a fire extinguisher in hand he used that to put out the flames on the vehicle which was still on fire i ran over to where louis was it was difficult It's difficult to describe what a horrific sight it was. The skin was dripping off him, like melting off his body. Just this red, raw, steaming, burning flesh underneath. He was dripping all over the road. The burns were everywhere. His arms were a mess.

His eyes were screwed shut, and he was screaming for water, for morphine, for anything. You actually try and get a morphine. You're looking for his morphine because that's what the standard operating procedure is. You can't find his morphine. You use your own morphine. You put out the fire. You get him and stick is also wounded. You get these guys Kazavak.

Fast forward a little bit. You said there was a lot of upset and anger over what happened to Louis. He was the ultimate professional. I looked up to him. You couldn't wish what had happened to him on anyone. But there was something specifically about it being him that had been hit that stuck with us. The strike rate of people being injured felt disconcerningly high. Diff the day before, now Louis.

It was difficult to shake the feeling, who was going to be hit next. But what really, really stung was that the petrol bomb had been thrown by a child. A boy no older than 10. That was really hard to get your head around. How someone so young, just a kid, could do that much damage to a guy so big and professional as Louis. How someone so young could be mixed up in this, could feel that way about us. Operation Waterloo had been meant to sort everything out. We'd done the show of strength thing and proved that we could take on the Madi army and win.

Their response had been to fight back like this to respond by using the 10-year-old kid to get back at us. It was sickening. So this is like a mental turning point for you. Yeah, it was tough because. As I said before, going through my career, there was always people that inspired me, motivated me. And I wanted to imitate what I was seeing each day. And Adam was one of them. And when I seen how vulnerable he was, I just, it hurt.

It hurt. And I just knew from then on if he can be hit, then, then it can happen to anyone. because he's the ultimate professional and he's gone, his tour has ended. He's got life-changing injuries and he's off. And you have to acknowledge that and accept what's happened, draw a line and you've got to go forward and be robust and professional as you can. But I'm not going to lie, it hurts when you see someone in so much pain and the only water you have is boiling hot and he's screaming and crying for cold water.

and you'll just spraying red hot water on him and 20 milligrams of morphine is not even touching the sides and and then we've got my platoon sergeant now with inhalation problems and he's now Kazivaked so we've lost two platoon sergeants who are operators in the space of you know five minutes by one child and you've only been on the ground for what a few weeks yeah you have to start thinking like this is a numbers game you know if we keep this up we're losing two three guys every two three days we're going to make it yeah and at this point i was like we're just very fortunate to have no one killed i think the day after that bas bliss was shot and had a sucking chest wound and he still survived and i was thinking we've just got to remain positive in such

demanding circumstances but you're right it's like it was starting to become a numbers game and then you got the kid yeah which is difficult to deal with how do you deal with that I haven't got the answers to it you know you can eliminate the threat

which is a difficult one to pull that trigger you know or you deal with someone whose life's changed also. So it's a tough one, but then also that's what you're up against now. So the tactics had changed because we were having an effect

they were just clutching its drawers and sending the kids to do their dirty work and it's hard. It's hard. So I'm going to fast forward a little bit. In the days after Operation Waterloo there's more heavy fighting. You got Muttato and Al-Sauder. He's riling up his his supporters in Najaf, the Imam Ali Shrine, which is like a huge landmark for them, that's, that becomes a huge kind of trigger for what's happening.

There's a bunch of fighting in Nazaria as well. So things are just, they're escalating a lot. And then in Al-A-Mara, a patrol from Cime Council set upon news, the news that members of A and S.H. Is that how you say it? Argyle, Southern Highlanders? Yeah, Argyll and Southern Highlanders. Yeah.

What's the abbreviation then? A and H. A and S.H. Yeah. They'd been attacked close to a vehicle checkpoint known as Danny Boy. Danny Boy is on Route 6 south of Alamara. So this is May 14th, started like so many others with a rocket attack.

We were sent out in our warrior to do a snap VCP to try and and see if we could stop and apprehend this mortar team. It was while we were doing this that we got word about the attack near checkpoint, Danny Boy. That came from Major Adam Griffiths, commander of B Company of A and S.H. He'd been ambushed next to Danny Boy by what he estimated were 10 men. His men had fired back and hit two before they'd managed to escape from the ambush.

So you're out doing a snap VCP looking for these people that had attacked. your base yeah while you're out there you get word that this other element had been ambushed and it's out by this by this checkpoint called Danny Boy yeah and this is where I kind of started this podcast out I read that section where you're heading down route six when your vehicles hit by overwhelming firepower you're in the back all this chaos is going on and this is when stick says you know hey prepare you and your men dismount and you say say that again and he says I want you to prepare to dismount

we're not having an effect here they're in these zigzagging type transpositions just popping up engaging getting down again let me know when you're ready I'd been told I explained sticks command to the others in the back they had the same what the fuck response I had you want us to go out into that I could feel my heart going 10 to the dozen

smashing up against my body armor holy fuck I was thinking we need boots on the ground I told the boys We're going to get out of this vehicle and launch a close quarter counterattack on the stronghold. Okay, stand by and get ready to go. While they were prepping, I was talking back with Stick. What kind of weapons have they got? I asked. Though from the sounds hitting the warrior, I had a reasonably good idea.

RPGs, PKMs, AK-47s, it all sounds pretty punchy. We'll support you, Stick said. We'll be on a rapid rate of fire before you open the door. So when you leave the vehicle, the enemy will have its head down and you can get out. There's a goy. He continued about 10 o'clock. You'll see it straight away when you step out of the back door. If you go for it, you'll get at least a bit of cover fire from there.

I relayed all this back to my dismounts. They were still looking at me as though I was mad. Lads, I snapped, this is happening. At that point, they tuned in, got their heads together, and their kits prepped. So you know you're going. Yeah. Rounds are hitting the warrior.

And you still can't really see anything. Not. Which is hard for people to understand what it's like being in the back. of a vehicle like that. What kind of a door does the warrior have on it? It's a hydraulic door. Is it a ramp? No, no, ramp.

It's a swinging door. It basically, no, hydraulics kick in and push the door out. Okay. With the hydraulics because it's so thick, but it goes rapid. So once. So for me at this point, I know I'm going. I'm speaking to the commanders. The lads, you know, are prepping for a CQB.

which is bayonets being fixed if your weapon system allows bayonets to be fixed. I had a underslung grenade launcher so you can't fix a bayonet to an undersellon if you have an underslung on your weapon system. But others had weapons systems that needed their bayonets to be fixed because we're going to go close quarter fighting now. And for me it was just to reassure the guys that everything's going to be okay. I broke the ground down in my head into like phases. So phase one was to get from the back of this vehicle

because we're disorientated into a holding position. That was phase one. So I just broke everything down because it was important. Like the bigger picture overwhelmed me so much because there was three against 15 and it ended up being 28 plus 9 PAWs. 28 were killed 9 PAWs. So it was a lot bigger than actually what we had PIDD. So phase one was to leave this armored vehicle

Go to the stronghold And the stronghold would be that trench That's supposed to be at 10 o'clock when you get out Is that what you're thinking? Yeah it was dried out irrigation ditch And I was so scared I mean fear was threatening To make decisions for me

And it was that moment that I had to Grab hold of it, suppress it But use it to my benefit I get me out of the vehicle first because as a leader, I would never ask someone to do something that I'm not prepared to do myself and I should be empowering that. I needed to look at the guys' eyes because in the moment, firefly is still a big thing and I just hoped that I would do enough for them to follow me into this holding position

before we launched forward like the Second World War type stuff because I've been ground. And I went, are we good? they give me the nod I said to Chris we're good stick and he gave a mini H hour from five so the only person what can open this door

is either me or the driver so the driver has got headsets on like we're wearing now so I can hear the driver I can hear Chris the gunner and me on intercom the others I've got verbally brief so I've said okay we're good to go

five four and the driver goes early he's opened the door because he's obviously he can hear what's going on and he's adrenaline and he's gone on three I was expecting to one so the door was opened and it's just come into this the brightest

and noisiest situation I've ever ever been involved in and then sticks done a six round emergency shoot with the radon which is a 30mm rodon and the whole dust is gone up shaking the vehicle.

The chain gun 7662 is also going because they're suppressing the enemy while we deceptionally go into this holding position and I've committed and I've just ran hard and fast dived onto my front and then I've looked back and I've seen the two of the bravest men follow me they come into this holding position

and I don't wear ear defence because I can't control and manage with them on it I've never been one for it and I'm probably paying the price now, but I feel in control without wearing the normal standard issue, dear defence, I don't like it. So I didn't have them on, and my ears were just in terrible state with ringing.

And I managed to compose myself and had a cigar moment at this point because I don't care what situation you're in within business or on the battlefield, you're still in total to your poor's two-free cigar moment. And this is mine. So we're there, the vehicle's going berserk, returning and suppressing the enemy. I'm now in this ditch position, still don't know where the enemy are. So I took a few breaths, had looked and done blood spots, checks to make sure none of us were hit,

and then I need to go and get eyes on, because at this point I still didn't know where they were. And I've crawled up, and I've peered over like a mere cat, head up. And initially I thought, that's a big ask. That's a big ask. I can't go back and say to the guys, it's a suicide mission. So I crawled back and I said, look, I've seen where their position is. It's 120 meters to our front. It is heavily defended, but it's achievable.

If we really work hard and we show that courage, that tenacity and a bit of teamwork, we can definitely get this job done. And then we had a little sort of a mini estimate. Can we go right flank in? I didn't know what was out on the flanks at this point. with interference so I was like it was a big risk and there wasn't no cover down the middle was hard fast and aggressive we can ramp up the time and just go for it or we go left flanking but I was really conscious of a blue-on-blue friendly on friendly because of the vehicles are firing

straight over our heads into this position so I said look we're going to initially work as a three because there's only three of us at this point and we're going to go as a two and then a one and a leap-frog so we're still managing a bit of teamwork and as I was happy two other guys turned up from a second vehicle and he was a full corporal more experienced than me

and Beggsy was another lad just a private soldier with incredible courage and determination we had a conflab I said look this is what I think we should do he then had a look around and was like yeah we just roll it up, we just go.

And I was like, I can't even explain the adrenaline, the fear at this point, because I knew as soon as we broke cover, it was now a two-way engagement. I'm just about to carry out the infantry's mission for real to close with and destroy the enemy conducting trench warfare hasn't been done since the Falklands or the greatest generation. This was like game on. and I knew as soon as we broke cover it was full on war fighting

but we've just got to be the aggressors were you gonna was the vehicle were the vehicle's gonna be able to support you with suppressive fire yeah the reason why normally what we'd do is under situations like that because I get asked this a lot why didn't just roll it up with your vehicle

but on Route 6 there was a steep concrete incline that if a warrior tried to go down there it would flip and roll so it was basically it was stuck where it was but it could suppress us overhead and I'm talking overhead was danger close

like real dangerous but I just believed in how professional the guys were and the turret and how good they were and basically we said right we wished each other all the best our SOP for casualties worse we'll get the defensive position cleared and then we'll come back for the casualties

because we're light scales our main effort was to close and destroy that enemy position and we wished each of all the very best we were going to work as a three my team from my vehicle and then the other guys who just joined us were going to work as a two and just leapfrog each of a hard fast and aggressive and yeah we're good to go

and we broke cover and I was really at fault for an extra large bound I shouldn't have bounded but I was just so caught up in the moment I just bound too much and then I was on money suppressing and it was like a two way engagement now just a zinging past your ears

kind of dreading the man down but we're fully committed and obviously once we're we're committed we don't go back we're there and then they then bounded past us suppressed one foot on the ground and we just started rolling and we was like 50 metres

away and I could see like enemy combatants now bobbling with the no visual just bobbing heads and then 70 meters and I thought actually we've got a chance we've now got real good momentum and a good bit of battle rhythm here and we're now the aggressors and then as I made another bounder I could start to see some of the militia to withdrawing which was massive for us huge you obviously get the extremists who stay and fight and I knew that

but they've got others who that was it they'd gotten up to their they were up and they were withdrawing. It just kept on moving forward. And then I said like probably, I think it was maybe 80 meters away. I started to see the first time I've seen enemy dead close up like this. And their wins were like real bad. But you've just, I knew I had to switch off from that and just keep engaging and keep taking targets on the approach.

And that's what we were doing. And Mark Miles shouted pairs, pairs, pairs. And that's then conventionally, all of you're on a line and you go up. And you go in there and eliminate every bit of threat that's left with automatic fire. And if you've got a baynet, then if you need to use it, you engage it. And it was shouted. And as we were just about to, because it was on a, like, this trench system was on a big dugout lip. and as we went over the lip

they'd then threw their weapon systems down and surrendered and I talk about this often as well this is courageous restraint at the highest level and I know having been in this situation how sometimes we can get it wrong

because when you're fighting against evil when you are so much demand and you want to stay alive you've been fighting for everything that you're worth. I know sometimes you can get it wrong. But we seized fire,

and then I'm going to... I'll be straight up, you know, I didn't even know what to do at this point. I see bodies everywhere, dead, like torsos, arms, parts everywhere. Militia fighters who were in there screaming at me in Arabic, and our weapon systems laid out for an ambush,

still warheads on RPGs and everything. and I was like, what do I even do? And I stood on this top. I wasn't even in the trench at this point. I stood on the top. And I sort of froze. It didn't really, I was like, I've never done this before. I was like, what's going on?

And then we were then engaged by depth. So we had no choice now to get in. And so now we were in this like a zigzag type position. Bodies everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There was hand-to-hand fighting going on in the trench because the other lads were trying to get control of the situation. mean being the aggressors and having to manhandle these individuals and make sure that they're not going to be opportunists because these people are and I had a bit of a moment right snap out of it

figure this out and that's when I said to the guys look move the weapon systems unload them bring them over here segregate them search the enemy dead that they're not laying on any grenades or anything like that just do that how we've been trained trying to like calm the situation down arrest the POWs which there was nine try and figure that that out and then we need to have a bit of a cigar moment and figure out what the second course or second phase of this battle is because at the moment I'm not too sure because it is wild and what we just conducted we were so lucky to be alive I mean they say effective enemy fire is rounds landing in and around your feet or you're taking casualties and we had that for 120 meters we none of it had

been here and now I'm in this position thinking yeah That's the, you guys did the classic, the infantry assault cover and move for 120 meters. No one got hit with all that enemy fire coming your way. Once you get this moment settled, right, and this is when the company sergeant major shows up. And he basically asked you, hey, are we clear? Is the battlefield clear? Yeah. And this for you was like an integrity check.

Massive integrity question. He asked me because I wanted to say it was. To be honest, Jock, I wanted to say it was because we'd been so lucky. But I knew I'd seen what I'd seen. And because of my values and what we stand for, I was like, it's not clear. And he was like, outstanding. Fresh magazine on. We go and clear again.

And I believe that we made a small error because it was just him and, me what went forward to up a gully. But you had to leave guys back to control all the POWs. Absolutely. We had to have an element of control and reorganization and regrouping but maybe we could have waited for reinforcements

and QRF to turn up. But listen, we do things in the moment and you've got to figure it out and this is another one of these situations and with 90 meters of creeping up this wadi it was now going down

at individual and pairs CQB lane that we only do in training and now we're doing this for like for real and 90 meters enemy combatant company start major three rounds to the chest target down then I basically bound forward

and I could have tripped over this young fighter who was just about to engage me and I engaged him into the chest and then one to the throat which played a little bit of havoc with me later on because he was choking and he couldn't breathe but I was in this fight moment again now

so I was bounded past him nearly tripped over him put three rounds into his chest and his throat and then basically bounded past his head and as I took a knee I could just hear gargling and gasping for breath and knew he was dying but always in this moment that we need to keep clearing

and then he then bounced past me again and I had a bit of a moral sort of courage moment. I said, sir, we've got to go back. We've just been engaged again twice. There's more out here because I've seen more fall back. We've got to go and get some extra manpower because this is a horrendous situation to be in, just you and me. And he agreed.

And then on the way back, I see a flicker movement. I spun around, brought my weapon to bear, and it was two more combatants, which threw their weapons down and surrendered. So he brung them in, made them lift up themselves. dish dashed to make sure they weren't rigged up with anything and as I as I was bringing him in I thought I recognize you I recognize you and it was one of the Iraqi policemen that I'd been mentoring from day one that was part of the ambush against us this is what you deal with um then so so you go through this is

about as you know about as intensive combat as you could possibly get into yeah and And so when you get back to the trench, the medics are now there, supports there, and you say in the book, you're properly exhausted, mentally and physically drained. And then this, you know, and I had known about, you know, clearly I knew about this, this assault. Yeah. But I didn't know about the next thing that happened in this, which is it couldn't have been very long resting up before the sergeant major came over to me. What he said, we need to go collect. we need to go and collect these bodies. Say again, sir, I asked.

We need to do what? We've got to collect the bodies, he repeated. The call has come through from Brigade. They think that Bravo One, which is the guy you're looking for, might be among the fighters. If he'd been apprehended or killed, that would be a big deal. Gathering the bodies and returning them to camp for identification purposes was an unusual request.

That wasn't what we normally did, but it was such importance of working out if this individual had been part of the battle, that this was decided it needed to be done. It was a horrific task. There were lots of bodies, and they were seriously messed up from the gun battle. The bodies were heavy,

even when a few of us were carrying, and they were covered in blood, wounds exposed. At first, we didn't want to make skin-to-skin contact with the bodies and tried to carry them by their clothes, their cuffs, but their clothing was loose and started to come off, so we just had to grab them. Some of the bodies were so disfigured, opened up, that you had to be careful

just to try and keep the parts intact, horrible, horrible details that really lodged firm in my headspace. Some of them were really young. That's what I remember thinking. We're talking 17, 18 years old. Kids really, I knew that if we hadn't killed them, they would have killed us. But even so, having fought these individuals gone through the battle, then looking at the bodies afterwards, it was brutal.

To take another person's life is a lot to process. To pick up that body afterwards, it makes what you've done hang heavy on your shoulders. I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. out of everything that happened that afternoon, this was the part that I've struggled with the most. So, yeah, this is like a terrible seat. Yeah. And these guys were wounded,

not just from your weapon systems, but from the warrior weapon systems as well. Those are, what, 30-30-millimeter-bri-canon and the 762 machine guns? These guys are... Yeah. We had clear bags. And I, to be honest, Jokai, I wasn't even sure if I was putting...

the full body in the right bag or if I was decontaminating body parts that's how bruising it was it was yeah um

you get done with this you actually have to load them into your warriors into these vehicles this means you're taking different vehicles back it's kind of a it's kind of a confusing scene yeah um

you say when I got back to the RAP which was all flood that there was an army doctor waiting for us. He told us what we need to do with the bodies, getting them out, laying them on the body bags. Those were all laid out in a strip on the side. We went around the back of the warrior to open the back door. The door's open from a sort of hydraulic ram. You press the button. The power kicks in the hydraulic ram, pushes the armored door open. It needs a kick like that because it's so heavy. You can open it manually from inside, but it takes time and effort. We went to open the door.

I can't remember who pushed the button. But when they did so, nothing happened. The power had gone. Fuck, they said. So what do we do now? And so someone's got a crumns. back inside the warrior through the turret and get inside and manually open the door None of you want to do because you're crawling through a bunch of bodies and body parts in there You guys draw straw for it and the driver Taylor loses You say we watched him go down and make his way into the back of the warrior he got to the door where he started to hand crank it open This is sort of supersized Allen key that you turn and as Taylor did so the door started to inch open the rest of us outside recoil as the stench from the bodies hit us.

I was talking Taylor through. You're doing great, mate. That's it. Keep doing it. Almost done. And the door continued to widen then. Well, I'm not quite sure what was happening because out of nowhere Taylor started shouting. He was shoving for the door and pushing himself out.

He's alive, he shouted, barging past us and running off. And it turns out he was just like black humor making the joke. Yeah. It was rushy what made a joke. I mean, the nature, when I looked in, the nature of his head injuries, I knew he was dead. It was just sat up bolt right with his eyes open. That freet rush you out, but I thought it would be a good crack to shout.

He's alive and the doctor was like not happy. He was going on while. But it's how we deal with things which is so extraordinary, difficult, traumatic and the lads just find a way to try and lighten up what chaos we were experiencing. You guys undo the, there's like access plates underneath the warrior. You take those off and there's just blood and fat and just pouring out of there. Smells disgusting. Finally, one of the medics says, one of the medics looked at my kit, which was at this point covered in blood.

You'll need to bag that up and take it to the incinerator. And he said, we'll need to test you as well. That happened a couple days later. I was told there's a small possibility I might have contracted hepatitis B and was given a course of injections. you take a shower. You say I got in stripped and leaned against the wall and the plastic sheeting as the water showered me down. I could see this mixture of blood and sand and grit washing off me

and swirling away down the plug hole as I just stood there dazed and trying to make sense of everything that had happened to me on this most fucked up of days. So, yeah. And this is another thing that I think people might have the wrong idea, especially from the 80s and 90s war movies, is when you get done with an operation like this,

which is a historical kind of pivotal and hugely personally impactful operation, you're going back out on patrol. Like the war continues on. And in this case, even more so, because this operation lasted a long time and went longer than everyone thought it was going to be, you guys didn't really even do a debrief

after the operation. So there's no real immediate, hey, we need to stand down. Like taking a guy that you just killed a bunch of people, you handled their bodies, you risked your life, like all those things that happened. And it's like, okay, in any normal traumatic event like that, someone would say, hey, maybe we need to give this guy a breather. I mean, in America, I don't know what they do in England, but in America, when a officer, a police officer is involved in a shooting, like they're on administer. Like if they shoot, they don't even have to kill somebody. If they shoot, they're a weapon, they're going on like a immediate administrative stand down. And here you are, kill a bunch of people, risk your life, load bodies, covered in blood.

And it's like, cool, take a shower and get your gear ready to go again. Yeah. That's what's happening. They do need to capture some of the information. So you say a couple days later, the RMP arrived, which is Royal. military police arrived to take statements from everyone about what happened at Danny Boy. This was all handled quite cack handled or all quite cack handledly done. What does cack handled be mean?

Poorly. Poorly done. Yeah. I mean, they were just all over the place. They just, and I don't want to put any blame on them. They, it was just, it was very cack-handed. It was like, you go and ask him a few questions. You can and do this.

and we were still fighting like mad we was on five minutes notice to move answering these srb questions it's like we are war fighting can this wait yeah and it was all but it come to haunt me later on yeah um we were still on routine when they appeared to talk to me and i was on immediate qrf five minutes notice to move so i did my statement in the room here there in the QRF room with one of the guys on the clock the whole time it wasn't very thorough i guess they'd obviously heard a lot about the battle and by the time they got to me they'd seen the state of all of us as well I think they understood the nature of our tour. And as a result, gave us a bit of leeway in the questioning rather than really grilling us at the time.

That was fine by me. It just felt like a bit of an admin to get done. And the quicker I could get through it and rejoin the boys, the better looking back. It would have been much better for everyone concerned if they had been more rigorous in their approach. That might have saved everyone a lot of grief and hassle. But no one was thinking in that way at the time. It was more job done on with the next. Yeah, that's huge.

I, I, we had a, uh, we killed a lot of bad guys in the battle of Vermont. My, my task unit. Yeah. And right out of the gate, we started getting, um, really scrutinized. And one of the things that we had, we were, we were made to do was fill out shooter statements for everyone that we killed. And at first, you know, the guys are kind of like, what do we, you know, why are we have to fill out these shooter statements?

This is, you know, a bunch of admin work, right? and I realized luckily again I'm thankful that I had this moment of clarity I realized that oh this is legal documentation so if anyone ever says hey well someone died on this date by a sniper round who did it we'd be able to say oh it was either us or it wasn't us and here's why here's what the rules of engagement were here's what the enemy tTP that was identified and here's why the shot was taken so putting that time and effort in is really important. Yeah.

Now, in this scenario, you guys are on QRF, so it's a little difficult to do that. But for anyone that's listening right now, when you're out there, when you're doing something, if you can document it correctly at the time, it's going to be very beneficial if anything ever comes of it. And I think that's probably a lot of what this is. like it's a very low probability, I would say, that what happened to you with the inquiry and all that? That's a low probability. You know, there's happen to be someone that made some little accusation. It got traction. You had this lawyer that was already had a good reputation for

it. It was like a bunch of things had to go wrong for this to matter, but when it mattered, it mattered a lot. Yeah. So you go on to say, I didn't even talk about Danny Boy with the other guys. I didn't talk about it with Lucy. You say I still wouldn't go into details with my dad, but he knew from what he'd read and how I spoke that we were in a situation. He wouldn't talk specifics, but he would offer me reassurance and support. He'd always sign his letters off the same way. Stay low, move fast. Great advice. Yeah. So you're, you're even amongst your guys, you don't really have time to sit down and debrief. No, to be honest, we wanted that gone. We wanted to get just gone. We weren't going to focus on that. It was just a bad day at the office,

and it tested all of us to the extreme. So we need to just e-perge that for now, move on to the next battle. Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. It's interesting when you were talking about being in the back of going back to the moment there, you were talking about being in the back, and you're getting told, hey, you're going to go.

And there's a, for the idea of fear to come into your head, there needs to be enough time for it to come in there. Yeah. And so I was really thinking through when you're getting told, hey, you're going to go and assault this thing. It's going to be in whether it's one minute, 30 seconds. Once the door opens, you're like, you're going. That's what's happening. So you have, once that door opens, your fear goes aside and you go.

But then you get to the trench. And now you're settled there for a second. And you have a little more time to think, all right. So you got put into multiple times where I think you, the phrase you used that you had to like get a hold of your. fear and suppress it. Yeah. Because when you're walking down through the trench and someone pops out, there's no time to think about it.

You're not like, oh, maybe this guy's going to shoot me. No, you do your job and you get it done. There's no time to process the fear. But it's very interesting that you had a few moments where, again, and I've been out on operations where we know we're going into a really bad area and we know we're leaving in four hours. That's four hours to think about all the bad things that can happen. Sometimes you have 30 seconds to think about the bad things that can happen.

Sometimes you have an hour, sometimes. And the best case scenario is you don't have any time. The door opens you go. The shooting starts, you return fire. Like there's no time for fear. So it's interesting that in this situation, you had these little three minute, two minute, one minute windows to feel the fear. Yeah. And say, all right, I know what that is.

That's got to be suppressed. I had a guy that I know is a seal. He's a metal of honor recipient, but did an incredible, like risked his life. over and over again trying to save his, his platoon leader. And, you know, I asked him, were you afraid or were you scared? He's like, no, I didn't have time to be afraid.

Yeah. And just like, oh, my guys up there and to go get him. Oh, we're getting shot at here. Oh, I'm going to go kill those guys. Yeah. And he just did it without, he didn't have the time. So it's interesting that you have these, in this particular situation,

you had these moments to experience the fear, noted, got it, understood. Now fear needs to go aside because I've got to go do my job. Yeah. Um, so you get done with Danny Boy, you say two weeks after Danny Boy, it was my platoon's turn to do our stint at Broadmoor. So what's going on at Broadmoor? Broadmoor was a prison that we occupied. And it was the fusiliers had these Saxon vehicles. They were operating from that. It was a good form an up point for us because it was like only five minutes from the city of Alamara. And if we're in Abanagi, we were 20 minutes. So we just needed to get forward. So once the rockets were landed into camp,

we can go on five fix and destroy the mortar base bait teams. And yeah, we were just on a QRF at Broadmoor prison. Was there anyone, was there prisoners at the prison? No. It was just a, just a friendly base. Yeah, it was actually quite nice because we slept in the sales and actually on the marble on the floor because it was so hot, it was just a nice bit of respite to get away from just a solid heat all the time

from the back of the vehicle. You guys are on five-minute QR-f there or 20-minute QRF? Five or I think was at the gates at this point. I mean, it was a mixture, but I think at this point, when the rocket started to come in, we were because we had a runner in the opt-room. Yeah, so we were five minutes,

notice. So that's what's happened. You guys are sitting around. You're waiting for this call, or we're waiting for, you know, if anything happens. And it turns out that Abu Najee is getting, starts getting hit with mortars.

Yeah. And you guys get the call, hey, well, you guys can go out. You guys can, we think we know where this mortar team is. You can go out, confirm that they're there and get them, basically. You say it was dark, it was late, dark, pitch black moonless night as we were drove out in abroad more and towards Alamara. We were in two warriors. I was in Whiskey 2-2 with Stick, who had been with us at Danny Boy.

The other warrior Whiskey 2 was being driven by Johnson B. B. Harry and was under the command. of second lieutenant dean fast forward a little bit so you get called that's what you guys are going we're coming up towards red eight when there was an almighty explosion something had been hit a hail of fire rained down from the rooftops i in the back of the warrior i was shouting asking what was going on but there was so much gunfire it completely disoriented everyone we're getting smashed from the rooftops it was impossible to get a fix i could hear stick shouting to radioing the other warrior to see if they were okay fucking hell stick suddenly shouted the boss's wagon's taking a direct hit two of them direct to the turret he radioed them again no answer you can

hear comms because you're the leader in the back right so you're hearing this happen yeah Woody stick shouted I want you and Coupes to step out go go on up to the top deck and see what's happening sure this is after you backed your warrior up next to their warrior sure I turned to Coupes private Cooper who is sat next to me we're gonna jump out go and have a look Coops was cool no worries he he nodded let's go go. That's freaking professionalism right there. No worries. All this chaos is going on. You're like, hey, we're getting out. He just looks to you. No worries. As soon as the back of the warrior opened, the noise ratcheted up.

And by the way, this is another thing I wanted to mention. When you have a vehicle like this, at least in Iraq, vehicles, we called them bullet magnets, or RPG magnets, because the enemy wants, yeah, they want to kill people. They want to kill soldiers. They want to kill Americans. They want to kill Brits. But a prospect. that looks great on Al Jazeera is a burning vehicle in the street. So that's why when all these rounds are hitting your vehicles, that's what's happening.

They want to stop those vehicles. They want that trophy. And then, of course, when the vehicles open up, now you've got an opportunity to kill some Americans too or in your case some Brits. As soon as the back of the warrior opened, the noise ratcheted up inside the vehicle, the sound of gunfire and mortar was all muffled out in the open.

It was deafening disoriented. With the street lights out, the only real light was from the tracers coming from the AK-47s, that and the sparks flying from the bullets hitting the vehicles, and the ting, ting, as they hit the framework was incessant. I looked into the, so you get over to their vehicle. I looked into the driver's hatch and immediately the reason why the vehicle wasn't moving was clear. There was blood everywhere. B was sat there completely out of it, big gases all over his head where he'd been struck.

The hit had come through the hatch, and RPG had exploded about a foot from his face. It had got hit so bad that shrapnel went into his scrept. Goal. B, I shouted trying to get a response, but there was nothing. I checked his pulse. He was alive just about. But little more than that. I knew at that point we had to get him out of there. At a stroke, the mission changed. The mortar team we'd been sent to take out were forgotten. Now it was all about getting B back to Broadmoor as quickly as we could. It sounds strange with bullets flying around, but I really wasn't worried about my own safety. I was too concentrated on B and just how we were going to get him out. We undid the belt, the seatbelt and Coupes and

grabbed his arms and dragged him out, carried him over to the back of our vehicle. Someone is going to need to drive that warrior back to Broadmoor, I said. I assumed that was going to be me, but Coops stepped up to do it. Turned out a few weeks before the incident, B, had taken the privates for a lesson on how to drive the vehicle so they know how to do, know what to do in precisely this situation. I was a trained driver, but Coops was insistent. B showed me how to drive a couple weeks ago. He said, I'm all over this. Okay, I said, look, just follow us.

If there's any issue, I'll take over. we drove off. I thought that was just a great example of, you know, of someone in a leadership position saying, hey, we all need to know how to do this and train him. And then sure enough, yeah, sure. It happens. Yeah. Let me just. Yeah. So fair play to Johnson for B, for having that foresight and that worst case for him getting here who's going to drive. So he made sure that everyone was, you know, could drive this arm and vehicle. But in that situation, he was, he was, following on but as you go into broadmore there's two sangers left and right but it's quite tight so with adrenaline he was i'm not a train driver but just being fat basically just give a quick famine on

how to to drive this armored vehicle he's come we've gone straight through because we've got a train driver who's our driver and they've got you've got coops who is in this massive battle armoured capability and he's not doesn't know they're like the width of it and he's taking this sanger clean out like clean off luckily the sangha had any minor injuries but in the in the moment he's come through bang hit the sanger the lad in the sanger duty he's like on the floor now he's coming and he goes i didn't realize how how wide the vehicle was and i was like fair play it's mega so yeah you guys get get uh be casualty act he out he he's on the helicopter um And you say this, I remember feeling really gutted afterwards when the helicopter went off.

Up to that point, I was so hyped trying to get a response and doing what I could do to keep him alive that I didn't have time to think. Now, though, all I could do is think, fucking hell, another one, another guy who was a great asset to the company taken away from us. So fast forward a little bit in the book. Now, you get done with that tour. Yeah. did it settle down at all on that tour? Not really. Not really.

I mean that tour was like no other. It was just constant. It was just like, yeah, it was just the Hornets nest all the time. So it didn't calm down. You get home, but you actually come home early from Iraq because you're supposed to go to a course. This was like really hurt me if I'm on it to. I've done so much. I was in a command response.

and being told by my OC that you're going back to go on to Bracken in Wales to go on your promotional course I was like can it not wait but everyone's got he's got a duty of care for my career and if I hadn't gone on my timeline I would have slipped so he was like we're we're replaceable if I'm honest someone another commander comes in and you'll you rip out and you go on your course but How early did you have to go home? So I went... Was it like a month?

No. I did just over four months and that was it. That was my... That Iraq tour done and then someone else flew in and took over my place. You say in the book, I thought this was great. As soon as I got home, however, something wasn't right and that something was me. Yeah. You go from, what's the transitional period?

You're just getting in a plane? I didn't even have any decompression. I just normally the guys will fly back and spend some time in Cyprus. How much time did they spend in Cyprus? I think it's about 10 days. Oh, really? Of decompression, yeah. They've tried that.

They tried that with us. They tried to send guys they were stopping in Germany, but it was only like two days. Right. And guys are just thinking, well, I just want to go see my family. Yeah, of course. And so what are you going to do in Germany for two or three days? Well, you're going to drink and act like an idiot. And that's pretty much what was happening.

So they stopped those decompose. But it seems like if you did 10 days. It's actually quite good. In a more controlled environment with a plan, because I don't think we had a plan. I think someone said, hey, these guys need to decompress. Send them to Germany for two days or three days. I don't think we got it right until a few years after. I just don't think we did.

I mean, it was just like they sort of encouraged beer to be drunk, have a tear up with each other. if you've got any gripes, do it on the island, and then when you fly back, hopefully it's all out of your system. But no one, it was all swag work, no one really knew. So everyone was like having a scrap with each other thinking, yeah, that's decompression, right, go home. Doesn't work like that.

But I missed that anyway. So I just, one day, I was Broadmoor the next day. Like the sacrifices that, you know, our servicemen and women take, I left Bailey when he was three weeks old, come back and I left him in the Moses basket. and got home and like he's in a push chair. So I'm like, that doesn't sit right with me. So it's difficult.

That's, they're quite hard. But that's the sacrifice that we, you know, people miss their births. My first deployment to Iraq when I left my son, I've got four kids when I left my son, I got three daughters and one son. My son couldn't crawl. Yeah.

And when I got home, he's walking around. It's mad. And I was like, yeah. And then actually my second deployment to Iraq, I left to Iraq. and when I came home, when I came home, he could swim. And, you know, I'm a frogman. Yeah.

And a surfer and a waterman. Yeah. And some other lifeguard at the Navy base taught my son how to swim. It was definitely not a good feeling. Yeah. So you basically get on a plane. Did you fly to like Kuwait and then Kuwait back to America? Or I'm sorry, back to England?

Yeah. It's like that's not even a long flight, right? That's like a 10-hour flight or something like this. Yeah. Seven hours. At least when you're flying back to America, you've got to, well it's like a longer flight yeah takes a day or something so you get home um Bailey your your son's looking at you like it doesn't really know you are yeah of course and then you have the

anger you have the frustration you have you're short-tempered um you give the classic the classic statement to your wife which is have you had any idea have you any idea what I've been through, this shit just doesn't matter. You said the loud part, you said the quiet part out loud. You're not supposed to say that. You're not supposed to say this shit doesn't matter. I understand that you're going to feel it. You can't say it and you said it.

I know. For me, it was like it wasn't important because, but I was young. I was a young dad. It was 23. I'd just seen and did so much. I come home, I put my day sack and my boots at the front door. And she told me to move them and put them in a cup. And I was like, what?

Just, you just don't know what I've just been through. And you're asking me, this shit just doesn't matter. And then it was real friction. And I was trying to, I was trying to play catch up as a dad, because I'd miss so much. I didn't know how to be a dad if I'm honest. And I was like, wanted to be fully invested in it involved. But it just frustrated me even more,

because the more I tried to like, feel feed him, the milk's too hot and she's telling me, Lucy's like, trying to coach me and mentor me and I'm like smashing it against the kitchen, so you feed him. Or speaking to her so bad. I mean, I was never physically, but abuse, like mentally, verbally with her, it's one thing I wish I could take away because it's just, it's just not fair. But I just didn't know how to sort of cope with everything that was going on and it was just, yeah, a bit of difficult sort of bedding in period. Yeah, you just, even this is for me pre-war. I'd been in the SEAL team since I was a teenager and then I went to college.

So for the first time in my life, I didn't, I wasn't with a seal platoon all day. And I was going to college and I was living, you know, my wife, I was married and we had one kid at the beginning. And what I realized is the way you interact with your friends at work, which is your, you know, making fun of them, they're making fun of you. It's constant banter. And it's very hostile, at least in the seal, and it's very hostile. And so then all of a sudden I didn't have that.

And so then who was I getting hostile with? I was getting hostile with my wife. And so after about three months of me going to college, I'm still in the Navy, but the Navy's paying me to college. After about a few months, I said something to my wife about the dinner that she had made or something, about the overcooked chicken or something. And she just looked at him, she said,

She said, you know, I'm not, she said she's not a seal. Yeah. And she shouldn't, I shouldn't treat her like one. Yeah. And she was a hundred percent right. Yeah. A hundred percent right. Yeah.

And it sounds like, and again, I was, I mean, you're only 23. This is when I was 28, right? So five years makes a difference. Yeah. And, and so this, for you, like, you're basically probably saying things to her that you would say to one of your soldiers. Yeah. You know, hey, don't. put that over there. Like, no, you move it. It's like, that's how you're accustomed to talking,

especially when there's so much pressure and you don't have time to discuss the reasons for something. And so that's what's happening. Yeah. Um, fast forward a little bit. After five days of trying to, trying and fail to cope, I got a phone call from Sergeant Major Spicer. Woody, he said, how are you doing? Great. I said lying through my teeth. It's really going well. Listen, I hate to interrupt you on your family time, but I've got some really sad news. It's, Chris Raymond. He's been killed. I took that like a blow to the stomach. Ray was a good guy, young like me, a real life and soul type, always filled with humor and optimism. He was a big Charlton athletic fan, wouldn't shut up about them, had always been there with a bit of banter about football

and what have you. Hearing the news back in my own house, it felt like the war was creeping into my life even here. I couldn't get away from it. How did he die? I asked. This in a way was the worst bit. Ray hadn't been killed in battle. His death was a tragic accident. He'd been at the Cemic House, and one of the vehicles that was leaving got caught up in a wire, which brought down the security barrier, and it slammed right on top of him. It was just awful. You survive everything the militia can throw at you, and then you die like that. The guy was just 22.

It was heartbreaking hearing the news, an absolute bloody waste. We're going to have to repatriate him, the Sergeant Major explained. I want you in the repatriation party to be there when they bring his body back. Fast forward a little bit. It was a cool summer's day as I stood at RAF Brise Norton. Watch the Herc do a circle of the base before coming into land. It parked up and the tail came down. We marched on, six of us, two ranks of three, and up to where the coffin was.

It was just an awful moment. seeing it there draped in a union jack i had to give myself a real talking to you owe it to ray to give him the best send-off you can the union jack didn't go all the way over the coffin just up to where the plaque was with his name on don't look at it i thought just don't look at it of course i looked at it i read the brass plaque ray's name the dates they could feel myself starting to go take a moment boys the sergeant major said compose yourselves I was grateful for his intervention. Did that blinking back thing.

Tried to clear my head. Come on, Woody. Get a grip. What would Ray say if he saw you like this now? One of the RAF crew, air crew, pulled the union jack fully over the coffin. Prepare to lift, the Sergeant Major said. That was it.

I clicked into action, into the routine we'd practiced in unison. The six of us put our hands under the coffin. I was in the middle on the right-hand side. Under the Sergeant Major's command, we lifted in unison up. and onto our shoulders. They're heavy things, coffins.

If you've ever carried one, you'll know. Heavy twice over. We did a right turn and then started to slow march carefully, respectfully down the ramp onto the tarmac below. The journey across to the hearse felt as though it took forever.

We could see the black of the vehicle glinting in the sunshine, could hear Ray's family, the crying, the wailing as we got close. closer. I had to blank that out, stare off into someplace else, otherwise I would have gone myself. So that's only five days after you get home. Yeah, it's a tough one, to be honest, especially the way he lost his life and he'd fought so hard with so much courage day in, day out. And he was the most infectious kid out there with a great smile and very kind individual.

I'm just glad that, you know, we give him such a good send-off. So professional, he absolutely deserved it. But it was so difficult, really, really hard. I know which realities of war, I totally get it. I absolutely understand it, but it doesn't make it any easier. It's hard. And sometimes it makes you question as well, how was it not me after everything that I'd been through

the scrapes that I was in, how did I survive? I don't know, there's a little bit of guilt sort of creeps in when you think about stuff, but yeah. We'll continue on here a little bit further on the book. Rays was the first military funeral I'd been to. Five days later, I went to my second. This time it was Leo Callahan, killed in an attack on his vehicle by insurgents. Lee was only 20.

He was football mad, supported Millwall FC, and was good to kick a lot. the ball around with as well. Because we'd been drilled already, I got a phone call from the Sergeant Major and went through the whole thing again. Lee's funeral was huge. He was from a big Catholic family and the church was packed out.

I felt guilty that I was alive and Ray and Lee were dead. But more than that, I couldn't shake the feeling that it could have been me. On top of everything I'd been through, it was a lot to process and to be frank, and to be frank, as a 23-year-old, I didn't really have the tools to do it.

Not that I was offered at the time, by the army but even if I if it had been available I wouldn't have had the the nose to ask for it I'm a soldier I thought I will deal with it myself it's not right to go and talk to anyone that's not what we do so you got to go to that battle course that you came home to go to um you get into that course and like a couple days into the course the uh SIB which is the special investigations branch shows up and they're looking for Lance Corporal Brian what they're looking for you. And they say, we need to talk to you about the Battle of Danny Boy.

One of the officers said he pulled a folder out of his bag. I recognized the document. It was my handwriting. It was a statement of what happened that day. There are just a few discrepancies. We need to hear to clear that up. And so they sit down with you and to fast forward a little bit. The questioning wasn't aggressive.

It felt more bizarre and random. I couldn't understand why I'd been pulled out of a lesson to be sat in front of a computer. They wanted me to give them answers. I couldn't give because I couldn't remember what the dead looked like or because it wasn't true or I couldn't remember. There were no accusations at that time, not directly, but there must have been someone saying something somewhere. They wouldn't have asked me questions on my statement otherwise. Some suggestion of mistreatment must have come from somewhere. They must have done it for a reason.

Looking back, this was the start of it. And you probably had no idea, like what this thing was going to turn into. No, and I could not believe I was on a career. course and those in the infantry back at home will know how demanding Junior Bracken is. It is such a tough, tough demanding course. Tactics wise, weapon training wise and fit and robust. You've got to be super on it. And then for them to play with my headspace just at the beginning of that course,

I thought it was very unprofessional. They could have waited until that was done. They know what Junior Bracken is and what it looks like. It's a tough course. And for them to get involved and drag me out of lessons, I just thought, it's unforgivable. And you also think, like, well, you know what happened. You were there.

You went through it. So when they come and ask you questions, you're like, yeah, here's what happens. Like this, I don't remember that, but I remember this. It probably didn't, well, and you said, looking back, you recognize that it was the beginning of this whole drama that you were going to go. But at the time, you think, yeah, well, okay, here's what happened.

Yeah. You know you guys did the right thing. You guys know you did the right things. Hey, did you make some little mistakes? Of course, you know, but that's what happens in combat. But you knew that by and large, you guys have done the right things. Yeah. You say, okay, you want to ask me some questions, fine.

And then you didn't think much more about it. Fast forward a little bit. When it was announced that I'd been awarded the military cross, I must confess that I was so naive, I didn't even know what a citation was. I certainly didn't know that anyone had written a citation about my own actions. So when it transpired, I was going to be awarded the medal. It took me completely by surprise. So you end up being put in for the military cross,

which I kind of went over in the beginning of this thing. Fast forward a little bit. It's a big deal. You're at Buckingham Palace. The weight seemed to go on forever before I was called to get my medal. But then my name was read out and the usher told me to go in. The hall where the medals were being awarded was huge. there was this big crowd of people watching, but to be honest, I didn't really take any of that

in or notice where Lucy and my parents were. I was super nervous and concentrating real hard on not doing anything stupid like falling over or making a fool of myself in front of the queen. When I got to the step, the queen spoke briefly to me as she awarded me my medal. She said to me that it was so rare for her to hand out these awards for bravery. As she pinned the medal on my chest, she told me to wear it with pride, and I promised her that I would. And then you say there's a line that Winston Churchill once said about such awards a metal glitters, but it also casts a shadow. So you get this award.

And then you get offered a place to teach recruits at the training center at Catterick. Yeah. Which is a big deal. Yeah. You say it's the gold standard of instruction in army terms. And as a young junior NCO, it was an offer that was difficult to turn down. With my experiences in Iraq, particularly at Danny Boy, I was the right fit.

The fact that I'd won the military cross too meant that there was probably a bit of poster boy element to it as well. Here's Woody. He's been there and done that. He's been honored for it. So I find myself talking about what I'd been through instructing on how to fight in close quarters

and hand-to-hand combat. And this, that award ceremony is televised, right? Like the whole freaking nation knows who you are. Can I just tell you one thing quickly? So the morning that we were going to Buckingham Palace, I was a young, you know, 23-year-old, didn't have a lot of money, had this like little coarser, voxel course of car. And my dad was, you know, is in his suit.

My mum and Lucy, my wife, they were all, you know, long dress and looking stunning. And I was in full service kit, and my dad was driving in London. So he's got quite a short temper. He's quite far away, my dad, being a Glasgow region. So we're driving to Buckingham Palace, and I'm saying to my dad, Dad, get out the bus lanes because you're going to get fined.

And it's 100 quid if you're in the bus lanes. And he's like, don't tell me what to do. I said, but you're going to, I'm going to have to get, I pay the fine, dad. So just calm down and come away from the bus lanes. And then we were turned this big roundabout on the way to see the gates, and he veered back into the bus lane.

This is a true story. I said to my dad, get out the bus lanes. And he's like, and me and him are quite far as well. So he's like, I'll tell you what. I'll fucking pull this over and you drive I said pull over then put over

this is like so we're having an argument on a way to Buckingham Palace pull the car over puts it in like neutral handbrake on gets out we traverse around the car I can barely even move

in my service dress ammo boots on as well but I'm so like I'm doing this now like let's go and I'm trying to get in gear but show like no emotion I was like

right just go and then I went to the wrong gate and I was like I turned up at the wrong gate No, no, you've got to go around. The other side was like, shit. And then I got round, and my dad's like, 5-9, stocky, fit man, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, like relentless on his fitness.

And we were walking through the gates, still not talking. And I was in front. He can walk him behind me and said to me, son, I'm 5'8. He said, today, I feel 16 foot 5. he said I love you I just thought it's just spectacular because he doesn't never really said much about

like constructive it was just like you go and earn it you work hard this is this is way forward so when he when he said that just before I was like from my dad like yeah cheers dad I appreciate that so yeah

into complete randomness to then my dad stepping up and saying I'm walking on the clouds at the moment that was quite class had your dad had retired from the army at this point yeah yeah he was fully done but like I said the whole world everyone in England's watching this happen

yeah it's huge yeah it's huge so you get to stay in the Ritz Hotel the night before the officers are not allowed so suddenly the non-commissioned officers which get this treatment and you go in and it's hard to take it in once because you're so nervous

you go through these gates and the guards are out there and you get ushered in and it's all super incredible and there's a big sort of arena where the parents and dear loved ones sit down to watch you come in and you go up to the usher and you bow and then you walk to the there's like a mark on the floor

and everything's televised and then you stop and then you then turn left bow your head to the queen and then walk up and she's on the second stall and you walk up and yeah she's just I don't know it's just

I can't explain it if I'm honest how it makes you feel I don't know special a special day with special people and then you go back to like the army everyone knows who you are you got this award

there's got to be a bit of that's got to be a little bit strange, right? Yeah, it's definitely. Because you were, you know, Lance Corporal kind of no one knows who you are. Now, everybody knows who you are. Yeah. And I was pulled from Polito Post to go and deliver bayonet fighting for everyone. I think it was, in looking back, it was, I think it was too much.

Because everyone's got their own instructors. And I do understand it. It's realities of war. and someone who we've got to inspire the recruits we need to use. But I didn't realize how much I was going to get used and I was bouncing around delivering twice a day, most days. Like how long were you doing that for? So Baynet Fine is a half a day to a full day instructional

because you, it's a long process, you get everyone up and they are worked so hard to their threshold physically wise and then they go into the bayonet lane, do bayonet fighting, and then they do the ball ring, which is unclipping the bayonet and go and to crawl up and destroy the dummies, but it takes a long time.

So it's physically and mentally exhausted, even for the instructors. But then you were doing this for different recruits? Regiments, different regiments. Just going around the country to different regiments. One location. Oh, one location, but they're bringing regiments through. But they're bringing regiments through.

You're the guy. And I was like the main man to go around, and I was like, I'm exhausted from doing all this. How often are you doing that? A lot, probably four times a week. Oh, so that was your job? It wasn't men to be, but it turned out to be pretty much, yeah, my job to.

How many months did you have this job for? Well, I was meant to have it for two years, but I just needed a break. So, yeah, I was there for, I think seven months before I come away for a break. And you talk about this in the book. As soon as I told Lucy I've been offered that job. She asked me not to take it. It would be uprooting us, taking us away, taking us up north away from friends and family.

I won't know anyone. Lucy said I won't have any support. She begged me, she cried. But I was so fixated on my job, so caught up in all of that. I wouldn't listen to her. We're going. I told her it's my career. Lucy was right.

Not for the last time. She foresaw exactly what was going to happen. I did the training and the dark thoughts about Iraq got, worse. I continue to be short and sharp with her. The situation at home deteriorated. I couldn't give her the help she needed with Bailey because of where my head was at. She couldn't turn to her parents or her friends for help and ended up being completely isolated. We reached a breaking point. Lucy turned to me one day and said, I can't do this anymore. I snapped back at her. Well, go then. And she did. Back down south, taking Bailey with her. So that kind of came too ahead.

Yeah. And then you had this thought of what would it be like, maybe I shouldn't have joined the Army or maybe I should get out of the Army. Maybe I should see what it's like in the civilian sector. And you end up making the decision to go to get out of the Army. Yeah. How did the Army take that? Not good.

I mean, they sort of had my path marked out for me. I just had so much going on. I just sort of had a break with Lucy at this point. I'd been so pushed and pushed with everything that I'd been involved in on operations to instruct and my head was just a bit chaotic and I just needed to do something different to maybe figure it out and I didn't know what I needed and what I wanted. So I just thought, you know, let's take a risk and get out and see what that is. Do they have jobs that you can get in the army if let's say you were still in the army and you were commander and you had a young

private that came back or a Lance Corporal or Corporal that came back was in a tough situation and you could, you knew and understood you could be like, hey man, I'm going to send you over to this job over here where you're whatever, doing something like counting pencils or something like that, like something where they could have given you a mental break and a physical break. Is there nothing like that? If you do that, you're off track. I think now you can get a sabbatical for a year. So you can go traveling or go and do something different for one year and then come back in

and carry on normal jogging. But back in the day, he was like, okay, go. That's it, you've made your choice. You're a number. So that's what you do. October 2005. How many years had you done at this point? I've done.

1997 to 2005? What's that, eight years? Yeah. You get out, now are you and Lucy separated? At this point. But you're not divorced? No, not divorced. Just, yeah, having some time away.

to try and figure it out. It was me what needed to figure it out. And so she had the place in Hampshire where we have our house now. And I lived in North London because of the job that I'd taken. Yeah, through the infantry football club, the chairman of that was a guy named Colonel Richard Kemp,

and he knew this wealthy businessman, this guy Lloyd Dorfman, who now is Sir Lloyd Dorffman. but he was a businessman and entrepreneur he'd set up this business a currency exchange and it'd grown a bunch and it was now an international

company it's called TravelX and so he needed someone to sort of be his right hand man you got connected with him and you end up doing that you end up sort of you're like a chauffeur bodyguard

admin just kind of doing everything and you spend a year with him. You go into some good detail about that in the book. You spend a year with him. You're learning a lot about business. You actually get back together with Lucy. Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. What marriage counseling do you have for the troops out here? Because that's pretty impressive. Yeah. No, it is impressive. And like John, my good friend actually said to me yesterday, she's like gold standard. Like you've got an absolute keeper. And I know that now. I'm in, I know This is a bit...

Even in the book, like, I'm... So my wife's a Brett, and people will say that my wife, my wife's name is Helen, no color, St. Helen, because, like, she's an absolute saint

to have been putting up with me for all these years. And it sounds like Lucy might be a saint as well. Absolutely. I think it's in love of her more now than I ever have been. I think we were young

and it's difficult to figure what a relationship is and we've been for quite a lot. But now I know. and what she's done with my two boys is just incredible. Like my oldest now is serving, and he serves in Second Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. So, you know, what a...

Yeah, and that's a lot to do with Lucy. Yeah. I wasn't there a long time with him, you know, I was away. And then for her to take on that responsibility, for him to grow into a real fine young man and say, I'm going to go and serve my country, but I'm going to do better than my dad, and I'm actually going to go into the Parachute Regiment

and call my dad a hat. But I just absolutely love what he's doing. It's a fine regiment. He chose to go and test himself to the extreme, and he went and done it, not me. He did it. And it's a lot to do with Lucy. Yeah, it's outstanding.

So you get back together with her, you got this job, you know, obviously there's opportunity in the civilian sector, but you miss the army. Yeah. Yeah. You miss the army and you go back in the army. Yeah.

Is that hard to do? No. I mean, I did miss it. I missed testing myself, competing, leading and being involved in a belonging like no other. Because when you're doing one-to-one stuff, you're isolated. You've got no identity. you aren't Woody you're just a normal bloke no one cares no one cares and what just go and do their yining or go and collect this and you're like yeah it's irrelevant

and I thought I need to go back back into an environment where I know I can hustle and I know I can really go on an incredible mission with like-minded people so I was like I was in a swimming pool doing life saving drills with him and I got on with him and his family really well they looked after me incredibly but it was time and I was doing life saving drills we finished the PT session and I was like sir I always called him sir never Lloyd never you know it was just sir I treated him like a senior officer I said sir and he's like the time is now because he he had an enne and I was like yeah I'm off and he got a little bit emotional and I said yeah he said look I'll support you no matter what and then I got hold of Katrick said I want to come back in

then there was a little bit of time period I had to go and do my start standard to make sure I was fit and met the criteria again and then yeah rejoined and then any retraining a little bit a little bit yeah you go on a two week re-embedment course and yeah just worked hard you know try to maintain the standards before I got out and then yeah went back into into my regiment and then it's um basically back to iraq yeah

2000 what is it 2008 2009 you do your second tour in iraq yeah it's a lot different a lot different 2000 by by 2008 2009 2008 there was still a lot of you know there obviously bagdad was still going crazy that we had the surge happen um but for where you guys were it was It was ready to leave. It was just about to conduct the exfiel. You said the only time we went out really was when the UK Special Forces were involved and they needed cordon created. You're staying on this big camp, there's a pizza hut, there's a Burger King, there's a subway.

Everyone smiles when I tell them that. It was crazy. Yeah, it is. You'd have missing people sometimes that it'd because they go to the American sector. They go where the Americans are. They're absolutely loving their best life. life. So it's a pretty mellow deployment, you know, but you're still in a leadership position. And then this happens. As a platoon sergeant, I was going to inspect my men and the vehicles.

That all correct equipment and kit was in place. There were two cookhouses we used at the camp, one at the north, other at the south. This particular morning, I'd been to breakfast in the northern one. I'd finish that and then headed back to my tented accommodation to collect the rest of my kit. As I lent over the wall the wall by my bed to grab my body armor and webbing, heard what sounded like a machine gun. It didn't sound right. Dull and muffled. But I was instantly on alert. In camp, we were unloaded, so no one should have had a loaded weapon with them, never mind it being made ready. I knew immediately that something was serious must have happened. I ran out. And as I did, so, I heard someone shouting, he's killed himself. He's killed himself from the next

tent door from the tent next door to mine i ran to where the shouts were coming from the first person i saw was corporal canes he had his hands on his heads i asked him what happened and he told me rath hall had killed himself i entered the tent and couldn't believe what i saw there was a soldier dead on the floor and the stench of burning flesh crouched by him was his platoon sergeant dan davy he was shouting at rathall why have you done this what the fuck's happened i said but looking at the body on the floor The answer was fairly clear. The soldier, private Ryan, Raffall had loaded his LNG, put it in his mouth, and fired. It was a horrific scene.

I remember a medic rushing in, seeing the body on the floor and fainting. Dan, I think it was, handed me the LMG, and I took it outside to unload it. Rathall had disconnected the belt from the LMG and put five rounds into the feed tray. A full belt would carry a hundred rounds. If that went off, you could end up with a runaway gun and all kinds of carnage. Sox knew that and knew what. he wanted to do so he'd loaded up the weapon accordingly. The R&P appeared, so I handed the weapon over to them.

They looked at me and said, you better go wash your hands. I looked down and realized they were covered in blood. I went off to the toilets and tried to scrub myself clean. Sox, as Ryan was known, wasn't in my platoon, so I didn't know him well, but he'd been part of my company and living in the tent next to mine, so I knew who he was. It was a shocking incident and just desperately sad. I believe that he'd lost his dad earlier in the year. He'd been incredibly close to his father.

later was discovered that he'd taken a large dose of morphine that morning before fatally shooting himself the incident shook everyone up patrols were canceled the pondery was brought in and he spoke to the soldiers tried to make sense of it all for me it was something i had wished that i hadn't experienced another image from iraq that was set to haunt me like the deaths and dead bodies from before those memories i had them from before they started to surface back up again yeah even this is When we were talking about Danny Boy and the post Danny Boy debriefs and whatnot, there wasn't any. And here, a guy kills himself. And because the opt tempo is so low, they bring in the Padre.

They're doing these debriefs and stuff. They're trying to handle this traumatic situation properly. You come back from this deployment and you end up going to become an instructor on the Royal Marquis. Marines senior command course. Yeah. Right? Yeah. When you're there, there's a, there's a Royal Marines instructor that you, that you're

talking to and he'd been through this thing, this trauma risk management. Yeah. Which is called trim. He'd been through this course and kind of recognize that maybe, maybe you could use a little bit of trauma risk management. He tells you the best thing you can do, he said is go and try and get some direction on your headspace and have a couple of sessions and see what happens. So this is the first guy that kind of told you you might, could use someone to talk to.

Yeah. I mean, I was handpicked by the army to go in because the Royal Marines are on the naval establishment. And obviously we're in the British Army. So I was handpicked to go in filler post down there and instruct to make sure doctrinally we're teaching the same on Breckon and Senior Breckon is what we're doing down there on their senior command course. So it was a real honor for one. to be handpicked. And then I needed to go and do the Commando course to earn my Green Beret.

I didn't need to, but for credibility. I absolutely went down there and spent nine weeks of hard work and graft. And then I was awarded my Green Beret and then went down and started to bed in. So we moved as a family down there, right next to the coast, next to the water. It was my best post than I've ever had.

It was incredible. And one of my good friends who are still, speak to now was like yeah you need to just maybe kind of have a conversation because a lot of stuff that we kind of maybe touch on is really

raw and I don't feel that you've opened up about a few things which it will definitely help and look I'm happy to take you down and introduce you to like the commandant who is the main like main sheriff down there he was like the governor

you know the top brass and I was really scared because I was on an e-posting we call it external posting I was there representing not just my regiment the British Army and all of a sudden already I want to speak to someone about some legacy stuff like didn't sit right with me I thought I'm going to get return to unit for being not capable a jellyhead not good enough but when I went into the initial sort of interviews slash chats, it was flipped to a better leader, someone who inspired others to maybe do the same if you need to. And that's who we want in this train establishment.

So straight away he made me feel that, you know, this is what we want and you have done the right thing. and that really changed and helped me so much that actually I wouldn't mind going to have a conversation if that's okay because it absolutely could grow me as a person and I could be better than who I am at the moment

and I think that's important to try and better yourself and I went on a bit of a journey with that yeah one of the things I think as you write about it in the book you know you start talking to this this lieutenant colonel and you tell them what's going on with football and the boys and you start telling him about Danny boy and all those things and then he says something that I think is really important he says it's okay to have these emotions yeah it's what makes you human it doesn't matter what sort of character

you are what organization you're in when you go through this sort of stuff you've been through it's going to latch on yeah so that idea of like this stuff happens and then he recommends you to go to like a regular I guess a therapist yeah Civilian type therapist therapist You say the therapist went into more detail than the lieutenant colonel had done he really drilled down went a lot deeper on a number of issues He really concentrated on my feelings and emotions and tried to get to the bottom of those just like the lieutenant colonel He told me that it was okay to feel like this And repeated that I wasn't the only soldier going through this

What he said was different to what my lieutenant colonel had said Was that he brought he brought in my family So again this is totally different than the attitude that you had yourself, which is, I'm a soldier. I'll just freaking deal with this. We get to, so now you end up back at a unit where you're going to go back on deployment again. So you finish up your time with the Marines. And again, it's a great section in there.

You give a lot of credit to the course that you go through to get your greed brand. You know, the Royal Marines are. Yeah, exceptional. I loved my time down there. And I even floated with transferring, but it wasn't the right time. And it was, yeah. But there was a few conversations about that.

They just got me. I mean, their mentality is different to the army. They're very much laid back, trustworthy, don't really micromanage. And it's kind of what I like to do. You give someone direction and clarity and the tools they need to and then let them, if they need a support, they ask, but let them go. Army sometimes a little bit different. How long did you do that instruction?

Two years. Two years. It was brilliant. It was proper tactitional instructing as well. So them to be sergeants. And I was quite young. I was a young color sergeant. So I was instructing raw Marine commandos who were like 35, 38.

I was 29. But I believed in myself and, you know, so they got it. They were like, yeah, and I just had an amazing two years down there. Did you wear their beret when you're teaching? Yeah. What about when you're back on the Army base? No. I wear my dagger.

They have an insigua or something. They have a dagger, yeah, commando dagger with Army Commando. Across like a, and I was any person in my regiment to have that. So it's quite cool. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a little kid. I collected little toy soldiers, the little tiny ones, and they were actually representative of real units.

And so I had, you know, Nazis and Brits and Americans and Russians, but the ones that I had the British commandos, and they had like little beanies on, and they had little rubber boats and kayaks. And that was my favorite. I was like, that's what I want to do. And we didn't have the British commandos in America, but we had the SEAL teams.

So that's my first memory of wanting to be some kind of a maritime commando was from the British commandos. Yeah. So then you go back to a unit and you say my battalion was, what unit did you go back? Did you go back to? Yeah, one PWR. Got it. My battalion was already in Afghanistan and I was put on the BCR battlefield casualty replacement list. I was told I was going to take over as a CQMS company quartermaster sergeant.

So this is like the person that's in charge. of logistics and supply from warfighting to like oh it's a anyone it's just natural progression but it's not a job that you want to be doing really yeah and you're only on standby to go but unfortunately a guy Tom Lake yeah gets hit by an ID he's killed there's five other casualties so now you go yeah you end up like I said this is more of a administrative role that you're in It's your first time kind of being in this administrative role. You say my role in the store is a support role rather than a fighting soldier's role,

but I'd still have the security compound go out either in a husky vehicle or a quad bike with a trailer to do resupplies. You say it was an odd feeling being out and not being at the sharp end. Yeah. Talk to any commander and nine times out of ten, they'll tell you they'd rather be out there themselves. Yeah, it was a tough gig. I was sustaining the fight rather being in the fight. and the roles had reversed slightly. But you've just got to be professional in that role

and that's what I tried to do. And the good thing is, since you've been on the front lines, you know what it takes, you know what it needs, you know how important the support and logistics are. So you do a, you know, you do, like you said, professional job at that.

The terrain in Afghanistan was completely different. The Iraq tour was about city fighting, which is really hard. It was rooftop to rooftop to rooftop. We were getting engaged from an alleyways, Afghanistan or where I was anyways, didn't have those demands of urban fighting. We were down in the valleys.

There were mountains all around, but where we were wasn't really that hilly. But what there was, which Iraq didn't have so much, was IEDs. The place was riddled with them. In Iraq, there were a few more remote IEDs in Afghanistan. There were everywhere.

So just different terrain. And then we get into, so you, I think you get home from that. And this is where you start hearing about this, or no, it's actually while you were at the commando course, is where you start first hearing about this. How do you say it, Al-Suitey inquiry? The Al-Sweedy Inquiry, yeah.

The Al-Sweedy Inquiry. So this is while you're at the commando course. You say this, in the years after the Battle of Danny Boy, there had been an increasing clamor for some sort of inquiry into the events that had taken place that day, both in terms of the actions on the battlefield

and also what had happened on our return to Camp Abu Najee. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Camp Abu Najee had been visited by the ICRC, which is the International Committee of the Red Cross. Allegations had been made by the Iraqi prisoners, and the IRCRC had asked the British to investigate. They did in the form of the RMP, the Royal Military Police, who had then turned up to interview me and the other soldiers involved first at Abu Najee and then later when I was at Brecken in the training course.

Those initial investigations produced little to back up the allegations, but the claims continued and were picked up by human rights lawyers, in particular, Phil Shiner, who ran a firm called Public Interest Lawyers and Martin Day of the firm Lee Day. So there's little rumors coming from these Iraqis, and the Red Cross kind of hears about it. They say, hey, we should look into this. And then you got these human rights lawyers who we'll get into. Phil Shiner and this other guy, Martin Day. And Phil Shiner had been involved in this case of Baha Musa. Yeah. He was an Iraqi guy.

He died in British custody in 2003. His autopsy showed that he'd received a number of injuries. And a number of soldiers in 2006 were charged with assault and inhumane treatment of the detainees. he in 2008 the military of defense um pays just under three million pounds in compensation to the family so that that case was run by this guy Phil Shiner

so he had clout he had credibility credibility but it didn't have anything to do with that happened at Danny Boy yeah so you had that happening and then of course in America we had problems we had the Abu Ghraib in particular. We had that whole thing.

So with all of this, all of these negative press, which was based in reality, which is real things that happened, you say on the back of all this, the accusations about Danny Boy resurfaced. A group of six Iraqis, five involved in the battle and the uncle of Hamid al-Sweedy. One of those killed claimed that they had been ill-treated by British troops. Rather than being insurgent fighters, they said they were innocent civilians, farm workers who had been caught up in the crossfire. Rather than the insurgents being killed on the battlefield, the men claimed they had been captured alive and then murdered back at the British base. So, again, when I hear this kind of stuff, it's so ludicrous to like, but I understand that people that aren't in the military,

they could somehow conceive that this could be a real thing. Like, this can't be real. Like bringing guys back to base and executing, it's not happening. It's just not happening. And that's why, and you say here, the MOD dismissed the allegations, right? No credible evidence. Phil Shiner, however, disagreed, he claimed there was a very credible evidence that there was ill treatment.

He said that these allegations are incredibly serious and yet the government has continuously delayed dealing with them since they were first made in 2004. He wanted a public inquiry to look into these accusations. And because of his involvement with the Baja Musa case, he had a lot of credibility like you mentioned. So in February of 2008, he published a dossier of allegations about Danny Boy. There were accusations of torture by British troops, the mutilation of bodies, and the suggestion that up to 20 Iraqi captives may have been executed. Martin Day claimed that, quote, the nature of a number of these inquiries of the Iraqis would seem to us to be highly unusual

in a battlefield. He went on to suggest that Danny Boy might be. quote, one of the most atrocious episodes in British Army history, end quote. He said, quote, the burning question for us as a nation is whether these 24 hours represented the British Army at its best or the British Army at its worst, end quote. So what I, what I find so like hard about this is you were there, you know what happened, you know what you did, you think, oh, these things don't, whatever, like this is ridiculous. Yeah. And then it gets traction.

Yeah. It gets traction. You must have just been thinking, are you people crazy? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. And then they released it on Panorama, which is a massive, massive program that the whole of the UK will watch. And it made us out to look like barbaric murderers. And that's what followed was the most pressure I've ever been under.

Being on the battlefield and leading, I'm trained to do that. I understand the whole concept and the characteristics of war fighting and leading. This, I didn't have a clue what to do, and it was so much pressure. So you're not sleeping at night? No, I mean, this was on another level. Media outside the house, trying to capture my brother for quotes, just couldn't go anywhere. And then it's tough because when something like that, it goes out to. the nation and your name is linked to it, it just degrades everything.

This is how I felt. I can't speak for the others, but I just felt that it just degraded everything that I stood for. Jocko, Echo, like, I was prepared to lose everything on the battlefield and leave my son without a dad. Unquestionable. I was prepared to do that. And then have these. lies and then having my son who was a lot older right now in 2009 you know

school yard gossip I get it but they're saying your dad's killed innocent civilians and how do you deal with that to like sit down with your son and say you know you've just got to be strong and you know weather the storm and it's hard work especially when you know what you've done is completely different to what's being said and then I'm having friends who I thought were friends texting me saying am I reading in the paper true so I was having to justify all of that as well it was just like I thought how can how can my own country do this to me when I was prepared to leave it all on the battlefield and when I needed a little bit of help just a little bit help to tell me that everything's going to be okay that you know reassure me and do I need some

support from what's going on this media storm not one person reached out not one person from the government from the MAD my regiment were going through it my regiment were all in the tabloids for being this potentially disgrace regiment for doing these barbaric accusations so I just didn't know really what to do if I'm honest I was struggling did the regiment go on the offense at all? The regiment is difficult, Jocker, because everyone moves on after two years. So Matt Mayer was in America in an appointment out here. James Coot, my OC, was somewhere in Staff College.

And then we've got this dossier that was put in front of us that we can't communicate and speak. So the people that I was involved in, I can't even talk. You mean they told you legally you're not allowed to talk? Yeah, we're not allowed to talk because we're now into this whole inquiry. So I can't even speak to people who have been through this with me. So people who don't know or don't get it, it's hard to, like, speak because they just don't understand. So I had nothing, not one thing.

And then they found some documents in London when the police done a hit on a suspect terrorist. They found the other commander who was with me that day. in Danny Boy documents on him with name where he lives to do a hit and then it puts Lucy into a flat spin saying they're coming for us so then my head goes into sort of like

hypervigilant mode five and 20s every morning outside my house looking for wise how are they going to approach this house like made me go a little bit mad really because of these documents then he got put into a safe house I never did and I was like they're going to come and get me I was just

it was chaotic. What it done for me personally was, I can't even like put, I can't even describe it. It was mad. Yeah, you have the, I don't know if you have this expression in America, in England,

we have an expression in America of where there's smoke, there's fire. Yeah. Which means, well, if they're saying this stuff about you, it must, there must be some truth to, right? So it's like there's,

it's like you can't. And every time you say, well, actually, no, we did the right thing. People are, you're just being defensive. Of course, you're going to say that like that whole thing. So you're in a freaking terrible scenario. Yeah. The, I'm just going to, the greater Manchester police are brought in to look at their original RMP investigation. So you have like a real police department coming to look at what the royal police did.

And they look at it and say, you guys didn't do a good job with your investigation. So then that kind of looks suspicious. and then, so they kind of get in trouble. In October 2009, three high court judges ruled against the Ministry of Defense, accusing it of lamentable behavior and serious breaches of duty over its investigation at anybody. So this thing where you were in the QRF and people are coming in like, hey, how did it go down and you gave them quick answers? They're now going through that with a fine-tooth comb saying,

oh, you guys were covering something up. Yeah. In November 2009, a defense secretary Bob Ainsworth announced that a public inquiry would be held. It would be called the Al-Suidi inquiry after one of the Iraqis who'd been killed. This is freaking crazy. You say I was dumbfounded, firstly because of the nature of the allegations in comparison to the events that had taken place. But secondly, because I had no inkling that this inquiry was about to happen. So you're just saying, you guys are freaking crazy.

Yeah. Like this idea that you executed these civilians or these, these, these prisoners, like it's, it's completely absurd. Yeah. Reposterous. So now, here's some of the things you write. Iraqi prisoners were openly being called victims. Yeah.

Without any evidence to back up that claim. Anyone who didn't know what had happened, looked at those reports and thought, fucking hell, they were unlawfully killed. They must be innocent civilians caught up in this. Otherwise, why would they be media be calling them victims? And that's how it was. on the press. So all of this was all over the place

and I was like, oh my God, how do I even get out of this now? I'm really having to dig in with my teeth because this is serious, real serious and it frustrated me so much because I was like, you just don't know what we went through to even achieve what we achieved.

We achieved what on paper was unachievable. We've done everything and we're prepared to leave everything and now I'm having to fight for my honour. That's how it felt. I was fighting from everything that I stood for, my integrity, who I was as Brian Wood, just everything. And I was exhausted, if I'm honest.

Yeah, this is what you were talking about earlier. We were British soldiers. We were sent to do, we were sent to war to do what we've been told by the politicians only come back and find ourselves fighting another battle to clear our names. After Danny Boy, some of the Iraqis claim that we'd taken the prisoners back and killed them in camp. The next day we were hit Dubley Hard. That is how it was. people making up lies to cause a stir and getting people to fight.

But the truth was that we were trained, we were pre-deployment training, which is about four and a half months long. You go through all sorts of scenarios, all sorts of situations in terms of how you should treat prisoners. You told about the Geneva Convention. You talk about the rules of engagement and the guidance card alpha, which outlines what you can and cannot do. This is all spoken about and you adhere to it.

Back home, people read the papers, watch TV, and drew their own conclusions. And you talk about that situation with your son, like having people there talk to them. You talk about how you are now thinking you're going to be targeted. You get a bunch of letters of people wanting you to clarify these statements. Every question was like flicking a switch. I'm only human. So as soon as I got a letter asked me to recollect a particular detail or I was right back there. I found myself revisiting Danny Boy again and again.

So finally we get to this point where you're actually going to get called. And you again, there's so much detail in this and it's such a great read to understand what this stuff looks like from the inside, from your perspective. You end up, you're going to go before this inquiry. My appearance was scheduled for Monday, 4 November 2013. I was serving in Germany at the time, which was a bit of a blessing being out there, made it a bit easier to be away from it all out of sight and all that. I flew back to the UK at the end of the previous week so I could spend some time prepping with the lawyers for what was going to happen. What was the lawyers? Your lawyers were positive.

I know they were trying to help you. The M-O-D law, I've seen her five minutes before we went in. Oh, that's it. That's the prep. Yeah, five minutes before. Why is that? I just don't know. I don't know.

She coming to introduce herself, and I speak about it in the book. I said, you know, five minutes I got with the lawyer from the M-O-D, so she's not going to be representing me. Do you think that they thought, do you think that they believed the accusations in some way? Do you know what I really don't know Jocko? It's just everything was All over the place with who I trusted who I didn't who I could lean on who I could say something to it just played havoc with me as a person to trust It was just difficult but then introducing me just before I was gonna get cross-examined five minutes before I was going in My lawyers were good the civis civilian lawyers. They were very expensive you had to pay you to get some other than the MOD paid paid for the civilian

civilian lawyers, the MOD lawyer. I mean, she must have just got passed a bunch of files from the lawyers that were with us and then just come in and see me five minutes before and introduce herself. And I was like, yeah, whatever. Like I said, there's a whole courtroom drama. I don't use that term lightly.

There's a whole story of the courtroom, the people that you introduce all these characters. And I'm going to fast forward a bit into the courtroom. There's press, there's lawyers, there's journalists, there's soldiers, like it's a whole, scenario the whole world to watching this it's a huge it's a public inquiry everyone could come in get amongst it so it just opened the gates i mean the bleachers had to put in extra bleachers for people to come in i was like what is this is wild yeah and no one from the military was like

no i think i say i just needed someone who was a figurehead who understood warfare understood what was going on to stand up, smash on his table and put something into context. I wasn't smart enough to do that. I tried with the answers or the questions and the cross-examination. I was a lot older now as well and I was a lot more mature

and battle-hardened and had a lot of experience. But I was still finding it tough to actually bring the courtroom into the battlefield into context and it was difficult. I just needed someone there who was going to be on my shoulder who was a scene.

your officer that I'd been there and done it and wanted to help me. But the ones that were there were on the allegation themselves, so I didn't have it. There's a character named Beer. He's one of the lawyers. I'm going to get to the, I'm not going to introduce every character. You do it in the book, and it's great. You say, Beer, the lawyer continued to question me as to our whereabouts before the incident. Where we were when the call came in about the ambush? All of this had been covered in my statement, but he asked anyway, presumably to set the scene. Could I remember where I was when the tasking came in. No, was it on Route 6? Yes. Did you travel south on Route 6? I don't know. Did you travel towards Danny Boy? By the time he asked me that last question, I could feel myself getting

irritated. You know I fucking did. I thought I was involved in the battle of Danny Boy, but you can't answer like that. You have to keep your composure. So I just answered yes and we moved on. Okay, Beer said. He said okay a lot. And then, and a lot of them were the okayes where you weren't quite sure how okay he thought your answer actually was. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. The questions felt as though he was walking, felt as though I was walking through a minefield. Beer asked me about our vehicle returning fire. To which direction was it engaging, left, right or straight on? It was right, I replied. I do know in my statement I have said left, but it was, it was to the right hand side. I think you were referring to the Royal Military Police statement.

Is that right? Yes. Is that incorrect? I've just said that, haven't I? That is incorrect. Yes. Okay, beer like he is just freaking trying to set you up the way he was questioning it was making me out as though I couldn't tell left from right fast forward a little bit the same was true over his questions on the use of bayonets beer quoted a line from my statement where sergeant broom gave me the order would he get get the bloke's prepped what does that mean beer asked so I explained just make sure that their kid is fitted you know and they were all good to go because being in a warrior in the middle of in Iraq heat, it's close to the boiling point.

Fixing bayonets on your rifle, it was SOP. It is a close quarter battle drill. If you are going out there and closing with the enemy, you fix a bayonet. If you don't, you're not doing your drills right. It is a tradition as an infantry soldier that you do that because what happens if you approach the enemy position and you get a stoppage or run out of ammunition? You use your bayonet. It is procedure.

You do it time and time again in training. No big deal. But the fact that Beer would focus on it, it just suggested a lack of understanding of what the situation was really like. There is a quote attributed to you on a BBC website, Beer continued. It is said that you said, we've got a lot of firepower with a warrior, so I never dreamt. We'd be told to dismount and engage in close quarters battles. It hadn't happened since the Falklands War.

He paused. Is that something you said to a journalist? Maybe words to that effect, I replied, but clearly journalists will be journalists. I was being honest there. I probably did say that. but I didn't like him linking the two up, suggesting that what was SOP was in fact something highly unusual. Doesn't it follow that the order to dismount into the battle rather surprised you, bear asked? That's what we do, I replied.

We're infantry soldiers, so we trained to close with and destroy the enemy. So it was just a shock because it's not every day you get an order like that. Yeah. Fast forward a little bit. This is the kind of stuff you're dealing with. The accusations continued. Al Baha'adali alleged that he was kicked more than twice while blonde-foded and cuffed on the floor. A second detainee said that soldiers pushed his head hard onto the ground with a hand on his neck,

stepped on the back of his knees, and dragged him across the ground by his ankles. A third detainee alleged a black soldier had kicked him in the chest, punched him twice on the jaw, and struck him on the head with a rifle. A fourth detainee said a black soldier punched him repeatedly in the face and was kicked by a number of soldiers until he lost consciousness. I'd seen nothing of the sort and told beer so. The specifics of the claims made me suspicious. I was sat there being careful and measured with my answers,

all couched in what I could and couldn't recall, yet here the accusations were in crystal clear detail. It was all a fucking bluff. Nothing of that sort happened. If anything of that sort had happened, it would have been stopped straight off on a purely tactical, practical level. There simply wasn't the time. The battlefield wasn't cleared.

Would professional soldiers really risk their lives filling people in when the enemy was still out there? It just wouldn't happen and it didn't happen. So having these questions and accusations thrown about me and my men really got to me. Freaking ridiculous. Yeah. You say no one else in that room had been a frontline soldier and that made the situation difficult. This is what you were talking about earlier. Without that experience, how would you promptly understand what we'd been faced with?

It's not hard to sit in an air-condition inquiry room and make comments about blindfold. and plastic cuffs and insinuate that our behavior was brutal and barbaric. But the lack of understanding of being in that situation, the context of how the army carries out its instructions that I did find shocking. War isn't a contract negotiation. You're not sat there dotting every last eye and crossing every last T until agreement is reached. You're under threat.

You're under fire. Life is in danger. You rely on gut and instinct to get through, do what you have to do in order to survive. The basics of what being a soldier is all about. That's what it felt like I, as though I was defending. And that's what I felt as though no one in that inquiry room properly understood. Dude, it was hard for me to read this. Like, you get to another point where beer's concocting some sort of conspiracy between you and Faulkner over what we had told the R&P.

He's basically trying to make it sound like you guys plotted this story out. Yeah. You say, Beer was eager to point out, in this statement, you don't describe the incident where somebody was bringing an RPG into the firing line

and you engaging them and the other person that Sergeant Major Falconer engaged and dropped, as you put it. Is there any reason for that? For all my lawyers, advice of keeping calm and keeping it simple,

I couldn't contain myself. I wasn't going to let him get away with these suggestions. So what were the reasons behind the statements being different? Collusion, cover-up? My response was short and sharp. RMP didn't doing RMP not doing their drop properly.

That was the truth. Those first statements were a bit of shambles. We were tired and under pressure. Getting those statements done was not a priority. In the light of day now, I wish we would have done them properly, as it would have made all of what happened next much easier and said those statements were just sketched,

essentially a shorthand of what happened, which left holes for any lawyer who wanted to to get to digging. And that's where a lot of this crap comes from. there's this whole like crazy idea and they start asking you about like well how close were the weapons to the guys you know and what do they look like they could have been possibly doing something else and all this it's just garbage um were the weapons loaded how far were they from the guys you say the accusations from the Iraqis that they'd been innocent farmers somehow picked up picked on and unilaterally attacked by us were laughable the factable the fact that fact that the inquiry was running with this idea, that this suggestion was even half taken seriously, felt disrespectful to everything we'd done that day. If those lawyers had been in the middle of what we'd been in the middle of, the sheer wildness of that engagement, they wouldn't have been stood there asking me these questions. We're the British Army. We're trained professional soldiers.

We didn't just drive down the road to randomly pick a fight with some civilian farmers for shits and giggles. We'd been ambushed by militia, and we were lucky to have come out alive. Yeah. Again, to you, even to me, I wasn't there. I've been to Iraq. I can tell you that this whole fantasy that they have is so like completely ridiculous. And here you are in a room under inquiry being asked these ridiculous questions. Yeah. Your, you're like faith in humanity must have been going down at some juncture here. I couldn't believe it. It's three and a half hours of nonsense in my opinion. And I had to do. just really try and keep my patience, but it's difficult when these people with small glasses and big reputations want to bring you down for all your worth,

and it's just not happening. There's like this whole plethora of accusations. I mean, everything from literally you're putting your cuffs on too tight to a guy wanting water and getting, you not giving him water while he's on. a 10 minute ride back to base like he's getting no water no nothing that's for my guys that's freaking ridiculous and this to them this is you know crimes against humanity yeah inhumane yeah inhumane treatment but what what we didn't speak about which i think is very important as well is

phil shiner went to istanbul into a into a link up with agents so because he was getting so much money for this inquiry. He was, and it's actually in the film, he was in Istanbul and getting basically processing all these people because each referral that he got, it was like big money. Money. So all he was doing and I could not believe it. So he would chat to these militia and they'd be like, yeah, but what about my mum? Don't worry.

We'll compensate her as well. If you were involved, then we'll look after you and your mum. So just keep these referrals coming. Like this is human life you're playing with. And that lizard is out there, you know, conducting these referrals for money. It's just, like just goes beyond me. It's absolutely. It's disgusting.

It's hideous. It's disgusting. Again, get the book, everybody, so you can read through this. This is freaking, it's crazy to read. It's kind of hard to read, but it's very informative. And you, you, you said it was like going through a minefield. Well, you went through the minefield and the truth is on your side. Yeah.

And you finally get done testifying. And I'll go here. Color sergeant, the chairman turned to me. That completes your evidence to the inquiry. Thank you very much for having come here in order to give your evidence to me. I am very grateful to you for that. I'm also very grateful for your patience and courtesy in the way you have listened to and answered the questions, which you have been asked in the way that you have done.

Thank you very much. indeed, you are free to go, and I wish you well for your future. By the time I stood down was taking back to the holding room, I was exhausted, have been hours of questioning, being made to relive things. I didn't want to relieve. I felt drained. I could feel my head throbbing from all the intensity of it. My lawyer, Neil Sheldon, seemed pleased. He echoed what the chairman and said, told me I'd handle myself with great dignity, and I presented myself well. So, that's that. you end up leaving the army in 2014 again.

And this is partially because of all this that's happening. And it's also something that happened with your pension, which was another thing that was crazy to me. Yeah. So explain what happened with your pension. Because I had a break in service, my pension wasn't going to carry on from. So basically what's normally happening is when you rejoined,

it just continues. but they'd done a new regulation pension-wise. And yeah, I then found out through my own homework that I wasn't going to get my full military pension and it was going to be like probably half or three-quarters of, you know, I was going to get half or three-quarters of my pension. And you wouldn't start getting pinned to your 65. Yeah, 65, yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, this broke me and, or I also needed to rise about it because there was a lot of corruption. I'm not one to stick the bayonet and twist it like with Shina. I could have rinsed him. I could have destroyed him in the book, but I'm a man of honour. He knows what he's done. He's got to live with that.

I could have destroyed and went in on the MOD's duty of care, protection, you know, and loyalty. I didn't. I highlighted lessons learned. And if I did that, hopefully others wouldn't go through this. same as what we went through. So it's important for me to to then speak about how I felt. And with the pension and with everything that was then announced by the chairman to be wholly without foundation, deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility, it's done. And I tell you how it got done is the public interest lawyers shredded a key document which

stated all the militia fighters and where their militia groups were. So it's basically in the UK military or the US military, it's your name rank and number and where, what base you're at. So they had this, they shredded it to keep this going because of money. It ended up being 33 million pounds worth of taxpayers' money for the inquiry. But on the archives, there was a photocopy of it. And so I went on to the stand the day after they found this archive and it was done. Because it was lies.

Once you get out, yeah, this, I actually remember I said I hated reading the part of the book where you were on the stand and all those accusations coming. And then when it got to the way it all came down, I was like reading it with glorious emotions. You know, some of the O'Connor, who's the guy, he says, the Iraqi core participants will not submit that. Oh, this happened earlier. So one of the guys from, I think PIL, the Iraqi core participants will not submit that on the balance of probabilities, live Iraqis captured during the course of the battle on 14 May 2004, died or were killed at camp at Camp Abuid Naji. So this is one of the first things that happened is they, after a year,

of these accusations they said well maybe no one was killed on camp yeah we're not going to pursue that charge so that was the first time that you kind of noticed that um and then you talk about in the book that that that they had that document by the way yeah for six years yeah so they echo charles they had a document that had the names of the militia members so these guys that were saying that's like oh echo charles he says he's a farmer he says he shouldn't have been attacked, shouldn't have been captured any of that. And then they have a document that says Echo Charles was Maudea part of this group.

When you say they had it, your accusers had it? Yes. Well, the lawyers had that document that confirmed who these bad guys were, who these Mottie militia, and they buried the evidence. Like on purpose. Yeah, they shredded it. Yeah, they shredded. Then they said it was human error.

They started going pretty hard. And so finally, Sir Thane Forbes final report on Al-Sweedy inquiry was released on 17 December 2014, a year and a month after you'd given evidence. But this has been going on for five years. Yeah. Of your name being dragged through the mud, of your reputation being hurt. He'd certainly had a lot of material to work with 169 days of hearings. Evidence from 55 Iraqi witnesses, 222 service personnel, and 4.

expert witnesses and a further chunk of written statements from another 328 witnesses. The final report he produced ran 1,200 pages and had to be printing in two separate volumes. That's what this guy was looking at. And that's, you know, when you see all these witnesses, you think, you think, wow, they had a lot of witnesses. Yeah, because they were getting paid by the witness. It's freaking ridiculous. The report, his report kind of starts off a little bit, you know, you. You're reading it.

It starts off a little bit rough. It says something like, hey, the conduct of various military soldiers may not have met the high standards. But then he goes, I've come to the firm conclusion that the vast majority of the allegations made against the British military, which this inquiry was required to investigate, including, without exception, all the most serious allegations were wholly and entirely without merit or foundation. Very many of these baseless allegations were the product of deliberate and calculated lies on the part of those who made them and who then gave evidence to this inquiry in order to support and perpetuate them. Other false allegations were the result of inappropriate and reckless speculation on the part of the witnesses. I have also come to the firm conclusion that the approach of the detainees and that a number of the other Iraqi witnesses to giving of their evidence was both. both unprincipled in the extreme and wholly without regard for the truth.

Such was the extent to which some of these witnesses told deliberate and calculated lies to this inquiry that I felt necessary to indicate that such was the case. So it's total freaking lies. Forbes's conclusion couldn't have been clearer. The work of this inquiry has established beyond doubt that all the most serious allegations made against the British soldiers involved in the Battle of Danny Boy and its aftermath. and which have been hanging over these soldiers for the last 10 years have been found to be wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation, and ingrained hostility, end quote. For the accusations to have been withdrawn and refuted as comprehensively as this was an amazing feeling.

I cannot describe what it was like to feel that weight lifting off my shoulders. It was immense. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to happen that day. If the findings had gone the other way, who knows what might have happened next? So for the inquiry to come up with these conclusions to back everything, I'd said, it felt liberating a release. Then you go on to say some of the more minor claims than what we were talking about. They should have been given drink.

And you're like, you say, I could have given them water. And you say, you know, I can look back and see that I should have given them some water. Bro, I'm going to tell you right now, no one is getting water. So maybe you put that in the book. Maybe you're trying to be nice. these guys are not getting any water from me after they freaking tried to kill us. It ain't happening. I mean, I'll put a tourniquet off.

They're going to die, but they're not going to die on a seven-minute drive back to the compound. You say, I felt bad in a strange way the public purse had been spent $31 million. Yeah. So that pissed off some politicians. Yeah. And then they started to go hard. House of Commons, Secretary of State for Defense, Michael Fallon. Fallon was sharply critical of both the Iraqi witnesses and their legal team.

The Iraqi detainees, their accomplices, and their lawyers must bear the brunt of the criticism for this protracted nature and 31 million pound cost of this inquiry. He revealed that the solicitors regulation authority, the SRA, people that tracked the lawyers, had decided to investigate two firms. Phil Shiner's public interest lawyers and Lee Day, the firm that is the so-called militialist for breaches of professionals. standards. So they go after these guys with the governing act of lawyers over in your country. Fallon saved one of his most powerful observations until the very end. I add only one final comment. Following the Battle of Danny Boy, five soldiers were awarded the Military Cross

and won the conspicuous gallantry cross for their conduct there and in other engagements in early 2004. Other acts of bravery emerged clearly in the accounts of the battle. This is who our servicemen and women are. The reputation of our armed forces has been hard won in the service of our nation. It will survive the baseless slurs of those who seek to undermine those on whom we all depend. You go on to say the only sour note that entire December day was the reaction of the lawyers involved. Fucking right, I thought, when Fallon said they owed the soldiers an apology, but PIL rejected that suggestion.

These guys didn't even freaking apologize. They're scum. Yeah. The SRA, the solicitor's regulation authority, they go hard. Although they do, Lee Day gets off. Am I saying that right? Lee Day, yeah. Lee Day gets off.

They're cleared by the SRA. I was kind of bum when I saw that. They were charged 19 charges of professional conduct. They got off somehow. PIL, though, the government's evidence made a number of claims, but two are particularly shocking. First, it suggested that PIL had misgivings over the credibility of the evidence of its clients in March 2013, but as a full 12 months before it withdrew the allegations of

unlawful killing. So they knew that people weren't unlawfully killed. And for a year, they just kept saying it. Secondly, the dossier claimed that PIL had used a fixer or agent in Iraq who had made what it described as unsolicited approaches to potential victims. The result of this deeply unethical process had been explosion in a number of cases that the PIL had filed against British forces. So Phil Shiner meanwhile he gets charged 24 counts

You didn't have to say anything about bad about Phil Shiner This is so good You just had to state the facts on this Scum bag He tried and failed to have his disciplinary held in private Thankfully put him in public like everyone else I was actually So how the role was reversed

I went to the courtroom Oh beautiful when he was up in the dock So it's the role is reversed So I'm in the bleak And he's there. Did he make eye contact with you? Nah. No, he's a weak man, weak man.

And so he's, he's now waiting for his trial date. Oh, right now. Yeah, right now in the high court. So the highest court in the UK, he'll go down. So yeah, we're just, um. Wait, you said he'll go down or he'll get out? No, he'll go down. He's going down.

Yeah, yeah. The evidence is too credible. I mean, it's mad. But it was like, it's very surreal. So I wore my regimental tie. tie blue yellow blue and I sat there and I just looked at him and he was just a little weasel you know but it's calmer you know he gets charged with 24 counts um 24 charges leveled against him of which Shiner denied six admitted nine counts of acting without integrity and one

count of acting recklessly and partly accepted an additional mine so he admitted he paid a fixture over $25,000 in referral fees. God, he admitted paying witness to change their evidence. Shiner attempted to tell the tribunal that because he was under a lot of stress, he was not responsible for his actions. And as a result, his actions were not dishonest. But then they had all these emails, like well articulated emails of how he wanted things to go down. The tribunal also heard a written statement from Colonel James Coot who'd been in command

at Danny Boy. The false allegations leveled against the soldiers in my. command were among the most serious against the British Army since the Second World War. I didn't think soldiers solicitors could simply make or endorse false statements. I recall my sense of anger and dismay about those allegations. The nature of those false allegations raised at a press press conference resulted in extremely stressful and demoralizing decade for me and other soldiers. Four days later, the tribunal concluded finding Shiner guilty of 22 misconduct charges

with the remaining two left on file. He was struck off as a solicitor and ordered to pay the cost of the prosecution, beginning with a down payment of 250,000 pounds. Yes. After the case, Colonel Coote said that Shiner should now apologize. It would be appropriate if Shiner apologized now to the soldiers and their families for what they have been through. So did the Secretary of Defense. Michael Fallon. Phil Shiner made soldiers' lives a misery by pursuing false claims of torture and murder.

Now he should apologize. Phil Shiner did not apologize. I apologize. I hope they televised that. It's on my film. What about the case that's coming? I might fly to England. Does it catch that? I want to see this guy go down.

This is cool, too. This is what a slime ball this guy is. One month after being struck off, Phil Shiner declared bankruptcy. One year later, the insolvency service discovered a series of financial deals, including transferring his $300,000 family home, a couple of guitars, a family. He put it all into a family truck. The terms of trust allowed him to continue living in the house. He sold two properties, referring the money to PIL.

Basically, he just tried to do a big shell game with his money. Yeah. Justin Dion, the official receiver, said, Mr. Shiner thought he could be clever by giving away his assets to his family members, so when he declared himself bankrupt, there wasn't anything to pay his creditors with. Sadly, he was mistaken as all his activities were easily spotted. The insolvency service has said it has recovered just under 500,000, but Shiner's outstanding debts remained at six point.

Five million pounds. Yes. When Shiner was struck off, I was pleased. He could never now do again what he'd been doing and put people like me through the years of hell that he dragged us through. He never apologized. Even if he did now, I think it's too late.

I agree. There was a time in place to do so, but decided not to. I think he's heartless and a coward for not having done so. The contrast with the bravery shown by the troops that Danny Boy couldn't be sharper. Yeah. Having the accusations out there

and given credence by the person, public inquiry. See, that's, it meant it tarnished your names. And that's like, I guarantee right now there's people in England that are go, oh, Brian Wood, he's that war criminal. Yeah. Like right now. Yeah.

Maybe the movie helped or whatever, but like there's still people that, oh, yeah, those guys killed me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it even hurts now. Like, my medals, they're in my sock drawer at home. Mm-hmm.

You know, and I just don't feel, I don't know, there's a lot that's, I don't know, there's a shadow still where I put them on for remembrance but they're not displayed anywhere they're just in my, in a pouch in my sock drawer because I don't know it's just been a long slog

and albeit it was all done and Shina was then accountable for what he put us through but I don't know one day I will mount them and put them somewhere that my kids can can see but yeah they're still in my socks drawing one in my bedroom

um yeah like you said the book mud sticks the fact that the government allowed the inquiry to happy makes me so angry the fact that they did so and then failed to offer us any support or backup like it would have been so easy for them to snuff this out yeah they have all this information um some of those accusations i can't believe that someone didn't smell a rat one of the detainees claimed he'd been out grazing cows on the battlefield when the action took place another claimed he'd been there because he'd been out buying 40 liters of yogurt for a wedding a guy without transportation making a 15 kilometer round trip to buy industrial quantities of yogurt in the middle of nowhere where was the yogurt did the cows eat it all more seriously someone

should have looked at the stuff at the start and said there's nothing to this move on yeah like that would have been so the thing even if if anyone is interested if they were to go on to my social media on Instagram and have a look at the photos from the 20th anniversary which is not long gone May and if you look at the photos you'll be like

how did this even from the photos and the engagements on the videos how did this even go that how far it went because you can see just in them clips how brutal and how ready they were it's just

yeah I just don't get it they might have been farmers that's what they reckon yeah There was not one farming tool. I said that in the courtroom. I said, show me the farm tools. Yeah, that was like such a classic part of the book. Because when you started getting a little more uppity about it,

you're like, oh, I didn't see. Maybe they were planting, you know, seeds with their freaking machine guns or something. Yeah, and that's what it was. There was no hoes. There was no rakes. There was no shovels. Not one thing. God.

You get an email from Major General Chalmers. Chalmers? Chalmers. Chalmers. Chalmers. Yeah. Doug Chalmers. He was the colonel of the regiment.

and he sent you, I'll close out the book. And again, get the book, but I'm going to close out. There's a ton more in it, but he sends you an email and he says, you have given up a considerable amount of your own time recently to explain to the public what you have all been through and the impact it has had on you, your family, and others involved. Those that have seen, heard or read your interviews tell me that you maintained your dignity and composure despite the pressure, despite the pressure and that you were a superb ambassador for the soldiers, the army, and the regiment.

Hopefully you may now be able to put the inquiry behind you all, allowing you and the others involved to get on with your lives. So that's kind of what you did. Once this was over, you got on with your life. Yeah. You did end up getting out of the army. and immediately started doing, what, you joined the charity. Yeah, my regimental charity.

Yeah. And that sounded like a pretty good passion project for you to get into. Massively. It was such a good purpose and the Y was just incredible. So we've done a load of good stuff, including cycling across America.

Yeah, with Jay Baldwin. Yeah, guy was a double amputee. Yeah, and just chugged it out on his arms. I mean, some days I felt sorry for myself and John, he's actually in the studio, good buddy and we were both in the same same team and some days we wanted to moan but jay didn't even moan about one thing so who am i yeah to moan when he's just there keep pedaling and then he were going through west virginia and then he gets hit by a dog you know dog latches onto his arm and then he's

unclipped he's like no legs and he's like i'm going home to get me home i've had enough why is it always me and we just have a bit of banner and then he's back on the next day got stitched up Actually, when I read that part of the book and he said he wanted to go home, I was like, oh, damn, I guess this is like a failure, you know, I guess. But then nope, he straps back on and gets back to it. And next day he's out grinding. And that was just a real incredible experience because I was involved with people who I fought hard with, people with life changing injuries and people who, you know, have got, you know, mental, you know, injuries from what they've, and we've just all gone out on this incredible, journey and we managed to raise enough money to send j to australia for osia integration which is pineal surgery to insert titanium legs through the femurs up to his pelvis which will allow him to stand up to go for a pee or to tuck his kids in or play some golf because his sockets he wasn't getting on with because of the tissue that was so thin it was just causing him infections and sores

so he needed a specialist of treatment so we rallied the troops and went on this incredible journey across and actually was jay which said we'll do it in a headwind so instead of doing the opposite way we went like and i was fuming i bet you said it's honest yeah i was pissed i was like why you why have we done this this way he's like well we might as well just do it with this with those titanium things is there any part of the titanium that leaves the skin or is it or is it internal crazy no it's internal so you basically unclip your um quick release catch and then if you're sleeping and then you want to go for a walk re-clip and then you're off they're thin legs but they're just so good and it

changed it was game-changer for him he knew he needed it why do you need surgery for it because it comes up through your femur bone all the way up inside it goes straight through your femur to your pelvis that's inside and then there's a little bit of the sort of titanium which comes out about that much so there is titanium that leaves your body yeah sticking out all the time sticking out and he just clips in and then off he walks it's amazing it's like really and it helped him out so much but again we had to go and raise the money for it you know he's given so much to his you know to his country that that they should be looking after that for him

but unfortunately that doesn't happen that's not the case and we have to go and raise the money which is incredible but for me like I'm on this sort of post-traumatic growth I'm on a journey now and I love giving back. I always believe we're two mistakes away from being in a hole. And I would like to know that if I ended up in that hole, there'll be some good people who would get around me and try and drag me out. So that's what I'd try and do.

And I did, in 2001, I did, it was called the Ultimate Sacrifice. I basically ran for the Fallen. We lost 635 men and women. in Afghanistan, in Iraq. And I wanted to do something unique and fitting for remembrance. So I went live with it that I would run one mile for each serving personnel that paid the ultimate sacrifice. And it was 25 days, and I was going to run no less than 26.2 miles a day.

So 26 names, fresh names, were on my top imprinted, inscribed. and then each mile I would read the individual who lost their life and went on this incredible journey of remembrance I just thought I had sort of I think it's £20,000 was my target and I thought it's unrealistic if I'm honest I thought that's a big ask but do you know what punchy target small change big differences regardless it's fine and then I started going and then it got a little bit of traction and it started to grow and then I was the Ben Shepard who is a good friend of

He got me on the TV. And I spoke about this journey of remembrance on TV and then it went mad. But I always like struggling. A marathon a day consecutive. It takes its toll on the body. And I started to then get messages from loved ones saying, Brian, today you're running for my husband.

Thank you so much for remembering him and his kids are up in the morning. waiting for you to release names and just thank you so then I knew I had to I had to do it because there was people waiting for me because on Instagram I'll take a photo of my shirt and then post it

and I was having people message me saying oh I'm waiting for my dad you know his young kid waiting for his dad to come up on my shirt sorry so I knew I was doing making a real big difference so the pain that I was going through was irrelevant to the pain that they were going through losing their loved ones and I was on this mad journey and then yeah I managed to to get to the end

and raised I think it's 170,000 for walking with a wounded charity and then I went again in 2022 but brought on the Falklands campaign and I went on this brilliant journey and I actually I was more robust and I was flying each marathon I was flying and then the RRF got hold of me and said we want to fly you out to the Falkland Islands to do four on there. because it's really poignant and I was like let's do it literally landed took my dad phone my dad with phone my dad up when they phoned me and said dad do you want to come to the Falklands with me because if there's anyone knows me the best it's you

and if there's anyone who can help me it's you and he was like I'm there son let's go they flew me out to the Falklands I landed put my kit on we had a hired vehicle that they sorted out we drove down this one road from the airport to Port Stanley and I ran and I just ran the hardest the hard as I could. And it was horrendous elevation, the wind, the rain, snow, all in four seasons in one. And I just got on it and just get it done.

And, you know, I finished that and I was like just overwhelmed with everyone getting involved. It's brilliant. It looked like Forrest Gump, all the people running with me. It was amazing. I had like moms who had lost their son, you know, everyone joining me with their son's T-shirt from their regiments that they were, you know, who they were serving. in it just was like this incredible military community come together and just pushed on and I was like this is brilliant and then recently I did the Marathon de Sables just went out there and got amongst it in that desert and it was tough but it's good for me to have this purpose and this you know reason to train and reason to compete with my

sons so I think my youngest will go into the parachute regiment and I want to be first and robust enough to push him and test him and guide him. And if I stop, then I'm not doing my kids the justice that they need from me. And that's when I launched, and if you don't mind, is that okay to speak about my business now? Of course. So I knew I wasn't the only person to go through some hard yards. And a mantra that really helped me through some demanding times as keep attacking.

just get up show up and attack the day and just keep attacking in if i'm in that mindset that no matter what i'm going through if i keep on it and keep going that it will surpass and i thought i'm not the only person to go through some hard yard so what i'm going to do is i've got no money i don't really understand business but i'm going to do like a pre-order so i got some like clothing did a lot pre-order because I didn't have the cash in the bank and I just thought do you know what if it's called on the little side hustle it's fine and then I launched it and it just went out of control to be honest I was like I'm under more pressure now than I was during the battle of Danny Roy because everyone was in demand for it and I was like oh my god I'm like three weeks in the rears told my

wife to quit what she was doing because she needs to come in and help me and support me and do all of the package up orders basically all the back end stuff so and then we've just gone into like team wear so we do bespoke um sort of soccer kits rugby tennis golf or every sport you can think of and this is a body armor like i i believe it put your body armor on and move with a purpose and you go and sometimes it's not as easy as that but you recock and re-engage and you go and um now i'm really really proud of where we're at the moment like i said i've made loads of that you're of mistakes in business. But, you know, I mean, trying to enjoy the process and supporting others, which is a big thing

for me, and just trying each day. You know, we'll go through a lot of hard yards. Life is beautiful, but it's a real demand. However, you can't let what you've gone through define who you are. And there's good things out there if you don't play the victim. No one knows nothing. You've got to work hard and just keep working. And the harder you work, the lucky you become sometimes.

at what point did you decide to write the book did you get approached by a publisher i imagine they must have been banging down your door yeah i did i had a conversation my dad whether or not to write the book and and he said look it's completely up to you and i said i'm a stickler for the truth and there was stuff out there which wasn't the truth and i wanted it from the horse's mouth so i thought about it then i then reached out to a publicist because I'm not clever enough to negotiate stuff like that. So the publishers was like, yes, this is gold. It's like Pandora's box.

Leave it with me. And then there was four publishers that came in. And we went with Peng Wing Random House. And I couldn't even believe it. It's like I personally don't think, if I'm honest, warrant being here on this table having this conversation with you guys. I just don't think I qualify to do that, if I'm honest. And then to have a book or people have conversations about a book, I'm like, I mean, that's like, that's not me.

I don't think that's who I should be or I don't deserve to have that. But sometimes, you know, you've got to take opportunities and this was one. We went with Payman Random House, book was published, then end up going into the Sunday Times bestseller in number three. I got to number two, Michelle Obama was number one. I was getting nowhere near that. So I was like, you know, I'm going to come second best and it's okay. It's fine for Michelle Obama. So now it's incredible.

And then not long after that, it was optioned for film. And that was a whole, another journey, which I was like, that's never going to happen. It's never going to happen because only, I think it's, well, you'll know this. I think it's like 2% of stories or fiction to get made into a film. It's great green lit. It's less than that. Yeah, it's overly, no, it's so. Well, maybe, I don't know what it is in England.

but in America those people have screenplays tens of thousands of screenplays and presents them all the time and tens of thousands of books that get optioned and even if you get optioned

that doesn't mean anything it doesn't mean a damn thing I went through this and I was like it's never gonna happen it's never gonna happen and then I was delivering a talk on resilience to a business in London and I was on the way to the train and my phone was ringing

I answered the phone and they said listen we're green lit we're done we're going to to start filming in a month. So they got the cast together. And the guy what played me, Anthony Boyle, is... He played in Masters of Air. Yeah.

That's how... Because I haven't watched your show yet, because I couldn't find it until you got here in the States. It's on YouTube. I searched, like, I was like searching all the back channel things. I should have texted that. I was trying to find a pirated version at least, right? So can you just rent it on YouTube?

Yeah, I think it's like $2.99 on things. YouTube yeah so I got to know Anthony Boyle such a talent I mean he'll go to the he's already like doing manhunt masters of the air he's flying but I turned up and he's an Irish lad and I turned up he started like speaking like me he's he was in character with me and I was like calm down he knew me more than I knew myself and he was just the best best kid and I just loved working with him Sam Miller the director was brilliant with me because the most important thing I need to get right was the battle scene. The insignia, because it stresses me out when people are, when the insignia wrong or

the weapon handling is wrong, it kills me, it destroys me. So I was accountable for that. So I said to Sam, as long as I can consult on every military aspect, you can not do what you want, but you can go on this journey with the story. But I need to, I won't sign this off until I'm fully in charge of this military and so on because I'm quite rigid and it needs to be done properly. So I was just thrashing the lads on fire maneuver like drills like it needs to be proper But they were invested in it they wanted to work so I'm gonna go home and watch this like I was fired up right now

How long did it take to do the filming? So we done it through COVID believe it or not So we're meant to go to Jordan to do the battle scene of Danny boy but that was cancelled But the budget had to be used in a I don't know how it works but the budget had to be used in a period of time and our budget was launched to us or released us because it was a BBC drama a 90-minute drama. It wasn't a cinematic, which there's elements of, am I happy with the film? I'm happy with a film,

but they didn't go into the courtroom. No, they missed the trick. The last scene is me at court, just about to go in. And I was like, you're waiting for someone else to pick that up now. Oh, because now they're going to get a sequel. Cool, absolutely.

Yeah, well, maybe. Yeah, well, it's opened up for it. And that, you know, when I went through, and done the negotiations. I left it allowing myself to do that if something did happen down the line. But they missed it out. However, am I pleased?

I am really pleased with it. Look, I got to be involved in something which I never thought was even capable. So, of course, I'm going to be pleased. And I'm pleased with the work that I put in for it because I worked a lot of hours on it. And like I said, who would imagine would he, to even write a book or to do that?

It was very, very surreal. So how long did it take the film? I think it was about four, five months. Four or five months. That's a long time. But I think a lot of it was because of COVID as well. Movement was difficult. That makes sense.

And then how was it received when it came out? Really good. I mean, there's a good few million that watched it. And I was under pressure because everyone who was, I was representing instead of life. so everyone in the Battle of Danny Boy and there was a lot I mean there was only a few of us

what had done conducted trench warfare but there was a lot of firing as in there was a lot involved in the prison exchange there was a lot and it's a British army you know current big battle that people talk about so I was under pressure

but the feedback was really really good because the thing is I toned it down a little bit as well to the battle scene when you watch it you're like that's tasty but I rained it in because I didn't want it to be too over the top. It needs to be rained in and properly done. And yeah, it was really well received from the regiment and from the lads.

A couple weren't overly happy, but you can't please everyone. But they're the people which think it should have been there that had been doing the book and being used to the film. So listen, I can't control that. I've just got to be true to who I am. Yeah, you can definitely get some. some resentment happening. Yeah.

You know, because everyone makes sacrifices. They were there. Yeah, absolutely 100%. It's the same thing you were talking about earlier is like, oh, well, why did you come home? Yeah. Why did someone else die and I didn't? And so now you can look, why did you get to write this book? Yeah, of course.

Why did you get to be in this movie or have this movie? So that can cause some definite resentment. My answer to that is I put myself out there and write the book. I'm not stopping you from doing the same. Go and do it. But you've got to take a lot of time. It's hard to get through it. And it's a process.

And, you know, go into it. What was your process for writing the book? It was hard. It was cathartic, but it was very, very hard. I had someone come in and structure it for me because I'm not overly intelligent. So I had, like, I put the collateral and the content was all in sync how I wanted it to be.

And someone who, Pingman Random House got, he was brilliant come in and made it as an even flow flowed it so it's a flow read where I would have just I would have written it

how I would say it and that's just what I do I say what I see basically and he obviously done his what he was there to do yeah yeah I mean that's awesome and then you've got the whole

you do like speaking as well that's why you're out here in America right now you're speaking to a company your buddy's company which is pretty awesome. Does that get us up to speed? Is that get us to present day? We there?

What else we got? Yeah, present day. I mean, I'm going away next year, early next year, doing a 500-kilometer challenge in Lapland. So it's going to be a cold challenge. But it's to support military charities and give back, which I'm looking forward to. I actually want to get back from here.

I'm going to do two stages of Tour de France, cycling. So that would be an experience. So yeah, keep myself. One of the mountain phases of the Tour de France? What are you doing? Nah, it's not mountain, mountain phase. I'm doing six and seven stages.

Okay. So not the Peronese. Maybe next time. I'm not bike fit, like Uber bike fit. What's your, what you're like, so you're clearly you're focused on sort of, what is it, distance and that type of training. Endurance is a, endurance training. Endurance is a good thing for me. I'm quite, I'm quite.

decent long distance on the bike and running. Soccer is awesome for that. Brilliant. Because it's what 90 minutes of sprinting and running and it's 9. And it's 90 minutes of explosive. And there's no, there's no stopping in football other than a throwing or a free kick. You're on it all of the time.

So it definitely stayed being good fit. Even for the military to start on the start line with my kit on with my helmet doing a two-miler, I wanted to win. And I'll tell you what, if I didn't win, you would have to work hard to beat me. So that's what with my kids and that. Now, if we go out, there's no such thing as an easy session.

We go out and we grind. And, you know, I like to think I helped Bailey before he went into the parachute regiment. I got him up to a standard where I could release him, knowing that I think I've done my job as a dad. How old was he when he joined? Boy, so I went to Harrogut at 16 and then went there for a year, Army Foundation College as a sort of pre-Para. and then at 17 he then went across to Paradepe which is the men and it was a massive change for him like completely different level and he had to he sold his soul basically he but I'm glad that he sold the soul yeah as in he had to dig out everything that he had in his in his locker and there

wasn't much because he's a fresh 17 year old against like real robust you know, 23, 24 year old. And he passed, you know, P Company, which is a massive week of tests for them. And now he's like jumping in, you know, doing his jumps. He's being to Cyprus. He's just been like overly busy. He's going to come out to the States and doing a big sort of joint exercise with the U.S. airborne. Nice.

So he's... What do they call you when you're not airborne in the British Army? Crappat. Crapp. me as well oh he just gets on you with that no because I think he's got too much respect because I'll be like okay that's fine but let's go for a 20 mile and then we'll see who the hat is at the end of that 20 mile because I think I still could can test him at distance mentally I can grind it but but I'll tell you a funny story

but just before he went off on his journey we were on and off on 10 K's racing against each other and I kind of knew he was surpassing me, but I just wanted to, a last leveler, and it was near Christmas. So he was on leave. And I said to him, let's go. One final, winner takes all 10K, six miles of grind. And he was like, love that. And we went off.

And for four miles, I was like really, really in the hurt locker. And I could look to him as trying to gauge where he is facially in his expressions. and how he was breathing. And I thought, oh, he's doing all right there. So I thought, my last call now is to try and break him mentally

and get in his head. So I said to him, so I looked at him, and I was on my threshold, but I looked at him and I said, right, Bailey, we need to up this, increase this pace.

And we were doing like seven minute miles, so quick. And I looked at him, I said, we need to up this because I've got a lot more in a tank. Do you fancy it? Thinking then,

I had got him mentally, and he was like, that's not a problem. And I was like, then he broke me. So reverse psychology. He's done me and I was like, oh no. And then off, he went and I was like, there you go.

You've earned it. Yeah. He beat me probably about 45 seconds. Got to the finish line at home, shook his hand. And I was like, proud of you. Yeah. You've done it. Let's go.

And Charlie, he's 15 now. So he looks at his brother. They got on really well. No pressure. There's not a lot. I know, yeah. But Charlie's robust. He's gritty.

You know, Bailey has gone through that stage, but he wasn't streetwise. like Charlie's streetwise, but Charlie just needs more encouragement. Like Bailey will shut the door, he'll be running and won't even tell anyone, he'll be gone. But Charlie, it's like, come on, you can do it. There's more encouragement.

But as soon as he's on the start line, his mentality is he's not going to lose, but it's getting into the start line. But like I said, he sees his brothers, you know, when he comes home and his way of life, that's what he wants. And I'm so proud, because people think,

oh my god you've gone through all that why are you letting your sons join and i was like i would never stand in the way of them serving their country not a chance i mean i was a little bit unlucky they are good kids who want to you know serve their country and i would never stand in the way of that and i love it and i'll try and support them as much as i can when i can so i'm i'm really proud of them outstanding outstanding um People can find you. You've got Brianwoodmc. dot,

CO.uk. Brianwood. Yeah, Brianwoodmc. co. UK is my personal website. Then you're on Facebook, Twitter, Twitter X,

and Instagram. That's all at Brianwood MC. Yeah. If people want to connect with you, you've got everything on there. You've got your keep attacking. Yeah. Stuff on there.

You've got your public speaking. stuff on there. So if people want to find you, they can connect through any of those various methods and get the book. You can order the book there. Now we know that you can watch the movie on YouTube so America can watch this movie too.

BBC doesn't hook it up for America. Nah. I don't know why they're not great at that whole spill. But yeah, it is what it is. There's nothing I can do. You know the show This Is England? Yeah. You've seen that show?

Yeah. They don't have it in America. It's like you can't watch it on anything. They have like the movie, but they don't have the show. Can you watch anything in this? They have some of it. I don't know. There's got to be some deal that works out.

I think it's not good. But we'll watch this one on YouTube for sure. Echo Charles. Yeah. You have any questions? Yes, I do. Uh-oh. So this Phil Shiner?

Yep. Shiner. We got a lot of hate coming over here. We got a lot of hate for Phil Schindler. So what's he did? You said he's waiting for his trial or whatever. Yeah, so he's up for two accounts. And do you know what?

I'm not too sure what the actual accounts were because he was up for a few. it got whittled down but he's going into the dock soon in the crown court which is our biggest court in london to then get cross-examined or you know the whole trial will will um play out and i'll go down i'll go down and see how how this play i want to come watch i legitimately want to come watch and my wife's a brit so maybe i can organize some kind of a trip so i can go over there and watch and maybe I can cheer or I can have signs or something like that to do some American activities so let's say he goes down what does he get I mean I guess you'd have to know the count like that all the charges and stuff yeah but you know what are we going for we've been for

criminal like time or what yeah I think he might worm out I think I think he might worm out of time because he's health oh worm out of time so he might yeah and he's a solicitor himself So he knows exactly how to. He's delayed it already for God knows how long. Yeah. So he knows, yeah, what to do. What's his, in your opinion or hypothesis? Like, what's his motivation to do that?

I mean, because it's just straight up like, oh, I'm going to milk this scenario. How can I make some money? Money mode. Who cares who it hurts? Yeah. Damn. It's crazy. Yeah.

Is he kind of an anti-England, he's anti-England, anti-Britain type guy as well. I don't even know him as an individual, Jocko, so I'm not too, I can't state that. But to go against, you know, the soldiers who go out and sacrifice everything, it's crazy. Because that starts to make, I'm not saying it makes sense, but it starts to make sense if he had that, like, original attitude, you know, where it's like, hey, I'm kind of, I'm real hard on, like, conduct. And, you know, I'm one of those guys to begin with. And so he's this, you know, kind of watchdog in that way. And then, you know, he's like, you know, I'm real hard on, like, conduct. And then, uses that positioning to then get some money.

You're like, okay, I see the stick there. I think he's seen loopholes as well. I think he's seen areas that he could target to make some good money, some fast money. I bet you on that first case, he probably saw like, oh, he made a lot of money from that first case,

I'm sure. And then he's like, oh, if I can gin up a couple more of these things, he turns into not an ambulance chaser, but like a war crimes chaser. And if you're a war crimes chaser and there's no war crimes, well,

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You can't jump somewhat. What else? You kind of use this and this is in the spirit of clarity on my part. On our part collectively. You used the term a cigar moment. Yeah.

What does that mean? So when you're under the most extreme pressure, you can still have a pause two, three, breather. A bit of a think tank. Like a moment of clarity where I can thank. Sure. So when I was in that, when I was in that. sort of ditch, cover from view and cover from fire, that was my moment of cigar

because it takes long to smoke a cigar. So it's like pause, two, three, suck it in. Right, now we need to go into a planning. Yeah. And then execution phase. So that's how you're still in time to your moment, no matter if it's in a boardroom or on the battlefield. When you're under extreme pressure,

you're still allowing yourself a moment of clarity. So kind of like the old what to relax, around make a call kind of scenario definitely yeah i understand now yes it's good to meet you brother uh Brian any closing thoughts no honestly it's for me to to come here and to be on your podcast and meet echo it's honestly it's so humbling and i know i don't deserve to be here but i've given my best and i really thank you for inviting me to to share my story to a completely different audience and yeah, thank you for that. Well, thank you for joining us.

Thanks for sharing your lessons learned. And most important, thanks for your service to the country, to the country that is our strongest ally. And you went through a couple of world wars with us and a bunch of smaller wars around the world and obviously in Iraq and Afghanistan. And thank you for setting an example of courage of professionalism and integrity.

stands regardless of what gets thrown at it. It's an honor to meet you. And thanks for coming out here. Thank you. And with that, Brian Wood, MC has left the building. I'm very amped to go watch Danny Boy, is the name of the film, by the way, on YouTube. Are you going to watch it immediately when you leave here? Yeah, probably.

What is Danny Boy? I heard that somewhere else. That's another thing, right? There's a bunch of things called Danny Boy. Like there's songs. There's other movies called Danny Boy. There's Danny Boy is not uncommon. Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, I'm going to go watch it on YouTube. This one is different. Yeah. What a, what a, what a, what a, what a, great dude in that whole courtroom drama. Yeah. Which the, which the, apparently the movie doesn't cover. Look, I'm hyped to see the battle. Yeah.

And see how they did it and see what it's like, you know, because even he said it, they softened it up a little bit, you know? But yeah, I'm definitely excited to see that. I saw that the TV show called Masters of the Air, which is a very good series about the air war over Europe. It's fantastic. And the guy that's in that plays Brian Wood. So the, but the legal stuff in the book and just, it's so crazy.

Yeah. Like that you can just throw out those accusations. Yeah. And they get a little bit of traction. And then it's just like, a little more traction, a little more traction. And they're so obviously not true. Yeah.

Yeah. And he had to, he had to, him and all his guys had to suffer for, I mean, 10 years. Yeah. I mean, I don't think they were suffering for the whole 10 years, but probably like five. Yeah. Where they're, hey, this is the, you know, you blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And can you imagine you're sitting there and they're reading things that are just lies? Yeah, so that's not the confusing part. So I dig it, man, and it does suck for sure. But I am kind of, to be honest with you, more fascinated as far as like really curious as to the other guy, this dude, Phil, whatever. Shiner. Yeah, Shiner. Like, why?

I don't get that part of it to like follow through it. Look, I can say, look, you're drunk at a party. You're hating on the guy. for whatever reason. And I even dig like if you're just jealous of him. I, man, I understand. I see how you could get there because jealousy. That's a real thing.

I get it, man. And, you know, you're drunk at a party. You say some stuff to some girl. I don't know, whatever. Or does some guy to reduce his status or something like this? But to like follow through with it, like that hardcore, it doesn't make sense. Well, there's $31 million, right? So that, so there's a lot of money.

There's, dude, you're shaking your head like, that's no big deal. $31 million. I know. But to get. Like, yeah, yeah, you mean eventually, I guess, but still, right, it doesn't, I don't know, bro. I can't get there. It doesn't make sense. Like, unless you're like a sociopath, well, then it's like, all right, bro.

Yeah. Well, I think it's a combination of two things. He probably is like an anti-colonial, anti-England, anti-Briton type of guy anyways, right? Yeah. Like, let's face it, there's people in America right now that jump on any opportunity to do to go and make this happen, right? against American troops. Yeah, I guess so.

So he probably had some level of that. Yeah. And then he had a case that they won, right? And then somebody gets paid $3 million. Well, he's a lawyer. He's going to cut of that $3 million. Yeah. So now he's like,

and he probably, they probably need to reopen that case. Right? Yeah. Because who knows what he did? You know, when a, when like a district attorney or a prosecutor

gets found for doing, something wrong in a case. Dude, they undo all those cases that went in the past. Yeah. They're like, oh, yeah, we're going to, we're going back. Yeah, yeah. Because what did you do to me? Yeah.

So, I mean, they did drop something like a, the guy had hundreds of cases that he was running. Yeah. Plus, this guy had, this guy's a scum. But now that actually, you're kind of laying it out a little bit, I could see how in the big picture it would get to that point where after a while, you know how like you win a case, right? effort, you know, the bright-eyed lawyer is trying to do some justice or whatever, right? And you win the case and you're like, oh, sweet, I made, you know, I made a difference, but I won that case.

So you got, you got that payoff mentally, emotionally of doing a good deed because you got the bad guy, but that separate one of just being a winner, you know, I won the case, I won the case. And then you got paid for it. So now you got that passion going in, one case, two case, ten cases, a hundred cases. is now it starts, certain things start to fade a little bit, start to become, you know, you adapt to it, right? Where it's like, so this whole doing good thing, it's like cool, but.

Yeah, but if you don't like the military already, and you don't think that England should go into some other country. Yeah. This was wrong. And these are colonial activities and it's bad. You have that. You're just like, okay, cool. None of it.

We're going. We actually are in, in this guy's mind, he's going after the quote, bad guys. Right. But then he's going to get. paid to do it. I think that... Dude, there's all kinds of moral slippage

going on with this dude. Yeah, and that's really what it is that it's the result of a slippery slow or could be. I don't know. I don't know. This guy's the exact scenario. But I'm just saying I can get there now

because, yeah, okay, he can be an anti-guy that still doesn't justify like shredding documents and like, hey, I know like, brother's kind of proof that this happened, you know? Well, that's where your own personal morals aren't even allowing you to see like what other people,

think like there's people that think the ends justify the means right oh if we if I can get rid this guy it doesn't matter what I have to do to get rid of them right because they're all doing the wrong they're all doing the wrong thing they're all bad so whatever I need to do if I need to be bad to to to prevent that person from being recognized or whatever doesn't matter yeah let's just go yeah yeah that's true I could see it I could see it but um you know I mentioned this a little bit the the British military I've worked with them on occasion and just always had the utmost respect for their professionalism, the way they behaved. And I thought it was awesome.

Brian Wood just represented that in full form. Starting with his dad, right? Starting with his dad who gave him some good advice along the way. One of them. If you are fit, you'll be sorted. You'll be sorted. You know what I'm saying? So that's what we're doing.

I really appreciate Brian Wood coming on. Awesome representation of military personnel. And shout out to all those troops that were down there, doing what they were doing. So with that, we're trying to stay fit. Are we not? We all big time.

Squats yesterday, by the way. Okay, so you need fuel? What kind of fuel you're going to take? Jock Fuel all day. You know it. Yeah. Get into it. Jock Fuel.com.

Come check it out. We've got, well, I'm drinking a hydrate right now. We got an awesome hydration. Best in the business. Best out there. Nothing else even comes close. By the way, we have the best protein.

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get the protein shake at Wawa, you can go to vitamin shop, get the products, GNC, military commissaries, Afees, Hanford, dash stores in Maryland, Wakefern, Shoprite, ATB, down in Tejas.

Meyer in the Midwest. Wegmans out there on the East Coast, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness. We're there. Shields, we're in there. Small gyms. Everywhere we got our boys out there on the road making it happen Vic is out there making it happen Dave action Jackson Jared they're out there making it happen hey if you if you want stuff inside

your school your jitzy school your crossfit academy whatever email JF sales at joccofuel.com I guess I said crossfit academy I should just said crossfit gym jiu jiu jitza academy so that's what we're doing joccofield dot com check it out it's true that's what we're doing also origin USA if you It starts with Jiu Jitsu geese. You want a ghee. This is all made America stuff, by the way, but you want a Jiu Jitsu ghee. All different kinds of best geesee. So you say best in the business.

These are legitimately best in the business, Jiu Jitsu Gis. So yeah, you get them at least one of those. You need some jeans, best in the business as well, by the way. Multiple options on that one. But they got a bunch of stuff, hoodies, some belts on there, by the way, which I don't think we mentioned enough because I got an origin belt, and it's the best in the business. But they got a lot of cool stuff on there. Hey, by the way, I was just up at Total Archery Challenge.

TAC. And we saw a lot of people wearing that Origin USA hunt gear. Yeah. Myself included, head to toe. I saw that. Head to toe. Yeah, we got such good. We got such good stuff coming. So check that out. That's what we're doing. OriginUSA.com. All made in America. 100% made in America. Even the rivets on the jeans. The drawstrings on the shorts. It's all. Every little fiber made in America. So check out OriginUSA.com to support freedom in the world. Also, we have some law enforcement training, August 27th through August 31st, up in Maine. We have Jitza camp before that. That's sold out, but we still got some openings in the law enforcement first responders military zone there.

So check that out all at originuSA.com. Get some. Also, Jocco has a store. It's called Jocco store. Anyway, this is where you can get your stuff 444 episodes deep and you're still entertaining yourself That line It's a good line

It's a great line actually Nonetheless, joccal store. No one is listening anymore Okay, you could go to defcourt.com too then How about that? Okay, see? Okay, see, there we go All I need to put a little pressure on you, make a diamond

Whichever one you prefer Either one you go to Because it's the same spot by the way This is where you can get your shirts And hats and hoodies Where you can represent Discipline equals freedom you can represent this notion

that's a freaking critical it's a good notion problem here to tell you also a lot of other stuff on there but yeah this is the whole the whole deal here okay so the subscription subscription scenario

called the shirt locker that's a new design every week every month that's what I meant not every week every month good designs by the way did you

good deal Dave yeah texted me a picture of last month's one. Actually, sorry, this month. Yeah, technically it's still this month. Okay. By the time this comes out, it's next month. And he just put, dude.

What is it? Full approval. Back to the book. Oh, that's right. It's a Back to the Future, Back to the Book thing. Yeah. That's right. My daughter, Rana.

Yeah, Pana, hell, yeah. Mm-hmm. She came home from the Jititsu the other day, and she was wearing a shirt locker shirt that had me on a tank. Mm-hmm. with a carbine weapon in each hand firing. The tank was firing. There was kettlebells flying around.

What was that shirt? Was that toxic productivity? What was the purpose of that shirt? That was just... It looks like a comic book. Yeah, yeah. It looks like an old 80s comic book. Yeah.

70s comic book. Like hardcore discipline in your face. Good to go. All go. No stop. No quit. Discipline. Gas, no breaks.

Exactly. There you go. Nonetheless, cool designs. People seem to last. Like them, but that's a new design every month. It's all on jocco store.com. All right. Also, primalbeef.com and Coloradocraftbeef.com.

You need steak in your life. It's going to make you stronger, smarter, faster, just better. Do you eat sloppy joes? You know what sloppy joes are? Yeah, no, I don't. I know what they are, but I don't eat them. Really? I don't like beans.

I never had beans in a sloppy Joe before. I've ever had a sloppy Joe. Maybe there's something different. No, unless we all. I guess you could. I have had sloppy Joe's with no beans, I do believe. And maybe I'm wrong about the beans. I'm not 100% sure.

Anyways, okay, sloppy Joe's. I had sloppy Joe's last night with Colorado craft beef. And how to go? Outstanding. Extra chunky, by the way. I like it. So check those out. Great companies.

Great steak. Thanks for your support on that. Great for your support on that one. We'll move on. Like I said, I'm glad no one's listening because if anyone is listening, they're really not impressed by your gig. I wanted to share with you with us, you know, my. Bro, stories have to have a point. They don't have to, but they should.

Hey, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to Jocco Underground, subscribe to the YouTube channels, psychological warfare, flipsidecanvas.com, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Hey, books, double crossed by Brian Wood. Check that one out. It's an outstanding book. It's a fast read. Like you'll be page turning. Especially when you know a little bit of the background, because I knew the background,

so you kind of want to get to the goods. So check that out also. I've written a bunch of books about leadership. You can check those out. A bunch of kids books too. Where the Warrior Kid 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We got Mikey and the Dragons. We got a movie coming, by the way.

Do you know that? Mm-hmm. Got a movie coming called The Way of the Warrior Kid. So check that out. It's going to be coming probably in about a year. Starring Chris Pratt. You know Chris Pratt? Oh, that's right.

You're friends with him. Hell, yeah. Directed by Mick G. You approve of Mick G. Big Ten. Terminator Salvation, come on. Lots of good.

When I saw Terminator Salvation, I thought, yeah, he can make anything happen that needs to happen on the screen. Like, if you can make that movie, you can make some stuff happen.

Yeah. Yeah. So, anyways, that's coming. Miking the Dragons. Boutface by Hackworth. Anyways, I've written a bunch of books.

You guys know them. Check them out. Also, we have a leadership consultancy. Eschlon front. We solve problems Through leadership. If you have problems in your life and your business and your world, they're leadership problems. We can teach you leadership so you can work through those problems Check out echelonfront.com. Also, we have an online training academy Extremeownership.com where you can learn these leadership skills. Leadership is not an inherited trait

It's not something that you only use when you're on the wire diagram as the senior person in charge. No, no matter where you are It doesn't mean it doesn't even matter if you work. You have leadership requirements in life, in your relationships, in your family. It's everywhere. So learn the leadership skills. You don't have to go through life guessing. We'll tell you what to do. We'll tell you how to do it.

Go to Extremeownership.com to check that out. If you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. We're going to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors. dot org so you can help mama lee help our heroes also heroes and horses.org Micah Fink up there in the mountains helping veterans find themselves and Jimmy May has his

organization beyond the brotherhood.org taking people out of seals out of seal teams out of special operations and placing them with guidance and screening into companies, organizations, teams where they can excel. Beyond the Brotherhood.org. Check that out. If you want to connect with Brian Wood once again on the interwebs, go to Brianwoodmc.c.c.c.com. Okay.

He is on Facebook. He is on TwitterX. He's on the gram at Brian Wood MC. And for us, I'm over there at jaco.com. I'm also on social media at jocco. Echo is also on social media occasionally. He's at Echo Charles. Just be careful.

There's an algorithm on there, and its whole purpose for existing is to waste your time and ruin your life. So don't let it. Go in there, get what you want to get and then get out of there. And to Brian Wood once again, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining. Thank you for sharing your lessons learned. Thanks for your bravery and leadership on the battlefield and off the battlefield as well. And thanks to our military personnel around the world, American and our allies, especially Great Britain for tonight.

Thank you for your bravery and your professionalism on whatever battlefield you find yourselves on. We thank you for your service. And the same goes to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service. As well as other first responders, thank you for your bravery and professionalism here at home. And everyone else out there. Keep that lesson, that mindset lesson in mind that we got from Brian Wood. and from his mates as well. Sometimes when the odds are not looking good,

like 15 to 3 or 28 to 5, when you're outnumbered and you're outgunned, do not run away. Do not try and avoid the problem. Instead, fix bayonets. Get aggressive. Go on the attack and then attacking. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.

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