Shawn Ryan Show - #201 Jon Truett - Optimizing Human Performance

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Jon Truett is a former British Army soldier with a 23-year career, including 20 years serving in the elite 22 Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment of the United Kingdom Special Forces. Enlisting in the Parachute Regiment in 1998, he passed the grueling SAS selection process in 2002 and participated in numerous high-stakes operations, including multiple deployments in Iraq combating insurgent networks. His service spanned complex global conflicts post-9/11, involving counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and covert reconnaissance. Truett faced significant psychological and physical challenges, including stress-related alopecia and personal tragedies, which shaped his perspective on resilience and mental health. Today, he is an advocate for neurotechnology, exploring wearable devices to enhance human performance and detect neurological conditions early. Truett shares his expertise through speaking engagements, podcasts, and his work with organizations like Avanti Communications, where he serves as Director of Special Programs, focusing on strategic solutions and interdisciplinary collaboration. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://uscca.com/srs https://www.betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://www.meetfabric.com/shawn https://www.fastgrowingtrees.com - USE CODE SRS https://www.shawnlikesgold.com | 855-936-GOLD https://www.helixsleep.com/srs https://hexclad.com/srs https://www.paladinpower.com/srs https://www.patriotmobile.com/srs https://www.rocketmoney.com/srs https://www.shopify.com/srs Jon Truett Links: IG - https://www.instagram.com/jon_neuro  LI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-truett-60841b222 Avanti Communications - https://www.avanti.space  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Truitt, welcome to the show. Well, thank you for the invitation. Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome. We've been wondering if this happened for a long time, so you'll be the second SAS guy on the podcast. And I'm just infatuated with your guys' life stories and career and looking forward to a really good discussion here. So we'll do a life story on you, starting at childhood, go through your military career all 20...

Just under 23 years. 23 years, 19 deployments. That's right. Wow, wow. So we got a lot to cover. And I want to get into a little bit of the history of what you guys were doing in Ireland back in the day. So because you know primarily it's American focused and you know we're not we're not as in tune with everything that's happened over there as is we probably should be. So I'd love to get a little history lesson on that.

But everybody starts off with an introduction. John Truitt, a man forged in the crucible of elite military service with 23 years in the British Army, including 19 operational tours across Iraq and beyond. A parachute regiment veteran who volunteered for the grueling SAS selection in 2002, a survivor of profound personal loss, navigating the deaths of your mother in 2004 and father in 2005 while serving in high stakes operations. A pioneer in human performance dedicated to unlocking the potential, the potential of physiology through innovative technology and expert knowledge. An advocate for rehabilitation, working on initiatives like amputee football tournaments

to help conflict survivors rebuild stable, meaningful lives. Engaged to be married to your fiance, Ellie. When are you guys getting married? I'd like to share. Congratulations man. Met her at breakfast today. Amazing woman. Amazing woman. And so we have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account and they've been with me since the beginning when I was doing this in my attic. Turned it into one hell of a community. And so one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. This is from Steven Casey.

What do you see as the boundary between human endeavor and neuro controlled robotics on the battlefield? And if there's no real boundary, does that mean we substitute robots for human wholesale if we do what does that mean as to the ultimate human cost of war which has historically been huge metric been a huge metric on warfare great question yeah and I wish there was only one line, because in the middle there's the partnership of robots and human beings in one entity like exoskeletons. So starting off with human beings, you know, and you look at the ongoing conflicts right

now, they're done human to human assisted by drone technologies, not yet robotics to, you know, there are elements of it. And if you go to the other end, you know, having robots just doing conflict, I think to me I can't envisage what that looks like. I think it's a leap too far, you know, the conflict will become increasingly machine teaming and increasingly I can't see the sense

of humans standing in defending positions where you can put automated machines to do it. Technology certainly allows you to do that in a responsible manner. I think we can be a lot more judicious about how we put lives at risk, but I just cannot see a future where you will not need highest trained soldiers. I think soldiers are becoming more and more special and more and more enabled. One of the key points I've been looking at most recently is exoskeletons. It's all about the concept of human augmentation. My worry with exoskeletons

is you start putting robotics around humans to assist them in what they do, you start disadvantaging the human being themselves. Because we have a propensity to push for greater and greater things, so if for instance a certain type of exoskeleton is really, really powerful and it can be used a lot, it'll be overused. And if, you know, take the concepts of an R-Man suit, if you put a human being in an R-Man suit and it's not chiming you to do

what you are trained to do, your muscles, you absolutely depend upon your own physiology to drive your health. And then over reliance on something in the middle like an exoskeleton, although it could mean a soldier can march with a 130 kilogram pack over a hundred miles. You know, I have a problem with that because you will disadvantage the human being in making those sorts of choices. So choose where you put robotics in judiciously and save life by doing it, but don't compensate human biology.

The art is to shift the human biological limit further to the right. Yeah, you know, it's... Man, warfare is just changing so fast right now. And there's all these different companies that I've been diving into like and Dural We got this guy coming on that Was a former seal Dino Mervukis, and he's doing autonomous surface warfare vehicles and Man, it's just we have unmanned subs. We have unmanned planes. We have unmanned surface warfare vessels, I mean it's gonna look, it already

does look completely different than when I was in and I don't know, you know first I was pretty apprehensive but that was probably my ego thinking no robot could ever do the fucking job that I did. But I mean, these things, now I kind of change my tune and I mean, it does, you know, it does preserve our lives and you know, having kids and you have kids too. I mean, I would rather a robot go on and do the dirty work than have my kids out there. Absolutely. When you're defusing a five ton sea mine.

Yeah. I'd much rather. I'm an absolute supporter and advocate of unmanned systems that can look at threats as well as illegal maritime shipping and fishing. This is real age of dual purpose technology technology and these are manned systems are incredibly Advantages for us. You know we should look to preserve life. We shouldn't try to remove The challenges and hardship from human endeavor, you know and maybe it's not maybe not all conflict I know you know I don't I can't sort of qualify this statement by saying

emetrically this happens but I can't see that all conflict is going to be able to be handed over to robotic systems yeah and I think somewhere in the line human judgment has to come in yeah I think I think that's kind of the so far with everybody I've talked to that's's the premise is that the final decisions will be made by humans, but especially with some of these things like Scale AI and Palantir, I mean, it's the interesting thing is it's taking the intel and all the things that go into the decision making process and instead of actually having humans do it, where it would take days, sometimes weeks,

maybe even months, I mean, it's literally displayed all the different outcomes and the probability of what could happen and your percentage of winning. I mean, it's all handed to you through AI within hours or less. Yeah. And so interesting subject, great question. I'd just like to add, I mean, I was in a park

watching a child play with a drone, one of those small drones that tethers to you, you know, and it can quickly, you know, the future is, it's already there. Now that drone can recognize a facial feature, capture it, lock it on and tether it, and I'll, you know, sort of joking my own head going, I wonder if I can outrun that, go back and try and have a race of it.

See if I can, you know, this technology is, is brilliant. If you, it's already there and it's, it's on the street, you know, it's like a drone that can tether to you and will follow you around whatever It's there and you know for very small amounts of money off the shelf I won't say the drone it was in that case if you um I Mean some of the ways they're integrating technology is just I mean if you if you heard about the helmets that that Palmer lucky is designed with a girl notraw? Not, I haven't. Oh man, so he's making, it's like an interface heads up display

and it will replace all, not just special operations, which I love, because special operations always gets the cream of the crop. But I think what's really cool is that all military ground units will get this eventually but basically it almost looks like like a pilot helmet, you know with the visor and He's integrated. I believe it could be wrong But it's it's like the next generation of night vision which integrates color and thermal and all these things and not only that

It will it will it will there'll be a heads-up display of where all your guys are at if you're if you're on the ground till you highlight them in blue or green or whatever color it'll highlight bad guys in red you'll actually be able to see through walls so if you have somebody shooting at you from a lip when they drop back down, you can see exactly where they're at, wait for them to pop back up and it'll do. I mean, it's just insane. Like the technology, it'll even identify friendly and foe aircraft. And by the way that they're maneuvering, tell you what it's about to do. I mean, it's it's a whole nother. It's a whole nother game out there right now.

Yeah. And it's really interesting because you confuse all of that incredible technology and I'm all for it, you know, but we've got to remember it's all going back into a human being, you know, and even in 10 years ago, you can get cognitive overload with all of this right and But I I think all of that technology is good We just have to be very judicious about how you apply it Yeah And what that human being in it in it can can reasonably be expected to apply it for

Because you can get easy get overloaded with everything and I was a chain JTAC and you've got multiple nets going on. All good stuff, your brain learns how to do it, we call it 4D thinking. Absolutely brilliant, I mean the power of what's inside there is incredibly powerful as well. You can build pictures and you can always imagine where that aircraft is. To have it in a hood is absolutely brilliant.

I remember, I think you have to learn to use it. Remember when you're putting that on, that's remapping your own pathways in your brain. So you're actually pushing the human biological limit along in my eyes as well. You know, your brain will learn very, very quickly to adapt to what that extra coding, what that extra signals are.

You know, and it's incredibly powerful and adaptive. So human beings can take this, you know, to what that extra coding, what that extra signals are. It's incredibly powerful and adaptive. So human beings can take this and definitely they can adapt to it. So I'm all for technology. I'd love to, Blue Force tracking is absolutely critical. It's one of the hardest things you have to do. Be aware of where each other are.

But also remember the criticality of your own instincts and your own senses and not having an over-reliance on technology. And we used to wear a lot less protection because actually we trusted ourselves. You know, the power of sense and instinct is incredibly important to soldiers human intuition Yeah, absolutely human intuition instincts six cents gut instinct whatever you want to call it. It's there and it's very very real and We need to ensure we keep that forefront of the people that's doing it in pan with technology I think palm lucky's Andrew was neanderthal. Yes I mean, it's super super exciting where they're going with some of their

Capabilities and technologies. Yeah, and I think it's a good time to do it You know, I think we're looking at a really really interesting turn in in In in our present day. Yeah, we do need those autonomous systems Skirting around in in you know in the waters mm-hmm Resources can be finite One other thing before we get started everybody gets a gift Thank you

Vigilance league gummy bears, legal in all 50 states. I don't know if they're legal in UK or not, but you'll have to find that out when you get home. I'll do some research. I've got some gifts for you downstairs as well. I haven't got them with me. Oh, perfect. Can I possibly run out and get them and bring them back up? Sure. Perfect.

What is this? It's just some very good... Oh damn. Something for the bookshelves. Thank you. And then I've got you some quintessentially British marmalade from a shop called Fauntland Mason. Perfect. So I don't know whether marmalade's the same, but it's like a jam and it's called the monarch. Thank you. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right, John, you ready? Yes.

Where'd you grow up? So, I grew up in southeast of England and really I was born to parents. My dad was from a family in London, generations back, and they had a small business. It was actually a joinery company, and so they came from an area called Fountain Heath in London that used to be lovely. It's pretty rough now. But before I was born, they moved down to the southeast. I moved down, they found a little cottage in the country. My mum moved 14 times, I remember you used to say.

So she's very mobile. I think it's associated to her father's job. I'm sure he's an architect. I think he's an engineer as well. So essentially when I was born, I was born up into a very small house that was always under construction. My dad was a builder, ran a building,

small building company, joining company. And all I remember is being a very happy childhood, but we were always outside, always tripping over stuff, building materials. My dad was always sort of building extra bits to the house. So it was quite big at the bottom by the end of it. Really small at the top. And essentially, you know, it's a very outside life.

And sort of growing up, even from a very, very young age, I spent a lot of time with my mother. My father was a competition sailor, so he actually sailed in the Olympics, came second in the world championships. Oh wow. Built his own boats, one of which went to the Maritime Museum.

There was a class called the Flying Dutchman, which I believe was deemed too dangerous. It became Olympic class, but then came too dangerous because it was the fastest of the racing dinghies, and it had a habit of going end over end in certain winches, it had a spinnaker. So he's a very, very strategic and technical person, a really, really brilliant person, but we spent a

lot of time with my mother. My mother was an architect, used to get up at four o'clock in the morning, she also did something called milk recording, so milk recording, so you go to farms and you record how much milk you're getting from the cows, so me and my brother would wake up on a mattress in the back of a mini estate. It's a tiny little mini estate, very iconic to the UK. And we sort of opened the back doors on a farm and go and find my mother and she's in this sort of cow shed

and noting down the volume from each cow, the milk they were given every day. It's very fastidious. But I remember very clearly, we always used to take a silver urn full of milk back to the house. One of my dad's favorite things was to eat the cream, which is about that thick. Wow. Off the top of the milk. So we had a growing up like that, you know, I was outside a huge amount. We didn't have a TV. In fact, we didn't have a TV till very much, much later on. And so my dad read books and we listened to the radio. You know, I wish I could meet him

at this age again, because he's very very very interesting person but essentially we spend most of our time with my mum. My dad worked extremely hard he's commuting a lot into into London running a small business and in Britain the housing market, sorry the building market crashed in 90s and essentially the business went with it so he was always working extremely hard to try and keep this going. He had some employees that he deeply cared about. I remember him talking about it.

But you know, I spent a lot of time with my mum, very, very close to her. I did a lot of hunting when I was younger, always with dogs, hawks, all sorts of animals, never guns, ferrets, pole cats, and you know, more latterly, I realized that was all my mum as well. You know, my mum was organizing for me to go out with someone.

He had, I'm sure it was a red American, I couldn't say what eagle, and a kestrel, I think it was. And we used to go out and the horse, the eagle was actually quite good, but the kestrel was awful. It would basically give up, it wouldn't even try and get mostly rabbits and squirrels that we were after and they would go and

sit on a power line and just sit there like that and just look down at us. So we spent most of our time running around like swinging around the lure to try and get it to come down sort of covered in rabbit pelt. I just remember at a really young age just looking up at this hawk, just looking down at us going, yeah, okay, do this all day if you like. And eventually it come back. So all those experiences, you know,

sort of occurred to me later, they're all through my mum. And she was an incredibly strong person, woman. I don't, everyone faces challenges in their lives. She was holding down two to three jobs at a time, incredibly supportive of my father, although she didn't always agree. So me and my brother went to boarding school at seven and I still don't know how much was this design deliberate strategy and how much

was it were just opportunity at the time light bulbs went off but we had a piano in the house just like a small baby grand I think belonged to my grandma and she didn't have space for it so was in the house and by hook or by crook I started playing the piano next we started getting lessons. And then my brothers took up the violin. Oh, really? Yeah, so all of this sort of started happening. And as I say, I'd never know whether it was by design or actually it was just like,

oh, they're starting to play music. We could turn this into something. But me and my brother went to boarding school at seven years old as Queens Choristers. Are you twins? No, he's 15 months older. 15 months. Yeah, so pretty close.

A lot of people see lots of similarities. A lot of people see lots of differences. I guess it depends where they look from. We're very, very close as people. He's very, very busy himself. He was in the military himself as a commissioned officer. But when we went to boarding school at seven, and I remember my mum saying,

my mum did not support that. She wanted us to be at home. But my father saw it as the best opportunity he could give us. And so we, very, very funny stories from throughout my schooling. And it started early. So went to a school in London that provides choristers to the Queen's Chapel.

And essentially this was a feeder school or a preparatory school for Eaton College. So Eaton College is a very significant, well-known school in England. And so we started singing in the chapel and I found it very hard to concentrate. It wasn't a very good chorister, I'll admit, and we started learning music to a much greater level. I had a very good teacher actually who's the mother of someone I'm very, very close to still, who taught me piano initially. But then we started scaling up the grades and you had to be, and I don't know what

grade it was, be it seven or eight to sit a scholarship at Eaton. But in that period of time, and you know, it was a corporal punishment school, I believe there was only three left in country at the time I went there and Corporate punishment school is where you discipline children using slipper hairdraft. Well, it's a very English thing Doesn't go on now Rightly, I think I've got and again, you know, it's funny because you pull sort of stuff out of your head And I do remember on one night in this school under that current management, I think it's a very good school now.

I'm very well run. But on a certain night you were allowed a bath and in these, you had these rows of baths and in the bottom left bath was reserved for people who had been misbehaving. And I'd invariably misbehaved at a certain point during most days, not even a week. And it was full of cold water. So you get in your cold water bath and I think you had a minute to have your bath. So there's lots of that. And it was, you know, when you look back as a child, when you've got boarding,

there's boarding and day, but boarding and you're sleeping in dormitories of 50 children, as a child you see some quite tough experiences. I was constantly what they called running away, which wasn't running away, so it was going to get a bit of chocolate, the chocolate machine at the station. At one point we made it miles away from the school, we were actually going to the cinema, me and my friend, but of course every time they caught us they said it was running away and I was like I'm not running away I'm going to get chocolate from the chocolate machine. So a

trend had started up already right, you know I was bored in school my behavior is quite challenging I didn't get it myself I don't remember being unhappy I did miss home a great deal and that was you know they did have very very strict rules weren't allowed to see your parents anymore than around three times a term I think you weren't allowed any other clothes unless they were school clothes. It was all school food. You weren't allowed any stuff brought in. No chocolate, huh?

No chocolate, nothing, right? So my dad, you know, this defines who he was, that sort of person. He's very strong and could be quite stern but he's very kind and he used to drive after work to the chapel because he could intercept us as we were coming through the cloisters and he used to have a flute case because I had to take up a second instrument so I took up the flute which I used to sort of refer to as a sideways recorder. And I think I took up the flute because it's the most easy instrument to learn to play quickly. And again, you see, you know, looking at it now,

it's really quite funny. At the time it was all sort of done, and it was, I don't know, it was all perfectly normal. So, I ended up getting removed from the school because it had become untenable. But actually the amount I was misbehaving, I was getting beaten a lot. Oh really? It's not like beating as in beaten. You can't crush children by hitting them, right? They actually turn out to be much more resilient than you are.

And I think that was part of the problem with the school. They resorted to the corporal punishment far too much, for spending a lot of time in detention. And again, I don't remember being unhappy as such, but I don't think I was removed, but with the intention that it wasn't, let's come up with a different solution for it. That was one year before I had to set my exams for Eton. So-

How old were you when you got there? I went there when I think I was just turning seven to eight and I must have come out there about 11 years old because I spent one year at another school much closer to home as a day pupil which I loved. I played lots and lots of rugby. I was very, very sports orientated. Loved my sport. Spent a year at another school much closer to home. Sat my exams, scraped my entrance exams because that's kind of how I was academic. But I got in with a music award. So it wasn't a full scholarship but it was something called an exhibition that you turn into a scholarship. And I got there on sports awards as well, so a fairly

heavy bursary. I went to Eton, my brother already there. And so Eton is that school with the penguin suits. Oh, okay. Yeah, so we got obviously secondhand penguin suits. And They look very smart if they knew, but I was definitely the scruffiest child in the school. It's an incredible institution, it's one of the oldest institutions in the UK. It's a very, very big landowner, therefore they are wealthy enough to offer the types of bursaries that they do and they actually make a lot of opportunity to people but there's also hereditary lines that are re-attendee-ed and you know so it's basically a full town and again I was already, my mum always used to say when I was young, right

we're just going to leave the keys out for you because I had a habit of leaving the house at night and going on walkabouts and I liked to walk through the woods at night and everything and every so often I do remember frightening myself and running home again. But to a larger extent I had a habit of just getting up and just going for a walk, going out in the night and I continued this trait at school but I didn't really like it. Didn't really understand it. I think a lot of the accusations of running away were just because I got in a habit of picking the locks, taking the window locks off and crawling down rain pots when I went.

So, and you know, again, I guess, I don't know, we've grown a trend so I was still at it, Eton. I don't remember being really badly behaved, but I was always on the tardy book where you had to run up, had to run very early in the morning and sign a book, do it again at lunch and doing it again at night, just full bed.

So the school, we were all in boarding houses. So I think the nub of this issue was really, I sort of had loggerheads with the boarding house. So certain traditions at Eaton where the older boys come down to the lower floors where the younger members are and they do certain things like bed posting and you know, that sort of, what do they call it? Initiation things, it's basically another name for bullying.

So we were the first year across our board, I can't remember how many in the year, like 10 or 13, but we were sports and music and it traditionally been an academic house and I think they just weren't expecting what difference we were like, we were completely different, you know, and actually we ended up going upstairs and kind of sort of trying to dissuade them from coming downstairs a lot. And they just didn't know how to manage this. So essentially, and it's really, really interesting actually

because, you know, Eaton's a really special school. They have really amazing people there. They have something called King's College, which Henry VIII, I believe, started the school with express intent to kind of shape academics. I think it's got heavy lines into political circles, so shaping government, that sort of stuff. So it's got a really amazing history. And I remember there was a guy with, I think it was, multiple sclerosis, he's one of the most brilliant mathematicians, and not predicted to make it beyond his teens, I think he did.

He was given that opportunity, he was one of the most brilliant mathematicians there, so it was a very, very special school. But essentially, because I was at loggerheads with my housemaster, I kept getting in trouble, I kept having to sign the tidy book, which was a lot of running, which made me very fit and I didn't mind, but I wasn't getting my homework done, which is again something that's left to you to be responsible for. When I was getting, when you get punished in, you have to go and see the lower master in my case for the bottom years, it's called the bill and I was on it again and again and again,

and they're having to put special reviews in because they've got certain rules for you're on the bill this many times, then we have to review you for suspension. And it was really, really interesting because when we were clearing out my dad's desk, we found some letters between him and the lower master and it exposed and highlighted how to what extent the school and my father were going to try

and solve this issue which is you know you could see the intent and actually the lower master I think he felt quite sorry for me which is not not not I was feeling sorry for like I said I do not have a recollection of somehow having you know being sad about this or being unhappy as a child at all. But I was just endlessly in bits of trouble. And essentially I had completely the wrong housemaster to solve it. And I think it came down that, you know, so the lower master started giving me chores

by doing his gardening in his house on a Sunday. And so I go and do his gardening and actually what that was was so I could have Sunday dinner with him. So I'd sit down with his family and have Sunday dinner. So that's the sort of kindness they were showing around it, sort of managing it in a very, very interesting way. But essentially, it was going to go to one end or not. And they looked at whether I could move to another boarding house or not, and whether that would change the things.

People believed it did, but essentially it came down to do we break tradition? This has never happened before. You know, so, you know, I fully appreciated the levels people had gone to. And you know, and when I talk about that sort of educational psychology report, that was when it was done. And I found it much more latterly. There was two of them and I found one. And it's really quite interesting.

And I believe that was an agreement between my dad and the school that let's, you know, let's have a look and let's see what we can do to kind of sort of address this because but in the end I moved on from that school went to another school on music and sports awards but given a place and I spent I think it was less than a year there I've got removed three days after the rugby season was unbeaten. Wow. I do suspect it was done. At least we finished the rugby season. But I absolutely love my sport and you know it used to make me laugh actually at Eaton because I said you've given me all these sports awards and Eaton's got two incredibly quite contact filled games. One called the wall game, one called the field game. And the wall games played in King's College and the field games played by all the others,

sort of boarding houses, and it's a mixture of football and rugby with some quirky rules in it. And, you know, obviously I was kind of breaking my fingers all the time, which didn't sit well with keeping my piano scholarship. So I remember like going to piano lessons and you know musical geniuses of which these teachers were tend to be quite sort of emotionally charged. And so when I was turning up in these rooms and not able to play the piano, it becoming really really exasperated with me.

And I was kind of sort of perplexed by this. I was like, well, you know, the house wants me to play all this sport, and you're asking me to practice for hours doing this, which I did. You know, I do, I fully, fully realize right from the start, I looked at the other scholars, and I was never going to be absolutely brilliant. I was good. I wouldn never going to be absolutely brilliant. I was good,

I wouldn't have got a scholarship before, but you know when you look at sets of people and you see, okay, wow, you know, you will be something that is truly special in the future. Where as for me, I could have become good and your training does a huge amount, but it only takes you so far. And there's individual ability that is even more important. If you wanna become part of that last 1%, you know, it's something in there that will do it. I think there's that sort of mode

of 10,000 hours of training or whatever. It's absolutely right, that final bit. There's something special inside certain people. So yeah, I I mean I sort of finished at that school, the next school after the rugby season, three days after it I went for a period of no school. This is just before just before my exam so within a year of having to take my national exams called GCSEs I spent some time in Spain living with a

Navy family there then came back went to my local state school. Well I should have gone. Holy shit you went to all kinds of schools. Yeah yes I had full range and it was great. Amazing experience but the irony is when you go to sit your scholarship at Eaton they ask you what your second school is and obviously you say Eaton College and another very, I don't know what you'd term it, but they're special schools. This community college and I remember them looking at me and just being like, that's pretty extraordinary. So, you know, I sort of ended up back at this school. I did my exams, passed them okay.

And I'm particularly strong on languages at that point. I went on to A levels, still playing lots and lots of sport. But within those six form years where I was studying A levels, and I did two languages in sociology, I did two languages in sociology. I started working for a building company as a laborer. I sat my exams, but my attendance levels weren't very good. My grades certainly didn't reflect what I could have done, but really I didn't feel that those exams were really the key to the next step.

And I became a building laborer working for a local company. Loved it. There's something called the HOD. So the HOD is where you carry the bricks, you stack them up in different levels of brick. I think at 816 and I think there was one over 20. And I'm quite good at that. And so the bricklayers quite like me being their laborer.

And I sort of enjoyed it. and so the bricklayers quite liked me being their labourer. And I sort of enjoyed it, and I enjoyed that at that age. Then I got an offer to become an industrial roofer. So I became an industrial roofer, and I absolutely loved that. But it was in the time when you could do roofing by walking the open steels, really interesting job. I was traveling a lot around the UK and it was quite you know as you can imagine certain people who

get involved in roofing, as anyone's guess who would be in our roofing gang at any one time, sometimes you didn't get paid and you have to sort of go and insist that you should be paid. But it was really interesting introduction into working life. Enjoyed it. But started doing jobs in London and I was getting up at like four o'clock in the morning, I was playing rugby. I used to represent certain people's gyms or used to box. So I was doing those things at night and we were getting really quite small money. We put on day works, we couldn't really work hard. There was no incentive for price work for that in the area.

Plus they were bringing in safety systems because there's quite a high rate of injuries and death in industrial roofing. They're bringing in systems that weren't very well designed at all. So they're arrest systems that would suddenly, you're supposed to clip them onto yourself. You're carrying sharp cheating and it would suddenly stop you and all of a sudden the ship. So all of that factored in just made me look elsewhere. So that's what led me through childhood, a very, very kind of so that's what sort of led me through childhood very very Different range of schooling. Yeah, I don't think I fitted too well at school

I didn't feel you know, it's not like I was short of friends, but it didn't have It's not like I was part of a scene at school at all. Just sort of bimbled about Got a lot of chores. I mean I used to love my chores at Eaton because they were building stages for theatre. I actually sort of spent most of my weekends, you don't get much time off it, you have to study hard to stay the grades. But you know, all my passing time, but I actually quite enjoyed that. You know, I don't, like I say, you know, I don't remember being unhappy as a child. And I remember them, their difficult times. I used to come back, my father was incredibly disappointed and frustrated that these schools

weren't working. My mum didn't want us to go to boarding school. That was a very tough time for them. But she was ultimately extremely supportive to my father and recognized that how much they were both giving up to offer us the opportunities that we could have been offered. And I did speak letterly with my father about it, you know. It's actually not long before his death, you know, and I think going into the military was a part of him.

He could see that he'd sort of found some space. But, you know, at the time he kept coming up with these brilliant plans to offer us opportunity and they just weren't working out. That must have been incredibly frustrating. And you can see from the educational psychologist report at 14, you know, the effort and energy that was put into trying to get this in some sort of shape where it would go. Would the outcomes have been any different if I'd stayed at those schools? I don't believe so. You know, I don't think, you know, as a person they would have been. I don't know whether they would or not. Yeah.

But that was, you know, again, every time I was at home, I used to have an absolutely brilliant time. And then the period of time when I was in my GCSEs and to my A-levels, you know, I spent an amazing amount of time with my mum. And that was her back central, you know, she's very, very happy to be able to see us, support us and do things with us, you know. So, you know.

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happening in this country. And the truth is, there's a double standard here in America. You see time and time again, people defending themselves, defending their family, and then the judicial system goes after them. It's a double standard. And if you don't believe me, check out episode number three with Don Bradley. That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Because it's not just about what you did, believe it or not, it's how the legal system interprets it. And that's why I'm a USCCA member. The USCCA has over 860,000 members

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This is about being prepared when things go sideways. You don't get to schedule danger, and with the world changing so fast, you have to do what you can to protect your family. Check out the USCCA's risk-free membership at USCCA.com slash SRS. That's USCCA.com slash SRS. Protect more than just your life, protect your future. Go right now to USCCA.com slash SRS. What what got your I mean so you went from I don't know how many schools, where you were very talented in music and sports, then you became a construction laborer, roofing. How the hell did the military get onto your radar?

So whilst I was roofing, and again, there are long days in London. I just like, we're on day work, we're refixing the same panels over and over, and they're condemning the steels below us. And that was nothing to do with this. My brother had become a commissioned officer and he had joined the parachute regiment. He deployed to Kosovo. And I was watching in the background,

him doing all of this interesting stuff. You know, the parachuting, everything else. So when I did look elsewhere from roofing, that became the obvious answer. You know, and I didn't, I had no aspirations of being a commissioned officer as such, but you know, going into the military and seeing that, you know, that was interesting. It's like the parachuting is involved, you've gone to an interesting place. I hadn't traveled a great,

I used to travel with my mom a lot. My mom used to drive my dad's boat in a trailer all over so he could compete sometimes with and sometimes he'd travel separately and they used to sleep in tents. He's very famous actually for getting up in the night and he'd shave like two millimetres off the keel because he believed he'd analyse the tide rate. And actually he used to say, I'm never going to win every race, only just

the occasional one, because I have a nemesis. And I remember him saying this and he said, my nemesis is a sailor, I believe called Rodney Patterson, who I think it is Rodney Patterson, who is one of the world's most famous sailors. And he used to win everything. And I used to hear my dad say, it's just because he's got more ability. So my mum used to drive my dad's boats a lot and we'd go with them if we possibly could. So we'd pop up in places like San Remo in, I think it's Switzerland, San Remo.

Beautiful places. We'd be staying outside or whatever. And it was brilliant, really lots and lots of fun. And then I did some travelling with my mum to Spain. I went to Holland. My godfather was the person who designed the Flying Dutchman, the boat. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, so it's called Flying Dutchman. And my godfather, Conrad Gulture, he used to be the designer of that boat. And I remember visiting him in Holland with my mum in a campervan.

And he'd give us, every time I saw him, he'd give us one bag of red licorice bootlaces. So I did quite a lot of getting around and travelling with my mum but when I saw my brother going off to these places I'd never heard of, I was like, okay, well this is interesting. So I walked into the recruiting office and said, can I join the power street regiment? And they said, no. You can join the engineers, but I don't want to join the engineers. Of course, that's when they get in a sentive,

set amount of money to fill gaps in other units for recruiting. So I sort of kept to my guns and I said, I want to join the power street regiment. Said, do you know what you're letting yourself in for? Um, I said, yes, my brother's a power trooper. So, um, yeah, that's how I ended up in the military. How old were you when you joined?

Uh, so 21. 21. Actually that's good, you know, in, in many aspects, that's a bit later. Some people going at 18, uh, period in that period in roofing gangs, things like that, I think stood me in very, very good stead for going into the military, just that slightly bit later, having worked in professional roles, like building labor, roofer, that sort of thing. What year is this?

So basically I enlisted in November 98. And 98? That's when I signed something. What was going on in the world at the time? I think it was relatively, it feels like there's lots more now. Probably didn't feel like that to people. Mainly for the UK, it was Northern Ireland. The last big conflict had been the Falklands and the Parachute Regiment had played a really,

really key part in it alongside the Marines and the Guards and numerous other units. You know, the Falklands war predominated British soldier thinking, certainly when I joined, and there were still people serving, that served and fought in that war. And it's, you know, incredible hearing them, and the Falklands war was genuinely a very, very tough experience for all of them, a proper conflict. So really, you know, I think, I

can't remember, two of the battalions had gone to the Falklands and one hadn't, so there was this thing going on in the Power Shoot regiment. But I didn't really pay that much attention. So really it was all about Northern Island and the Good Friday Accords had happened. Um, so it was really just support to, you know, presence. Can you, can you describe what was, what was going on in Northern Island and the Good Friday? So I got, again, cause I was quite young. I can't really explain in massive detail, but you know, the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland

is very, very complicated. You could set communities off against each other a huge amount. It's got an element in British history where an element want to be apart from Britain and an element want to be part of Britain and quickly this could turn into a great deal of violence. I don't know a huge amount about the British military history in there but it goes back a long long time. Oh really? When I went there it's Good Friday Accords and therefore there wasn't much going on but there was some really intensive work and effort going on in

in more clever spaces more covert operations that sort of stuff you know whereas when I turned up as a paratrooper you know and we I remember we did lots and lots of public order training because Northern Ireland could conflagrate very, very quickly. And so part of our role was to support the police in trying to prevent public order and protests. Part of our role was patrols, so reassurance patrols, clearance patrols. It was all pretty simple stuff.

There was a huge amount of sentry and guard duty. You go around this sort of rotation and you know in my round in the parachute regiment I played a lot of sport for them so I played a lot of rugby played some of the some testing rugby like I remember a particular game against the marines that was I played rugby league against marines Marines in what I remember to be some concrete stadium, a really, really tough competition games. And they were trying to encourage me into the boxing team. Oh, really?

So I did a lot of boxing in there. But essentially, the two tours of Northern Ireland, they weren't testing and challenging in that sense. You know, the environment you're in, you're in what we call a sub, so it's a hardened block. But you know, I don't remember getting shot at any point. There's a lot of rocks thrown at you, you know, you get spat out a bit. But essentially, you're cordoning off areas because you thought someone reported that there was a box that couldn't be trusted, and you're waiting until it could get cleared.

But I was very, very aware that there was these forces that we didn't necessarily know we would stand up and be cure-ref to. And they, you know, a lot of the important work was getting done there. So, in a sense, it was a very, very good introduction to military service. But when I was with the parachute regiment,

and I'm not, you know, although I boxed and I was quite a successful boxer, I wasn't necessarily good technically. I didn't lose, but it was only a matter of time until I was because I was winning more by force of will than good boxing technique. Army boxing is very points orientated and I've not done a long pedigree of boxing. I've spent a lot of time boxing gyms, sparring with people who they used to ask me to. So it's not like I wasn't, but I wasn't a boxer as such, you know, I wasn't seeking to be competition boxer.

And there was sort of a push towards me in going into the army boxing team. And again, there was the same suggestion for Army Rugby, but I'd already kind of seen this at county level for rugby. I was good enough to get in, but I was never going to be good enough to really excel at it. I was the wrong shape and size. Wherever I really enjoyed playing, they wanted me to play in a different position.

I was never really going to enjoy it. I actually never really got. It's the county. It's a privilege to play for it, but not if it means I'm going to be playing on the wing all the time or playing out of position all the time. So same with the boxing. Even if I was really keen at boxing, which I wasn't, then the style of boxing just didn't suit me. There was very much straight punching. Obviously I'm quite short, my arms are quite short.

I'm never going to really beat on reach. And army boxing was all about. So when they were trying to push me into the army boxing team for trials, I was being held at a very, very low weight. And it was seen as a privilege to be on the boxing team. So when I pushed back and said, no, I don't want to, they didn't go down very well with certain people. Interesting. You know, and it's brilliant.

You know, what did you want to do? So I had already noticed, uh, so on bottom of one of my pay slips, uh, was a notice that, you know, it's essentially saying if get paid more and there was an invite to be considered for special duties. Special duties is a community, so an SF community as such. So I'd already got my notice. I'd obviously been to Northern Ireland and saw some of the work that was going on, didn't fully understand it, but I knew there was something else. That's how I ended up applying for Selection and going on Selection.

Selection is our name for entrance into the SS or the SBS. Interesting. They put a notice on your pay slips of who they want to try out? Yeah, I'm pulling this out the back of my eye. I just remember seeing a comment or a caption saying, you know, it's all about professional development or something like that. And it was something I'd noticed that said, you know, there's something else there. Now, to that point, point remembering that you know, I joined the parachute regiment really because of because it was interesting I hadn't had a long period of time of knowledge of military My father was very supportive of both of us going into the military. He was a huge believer in the military as an institution

He himself had served in the military, albeit only for a few years as a bomb disposal person. So mostly he was disposing of World War II munitions, did a tour in Germany. And I remember he had sort of good memories of doing that. And he'd learned to ski there, and he'd learned to do all sorts of stuff. So I remember my father had a very positive opinion of it and I don't remember my mum being against it although my mum was that sort of person, right? She was so strong.

Even if she didn't like it, she wouldn't have said. So essentially whatever decisions we would make, she would quietly culture the way we went about them. Very clever in how she did it. But ultimately she'd support you. As long as it wasn't a bad idea. But I don't imagine my mum would have been brilliant, but not against either. So I know my mum was actually very proud of it as well what?

So what so the cap should said you'd get more pay something about pay and something about development I can't remember exactly what it was, but that's what caught my eye And that's what made me start sort of asking questions about where'd you go from here? From from the parachute regiment. The parachute regiment in particular is very supportive of the units. A lot of other units in the British Army don't like losing you, so they try and make it difficult for you to move on.

Whereas I was lucky and I got a lot of support. I was asking to go quite early and essentially I was you know I've not spent a lot of time being graded as a soldier so they could look at me and be like okay but obviously my performance was good enough. I did get champion recruit in chaining which I don't know what that means so certainly wasn't for drill. So clearly I was capable, they were seeing that I was able. So when it came to me saying, you know, look, can I have a go at that, I got the support

of the unit. When I was in the parachute regiment, I went to support company, which is the machine gun platoon, it's the anti-tank platoon and the mortar platoon. And I remember really as I was passing, you know, they are elite soldiers. The Marines and the parachute regiment are the elite infantry as such. And the parachute regiment in particular is configured for airborne forces. Not delivery by parachute really so much anymore, but it's kind of airborne forces. Not delivery by parachute really so much anymore but it's kind of some airborne delivery but the mindset is all about you know an

offensive nature and we did you know platoon attack after platoon attack, company attack, company attack, that's what you excelled at. So I really enjoyed it, it was very very tough. There's a lot of getting messed about you know on a Friday we used to do a 10-mile test and I remember if you didn't pass it you wouldn't go home. So it was a good, tough existence and I really, really respected it. And some of the soldiers you served alongside are incredible people. You see what real professional soldiering looks like. I remember looking across and in the machine gun platoon we became like any other company in the unit when we went to Northern Ireland because there was no call for any of that. So you'd just become a normal patrols company. When we came back we got the opportunity to do the course which is the CADA to

join the support company machine guns which is a tough course in itself I remember it being a month long carrying triple mounted guns learning about gun lines and everything else you know but. But that's also where, you know, I started, you know, getting pretty beaten up by being in gun lines, you know, 50 cows, and you're in amongst it, you're lying right next to it. And, you know, I didn't pick up on it at the time. So it was brilliant, doing lots of sport,

really, really enjoyable. But there are periods of getting back to barracks, and you just sort of, you start getting a sense of like how challenging this job can be in certain respects. You know, I remember kind of losing my balance a lot and this is only retrospective understanding of what was going on at the time. You just all sort of sucked it up as tiredness or whatever. You know, some of the brigade exercises we'd do, we'd have really really long taps

carrying a tripod mount carrying tons and tons of ammunition we knew we was never going to fire because the GPMG doesn't work very well on blanks. So it's sort of soul destroyed. You know so and it really was very, very hard professional soldiering. Absolutely fantastic foundation to have built and come from. And the sport I think was really, really enjoyable, although something in me was like, you know, I didn't join this to be all about sport. So you know, I enjoyed my time there, but it was roughly about three years. You know, I can't pick out the dates exactly from when I entered or asked for selection. You

do some preparation, particularly navigation, because selects are very tough for navigation. So they get you ready for selection. Yeah. So the Power Shoot Regiment are really professional how they do it, right? Because actually they take pride in new passing. And so we did some courses. I remember, so when I did Drill and Duties, which is a lower echelon command course to become a Lance Corporal we had to do it and I

remember on it and actually that was when I remember 9-11 happened I was on the dual square at the time I remember becoming aware of this this event that happened and I can't remember we watched it on TV, but I remember then something sort of occurring to me, this is something really, really important. But I was on a command course at that point. And so they were preparing me to stay in the parachute regiment on the expectancy that you would not pass selection,

because most people don't. But essentially they're also giving you courses to prepare you for it. And that was just simply how to read a map effectively. You know, selection is the type of course, you prepare for it, you should prepare for it. How much time did you have to prepare for it? I can't remember, Greg, you know,

I think it was about kind of sort of three to five months. You still had to do all your duties, but you got appropriate times. Have two weeks here, have one week here. There's a course, teach your navigation, go on that. And actually that's really, the units don't have to do that. But I think it's a good level of cooperation.

Because ultimately, people should want their soldiers to go on to the Special Forces community. Were you aware of what you were getting ready to try out for? Yes and no, as in, no, I wasn't really aware of these units too much. I hadn't paid too much attention. Some people really are aware of it from a very early point, and they're working towards it. I wasn't. At each step I kind of did it and then reviewed where I was and was like, okay, well, is there a next bit? Where do I go next? So I hadn't really considered it and I hadn't really considered their role. It changes, well, their role doesn't change, but what they're doing at any one

time does. But I simply just went on selection because it was a progressive step. Gotcha. And it was a highly, highly, highly respected community, the whole community is, within the military. So it was a natural place to go. And I didn't necessarily take loads of advice, I don't think I saw it, you know, just instinct saying it's a good move to make, so go there.

And yeah, I mean it's... What was it like checking in for selection? selection? It's daunting because you've got so many people there. How many? I think on my selection, forgive me for the numbers because I really can't remember how to be accurate on these, but 240 or something started. 240 people? I think so, yes. I mean you get some that 120, some 160. I think ours was particularly big because of 9-eleven Potentially. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What did what was the I mean? What what it what was the pulse of UK when 9-eleven happened so absolute shock, as in, you know, I think everyone was universally shocked by it.

And there was a real feeling that this is something extremely important. That's across society and the public. I think there was a real nervousness about it. It's just shock. You know, it's like, how has this happened? And within the military, there was an anticipation of what was to come. We knew it was going to be something. No one was guessing what. But we knew that there was going to be an extremely important part to play. And again, thinking about what people were feeling or whatever is a very inaccurate science.

But it really, really got the sense that people felt threatened themselves by it. Why could this not as equally happen in this country? And so I think it was took extremely seriously. I think there was an expectation of what was to come. And I think everyone was watching expectation of what was to come and I think people were everyone was watching it very very intently To see what was what was going to be the response? You know would people capitulate and give the people the responsible up Which they didn't

So you you joined at 21? Spent three years 9--11 happens in there. And then by the time you're 24, you're trying out for? That's right. About mid 24, I think it was. And it takes six months. Selection? Yes, tested every day.

So by the time, I'm probably 25 by the time I went in. I mean, I can't feel, if I got a pen and paper, I'd be able to work it out. I was either 24 when I became what's called badged or I was 25. Okay, so what does day one look like when you go to selection? Just a mass of people, you know,

and I can't even remember, it's very, very, very physical. And it's designed to be that way. And I always made a joke. You could turn up as an Olympian and be no better off than the next person in about two weeks, because that's what it's designed to do, is strip you down physically.

Because what they're really interested in is what sort of person are you, and how mentally tough and plied can you be? And you can't test that out when there's still such massive individual differences in physicality. So it's not that you can reduce everyone down to a level platform. How would they do that? Just, you know, there's runs all the time, carries up hills, almost at every point you're getting run around to do something.

There's some tuition in it, so they're teaching you some skills in how to then do test week. And they're building you up and developing. I mean, let's face it, no one's succeeding in their job if everyone fails everything. You need to get people through these. So ultimately I saw what they were doing as it was helpful And the DS were extremely well trained And they essentially preparing you although it didn't feel like it. What's interesting about selection is don't get any encouragement at all That's one of the tests. It's seeing what's inside you. You know, it's like, you know, you don't get

Shout out play a few games with you, you know, call you a name or two, right, they're not necessarily trying to be your friend, but they're certainly not giving you any encouragement and you don't really get shouted at, you know, if you've had enough, get told to put your bergand down. And that was very, very interesting because I think essentially what they're looking at is each individual to sort of demonstrate who they are themselves, you know. And I tend to see that the people were there to try and just impress the directing staff. You know, they'd be some of the first to go.

Really? Do most people quit or do they fail? Most people quit, well no. In the first part which is all physical, it's hills and tests over marches, test marches with weight, people fail mostly at that point, that's the big reduction in numbers. But when you go into the jungle that's when people, more people will fail themselves by withdrawing. When you go into the jungle. Yes. So this isn't just a selection that takes place in UK.

No, see, bounce only what that part is. We go into the jungle for a considerable period of time. And that's from the history of the unit having served in the jungle in Malaya and seeing some of the challenges of that environment. So they look at you in the jungle, and the jungle is a real great arbiter, right? You get these people who make a very good play of who they are in the jungle, it exposes you straight away. And it's very, very tough environment. Where do you go? So over by Malaysia.

So it's over in the Malaya, in the Malaya area. So is selection broken up into phases? Or is it? Yes. How long is it? It's aggressive phases. Six months? Yes, six months.

I remember it's 182 tested days. It's actually, it is tested, but at certain stages you then become expected to pass. But essentially you've got your physical part, which is your Hills phase. You've got your jungle part, which is when they start being interested in who you are. So they look at you as a character and they start, most importantly, they're looking whether you support one another because you can go into- They want a team player.

You can be the biggest superstar, you know, the greatest physical specimen in the world. If you cannot work amongst other people and support one another, you are never going to be good to, in my opinion, any special forces unit, but definitely more than one. And that's a really, really key trait that they're looking for and they're also looking for that thing in you that says You know, it's got too tough. I want some respite. I need a moment and that's called voluntary withdrawal what So the first is all rock marches and yes physical test. What are you doing in the jungle jungle is more? operating in the jungle

It's not specific It's basically used because it's such an amazing environment see what soldiers are like and characters are like But you're also starting to learn the SOP's that stand and operating procedures How to exist in a tough environment. You do a lot of patrolling. You do a small amount of survival. You do other bits, but essentially it's really used as a way of looking at you to see

whether you're suitable for service. What kind of survival? I say you just go without food, and then it's up to you to kind of survive. You know, they bump you at one point like they usually do. See how you respond to things. You have to go on long, long patrols. And you know, the jungle is a very tough environment to exist in, you know. You only sleep at night.

You get up in the morning in the dark and put cold, wet clothes on. You have to work hard to stop your body from rotting, you know. So all of these things are very interesting things to look at when you're trying to evaluate someone for whether they're going to take the easy way out, you know, whether they're sort of nipping on their administration, you know. You make a mistake in the jungle, you aren't coming back from it, right? You just aren't. How long is the jungle phase? So, six weeks.

Six weeks? No, but not all of that's in jungle. Some of it is preparation. I'm sure it's six weeks. Something like six weeks. Close to six weeks. Yeah. How long do you go without food? Not not not long there just I think it's it's just a kind of introduction to XM had the chance to train you at this point. I haven't had a chance to also this is like Light instruction like very little. Yes, so most of all they're looking at you

Okay, learn enough to be quite basic in the jungle, patrol, set up your camps, whatever you do, they're really just. Look, yeah. Um, and, uh, ranges in the jungle, extremely tough. You know, the environment is really kind of quite oppressive. You can't see far. And again, you have to rely on a lot of your instincts to tell you what's going on. It's very noisy, it can be very wet, everything's trying to eat you and it's all really small.

It can be very, very uncomfortable. If you take shortcuts on your administration, you'll quickly become ill, your body will start having problems and rotting. So all of these things they can just allow to happen. You know, you do some really really tough physical tests, very very humid, you know, the hills there are very very steep. So you do some very very tough physical tests and they're looking for that moment, you know, looking for that moment you say say, look, you know, I'm done. I'm done. Or, you know, and the vast majority of people who say that they've kind of

changed their mind quite soon after. Um, but that's what they're looking for. Well, where do you go after jungle phase? So they do a review, everyone, and then they pass or fail you afterwards. The ones that have done, and you go and do a series of different courses, sort of tuition courses. So you cover stuff like signals I think. I might be getting the order mixed up here, but you know you do your skills and you learn various things, but the significant phases then you start going into

But the significant phases, then you start going into mastering basic OP. So living close with people in holes and mastering some sort of elementary elements of surveillance reconnaissance. Then you, I think, do some parachuting for the ones who are not. So for us, I was a trained paratrooper already, so I didn't have to do the basic part. Just had to convert onto different parachutes. There's an element of starting to do sort of multi-floor, multi-room combat,

which is CQB is very, very tough testing environments. The margins are very small and the arcs are down, so that can be a challenge for certain people and again all of these things if they deem you unsafe then ultimately they fail. The last thing people want in this in these sorts of roles is people who are out of their depth all the time so that's why it's called pass or fail all the way through. But it's unlikely you're gonna start failing after that. There's a...

After CQB? No, so there's an escape and evasion phase. It's quite iconic. And it's split up into how to survive out in the wild, out in unsupported environment. And then there's a part where you just get chased around by a hunt force and there's another part where you go and you have your introductions to interrogation phases

and things like that. At that point, if you've passed that, you're expected to pass. Oh, okay. But if you get through the jungle, people- That's the majority. Yeah, you know, if you get through the jungle, people. That's the majority. Yeah. You'd be like, you know, you don't want to lose people after that.

You know, I did pick up on it. It's like, it's not, it's not supposed to be friendly, but you kind of, oh, this is a joint effort. And there was a level of trust in it. You know, the way I went about selection is, you know, I was like, I'm just going to be here. I'm never going to be here. I'm never going to question whether I'm good enough or not because actually it's up to the dears to tell you that and they will do. And actually if you're going to be failed, and I found

it was a better way to go about it for me, I didn't have to keep questioning, am I good enough for this? Have I done well enough? You know, you cannot go through that period of training and have not have a couple of mistakes. You know, you have a couple of safety calls, all that sort of stuff, you know, and that can weigh heavily on you if you let it. So you just accept it. It's moved on. Do you know what? It's your decision. You know, at the end of the day, you know, you're either going to get carried off because you're injured or you're going to get fell because you're not good enough. And that's, that was a good enough sort of stage for me, you know, and essentially, you know, it's not comfortable.

It's not meant to be comfortable. Uh, and parts of it are enjoyable, but only very, very small parts. How many people disappeared from the start until after jungle phase? How many people disappeared from the start until after jungle phase? How many people disappeared? If I remember rightly, I think after the jungle we're down to roughly about 36. Oh shit, someone lost everybody. Yeah, yeah, but the main loss of numbers is on the physical phase at the start. You know, and I don't think selections change much.

You know, it's a tried and tested pathway and it prepares people very well, but they may have adjusted certain parts of it now and the way they do it. But essentially, you know, there's a test at the end of the first week. And if you don't pass that that and a lot of people don't Then that's a lose a lot of numbers in the first week and down

But you know, it's pointless staying on the course if you're never gonna make it to the end, right? It's better to sort everyone out quite early. Mm-hmm. Look at things and I don't know why 36 stands my head, but it does I'm pretty sure it's 36 by the end of that phase, and then we only lost, I think, another 10. Wow. I think so. So down from roughly 240 people to 26 by the end. I think so, yeah.

And they were split between the two units, SAS and SB. How do you know? Well, we'll get there. So what happens when you pass everything? Can't remember. So I think it's work as normal. You get sent to a squadron. And I think-

What do they tell you? I mean, is there a graduation? They tell you congratulations? I don't remember one. You get given- You get a visit from the commander who gives you your beret, and it's an enormously proud moment. Hugely proud.

I remember passing the jungle, and it was just like, wow. And bearing in mind, I hadn't gone into this with the knowing a lot about it, you know, so that sense of like really valuable will to be part of this was really from my first interactions from going on there and I remember a huge sense of pride from getting that beret and it's given to you I'm pretty sure, by the commander and the existing Sergeant Major. I can't even remember where it happened,

I assume in Hereford somewhere. But I think it's fairly inauspicious, but it's a very, very special moment. So it's like, well done. But essentially everyone then joins their squadrons and off they go. How do you know if you're going SAS or SBS? In those days it was choice.

It was choice? Yes. Yeah, yeah, and it makes sense for there to be choice. And I have this conversation quite a lot about, you know, paratroopers and marines. You know, they're both elite infantry and they're both incredible professional soldiers. There's something within you that wants to be a paratrooper and an airborne forces, and there's something in you that wants to be a Marine.

And I think that is good to have that element of still, I want to be that. I think it's that final part of pride. And it's interesting seeing what choices people make. And SPS is a mainly maritime organization we share all the same roles missions and tasks but their emphasis is maritime the SPS was emphasis was they sort of air and land didn't mean that others didn't support one another in it but you know essentially it made sense in it, but you know essentially it made sense that people got to make the choice. But in terms of professionalism as soldiers

and in terms of what you're asked to do, they're equals. There isn't a difference. And you do the same selection. You go into the same environment as such, totally different in locations and, you know, a sense, but you have signed up to special forces units at that level, and that's what you're asked to do. And you pick SOS? Yes, yes, at the time.

And you know, if I do it all again, I'd pick that again. You know, that was what was within me, you know? And I don't mind maritime environment. Yeah. But at that time, it was all paratrooper and this, this, this, that, and the other. And it's important to mention that both those units select from all over.

Many have international people that join from, you know, New Zealand. I had a number of friends who were New Zealanders. You know, and that harks back to its heritage in World War II, which is essentially, if we understand your background and you share our mission, then you're welcome to come and have a try. Oh, interesting. So, at the end of the day, it's not that you're precluded, but you would expect the SBS to be quite heavily Marine-orientated. Gotcha.

The parachute regiment used to have a lot of people in, but I think it's more, definitely more sort of spread now between people. But let's face it, if you're a really decent professional soldier, you can learn the rest of the skills. And what's beautiful about Special Forces' role is it is quite varied. And it's multiple skills, all applied. And most of those can be taught and trained if you've got the right characteristics to apply to it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and when we come back we'll talk about how it was to check into the unit. Yes. Perfect. When the grid fails and no one's coming, you need more than a backup. That's why I want to introduce you to Paladin Power. Most of America's 130-year-old power grid is fragile, outdated, and vulnerable. Paladin Power gives you the ability

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That's helixsleep.com slash SRS for 27% off site-wide plus a free bedding bundle that includes a sheet set and a mattress protector with any Lux or Elite mattress order. Helixsleep.com slash SRS. All right, John, we're back from the break. So I want to talk about what it was like for you to check into the legendary SAS unit. Yeah, I mean, it's really you enter an ecosystem that's already running hot. And essentially it's a constant process of courses, training and deployments when they happen. And for me, my team was already preparing to go away because Iraq was already in

the process. So it just depends on what squadrons you get sent to, what you're likely to then be involved in first. But there's an element of courses. They catch up on your courses very, very quickly. You're meeting soldiers that have had lots and lots of experience in so many ways that you don't recognise in the wider military You know, so you immediately you pick up on there's lots of other skills that you've got to learn a master

So I mean, I don't remember being overwhelmed by it. I remember enjoying it a huge amount What do they how do they greet you? Are they welcoming or are they treating you like an FNG? You know what I mean? I know. So I mean, it's welcoming. Yeah, it's welcoming, but very, very grown up. That's, let's just call it very grown up, right?

You know, um, essentially you're on a test and trial period anyway. Okay. So you always are. So you go through, all right. So just walk me through the pipeline. So you go through a six month selection process. You do in there, you do CQB land navigation, escape and evasion, survival, parachuting, pretty much all the stuff that it takes to turn you

into a special operator, correct? At the lowest level, At the lowest level. At the lowest level. So these are the very, very just the basic basic skills. So this is similar. I don't know how familiar you are with, with our pipelines, but this, this sounds very similar to me is, is buds.

Yes. For seals seal training, where you, we go through the first two months as a kick in the balls. Where it's just you're cold, you're wet, you're miserable. It's lots and lots of PT and physical tests. And then you move into a dive phase for two months. Then you move into a land warfare phase for two months. And then you go to jump school and then you show up to the unit, which is roughly six months if you make it in one shot.

That's exactly right. You turn up having learnt rather than really become very good at the bare elements of what you're going to need to do. become very good at the bare elements of what you're going to need to do. Now the... So you're a guy that they just... Just like... It's very similar to Bud's.

You are a nobody when you show up to the unit and then the unit trains you into what it needs you to become. Totally. Okay. And they do it with urgency. So it really depends on what your squadron is next going to be committed to that will inform what immediate courses you're doing. But essentially, it's, you know, and again, it's a great thing about it's education, education,

education. I did a mortars course very early, but they all up to train you. You immediately join in with squadron training where they are looking at you to see how quickly you fitted and how well you can sink into it and people spend intensive periods of time training you individually to help you within your own teams. Another thing that they will be under a lot of pressure to do is train you in your specific insertion skills. So each team has a real major in certain types

of insertion. So it's air mobility, boat and mountain. But essentially you may be waiting quite a period of time to do that and so you don't feel like you're properly accredited until you've sort of done those courses as well. It may depend on what you're doing. Now I deployed quite quickly. So how fast did you deploy? I cannot remember, but you know, within months, if not weeks, within weeks. Yeah. So I know was because Iraq was underway already. What year is this? 2003.

Oh, so that was the invasion. Yes. Yes. So essentially that informed exactly your, you know, you, you basically, they look at where the numbers issues are and they just put numbers against it. You get preferences in, you know, what you want to major in so I picked air and mountain. That would mean that I'd become very specialist in parachuting. We're all good at parachuting but air just that sort of step up whereas mountain you know you I used to always sort of consider mountain as a bit of a an odd one because we do a lot of urban climbing. We do navigating across ridge lines. But when you're climbing a mountain to get to the top of it,

it's not really all about that, although people do, a lot of people go up Everest and do some amazing expeditions, but it's not really role-operated, it's not really role operated. It's not really sort of operations orientated. So mountains quite a interesting one to pass. Um, but I was waiting quite a while because I did my first deployment first. Um, I think, yeah, I'm absolutely sure I did my first and these were

in our deployments were short periods of time. What is the, what is the, sorry, the, sorry, how is SAS broken up? So there's four main squadrons and there's elements of departments and wings that provide various functions of support, tuition, instruction, backing. A lot of, and I always used to say, you know, Special Forces roles, that unit's role, probably subdivide it into 70%, 30%, 70% support to other, we support our emergency services, you know, on a national remit. We do a lot of support to other people, we do a lot of training to other people.

And it's also important when you're talking about UK Special Forces to recognize that we don't have a tiered system. So we refer to our SES and SBS as tier ones to be comparative levels in communication, knowledge and understanding with US Special Forces. But actually the unit covers multiple tiers of operations and ways to do things. Okay. And I think it is part of its strength because everyone is orientated differently. The resources they have are different.

And certainly I enjoyed having that range of activity and operations that I took part in. So, but tier one is a status where you can only be appropriated certain missions, you know, it would be unfair to, for instance, take someone who has a reserve and give them a hostage rescue to do. Now hostage rescue is an incredibly complex mission to do, you have to train very hard and you have to be assured at so many skills. So, you know, the two units, the SES and the SBS, are comparative in that respect, but they will also deliver lots of other activity and support which would be recognized as tier 2, tier

3, tier 4. So the myriad of skills we learn is also reflective of that. Are you guys foreign and domestic? Yes, yeah, yes, we're global. What kind of stuff would you do domestically? So we support, so the UK has got an interesting construct that you don't see many, where there's something called military assistance

that can be given to the emergency services. So this has happened, you saw it in the Iranian embassy siege. The unit has always had a very, very high priority to support our emergency services at times when it's to do with terrorism. So it's never anything to do with the criminal at all. It's always terrorism.

And we have remits to support everyone. So we have to trainit to support everyone so we have to train very consciously with that. It's the highest priority we've got actually and it's conditioned with dedicated teams constantly and it's a role that you go through. So that forms a key part of our training and every role that we go through from a global remit to an operations window to a domestic CT remit, we will have a set of preparation exercises and currency exercises we'll do to ensure we've got the skills and we've proved ourselves up to a very, very thorough level to prove that we're good to take over that role and then they'll hand over. And essentially it was a two-year cycle. So if you appropriate six months to each and you

cycle through that. So it's a pretty relentless operational rotation. How was the cycle? So what and what order does it go? Yeah. Exactly what order. It was a tier of domestic CT so support to our services think operations window come back then you have your global standby remit where you'll go and you'll support anything that happens or there's something that happens they need to deploy teams to. So often they'll be small teams.

If there's a hostage rescue to do, then you'll be stood up immediately for that. And then there's a period of training where you'll go away and do some sort of environmental training. Okay. So you share it and make sure, because we have to operate in every single environment. So we train and prove in every single environment.

So over the years they'll prove desert, they'll prove jungle, they'll prove mountain. So it's always an arrangement. It's got those three pillars in of domestic support, operations, global remit, and then a period of preparation that they sort of meld together inside. But taking over and handing over those different responsibilities is really non-conditional. You have to do it on a certain date. You have to prove to yourself by a certain time. What that results in is an endless cycle of training and preparation and currencies that's very, very hard and intensive on the unit to keep up.

But essentially as a soldier you're gaining so many skills as you go along and you're taking on more and more. For instance I became demolitions trained and then email E-trained so I was a breacher on certain squadrons but also JTAC, Joint Terminal Air Controller, Attack Controller. So in our parlance, that started off as an FAC, which became a Sub-FAC Supervisory FAC. So you look at all of these ranges of skills, and I think that's one of the strengths of the members of the unit, is they become multiple skilled in lots.

But we always used to laugh, because it's very, very hard to stay good at these skills and current at these skills because they adapt and change all the time. So within all of that rotation, they've built in other courses that you need to do. Every period of time, you'll go on a post as well. It'll either be support externally or to one of the instructors wings. And then you'll take part in obviously instructing

and ensuring that squadrons are prepared, selection is delivered, all of those sorts of things. Interesting. So you go to Baghdad, or you go to Iraq? Did you go to Baghdad? Yeah, to Iraq? Did you go to Baghdad? Yeah, straight in because I arrived just as I was actually doing courses to prepare. So I remember doing a mortars course. I can't remember what other courses, but because I was brand new, I was doing these courses all the way through. So I caught everyone up, Really not long after Baghdad had, you know, people had got to the

center of Baghdad and sort of secured it. What was that like for you? Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely a huge eye-opener, you know, experience of being really quite sort of being a paratrooper, very, very exciting, but to be put into a complex environment like that, following up on something that was a war was really sort of an incredible experience for someone so young, you know, really, really opened my eyes for the first time I was meeting and often and interlocuting with US forces. And then gradually we became part of a comprised task force that was mostly US forces.

I don't remember if there's any other nationalities in there, but we were part of it as well. And that was an incredible learning experience. But bearing in mind I had no experience backwards so I was quite adaptive, at state I could be quite adaptive but I was noticing difference in equipment, I was noticing difference in techniques, tactics and procedures and I was noticing very very big difference in equipment and at that time Baghdad and Iraq was relatively safe and I remember there being quite a sense of hope and opportunity there but then quickly security started breaking down you know you were noticing the looting no one's interfering with us but quickly there were no-go areas springing up like I remember

Haifa Street being one of the notable areas and you know you just got a sense that things were gonna turn. But essentially, that first tour was very, very busy. You had that deck of cards, you had the former regime elements, and I remember coming up against them and most of them were relieved to actually not be tracked down by militias or things, you know. And I remember also, I don't think there were any suicide

bombs going off at that period. And there was a sense of hope. But I do have recollections of I'm sure we went into Sadder City and we were kind of there was something to do an electricity substation, something that was very critical that someone needed to look at. And I bumped into, I was standing on the corner and again, you know, it was actually quite not relaxed. You're aware that it was all very... I wouldn't say, I don't know anybody that's been relaxed in Sadder City. No, no, but there was a sense and it, you know, it's the, and I'm sure it was an electricity substation. It was a key of like, we can get the electricity stable.

And I bumped into a young Iraqi boy coming back. So I was speaking to him and he's speaking English. I was asking him for saying, Oh, you know, how are you doing? Like what are you doing? He said, I'm going home to do my French homework. And I was like, okay, well I speak French well, I see, uh, help you. And, uh said, I'm going home to do my French homework. And I was like, OK, I speak French well. I'll help you. And essentially, I just sort of sat down and helped him do his French homework. And it just struck me that at that time, there was actually

quite an element of hope amongst the public. However, you didn't have to look too far to see between the seams of these collections of militia type organizations growing up and quickly taking Areas of control and I remember, you know, they called that debuff Barfacation development quite early. I'm sure is that that first tour and It's sort of sudden suddenly occurring to me that, you know, I don't see how you can

remove the whole governance from a country. It's very, very hard to do. It's not just about positions. It's about people's loyalty and who's paying their wages. And you just got a sense that this was going to become very, very complex very, very quickly. And by the second tour, it had already. Did you go kinetic on your first tour? If we did, I can't remember much of it. I don't think it was particularly organized. The main threat is we were driving around in unarmored vehicles. You felt quite exposed. And there was a lot of unrest,

a lot of movement and everything else. But I can't remember people firing us too much. I definitely noticed no operation sticks out particularly, but you did get that element of, this will quickly become coordinated and complex. Do you remember your first operation where one kinetic? So I can't really pick it out. I think it was on my second tour. I think it was on my second tour.

I mean, it might have been on the first, right? We did quite a lot of operations up into crit. Um, and, um, you know, I can't pick it out if it was there. And on the second tour it was more about events that started happening. And there were exchanges at breach points and moving too, but we hadn't been, we hadn't got particularly coordinated in. We'd been shot at from roofs a lot, you know, it all started, but there was not really any sort of coordinated action against us and the targets. We started on Al Qaeda associated targets in the second tour and that's not because we, that became our mission and task, it's because we started coming across these houses where they weren't that often armed,

but when they were armed, they were heavily armed. And the main thing that happened on the second tour is our own Hercules getting shot down, which we responded to extremely quickly. And that was a very, very significant moment in that tour. Your own what being shot down, which we responded to extremely quickly. And that was a very, very significant moment in that tour. Your own what being shot down? So our transport Hercules. What is a Hercules?

Transport plane. OK. We have specifically trained aviation crews, because of the complexity of what they're doing. And at that point, we were moving about a lot. I remember there was on the second tour there was a lot of moving around into different regions contacting other forces doing bits with them a lot up to the west up towards Ramadi and you could see that that funnel and that's where we started coming across these houses. These groups that were dressed similarly and mainly I think we were connecting with US forces. I think the most significant thing in

that tour, these were short tours, they were about three months at a time and it was our Hercules, so the Hercules had just dropped off and it took off again, was heading for Balad and it's the time when they were flying low level and we heard a Mayday call because it goes over international channels as well, so unhelpfully Sky News reported it and it was UK-badged Hercules that was shot down in the environs of Iraq so it was off towards the northeast or northwest heading towards Balad. I don't know the details about how they managed to shoot it down other than it was some sort of rocket pack and the Herc

probably was, you know, how it's very very difficult to continue to break up your patterns if you're flying in and out with that density and volume of times. But essentially we got into the pumas and responded very quickly to this. As you can imagine, responding to an aircraft crash like that, it's almost perplexing the scene you come across because there's nothing identifiable, there was only the tailplane. There's nothing else that was particularly identifiable about it. Wow.

It was coming in night. I remember there was a fire in a ditch because there was a water filled ditch and there was a fire burning on top. And essentially we had sort of cleared the air. It's in a very, very difficult area. How did you insert? On our helicopters. So we had our helicopters right by our house

and essentially we could get on them very, very quickly, run them up and we just flew up flight line, found where that accident had happened, that incident. And essentially if the aircraft is flying about 200 foot or below and it gets hit it goes in headfirst right, it just tips forward and essentially it was a very very complex space obviously there's a lot of stuff on the Hercules that needed securing and we had to account for the people on board and that's quite a task right and you know sadly there's families involved and all those people were related to families so I won't go into the details about exactly what we had to do in order

to account for them but I remember a US call sign a C CZAR call sign, responding to the call ourselves. At that point, we had secured the site. We were just looking at it like, where do we start? We did locate one person, but the rest, there's really no sign of what we were supposed to do next. It's beyond our remit of like, how you do this. When the US callsign, Cesar callsign turned up, you know, it was just, they turned up and said, look, you know,

you get on with accounting for your people and securing your equipment, and we will get on with working out how we clear this site up. and I remember they turned up with equipment I've got memories of them putting on You know like dry suits to get into the waterfield ditch Even as they're jagged metal in there and you know, I do remember some birding and things like that and

You know with their help we got back in front of what was really, really perplexing problem that does stay with you, you know, it's like, so when you, you, you were picking up, sending off and saying, look, how, how much more, you know, that's a really sort of tough experience, especially, you know, a lot of us were quite young. That's the first time I saw sort of events like that happen. How many people were on board of that? So I think it was 10. I think it was 10.

We believed it was more at the time, but it was 10. And as you can imagine, you know, if you're sat near the bulkhead of the aircraft, it's, it's gone straight in and it's nice. And in fact, we can find anything that resembled a nose of an aircraft You know, it's like it buried itself So did you find the bodies? Only one but only one we had to account for everyone which we did You know, so that's a tough experience But you know again when I'm telling these stories, I'm absolutely

completely conscious that those people were members of families, you know, they're in relationships, that's really something that's always stayed with me. As I've gone through this job, the impact is more keenly felt there. And you know, I always sort of have that consciously in my mindset you know and that was a very very tough night you know we were we came off I remember we stayed out there for it was into daylight and it became too insecure too uncertain so we lifted off having accomplished that we had to account for people which we did and we had to secure all of the immediate,

very important equipment. We came off and we left most, lots of the wreckage there. I think, I remember we coming off the ground because it was very likely we were gonna start getting mortared at the site. They picked up a lot of activity and comms that they're kinda sorta getting themselves together to make it a real problem for us.

And you have sort of options there. You can either call in more air and you know, so I think the decision was, hey, have we done enough here? You know, do we have to stay here? And the answer was no. So we lifted off and then we did return to the site. I can't remember how much longer it may have been the next day. And by that time, they gathered up all of the metal because it was obviously valuable and piled it in piles but at that point you're looking at sort of useless metal towards people. So that was kind of the event and that really

was the seminal thing of that tour. There's lots of other kind of operations and activity we got on. That was a really really really significant one that stuck with me for quite a while you know. You know, it highlights the complexity of these jobs, no one expected that bit. And I think it was a go through all of this, you know all of the operations, you just re-roll, re-roll, re-roll. We weren't as busy on that tour as we was on subsequent tours but the numbers were absolutely huge and you're just re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling all the time. And hardly any of it is sticking out. It's when something like an aircraft gets shot down and you have to respond to that.

And you're keenly aware of those people that were killed were members of people's families. And that really, really highlights it to you that there is a big cost to this You know no one expects to lose aircraft, but they do You know and we aren't the only ones to do it and when it happens. It's you know large numbers so Yeah, I mean that's one of the seminal points in my career was responding to that as quite a young a member of special forces and That was what we're asked to do. So we did it man

What other kind of operations were you guys doing? So as a range it still really hadn't sort of tied it up into the first one was former regime elements None of whom, you know, there was, I don't remember any exchanges of fire and all of that. The second one was a greater myriad of operations, again none of them particularly stick out, but they were tasked operations against buildings of known people that were starting to take part in insurgencies. There was some AQ linked things, but we hadn't really found a proper form and function at that point. And I remember the country being dangerous, but it wasn't. We could go out during the day, you know, and by that time we had got armored vehicles and I think we were using

our own helicopters by that point. So we had found form and function but it hadn't really entrenched into a program of operations as such and the networks weren't clear to us either. And that was that was all right around 2003 timeframe? Yeah so these tours used to come around quite quickly. The first one would have been 2003, the second one 2004, third one 2005 crossing into six, was it 06 into seven? No, it's 05 into 06. But that's when we were sharing the theatre between us, so the SS and SBS were re-rolling between us and then they started saying okay we'll appropriate regions because this is now going to be a you know a task that is going to go on for years and by

that point we made our tours longer I think in order to suit the other parts of the operational role so we weren't taking risks against them. And so they became six months tours by the third tour. And in 2004, you lost your mother. Um, yes. So I still try and organize it out in my head and I'll have to look at the dates on the, on the gravestone, uh, to appropriate. And again, it's a kind of muddle as to what organization of these these tours I did eight eight or up tours 2003 to

2014 but it happened just before the second tour it must have been the second tour and I was standing in the camp and I received a phone call to come up to the Squadron block headquarters and I kind of knew that something was up. I was either going to get sent away on something, which was exciting, or there was something wrong. And as I walked into the Squadron block, I could immediately tell something was up. So I went into the office and you know when you look at someone's face you can see that it's really whatever you're about to be told is pretty awful and they said that my mum had been hit by a car in a car accident she's very very severely injured so when someone uses those words you kind of know what this is leading to but what what happened next, and I can't remember a thing,

when you get told news like that, I think your head just goes on fire. Very, very confused. I had a car waiting outside, and I was led to the car. I got took down to the HLZ on our camp, and I got lifted out on the reserve helicopter for the teams that are on standby to respond. My mum was declared dead whilst I was in the air and I was kind of phoning my brother

and my dad to see they'd already got to the hospital and I basically got dropped onto a village and I basically got dropped onto a village cricket pitch to a waiting police vehicle with blue lights and they thought they were going to pick up something really, someone really important and got an extremely upset SAS trooper. They raced me to the hospital. I went and I remember saw my brother, my dad on the ramp. I knew that life was not gonna be the same again. I went in and saw my mum's body and you can see exactly what happened.

And you know, I actually did a further investigation into her death because the police kind of sort of got some details wrong. Not that it made any difference, but I remember looking at my dad, and I was just like, wow, now this is gonna change everything. He was utterly distraught, as you would be. Didn't make any sense to him.

I had a car that hit my mum, had about, you know, between seven and 13 seconds to see what was happening. My mum had dropped something in the road, and it just hit her and she'd gone underneath the car. And I had really, really severe injuries, head injuries, compound fracture of the femur, massive breaks all over right

and actually I'm very very pleased that there was no HEMS team like special emergency team that could have come to her aid because her Glasgow comas girl was four out of 15. There was a massive massive head injury around the occipital area. Big pools of blood in the road because it was quite a small car so she got caught underneath it and rolled under. And the final piece to the actual incident itself is that the lady who had hit her was 80 years old and she knew her and my mum used to buy eggs off her. So I know the situation intensely, obviously,

because we looked at the police investigation. We looked at how on earth we're going to manage my father. He was utterly destroyed. He just shouted at my mom. They'd been married for decades and decades and decades. And he'd shouted out the door. She'd shouted and said, look, I'm just off to the butchers. So my mum used to run a very, very small beef farm, a herd.

That was her passion, right? And it was all really, really small enterprise. And there was a butcher's in a nearby village that she chose to manage me at. And that's what was happening, what she was doing at the time. She said, I'm just off to see how we're doing with this. She tripped into the road carrying trays and was picking up things to put back in the trays.

So, you know, of course this makes no sense. This is an utterly tragic accident. This isn't a case of whatever the reason the woman did not see, there is a concept of looking without seeing in there, you know, that she may have seen and never took into account what should happen, but to my dad this was like too much. It's like something he was never going to get over ever and at the age that it happened which I think he was in his 60s, he's very quite healthy, really good.

You know I remember chatting with my brother and I said I've got to deploy so what should we do? We made that decision at the time that we're going to both stay doing our jobs. Made a decision, a conscious decision, that living with my father during that time was not going to make a difference to the levels of grief he had. The level, most of all, why on earth, how could this have happened? You couldn't resolve it for him. I actually went and investigated my mum's death myself and I know the details extremely well

in order to try and provide some sort of closure to explain that there wasn't gonna be a prosecution. And actually it's just a tragic, tragic accident. This lady that hit her, it just destroyed her life, as you can imagine. Especially because she knew my mum. So when I was in the hospital,

me and my brother had started working out, okay, what we gotta do. My brother helped my father with adjusting their arrangements. And my father started living alone. He lived in the house. We had a couple of dogs. And essentially, I think he went walking.

He went traveling quite a bit. And he really was just trying to attend to himself. But we could see that he was just hollowed out. He was going to struggle for the rest of his life. And the physiological impact of that grief was really, really dangerous to him and there was nothing that anyone could do about that because if no one can explain why or how that happens, that's unresolvable. So anyway, I deployed.

I remember coming back It's quite a few years actually and I can't remember it's that particular tour that I came back with alopecia and Again, it's now now what I know about this is that regulated stress But what was interesting I was working all the way through that tour I remember talking to my dad on the phone which was really unusual, my dad didn't do the phone that much but he did it more after my mum's death but you know it wasn't like routine all the time, it just wasn't like that but he would check in and I did a lot of you know when I came back I made a point of going to see him, and he used to come and see me at home.

And in that period of time, I sort of saw how he was living. And he was living, you know, he was just, well, is it a generational thing? I don't know. But he could barely use the washing machine, you know. And he used to describe his darkest hour And I remember I was I'm special forces trained medic and part of what we do is we learn off the hospital experts

I remember driving home from hospital one morning So he used to describe this moment. So I thought I'll get home early because I was working in London So I went back home to kind of try and have a cup of tea with him, cheer up with him. I remember walking into the kitchen, it was really quite early, I remember it was just getting light, it was about sort of 5.30 or something like that, and he was dressed in his pajamas and he was just kind of, I walked into the kitchen and it was almost like I wasn't there, he was just turned around and he started talking to me as though he assumed I was going to

be there or not, you know, and I was trying to surprise him and he was just kind of, just don't understand how this could happen. So he used to describe this period, this darkest hour, and it's when he got up. And that's when he used to have a cup of tea with my mum. And one morning, in this period as well, I think I've got this right, no, that was later. So my father got up one morning, he was due to actually come and see my brother, it was

the 23rd of December, one year later, so almost one year to a month from when it had happened. When you imagine around Christmas, when you're used to being with someone, I think it was just loaded up and loaded up and loaded up on him. And he got up one morning at exactly that time when he would be going downstairs to have a cup of tea. He had a massive heart attack. And we hadn't spoken to him for two days. So I was at home and I rung my brother and said, hey, have you heard from dad?

I haven't spoke to him for a couple of days, but he's due to be coming to see you for Christmas. And he said, I haven't heard from him anyway. And a lady who held keys to our house went in and she found him and he'd had a massive heart attack and he fell over. His head had gone through the wall. It was quite a sort of plasterboard wall. And that's exactly what happened, right? Just overcome with physical grief. And I believe what actually killed him was something called tacotosuba cardiomyopathy.

When you're in a unrelenting chronic loop of stress, the release of cortisol and epinephrine, for some reason, and no one really understands stuns muscles in your heart, and the reason it's called taco to super cardioma offy because it was found in the 80s in Japan and someone had died and they've done a post-mortem in time and found that the heart the left ventricle had gone out of shape and Taco to super tobe means octopus trap. So adopted that. And of

course in most cases, you know, when you've got that level of grief, that level of shock you have central heart pain. I believe that's that thing. That's that adrenaline epinephrine, whatever it is, it's stunning those muscles. One of those, or number sets of those 18 autonomic muscles that govern your heart. And because it goes slightly out of shape, it of those, or number sets of those 18 autonomic muscles that govern your heart. Because it goes slightly out of shape, it leaves its, it loses its integrity with blood pressure and other harmonies within your physiology. And in most cases that's not dangerous, right? Some people that have no heart conditions, whatever, it just goes back to a normal shape at the point where the point of chronic stress had gone. But my dad, he was in his loop every morning

and just crushing period of stress that he was undergoing. And because of his age, which I think he was late 60s at the time he died, you know, he was just slightly more vulnerable. And I absolutely believe in a post-mortem, you know, the toxicology reports there was nothing that was could explain for the fact he'd had a massive heart attack he's very healthy he's very fit he's an intelligent man you know one of the things I looked at in the fridge, I was seeing what he was eating. He had mackerel and cold fish, tomatoes,

sort of various good diet, but absolute staple and things he didn't need to cook. So I think he was living in this sort of period. And you know, I don't think either me or my brother living with him during that period would have changed that outcome at all because nothing anyone could have done for him at that point would have prevented him from having that moment, that extreme moment of vulnerability first thing in the morning.

And again, what I'm sort of involved in now are really, really interesting, the physical impacts of grief, you know professionally related stress So That was you know how my parents were connected to that I continued working all along and the people were managing me, you know, first of all, I mean hold on So you lost your mom and your dad? in a span of a Year and a month? Yeah.

13 months. Yeah. If you had anything to say to them right now, what would you say? So they left an amazing legacy behind them. And you know, they were proud of what we were both doing at the time. And I don't know what I would say to them.

You know, I'd just say, hello. You know, it's like, I look at that period, it's all connected, but it started with an accident like no one could predict, and that could happen to anyone. You know, and when we're talking, I was sitting down and talking to my dad and trying to explain that there was no closure. There was never going to be an explanation that was going to satisfy him. I don't know what I would

say to them now, but if I could see them again, a lot of people ask me about who they were. They're very special people. Then most people are special people. But you know, I don't think I'd tangle over what I'd say to them at all, you know. They were great people. And you know, the last chat I had with my dad was on my sofa at home, and very connected to him. But it wasn't like, you know, he didn't lean on people at all.

You know, he and he was very, he wanted to understand everything so I think he was always going to struggle with what had happened. I don't know whether he had any regrets over it. I am and I genuinely, I don't know what I would say to them. You know, both people I absolutely loved. My mum I was very close to, just because of the nature of what we did. But equally connected to my dad in a different type of closeness.

Hugely admired him. And again, you look at what he did for his life, making the opportunities for me and my brother, working extraordinarily hard. You know, he had a business that went bust when the market just, you know, there was no saving it. I remember him saying, and he was a really, really, what he really stuck out as someone who was very strong and good.

He wasn't necessarily easy to deal with at times, because he knew exactly what he thought was right to do. I remember his biggest entanglement over the business and the fact that it couldn't be saved is the fact that he had employees, people that had worked in the joinery works for so long. So that was the sort of man he was. I remember seeing him during that year. He started doing a lot of walking, so he said, oh, what do you think I should get for walking boots? I also remember him having a Nokia 2210 phone. He'd never had a mobile before, and we now said, look, you have to have a mobile.

We need to be able to talk to you. We need to understand that you're all right. He wasn't used to taking calls. He didn't, you know, if it wasn't working, he wasn't, you know, making phones, phone calls to people. So trying to impress upon him that he needed to answer this. You know, and it was all those things, I think, over the board. Life was an impossible challenge for him after my mum was killed.

Man, how did you overcome that? Well, I mean, it's whether those two are linked or not, you know A lot of other things were happening at the time within my family those were Absolute seminal points in my life and I talk about this in a very very You know, that's not unusual actually there's lots of people that have these tragedies happen to them. Thankfully that is not frequently the way.

But you know, I look at other people's circumstances and they're caring for elderly parents. And some of them, you know, that's very, very tough period. And I think, you know, intuitively I saw my way through it. And you can see the response my body had. I've still got alopecia now. And you know, you can see that I'm under stress now because it comes back. And I've still got alopecia now. And you know, you can see that I'm under stress now because it comes back.

And I've just got it in patches here. And as I understand it, alopecia is an awesome immune response to link to stress. You can see that my body was really sort of struggling under the strain to kind of reorientate itself back. But it was doing that, you know. And I actually got beyond the trauma of that happening. I don't know when.

Now it definitely had a massive impact on me, huge impact. And I always say it like, what happened with my mum and subsequently to my dad, but I see that, what happened to my dad is less of a shocking trauma because it was almost connected. We didn't expect that to happen. We were shocked when we were told it, but it made sense. And so what happened with my mum, it was actually, it will

always be tragic. And arguably, it's going to be sad. But it's not necessarily traumatic for the rest of time. And I think it's the first, and again, I only understand this by looking back on it now, your body's actually quite powerful in getting yourself through these traumatic periods.

And I think, you know, I went back to work and I was given the option not to, you know, everyone managed me. The levels of leadership I saw at that point in the management of me, I'll never forget. And the people I was working to in my squadron Incredible people right, you know and they were saying it's your choice And I was saying that this is the grown-up world of all SF You know, it's like, you know, you tell us what you need. It's your choice

And I said no no, I can't remember it's day one But it was very soon after if it wasn't day one, but I was on the tour and did the whole tour But I hugely appreciated how they managed me, especially, you know, you look at the response that they gave me to get me to that hospital. Actually, everyone knew that those injuries were fatal. I should have already been intubated, you know, that, there was really no difference,

other than shaving off tens of minutes by using a helicopter versus if they'd asked the police they'd have blue lighted me there. We get tremendous amounts of support from people when we've got times of need. And I've always, someone took a decision to use that helicopter that was a reserve helicopter. There's an element of risk there. They looked at my situation and time of need and I've always been hugely appreciative of it ever since. I think it's one of the finest examples of leadership you can ever show. My partner, the award-winning precious metals company GoldCo,

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And actually, you know, they know that, you know, all of us collectively, apart from me, knew that wasn't actually going to change the outcome at all. And actually, you know, they know, you know, all of us collectively, apart from me, knew that wasn't actually going to change the outcome at all. But they got me back to my father and my brother's side the soonest they possibly could. And there wasn't ever anything, not a minute could have been shaved off it more. You know, that really, really stuck with me. And I think how I was managed through that period has been absolutely fundamental to remaining through it.

You know, you come out sort of bruised. Of course you do, right? You come out thing, but, you know, I didn't see the point of missing work. Not when I had these chats with my brother. I think that's very, very fundamental. And then more latterly, youly, we lost more people. So the godfather to me was killed.

Over the time, and I've always been surprised how few people close to me I've lost, but over the time you realize they have. So a next door neighbor was killed, a godfather was killed. My next door neighbour was very, very badly injured. You look over the period of time this happened. What happened to my parents was it changes forever.

There was really, really big, big challenges in it. It was a building company. There were open mesophilioma claims related to the use of asbestos. Of course, no one can prove that there was insurance in place. And no one can prove the veracity of the claims, you know. And two of the claims actually had worked days in the company, but one particular very, very sad case. Someone had worked there for a quite considerable period of time. I remember looking at it,

because we inherited these cases, me and my brother, because we were de facto now become inheritance of all these complicated businesses around the business. So we had all that going on background. I investigated my mum's death myself, because the police got it wrong. And it wasn't actually the details of where she'd been hit and how far she'd been rolled down the road.

But it was enough for my dad to really just go into almost like a grief stricken frenzy over it. They've got it wrong. Why could the hell could they ever? So I went and did it myself. And I explained how it happened. And I said, look, just because they ever? So I went and did it myself. I explained how it happened and I said, look, just because they've marked it here rather than here, it doesn't change anything. So we're doing a lot of work around that. I ended up managing one of the mesofilioma

cases assessed and it was an absolutely tragic consequence. But do you know a lot about asbestos lead mesofilioma? The shards go into the lung and then they activate about 20 years later and they get sharp. It's a really, really horrible tragic situation. And whether there was safety or not, knowing who my dad was and how he ran the company, I would almost be certain that there was whatever it was at the time was available to use, but that wasn't the point.

They would have always had insurance and that's what insurance was there for but we could not prove who had the insurance. I remember dealing with this and we worked out which company it was. It was after 16 buyouts of one particular company but they were just bar mauling us. They said, no, no, you can't prove it. You haven't got a policy document, la, la, la. We've found scraps and there's a place in Norfolk where they hold miles and miles of old paperwork of insurance for getting people to go through this. Because the levels of money, you know, compensation that was due to this person, 100%, and three

times that should have been given to his surviving widow Because he actually died during that I remember is under a year, but it was nearly a year of dealing with this And I remember at a point where me and my brother had finally kind of just found a portion of the policy number or we've Found enough to say we know it's you right and They literally over one phone call said, okay, leave this with us, it's no longer your business. You know, and if that had gone to arbitrary, and it would definitely have been ruled

in favor of mesophilium cases, and I absolutely am complete support of that, right? You know, what's the point in looking back through time and going, did you have access to safety equipment or not? You know, extraordinary thing to try and address when you're doing that. The concept was, we knew insurance was in place, it was a responsible business.

You know, so we inherited a lot of that and I remember at the time it was really, really stressful. Really stressful. We're doing all our jobs all the time, but fun, you instinctively pick your way through it. I do remember in a time chat with my brother, and if we'd had to find the money for that, in this case, we'd both lost our houses.

And lots of people around us would have been hugely impacted by that. So there were real, real challenges that I even have to just sort of remind myself of now, of what was going on and what were the consequences of those untimely deaths. And everyone looks in their lives and they think they can picture when they'll die. They think they can get ready for it and make good plans. when they'll die, they think they can get ready for it and make good plans. And very, very often it doesn't work out like that at all.

Man, what a tough, what a tough girl, man. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I reflected back on it healthily. Now, you know, I understand it as a process. I also recognise that this is life and this happens to lots of people in different ways. I'm deeply thankful for who my parents were. They're incredibly special people. They left an amazing legacy. And you know, for what we had is more than enough to be grateful for. You know, the way it happened, I just simply don't

have any regrets over it. It's just, that's what happened. And I think, you know, it's such an important aspect of life, is this acceptance that these things will happen, you know, and you will go through a period where you'll have to come to terms with it. That's a normal process, you know, but you are really, you know, I think back on how special my mum and my dad were. In particular, I spent tons of time with my mum. And you can think back, and I read through her post-mortem reports, I have to understand it, I had to understand it to adequately deal with my dad. And I still look at those reports now. I had to remind myself of that because I'm coming here and it's such a seminal point

of my life. My life does not make sense if I can't explain that You know and I read through those reports, you know, and you look at it and you just think oh my goodness You know, but then I've worked as a medic And I've seen this happen to people's families and I've seen the consequences of it and I've you know I've got friends who emergency emergency responders in the UK, one's a cardiac specialist, you know, CPR and recovery of people from heart attacks. And it happens in the street,

and no one's present to pronounce death. And I can't, I don't understand a particular mechanism. She said one of these sort of quirks with COVID is people go into cardiac arrest, they neither go down or nor do they and you know, as an expert, they're never coming back. So they're stuck and you know, all too often they're surrounded by their families and they're witnessing this tremendously traumatic event. And this person is having to manage this and

doing it day after day after day, you know? And internally they have to manage the reality, the knowledge that they know this is already a death. But these people surrounding them, they are watching it and they are hoping that it's a life. And I think this is an intricate pattern in life that we have to kind of sort of accept. These things do happen and we all hope that our loved ones are going to be safe and secure. But you know, and again I'll remind it, I had an interesting chat just recently as you can go into

any doctors tomorrow and find out about a diagnosis that they'll bring your life to an end tomorrow. Something's been lurking within, you've not detected, it's not anything you've done wrong, no? And you'll try and make sense of it, but it won't. So my mum very much sits in that bracket. There's actually no reason to try and make sense of it. No, it's a particular story, the fact that that lady knew her. She used to buy eggs from her. That is, if you can't get a story about how life can be, that is as stark as that. And it's really interesting,

because when I was speaking to my father about it, I was saying, this lady's 80. I think she was 80 at the time. It has ruined her life irreversibly. This is a tragic, tragic accident. So, you know, managing was very, very tough. I came back with alopecia. It's like, tough. I came back with alopecia. It's like, it's still there. It's never gone. I can see it's like a little radar now to when life is becoming quite tight and complicated. And always it comes back. It doesn't bother me, but it's a mark that you'll wear seemingly for the rest of my life. You know, so again, when that's put against and overloaded with related professional stress,

I used to call some elements of what we do Pager Syndrome, you know, you're always on call in some way or form. When you're out in operations, you're constantly re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling. As soon as you're back, and we talked about that story about supporting a team out in Ramadi, immediately backing out again. Now I don't think that was unique in us.

Lots of other units did it as well. But the tempo was extraordinary at times. 182 operations on the third tour in six months. It was just extraordinary. In all of these times, they're complex operations. You know, you don't know what you're going on half the time. You've got a good idea of the broad structure of the intelligence, but the buildings change.

There's aspects that you haven't seen. You know, it's the ultimate in adaptability that you need to have in order to do that. When things aren't going to work out the way you want them you have to just take a deep breath and accept they aren't the way you want them. When you're sitting on the back end of a charge because you can't get around the corner and you've run out of detonators with a particular length, you know, it's that deep breath, you know, it's going to hurt. And in that particular instance, one of my friends got hurt in his groin

and had to be castivact for that, you know. And you're kind of in that situation, you're just looking at it. You know, you're going to set that thing off and it's going to hurt. Right? So did you go up back to bad, Dad, after your father passed? Yes. So did you go up back to Baghdad after your father passed? Yes. So yes. I mean, it just, and again, and I didn't miss any operational days, maybe five days at the

beginning, I cannot remember, but I did not miss an operational tour or consciously any days, right? But I was being extraordinarily well managed. You know, it wasn't like people were telling me to be there. They were saying, you tell us what you can do. Now, my compass point was, unless I've got an extraordinarily good reason not to be, I will be there.

Do you feel like you want to work early just to I will be there. Do you feel like you want to work early just to put yourself back in that environment so that you didn't think about the passing? I don't think I did that, as in I didn't use it in that way, but I didn't see a good enough reason not to be there. And that was because I was talking to my brother.

We believed that there was no changeable outcome for that. You know, it would find its way whatever. The fact that we could be in the house more, you know, we had made a conscious decision to stay in our jobs. Standing out of our job, we couldn't afford to do that. There wasn't a viable alternative to it and I don't think the support would have made any difference. So it wasn't like our sort of finding solace in work. It'd be an extraordinary place to look for solace in work

with that level of overloaded professional stress that comes with it. But I think I was quite young, and I was really sort of tuned into the fact that, you know, I looked at each one, and I said, you know, do I at each one and I said, you know, do I need to miss it? No, I don't. And so I did. I turned up and continued to do it. And I wasn't wrong, you know, I was reported on all the way through that. You know, I make

a comment about decorations and commendations. People, you know, I've seen people do extraordinary brave things that they've never been written up for. But in those periods of time, I've seen people do extraordinary, brave things that they've never been written up for, but in those periods of time, you've done 19 operations, obviously you're going to get written up for certain actions. If you haven't come across something extraordinary at a certain time, then you would be in a highly unusual position for that operational exposure. So you do get written up for stuff,

and I receive commendations for stuff I was doing on those tours Which is all that all that is to me is a validation that I was doing my job So it wasn't like I was sort of running at a deficit But what you know, I was really really conscious of is that was building up inside me, right? And that stress was starting to load up and load up and load up and load up. It doesn't necessarily happen when you're there, but it will come in the future. What are some of the operations that you were a part of that really stuck out in your career? So there's stuff on the front line, because they were different.

When we were re-rolling and going on to compounds and constantly, constantly, constantly, none of that stuck out as abnormal. Every so often there was an engagement here in a corridor, whatever. None of it really, really sort of resonated, particularly with me. Living on a front line in a small team, really, really stuck out. There was a operation I was involved in, I can't say the place of it,

but a large device was set off in an engagement in the breach point, well, they didn't use an explosive charge in the end, but it set off a very large tri-acetone, tri-proxide device that ended up with a house falling on the injured who'd been used in the end, but it set off a very large tri-acetone, tri-proxide device that ended up with the house falling on the injured who'd been missing in the engagement. That's a good one to talk about. The numbers in that, 28 people went out the door.

As I remember it, there were 13 left standing by the end of it. When these special forces operations get complex, they get extremely complex. 28 of you guys went out and 13... No, so this was a partner force that we were supporting. So I was about 25 foot away from the Tri-Stone Tri-Proxide device, but around two corners and up some stairs. So all I did was get covered in dust. But two people had been shot in the head in the initial engagement,

and a number had picked up other injuries from the device going off but essentially we were still trying to work out how we were to extricate them from that breach point position without exposing ourselves to further fire from this building that was two-story and they'd survived in the second story because I was 25 foot away No reason they hadn't and actually the farm went on for over two hours after that But essentially four stories of half the house fell on top of the wounded Bearing it and some of the injuries were like earthquake injuries when we did finally recover them

and the trouble if and I've done a lot of sort of days in urban areas that have been partially destroyed, and what wouldn't be immediately obvious to people is when you're operating in an area where buildings have fallen down, it acts like camouflage material, right? There's nothing ordered or patterned

in which your eye can make sense of. So you don't know where you're gonna get shot at from next. And actually when it's a doorway or where it's a window, you can see when something breaks it. And you can take a position or you could be much more safe in how you're going about it. And for the next few hours, we had to try and stop these people from breaking out

because the situation was gonna get a lot, lot worse. They're heavily armed with PKM type machine guns. One had a minimi and they had a large store of explosive devices that we found out later but somehow we had to extricate and another badge member that I was with he went rescued someone from the access point at breach point which is incredibly brave thing to. And the person they rescued took a bit of frag through, partially severed their spinal column, so he had to learn to walk again. And so the people we could get out, we could get out. There was one personal member, I kept going down and listening over the wall,

and obviously he had been buried just right by the breach point and he was screaming but we couldn't, you know, we're trying to access it together to say how are we gonna get this guy out and he's completely buried without exposing ourselves to the fire that is coming out there. It's pretty random at that point, we weren't off two hours after that and essentially he stopped screaming at a certain point and we made a decision to say, okay, well, you know, this outcome is really, really tough. We don't think it's worth taking the risk anymore. We completely overloaded the medevac chain. You know, people were treating themselves in the street. the medevac chain, people were treating themselves in the street. I put out edicts as such, they weren't orders, I wasn't in command list but we were helping support them in this very

very complex situation. I said to them, you're not to take any more casualties, you must must not take any more casualties. People know, must, must not take any more casualties. And there are people that are just tremendously brave. I remember one that had been shot in the chest, no one really realized. And it was some time later until he just fell over backwards. And he was like, wow, no one even picked up on the fact he had been shot.

And some of the injuries these people would take on, incredibly, incredibly brave people. And the people, the person we left buried. And we made a conscious decision to not try and get him out because he was completely buried and risked more casualties. He turned out to be alive, you know, it was about three or four hours later. And it took 40 minutes to dig him out.

But when they did dig him out. But when they did get him out, he was alive, but he had absolutely horrible injuries. He'd already had horrible injuries, but there were also quite crush injuries, injuries associated to earthquake-type injuries. And it's sort of jobs like that, they come up. And I remember thinking at the time when the large explosion went off, you're like, okay, we're still in this. But as soon as the house falls down,

it's like the aircraft gets shot out of the sky. It's unbelievable complexity attached to us. I think, you know, remembering the center point of just saying, okay, well, this is going to take a long time to get out of now. We have to control the situation. It's not like you can just get up and leave. You have to control it, you have to contain everyone to the house so the threat isn't going to get worse and bit by bit unpick it. What you're left with is a ton of decisions you could question afterwards. So should we or shouldn't we? But that's not the right process to go along. Because how you went about it was bit by bit, step way down the path, finding a way through

that complexity. That in that particular instance it's how on earth do we guarantee there's no more threat from that building by shoring those people they were they were injured themselves by the explosive blast going off you know and trying to clear into a destroyed building is very very difficult you know and so we were trying to make good conscious professional decisions based upon what we needed to do and trying to implore you know the people that injured trying implore them that were close friends of them. These are people that we looked after and mentored incredibly closely and trying to get them not to take massive risks,

like stupid risks in order to do something that we looked at and said, it's not gonna be successful, you will not get them out. And it's a testament to, to when things get that tough, people step up. The training is important, but you see the bravery and the strength of these people and how they step up. So it's operations like that that really, really stick with me. And in that particular instance, you know, I came off the ground. It was dark, really early morning. When we'd been there, we'd gone onto the ground

about sort of 12 o'clock the previous day, implored for nighttime, but for some reason, we weren't given the reasons why. They said, look, please can you do it during the day you can't wait. Obviously there was ongoing threat from these people. They'd already committed attack against arms and police and I remember going home and sitting in my flat and just staring out just the exhaustion you feel you know and I felt it so many times. I mean you've been exposed to loads of explosive blasts,

you've been run out of water, things that you thought were gonna take a day or two days, there's all sorts of reasons you get back there, you feel completely hollowed out. You literally are just sitting there taking it all in. And I always found I'd just sort of press play on the music. In that particular instance, I had to write someone a letter to explain,

don't listen to the noise, this is what happened. And you can be proud of these people. That's what it is, I'm unbelievably brave. And then as soon as I had a plan to deliver that letter, I went straight to the hospital and I seen the guys. And everyone involved in that would question, what did I do? Did I do the right thing?

Could I have done that? As soon as I walked into the hospital and I saw their faces, it was like a friend has come to see them, like made the effort to go there. And it is hard when you're facing up with people, you're looking at them, you're like, wow, you got injured. And now some of them very, very seriously, some of the breaks, there was one guy stood by the wall when the wall blew out and a block went straight into his femur and the break was just astonishing.

It was like, I remember looking at it and just going, well, when you see these people and they're very, very badly injured, he's never going to walk properly again. There's no way you can fix a fracture that big sensibly. You know, and they're still pleased to see. It's just like, wow, okay, we are in this together, and people won't judge you overly, as long as you are all the time putting the effort, the attention and the support into people when they need it. And it's exactly what happened to me.

If you think about what happened around my mum, people give me the support and my absolute hour of need. I didn't even know how, like, critical that need was. In that particular position, you just had to find a way out for these people, which meant handing off that. Trying to persuade them that they weren't going to get the job done at that point, you know, hand it off.

And a lot of the young soldiers, they're very much driven by a sense of duty, a sense of proof, and trying to really explain to them, you've already done your job here, and you've done an immense job. We've suffered, and as has happened, these devices do go off. We don't plan to be here when they do. You know, in that respect, our advice has always been,

do this at night. You know, we always like surprise. We always like to be quiet in what we do. It's inbuilt into us. But when you're forced to go, you're forced to go, right? And you may not know the full picture, in which case we didn't. I found out later about that particular incident that they had planned two further very, very large attacks

all against key aspects of the institution. And they had large stores of IDs that were uncovered as well. And so I come across a lot of these people, and they're very, very dangerous. When they're turned, they're extremely dangerous. And some of those countries in the Middle East have got very, very complex counter-terrorism threats domestically. And you know, you have a certain pride of serving alongside them. Because actually, when I look at people who are all human beings, faced with different

but relatively the same aspects of problems, safety is not the same as security. To keep security, you have to be prepared to leave. And if you hold on to safety too much, the security goes. These institutions, these units, these services that do this job are extremely important, extremely precious. And they protect security security not safety. I mean... 19 deployments. Yeah. You saw a lot. Yeah, I mean the exposure is massive, right? And it's hugely varied. I was a breach of three of them. Yeah, it's a lot. But that's because of the roles I took.

It's a lot of the time, you know, I got trained as a JTAC early. A lot of those appointments with training as a JTAC all because a lot of those appointments with trainees of JTAC or because I had that specialist specialization in airspace management understanding of assets and weaponry I'll go and support other people in what they did you know so a lot of a lot of the time and again it's what's great about being in the unit is you spend a lot of the time on your own or supporting or going towards

a country to kind of try and understand a hostage rescue. Some of the key key areas of what I did were unsupported and actually we were just sent to understand the situation because lots of people scream genocide very quickly. Right, it's one of the fastest ways to attract countries to come and you and take control so you have to understand it. When situations are so, so unsettled, so insecure, often we're asked to go in and understand situations just to say, look, yes, this is really grievous or no, the threats to national interests are this.

You know, we do not see evidence of there being a genocide or a risk of mass killings of such sorts. And in those particular situations, they've probably been the most risky of all. You know, and in those situations, you're largely unsupported. You're surrounded by people. And in those situations, you're largely unsupported. You're surrounded by people you don't trust or understand particularly. You have a huge amount of faith, but a judgment as well. In that particular instance, we were washing in salt water for about six weeks, running

out of food regularly. Open battles were going on constantly, you know, recall this rifles like 15 foot away from you, shooting out tank barrels, you know, these people weren't even trained to use tanks, just blasting away with tanks and it's just massively getting no sleep. Be lucky if you've got two hours in 24. Like racing against margins, sleeping in locked rooms, because you fear for everyone around you being warned there's plots to kidnap you.

It's really, really a very, very tough environment to remain steady and we've got to maintain our position here. I understand what's going on and given accurate things so people know what to do in these situations it's probably those periods of time that have left the biggest mark. My time in squadron it was quite comfortable it's like actually I did a series of years of different operations connected all up and much of the time spent on my own and much of the time spent in small teams and bringing people together when we needed to do something. Have you ever done a hostage rescue?

I haven't done a hostage rescue. I've moved forwards to prepare the ground for one. I've not done one myself. I've probably done some in Iraq, which were kind of sort of, they're not the hostage rescues I think about. The hostage rescues I think about, those really, really highly critical ones done. The insertion is extremely complicated. It's zero-sum game.

So I've gone forward and prepared the ground for those particular operations. I've took part in planning of numerous. And again, hostage rescues thankfully do not happen very often because they were very, very difficult operations to pull off. Downstairs, you had mentioned that you had worked with Delta. Yeah. What were you guys doing? So it was essentially, we used to share lessons and TTPs, techniques, tactics, and procedures

when we were mitigating a risk. So if something had happened on the ground, and essentially I was going over to learn an element of how they do their operations and that particular operation was expected to be a very very tough operation. What had been seen in the development of the target, multiple weapons, the activities around the target were pretty horrible. And so there was an expectancy it was going to be hostile, but it ended up with a very large firefight that went on for hours and hours and hours, five casualties in the first window trapped in a street with houses overlooking one another

that could fall down onto the roofs and the street. And essentially in the first period as I remember it, you know, as people are taking positions an adaptive mortar bomb was thrown off the roof and it hit the team forward enough. So essentially then a very, very large weight of fire came down from free wider firing points. And because it was an urban target, it was very, very difficult to deal with, you know, you're not allowed to use the things that you would use if you're deployed into rural areas or in more safe areas. And there were certain sensitivities about the area, people living there that made it

even more difficult to bring to bear the things that you would usually do. And again, you know, I mean, I just tremendously admired the people that I worked alongside. They were really, really professional. And I served, I think we were pretty much out for about eight hours. And essentially as we were approached this target, one, and remembering this wasn't my target,

I don't know the details of it, you know, the development of it, I just know we expected it to be complicated and go noisy. But essentially as we come towards the target, about 1km out came through a checkpoint, there was a massive burst of gunfire in the air, which wasn't unusual, let's face it, you can't really expect that. And so everyone was infiltrating on and that was actually a warning to the target that people were coming. So they were waiting in, effectively a free lane ambush and that was you know problematic to get out. And that was in 2006, a very, very kinetic tour. And actually about two years after that,

I was given an accommodation, which I've always been hugely grateful for. It takes a lot of time to write people up and for that night. But it was also a real- What did you get the accommodation for? Sorry? What did you get the accommodation for? Sorry? What did you get the accommodation for? It was essentially sort of approaching and dealing with an armed part of the attack.

And I wasn't the one that dealt with it, you know, on supporting other forces. They're doing it essentially as they saw it. I put my face, put myself in direct face of the enemy fire for a period of time to close on the target building. There was also an access point that was overlooked that was getting shot at and it was to do with movement across that as well. You know, I've got the commendation which I reread, very simply put, and I just really sort of was thankful that people sort of recognised people and positions. Now I have never

done anything that I think sticks out in an extraordinarily professional way. I've seen people equally across the length of time we've done it on different operations and different nights do extraordinarily brave things. Sometimes they have to. And sometimes they're rescuing people. That's incredibly brave. Many of the times they're not recognized for it. You know, I'm not hung up on commendations and recognition at all. But when people do and they make the effort to do it,

you know, to me it's notable. They've gone to a lot of effort to do that. But essentially, you know, in particular through Iraq, we're working very closely aligned with US forces. And whilst we're cultured very differently, we very much share this unity in missions and aims. It really, really highlighted the closeness of us all. And I was telling a story before about a

really great friend of mine Duncan Slater he's a W amputee and he got injured in Afghanistan but we both used to work for a company satellite company actually we've sat together having a wine at night and I've you know we talked about sort of the time there was a breach point I wasn't on this operation for instance but my neighbor was very badly shot hit three times one when his semaphores and bounced off head helmet bounced off but the other one hit his weapon and tracked up his arm and left him with a really horrible everything's locked up so it's incredibly painful as my neighbor so when I used to come out, I used to sit down and have a coffee with him.

And at the point where he's wounded, he wanted to walk to the helicopter, losing a huge amount of blood. And we were just talking in general about the experiences with Duncan, and I didn't realise, because this person, my neighbour, he didn't want to get on the stretcher but you could see how much blood he was losing, he was not going to make it to the helicopter. So instead of like having a sort of, you must get on the stretcher or trying to force him onto the stretcher, he just gently put underneath his

arm and took the weight off him just so he could walk to the helicopter. There's those moments of compassion and understanding, humanity that really sort of sit with me. And Duncan's story is pretty incredible in itself. He was a very special person long before he got injured, right? He's an incredible guy. But at the point of injury he got injured in a complex ambush in Afghanistan, driving a jackal. So jackal, obviously, the problem is the wheels are back. So you sit forward of the wheels and a command wire AD got set off And essentially his rifle went straight through the rifles held right there went straight for his arm And his legs took an enormous amount of damage. It got thrown out the vehicle

And it was like saying the ambush was still ongoing. There was shooting and you know had all the you know what we called the shooting ports all the way through the compound wars and essentially they're trying to call a medevac in nine-liner and the UK asset couldn't respond for whatever reasons. And a dust-off call sign was on its last day of operations of its particular tenure and overheard the nine-liner. They overheard that they couldn't respond.

And they went and picked up Duncan and saved his life. So Duncan got off his work, came back to the UK. His legs were so badly damaged, so they amputated. He's got an incredible story about it, if I want to talk about it. I saw him just before I came out here actually, and he's involved in some of the things I'm involved in now. He was sent to years up at Bale Morrill a little bit later, and he knew had been evacuated, medivaced by one of the dust-off call signs. And he was doing a speaking and there was a running event around Balmoral up in Scotland.

He saw a Lieutenant Colonel from the US Air Force. So he went up to him and said, look, you know, I got medivaced. Would you find out who it was? And so they swapped details and Duncan thought nothing of it. And then he got an email from the crew chief of one of the dust off crews. They said, look, you know, we were dust off about that time,

one of the dust off call signs. I kept a book of the things we did. So we'll know immediately, since who else was on the helicopter. And Duncan was like, I was alone. And he was like, oh, this can't be, can't be it, can't be it. And obviously Duncan very horribly injured, his incredibly complex injuries that he had. So it really perplexed Duncan because he didn't know the exact time, the exact date. So he went back to his unit, which was one of the other special forces units, and said,

look, what happened? And when I got medevacked, was there other people on the helicopter? They said, yeah, I think there was two more, lesser wounded people. They chose to get them out. The reason this definitely saved Duncan's lives is to try and move back even by vehicle that took over two hours from where they had the ambush. So he phoned back to the crew chief and said, look, I was wrong, there were two other people in the cab with me.

And what's more, I was singing because he was told why, when they put him on a helicopter, they put ketamine into him really quickly and because he's Scottish, very, very volubly Scottish. He started singing in Scottish. Apparently the pilot looked back, it's Scottish, coming from the back of his cab. This relatively mortally wounded person. And it really was really quite sort

of, you know, things were very, very complicated. So that was the confirmatory that it was that dust off call studies. We cannot forget this person who was singing Scottish songs in the back of the thing. And I just thought it was absolute. But the point being is like Duncan went back and he's met those dust off call signs, you know, and he said to them, you know, he's thanked them. And I think it's just yet another example of how closely aligned these forces have been and how many lives have been both sides. We're deeply thankful for support like Dustoff.

When they come and pull you out of a situation like that, which is essentially still an ongoing ambush, it's an incredibly brave thing to do. I know what the last day of tour feels like, right? It's like Friday the 14aux Tint over and over again. You always think, you know, Christmas is another one. Big things seem to happen at Christmas. And I've always wondered about this, right? You know, we seem to have some of the biggest complex periods of work, loss of helicopters, big problematic problems on target around Christmas time. I thought, well you know actually there's a reason for this. There's longer, darker hours. Given the heat is complicated for aircraft,

but also the winter is very complicated for aircraft as well. I think the margins for error go up a lot more in those winter tours. And predominantly through the rotation, we were doing winter tours a lot. So, you know, there's rhyme and reason in everything. If you sort of pin it to what is the reason why, why did this happen more at this point in time? Well,

you know, people are in their houses for longer periods of time during those winter months when it's dark and it's wet and it's the infiltration targets can be very, very complicated, right? So I guess that sort of defines me as a person. I always sort of wondered why and I like to make sense of things in 19 deployments and 20 years at the unit Have you ever had to kill anybody? No, I wouldn't answer that you wouldn't answer that Do you have any idea how many missions you've been on well, you know, I Do you have any idea how many missions you've been on? Well, you know, I cannot add it up, right?

So the different variations of types of missions, but on the third tour, we did 182. That was a particular time when the governance was really, really contested in Iraq. It was like, you know, I think at the time it was General McChrystal who was leading the task force, and it was absolutely critical. It was at that point where people really believed that country could go into a full civil war. There were bombs getting driven into markets that were killing hundreds at the time. You could not go out during the day, the threat was so, so high. The rotation was just on, on, on, circle, circle, circle. Um, and you know, that's most pronounced on a lot of the others, maybe 30, some 70. So if you add it all up, it's a huge array.

Yeah. But I've also spent extended periods on front lines, you know, and that's one, but it's lasted for weeks. Yeah. When I'm on that front line, we it's lasted for weeks. When I'm on that front line, we are the top target. They're trying to, and we've had some fun in games with particular brilliant snipers and mortar teams before. We've been pinned down by a very, very good sniper who remained a problem. We never found a solution for him, but he kept on being effective.

Wow. And another one was a mortar team, that seemed specifically to be on and take it towards us. And one evening, we were just down there monitoring and seeing where the threat's building up, and ensuring that that front line can't be broke. It's like constant, constant, where's it gonna happen next and

we had a particular member in our in our team who used to be three-pound mortars and he used to be like a walking human mortar radar he could literally is absolutely astonishing and I was sat there and I was on the radio talking to the air and we usually it's that ubiquitous white truck right and we could kind of pick it out from its movement we'd all be like is that Morta team? Is that that Morta team? Okay fine so anyway whatever didn't really see the truck that time perhaps concentrating somewhere else we We heard the Mort report, and this member of the team was like that. That's over there. And the round landed about a K short further down the hill.

And he turned around and said, that's for us. And we all looked at him a bit like, and I just continued talking on the radio. And the next one landed at 180 foot away further down this ridgeline we've got like a bunk we've got like a position that's all pushed up dirt and it's about probably at the base three to five meters wide yeah and it comes up this you know when they push it all up

into a berm and it's got like sand, sandbagged positions, but it's all really sort of not very well constructed. The next one landed about 180 foot away. And I remember looking up and looking over at the plume coming out and I just heard down and then nothing. And it was black. And one had landed, they'd just done two. Very, very good, very accurate.

And one had landed literally coming to the other side of the berm. Because these mortars are not very well fused, right? It buried itself in the ground, gone off and just covered us in dirt. I was talking to the air, and I remember just sort of coming back into sort of like realization that that was awful.

That would have took the whole team out. We were all in a vicinity at a radio. Thankfully, most of them up against that side of the berm, I was the only one standing up. And it's just that realization that had gone in the other side of the berm. The was the only one standing up. And it's just that realization, that had gone in the other side of the berm. The fusing's really bad in it. That's really what saved us.

And it had gone and buried itself before it had gone off. And I remember looking down at one of our partners, Northern Iraqi partners, and he's dusting, like dust off all of us. And I just remember looking down and we had a house not far back. And I just looked at the team. I was like, I'm bearing in mind, they were still there.

We had a choice to try and work out where they were and try and get some air onto it. We're just like, do you want to call it a night? Yeah. And they're like, yeah. And that was what life was like on the frontline. You know, it's kind of sticked out to me a little bit more, especially when the clouds coming in, right?

And you know, the air is not going to come and help you then. And there's constant attempts to find out where you were, constant wonder, like who's up, what's happening, tunneling, whatever it was, there was something going on. And it was a real sort of realization, and when you woke up, you'd see the sun come up. We had our times, and our partner force would run out of food quite often,

and they'd come and bring you a dish of fried aubergine, which is not the most nutritious thing I've ever been fed, and often they'd run out of ammunition. Not often, but worryingly enough they wouldn't have ammunition. You're just looking at it like, wow, you know, you're just trying to hold it together, ensure that the situation is not going to break, no one's going to come through that front line. Because when they did, the attacks were absolutely awful. You know, the consequences to the villages behind them. And these were Kurdish forces, a lot of them there, you know, different factions of the Kurdish.

And, you know, when they managed to infiltrate through, because there was lots and lots of people talking to them on the other side, you know, and they were constantly attempting to do that. And it was quite extraordinary the level of effect in training some of these people had, you know. And I think that's sort of that, that's migration. There's always been, it's always struck me when I've been on operations, there's been

a certain pattern we've had. There's certain groups that kind of sort of share the ethnic identity, religion, whatever, they're part of the population. And then you've got this element of foreign fighters that come in and they're either full of furor, but they've got no baseline support, or they're extremely well trained. And I've always detected the level of state help that these groups have got. So whilst you're operating against known terrorist organisations, they're prescribed organisations, they're recognised, they have always been receiving facilitation, support, and people are looking at the whole

situation and trying to find gaps in the strategy and go against it and, you know, pick those vulnerabilities. And pick those vulnerabilities. And it's not these people you're facing that are necessarily the people that are orchestrating all the finance and all the facilitation that gives them the ability to operate in the way they do. And that's the enormous complexity of going up against these groups.

And almost the front line was quite refreshing because the front line was set and you had this period of ground which everyone was trying to sort of find the gaps in and get. You did get infiltration a lot, but when it happened it was much more understandable and it wasn't the same as some of the other situations I've been in. So, you know, the front line was really, really interesting, done over ranges and distances, you know, the front line was really, really interesting. Done over ranges and distances, you know, unless they got close and they rarely, rarely, rarely ever did that. All of the ranges, we had to look at our weapon systems

and go, okay, well, these things that we're carrying on, much good for this. So let's swap them out. So I swapped to a 417, it's a 556 version of HK, isn't it? So I swapped to a 417 is a 556 version of HK, isn't it? So I swapped to a 417 with a tripod. And so you saw different choices getting made, but we were sleeping outside on the front line a lot of the time, very, very exposed.

But it was quite an interesting period of operations for me. Learned a lot about human beings, learned a huge amount about trust, especially with traditional cultures, that a huge amount about trust, especially with traditional cultures that don't understand about advanced weaponry. When one fails and you get finlocked. And trying to explain that, they're just saying, can you make sure it doesn't come near us? And you're like, look, this is not how you think it. And understanding about how you deal with people as well. I always used to carry a covert weapon on me.

I used to carry two glocks, because as you're going into meetings, it's a level of trust. A lot of them have very, very traditional cultures, but you can never be 100% sure that you knew who everyone was or what you had. So I'd make a very visible display of putting that weapon down on the table

and talking, but I'd always have something on me. And thankfully, you know, I've nearly been caught out once really badly, and that was not trusting my instinct. But otherwise, you know, it's pretty much held up. Reading people, judging who they are what they want Has really kind of sort of held up in that respect when you're dealing with partners And as you know You never sure of who is talking to who who is doing what you know is risk and uncertainty everywhere

But to get the job done you have to at least look like you're a simple person to deal with You know and sometimes you haven't got the resources to check everyone out. You know, you just simply won't be able to, you know, so getting trusted partners, you know, you can say, you know, this is my place, you know, people who are fixers translators. People were able to say to you that this doesn't fit just invaluable. Yeah. Well, John, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into your retirement and what you're doing now.

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Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, John, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into retirement, but before that, you had some other issues. Yeah, and these are the things that have dawned on me, the intensive nature of deployment. I've had an intensive operational career, as have others. It's a period of time. It may or may not be repeated in that same sort of similar vein but for me you know there was two

certain points you know and again I didn't flag it or report it you know I noticed it in time I think it was intuition that told me but I had two distinct periods in a change of behaviour, which is probably the best indicator for me that things were getting very, very tough to hold together. Now, notably, I never didn't work, and I didn't necessarily flag them up. So I don't think they'd come to a point where they were a particular risk or danger to others,

but they were significant. You know, there was those periods of time where you're like, this is not me. Why am I thinking like this? Why am I behaving like this? To other team members it was like, why are you being so hyper security aware, right? Can you stop going on about a roof door? We don't need to put a guard on it. You know, la la la. And I think that was like symptomatic of the overloading professional stress

that's just laid and laid on top, the personal aspects of stress, allostatic load as such. And in one particular time, I'd had a really intensive period of operations, really intensive, and some of them were those unsupported operations that I alluded to earlier.

You get no food, no drink, couldn't trust people around you, you know, running out, washing in salt water. And when I noticed it, I was on a period of domestic support and training. And we're running some stuff in London. And I became quite sort of malaligned, quite sort of distrusting, and really kind of quite neurotic about who was watching and... Like paranoia. Yeah, it's like, that's not me, right?

I'm actually really kind of sort of measured, trusting person, and that's a good way to be in life. Be advised and be, use your judgment well, but essentially I believe in trusting people and I do believe that people are essentially good and so as you know it was really, really sort of quite sort of something that caught me and in a particular time shortly afterwards I was having these sort of mini seizures as well and I think this is just the nature of the intensive training we're doing around explosives at the time. So if you added all of it up you know the uncontrollable spaces where you're very

near to recolous rifles and you know mortars and everything else and not necessarily with the best equipment. Whatever it was that led to those things they happened over a concentrated period of time time I never flagged it at the time because they used to go away used to happen in the morning a little bit in particular sitting down and it's just sort of like Fixed up and my leg used to lift a bit as a parent It's tempting to put your kids financial needs ahead of your own But an often overlooked act of generosity is making sure they're protected in case something truly unexpected happens.

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Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com slash Sean. That's meetfabric.com slash Sean. M-E-E-T Fabric.com slash Sean. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states prices subject to underwriting and health questions. So the changes in behavior and thinking real negative thought patterns creeping in was enough of an indicator to be like I've got to get a grip of this somehow and I've got to and I did find my somehow. And I've got to, and I did find my way through.

If I remember and nothing's sort of like, oh, it was until this date, or like I didn't go and see someone about it. But it took a couple of years to re-level. I'm still working operationally. The nature of the work changed because I've moved into the wider sphere of operations. So there's a lot of deployed, but living and advising. And I think that was enough space

to sort of take it back under control. But I used to remember, you know, a lot of these space, the places we go aren't that dangerous, you know, and you can go walking around. And I used to walk around a lot and do a lot of thinking, a lot of wondering. And I think it's that space plus the training and plus the realization that these thoughts are not me.

And they're kind of sort of this paranoia about who's doing what, and I always sort of make jokes around the Looney Tunes, it's like sort of tweet bird show and what's going on behind me sort of thing. That's just not me, right? So, and I think this was my first realization of professionally induced stress and personal. And the bigger part actually, I believe,

is in the personal things that you'll face in your life. And the medical pillars of bereavement, financial stress, exposure to trauma and separation. And I like to add, separation doesn't mean a divorce necessarily. It can mean separation from your loved ones whilst you're doing a profession. Where they're wearing even more stress than you.

But you know, when you're not there to support people and help, it comes with those feelings that you should have been. Right, and it takes strength on both sides to not have that become a context in relationship. So separation is quite an interesting one, but those are the medical pillars for when you need to be conscious about the levels of stress that can change and physiologically impact you. Physiologically impact you means a change in behavior. So I'm just curious though.

I mean, you're talking about 19 deployments, 20 years with the SAS. I mean, that also builds your psyche that builds your, I mean, that's who you are. You know, I mean, it's something you are. You know, I mean it's something you did but it forms you through the time that you spend in that type of environment and so you know paranoia, wondering what people are doing behind you, always looking in the rear view mirror to see if you're being followed, never sitting with your back against the door or the entrance. I mean, that stuff that, that's stuff that I deal with, that stuff that I think that anybody who's operated at that type of a level experiences that. And it just, maybe you're different, but for me and everybody I know, you will carry that with you, likely,

until for the rest of your life. Yeah. Have you managed to take that paranoia? Yeah, I have, to a certain extent, but I'm really, really conscious that I don't want to be that paranoid person.'t want to be that paranoid person I want to be that trusting person deeply me Right, and so I actively Refute it but what I've noticed and I think you're absolutely right is having been exposed in those

Professional terms and as a consequence of things that can happen in your personal life as well the move through to normal and stable through to, you know, chaotic and, you know, like hyper aware is much, much quicker. I want to rephrase what I was saying too. I mean, because I think that there is a, I don't think, I know there's an element that comes from operating at a level like that where your ego gets involved and that becomes who you are. And that's not what I'm talking about.

You know, being an SAS operative or operator, you know, that's not who you are today. And a lot of people can't set that down and move on and find the next thing. I think it's a very challenging time in our lives is to find your new identity. But what I'm talking about is the experiences that you amass through your lifetime and the, and the experiences that you've, that you've had in that type of an occupation form who you are. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Cause you've experienced things, a lot of things that

99% of the population will never even come close to those type of experiences. Yeah, absolutely. Right. So this is a job, a profession. And so what I'm saying is, for those people, that 99% percentile that never experienced what you've experienced or what I've experienced or a lot of other people that sit across from me in this room experiences. I mean, they just, people that have not experienced that, they don't, it doesn't register what could happen. It doesn't register. They have no database to understand the potential threats to formulate a new way of thinking, which I'm not saying it's a better way. I'm just saying that I'm just saying that I don't necessarily know if it's from trauma. I think it's just from experiencing threats that most people never have to experience.

Does that make any sense? It makes absolute sense, right? So I deeply feel that it's not trauma that leads to these issues. You know, and this is a job, remember, where you will go back and sit in your location covering someone else's blood, right? It is tough, tough times sometimes. You go back so tired, your brain doesn't function.

It's like an out-of-body experience, and you wake up the next morning. But your body is actually very resilient in recuperating from that and the exposure to trauma. And I've always reminded myself that these are volunteers, they're professional soldiers that do this. And they live in an extraordinary environment where threat is all around them all the time. You have to make judgments and calculations all the time. I used to call it like Pager Syndrome, Operator Syndrome is something different.

Pager Syndrome is always on call, always on call. And if you don't turn up, you haven't done your job. And rightly, you should be disciplined or get the sack. You know, these are Pager Syndrome. Got to be there on time. All of that loads and loads up on you. You, and I think your condition to deal with it almost throughout. I don't think trauma is responsible for the neurological deficit that builds up.

You know, that's the thing I'm talking about. You know, I'm really, really conscious. The outcome for me has been pretty good. I do feel stable, happy. I know in my relationships with people, they're fulfilled and good. And I don't struggle in that sense, but I'm very, very conscious how quickly things can change.

And I think a deficit is built up. And I think it's your exposure to extraordinary conditions that builds up over time. Your physiology isn't set, it learns and it can go way out of queue and if you've got problems within your physiology you will become paranoid anxious. You know the whole thing is out of queue and it will change your behaviours and all the things they give a PTSD diagnosis for I believe that a lot of people are given PTSD diagnoses, it's an entirely subjective diagnosis in my eyes and actually they're more down to the physical conditions that these people have been

enduring that ultimately challenge human biology right and ultimately over the years you will go out of cue. It's like getting a weapon sight, moving it through a different temperature, banging it around in a box in transit. You know, you need to go back and re-zero it. And if you're not re-zeroed, the thing will slide. And that's what I put my changes of behaviour down to. I put the mini events I was having, the siege, whatever it was, down to intensive periods of explosives,

that's when they happened. No, so I look for the simplest causes every single time. And for periods of time, I was getting no sleep. I was just intensively involved in operations. And I think that has resulted in that period of change in behavior. But more significantly, and something I'm really sort of grateful for, in that that period of change in behavior, but more Significantly and something I'm really sort of grateful for is through I think intuition

Because I never sat down when I left the army I did something else and that was for different reasons, but I never sat down with any experts So what's going on and I deliberately didn't declare? losses of balance Lost the in a certain seizure type event. I can't even describe them. I described to a neurologist like a transient ischema, and she said, no, it can't be, because that's like blood going wrong. So I don't know what they were, but they were happening.

And I know when they were happening. And they were happening because it was very, very close and intensively training on explosive devices time and time and time again And you know and that's what's led to my fascination and not just you know The the consequences operate syndrome, which I think to a relative degree everyone went up with it some some in some degree Mm-hmm, and this is a job that leaves a legacy Why it does leave a legacy and I think you know Yeah, I used to say to everyone no one wins if you break

By you really really got to stay on top of this if you're seeing indications and behavior defensiveness Now all of this sort of stuff. These are the first indications. These people are very very well trained They're volunteers doing you know something that they have given up so much to do. It takes more than just trauma to get these people completely out of queue. The normal response to trauma is two weeks to four weeks. You suffer an acute stressor, you process it through, and it will really just start fading in two to four weeks. The trouble is, and again, if you've got people

who are demonstrating really concerning behaviors internally to themselves, someone sits inside them and recalls the last thing that may have happened. There's this kind of self-expectation of trauma now, not just in these really hard professions, I think in wider society now, is becoming unhelpful in working out the real problems.

I'm not saying people don't get PTSD, but it's not always the reason. When you're looking at these people that have been using explosives, they've been in conditions where they don't get fed properly for a while, they don't sleep or they've lacked a pattern of sleep, then for me they're much more compelling reasons for your body to be completely out of cue. I mean I sit here with alopecia, it happened after my mum's death. Right, that's an information-automimine response. For me that's simple. Yeah. It's directly due to that. Doesn't surprise me. Now me Now partly are I think of this and coming out of this and again, you know

I left in 21 and that was a part of a 40 45 50 year professional career a very very Formative part a part. I was extremely proud of now. I'm proud of my service It's one of the you know. I served for 23 years. We signed an oath. That's something I'm incredibly proud of. But it doesn't have to be my defining thing for the rest of my career. And I've actively switched and moved on.

And you're right. The transition period is, for my own belief, is if you hold on too much to that it actually makes making a step more complicated but this step is years I think the first step is four years to even start shaping your behaviors you know when I went to go and speak to people about what made me valuable for them for employment I used to sell you know I can be at an airport within three hours of notice.

You don't have to tell me when I'm coming back. You know, I'm not asking for like months away, but if you have weeks and you have a problem that needs solving, I could do it. And it sounds mad, right? And these people don't need people like that. But you know, that was the way I was sort of hardwired to think, you know, that's what, you know,

on a call I can go somewhere. And you know, gradually I've sort of learned to sort of talk a different language a more recognizable language for me You know because the further away you get from it the more you you deal But you know, there's some real challenges in transition and I think they're further further complicated with these unhelpful diagnoses in people, you know, and there's an over reliance on medication and very simple approaches to complex problems, complex diagnoses. But you can actually see the risk factors, the exposures there within the profession.

And I've noted a lot, you know, I take a lot of notice about the SEAL teams, you know, and the, you know, the water, for instance. When you're traveling fast in a boat and it's constantly, constantly banging, and you know, professional boat drivers in the Marines, you know, really interesting group to look at, there's all sorts of mechanisms through that profession that are very, very challenging for you and a significant minority. I make the really important point, right, because service is really great. Service doesn't mean your outcomes are going to be bad.

The majority emerge and find a space to be happy and successful later on in a second career, but it doesn't happen by magic. It's very, very tough getting there. But there is a very significant minority where the outcomes are really, really tough and they're tough for them. But they're also difficult to watch because for me, there must be solutions to it. It's not good enough to be like you're traumatized for the rest of your life. Go back to my mum. I'm sad about it. It's tragic. enough to be like you're traumatized for the rest of your life. Go back to my mum.

I'm sad about it, it's tragic. I'm not as traumatized. I probably wasn't traumatized after about two years from that. And that's something that's really, really, really significant because it impacts you so much. When you're desperately thinking, I've got some really interesting stories about looking after cows a small herd, but they're woodland cattle So quite spirited we had a bull called formidable I made the mistake of not feeding them so before we could get a farmer into look and he had he just added that small contingent of cattle to his herd. I didn't I Didn't feed him

Fed him too late and wanted the cow cows stuck their head through to try and get one of the big half-ton hay bales. And it was laid there and because of its heavy head, it was stuck, it's through the metal gates that they were had. And as it got more tired, it's pressing down on its windpipe. And I don't know what, you know, this is post my mum,

I don't know what told me check on the cattle, but I went in there and it's pandemonium, as they're not, I think I've given them too little food. So it stayed hungry. And they're trying to get this head, I don't know how the head, the cow managed to get its head through

this really small space in the first place, but it did. And it was incredibly difficult pushing this cow's head back through. And those sorts of experiences you can easily turn around and be like, how on earth did I get here? This is just, in that case I ended up covered in the cow's blood because they're all de-horned, they're

all de-polled cattle. But I don't know how it wiggled its head through. But in the end the solution was to kind of sort of just flatten out the pole of the cattle to just change, because it's fibrous, the horn of the cow. And somehow, and the cow was sort of quite furious at me because I was kind of sort of flattening out its horns so I could just wiggle its head through and he actually sort of pushed against the gate and it just had enough perches to push me up again this halftime bail it was um you know you could hear your ribs like that eventually the cow seemed to just figure out I was trying to help it

and then wiggled its head back through itself. I was just like, oh, there we go, brilliant. But anyway, you know, and it's at those periods of time when you've been exposed to these really, really impactful events when you could be like, do you know what, why, why am I in this situation? And I've really kind of sort of been disciplined to not go that way. There's no solution there. There's no recourse. What's the use in it? I think that's a very good indication

of whether you're traumatized by something further, is how much you can just center yourself back to what's important. And, you know, to a great extent, the people I served alongside, they're remarkable people. They've all passed the same course I did. You know, they're volunteers. They're very duty-led, you know, and I'd expect them to not be so susceptible to trauma, although

the exposure is massive, right? You do turn up at events and see a lot of trauma. You know, it's like, um, uh, in certain circumstances, it can be overwhelming, like plane crashes, but you quickly move on and you recourse and you know, in some of the most recent work I'm doing with experts say that's right. You know, your physiology is actually more powerful than you'd ever believe in ensuring that your, your self, your physiology is actually more powerful than you'd ever believe in ensuring that your, your self, your body makes it through and adapts. And this led into what you're doing now

today. Yeah, so I mean, I've got lots of interesting experiences, mostly funny about how I, so I left the military very quickly. We do have a certain way of going when I left in three months which is not necessarily what. But essentially I separated from the children to my mum which was all done without lawyers. It was all done very well in that you know the whole thing is very uncertain for both. It costs a lot of money to do it, to try and find individual decision-making positions.

But essentially we never had to resort to a contest. We never had to use legal people, which costs a lot of money, money we did not have. And so we used the money to kind of shore up everyone's existence. And the biggest thing was ensure that people didn't leave that with a ton of regret they weren't gonna come back from. So that's one of the reasons I kind of left the military

quite quickly. I come to the end of my contract, I was on extension. Essentially I knew I wasn't gonna be operational anymore. So I chose to move on. Before I went, I sat down with the psychiatric nurse. It's no harm to check inside, right? I thought, you know, I know, you know, in the course of my career, I know the things that have challenged me. Plane crashes, you know, being in situations where you had no control whatsoever, right? Those are the things that I've remarked upon and I've largely dealt with them.

I have my change of behaviour around 2014, so I'm not, but it was a good thing to do to sit down and do the seven hour course. The other two reasons I did that is to reassure the people I've been working with so long that when I was going, I was in a fairly stable state because obviously people worry about you Me personally, but generally, you know, they worry about you're just about to go into a sea of change Really fast moving change and people don't realize The challenges that are presented personally the sleepless nights you'll have and that can quickly revert you back Into something somebody that's concerning right? Your behavior is testing sleepless nights you'll have. And that can quickly revert you back into something,

somebody that's concerning, right? Your behavior's testing, whatever. So I did it to reassure people, and I did it. So when I go and sit in front of these same people I promised to be at the airport within three hours if they needed me to. I was perfectly fine, right? And I, yeah, I'm gonna say, look,

you're never gonna get to see it. But I've done that file. I am not that stereotype. I've not got PTSD. And I'm also not making that up, because you'll also think, oh, I'm just saying that. I absolutely haven't. I've checked.

I'm good. Just need to work out work, which is going to be messy, I get. Um, so I did that, uh, and then I left and in the course of doing that, I thought I could say it was at the back end of COVID and obviously everyone had been sort of confined to their houses and moving out a lot less. So I made a, an assessment that everyone will want to train outside in the parks. And this was still in the course of me leaving. So I set up three areas that I could sort of train people. And the assessment couldn't have been more wrong.

People have been confined to their houses, tested mentally to a severe degree, and the last thing they wanted to do was go and do physical training in parks. So okay, I was wrong. I detected I was wrong. I detected I was wrong. But when I was running free areas, I was getting up at like five o'clock in the morning

and doing these physical training sessions for what should have been 20 in a class, and it was like ones and twos, if anyone turned up at all. And so I was having a ferocious schedule of honoring my things. I didn't have any money to bring on further instructors. The end game with that was like to set up something that was fairly stable that I could get local management to overlook so I could then quickly move

on. And again this is part of the naivety of kind of you know I've got no pedigree in business. I don't understand how marketing works and so I've kind of sort of bumped off all the things but quite quite hilariously, I was messing around, and I trained calisthenics quite a bit, or at least in a very amateurish way, right, and something called plants that you do. And I was sort of biding my time, waiting for these people to turn up that probably wouldn't anyway. And I saw a beam in a car park.

So I was like, oh, I'll just try plants on that. That was a really good idea. And the beam wasn't fixed, so it tipped forward as it tipped forward I had to quickly kick my legs through and as I did I had the old crisp packet sheet white I was with a friend actually who's come to help me out I know I broke my arm and I was waiting to have a medical discharge. I was desperate to move on. In the way I was thinking at the time, based in the mind that I was in the middle of a separation, I was leaving the army. Probably my decision making probably

looked very, very different from what you would naturally be doing if you were sitting around a kitchen table after dinner and going, you know, it's like, you're on holiday. So when I broke my arm, my first thought is I can't get plaster, because then they won't give me a medical discharge, because they'll see that I'm injured. And I suspect militaries won't let you go until you're absolutely fully fit. So I decided not to have a cast. I was fairly happy it was stable and I've got pictures of my phone or what this looked like and it was like a spiral fracture of the outer layer of the arm and at this point I was sleeping on a camp cot, a metal frame camp cot right. So again you know, I was implored to go and get a plaster on it you know, so what's the point it's stable you can see it's stable right you know it'll heal quick enough. It was really

disgusting colour and I was doing fitness training sessions and I think it was like the next day I was like throwing up in bushes because every time it sort of clacked again. Obviously you'd have this sort of immediate shock response like throwing up in a bush. Utterly mad, right, if you look back on it. It's like, what did they think?

The people that I was taking for fitness. So anyway, I've sort of, in the end, I found something on the internet, you know, the buckets, a gravity that pushed their ice water? I bought one of those. And that acted as a really, really good cast. So I used to sort of, obviously, going around with my bucket. So anyway, I turn up to do my final discharge stuff.

And you go around and they say, where's this jacket? You give back the jacket and all that sort of stuff. The last thing is this medical discharge. And I walk into the medical unit and who are all amazingly lovely people, brilliant people as well, you know, all nice all but no. And I've said, I'm coming from a discharge and the lady at the desk says like that, oh no, they go on on the phone

since Covid, so I've gone to these extreme limits to not have a cast on my arm in order to be present, a discharge that I never needed to be present for. So there was plenty of those sorts of experiences that would just pick you pick yourself up and find the next problem. Don't try and find it, you'll trip over it anyway. But that all healed nicely, I was absolutely right. You know, actually there was no reason for a cast, once I'd worked out that thing it was brilliant, you know, it was just like funny. But if you just picture sleeping on a camp cot with its metal frame, waking up in the night, you rolled onto it and it's extraordinarily

painful. So that was the immediate process of sort of breaking free as such. And then I did some work as a sort of consultant, but it's really low pay right and you know I've got sort of fairly it wasn't never gonna be enough and also it wasn't the right type of work but it was in performance then I got offered a job as a CPI in a fully employed role and it was extremely well played it was actually working in a pretty decent rotation. It came with a full medical package. It was working for someone who did a huge amount of travel. So the days it were on, you know, very, very, very long days, like 18, 20 hour days. But essentially the atmosphere was not good. You know, I just wasn't in tune with it,

and I knew I wasn't in tune with it. Then I got offered a job by a company that has satellite connectivity. I worked for them for a period of time, and they wanted to break into new markets, and they were assessing Ukraine for its needs for energy resilience, that sort of stuff. So building up connectivity. So I went for a period of that and actually it was quite enjoyable. I was in and out of Ukraine quite a lot and very visibly connected with the business. But actually you could see beyond the valuable work I got done, which was the forward led work of that, but it was nothing to do with business, right. And when

it comes to the business piece was all too uncertain. And through that period, that's when the kind of the reflection came on me is like, hang on a minute, you know, in these employed roles, people having to justify my existence, you know, and when they can justify the existence, it's all for these exceptional move into a new market It's not for the normal everyday functioning of business and that's where people sit comfortably If you try and move into the new pocket with a business You know It happens very rarely. People will usually test it and then come back. So

I think the employment opportunities that people from Special Forces background need to be really, really carefully looked at because it's not about getting support. It's not getting people to bring into companies and employed, having felt that they want to give you a chance because you're on a ticking clock, actually. The skills that you have are very, very effective. I've proved that. I'm a very, very supportive person and I love doing it. I love seeing something, I call myself a very effective minion.

You know, so I get involved in people where things are going on and I'm very, very happy to do it just because of time, just because I believe in it. I've got lots of examples coming up. But essentially if it's an employed role, people are struggling to explain what your role is in certain sectors. And in the security sector, from my brief interlude in that, and I do draw a distinction between the US market and the UK market, very, very, very different. The US market has got a massive area where people from ex-military backgrounds, and it's

especially pronounced in SF backgrounds actually, not a military, slightly better. Whereas you don't have that in the UK. So I bumped through, I got made redundant in May last year and I was expecting contract work to come in. In the background, I've been trained as a speaker. So that's led to sort of two things. One I did a you know define it as professional speaking, though that sounds sort of quite sort of sort of high up there but it's speaking where you've studied it for a course and I did a course called with the bespoke elite

speaking training it's an ex professional rugby player called Leon Lloyd. He's actually very, he's quite involved in the transition of veterans. And so from having done that course, I thought I would get enough of a program of speaking events to be able to kind of stay in position, ready to take this contract work and ready to be where the main things stay in position, ready to take contract work, and ready to be where the main things

I was involved in do break. But actually that's again, it's quite naive, you know. If you think about how I do my speaking, and I love doing it, I'm really, really passionate about it. I just did one for the London Farber Gate, eight different sessions, and it was absolutely brilliant. You know, not an easy set of people to talk to as well.

It's really great. I like being on my toes sometimes, right? And it really develops you as well. You have to study what does the audience need and there's absolutely got to be an element of performance in there, which is where this course came very important. You're working with professional comedians,

you're working with people who worked in sort of stage shows in this course. The course itself was very valuable to do, but it didn't necessarily lead to more work. The speaking I do is always in person. It's always going to be specifically impactful. I can do behavioural adaptation, I've got a programme for that. I can do any type of speaking and I've proved that from speaking at cadets dinners, which I absolutely love, through to speaking to defence primes.

And actually the thing I've probably cherished the most is I did one for a scaffolding company, which is absolutely brilliant. Big scaffolding company in Wales. And a roofing company, so it's almost sort of going back to my heart. And they were brilliant and doing something for the services like London Farm Brigade

and sort of getting across those experiences. But again, it's just reassuring people that you're like, sometimes ignore the clamor and the noise. Society has become very noisy and it's got real high expectations and actually concentrate on what you've delivered because every single time you turn up and you're doing your job to exceptional standards and just focus on that. It was quite interesting because I asked some people, what do you worry about? They would say, oh, you know, it's the opinion of this or this, you know, has

been seen as an instant where it should have been better managed. You know, but really is that your job to worry about that? Actually, there's a person over there who's paid to deal with that. there's a person over there who's paid to deal with that. And again, it's all around this sort of slight sort of shouldering of stress and responsibility. It all comes from listening to the noise, right? I say to people, you know, protect and preserve your own perspective, your own perspective, you own that, right?

Doesn't matter how hard you've got to sort of close off the clamor sometimes if you've got to get into that you know in their case they're far engines and going respond to a job you turn up and you do it every time and it's remarkable the standards expected of all of these things so I've really enjoyed that bit of work the other I'm ambassador to a performance company. So these, this is a company called Planet K2. This is quite new. So one of the first things I did, I was put in touch with a guy

called Keith Hatter. And Gunnys knows what I sounded like when I had my first conversation with him, because I was still speaking in a language that people really didn't understand, you know, I was struggling to explain my skills in words where they're just like, well, okay. But slightly after that, Keith Hattie asked me to do, they have something called Performance Fest and it's run at the Solo Hotel. And he asked me to be a speaker as a number of four. Soho Hotel and he asked me to be a speaker as a number of four. And the title was Using Data for High Performance. And I said, I'm not a nominal data expert.

I've got a lot of experience with data and everything else. And the other people on the course was a very high up person in IBM for energy, the head of EMEA marketing possibly for Meta and a chief analyst at Gusto, chief analyst at Gusto. So it's quite a sort of considerable kind of professional experience there. So it was one of the first sort of speaking events where I sat down and really tried to apply myself. And it seemed to go very, very well. And it proved I could do it, you know, alongside. And more likely, and a few years went by, and I talked to Keith every so often, you know, he's an extremely experienced person. And sometimes just talking to people, you get the best bit of advice that

they never intended to give and some of my interactions are very lucky I've got really great friends when I talk to them it just sort of reminds you keep on your centre point things are good they are held in together they may not look pretty pretty but Keith in the end has asked me to come ambassador to Planet K2 and there's a different type of performance we're talking about. I've done a couple of speaking events for them and I think they're increasingly looking at hopefully a growing relationship where I'm included in their offers. And they do performances of culture so they have 21 rules that they stick by and so it's not

immediately something. I have something to add to their offer but I also have to learn their offer and their culture and they've got two decades of experience of delivering this. So through these types of interactions I've learned a great deal and developed very fast right because if someone asks you to sit on a stage you take it seriously you go and learn you educate you develop that's been absolutely fundamental to keeping my progress going but the speaking is really yet to take shape and I've got a strong suspicion that speaking comes from doing becoming involved in other very important things. So I hope that in time,

but the last thing you want to do is rely on people unless it's their pattern of business that allows you the opportunity to join in. You can't immediately sort of turn and say, things are getting really, really tough. I really, really need more work. You've got to let them develop at their own pace and it may not necessarily suit you.

So I've had other extraordinary asks. I tend to like to support people. And a friend's father came to me and said, a very, very high net worth person is getting threatened. I went and sat for quite a long time with her, looked at the messages they were receiving. Essentially it was down to what do these threats constitute, are they real or perceived? I said, well, you know, written that, in my view, it's perceived, but you can never rule out real.

Yeah. So, but instead of hiring huge arrays of security just because of the possibility of real. You just need to understand how to control the means of communication of these threats, right? And understand where that is located. And so in my view, right, that's a threat that you can report. So it was actually a no money solution

and it was worthwhile in terms of one, you know, one of the key ones is, you know, reassuring these people so they're not walking around feeling threatened by everything and everyone. But essentially again, it's taught to me when I look at the solutions to things, they don't fit what people want to say, you know, it's like these days when you say, I need a, you know, what should I do about my CCTV? We're like, well, get a machine learning program these two people don't need to be sat here right so it's not necessarily this Lucian's that other people want to see

as well but I have had sort of interesting interactions as a company called Cocoon excellent digital privacy I hope that this sort of grows but who knows where it will you know consultancy I think is going to be something I'm going to have to push really really hard for when I get home. Speaking is definitely not something I can massively rely on but I absolutely love and I think it will become big. But quite early on and I was looking to get on a course at Imperial College bearing on my last time I did proper study. I do have a certificate in international relationships, international security. So PG7 as such, qualification, fell short of a masters.

But otherwise it's A levels. And I went to Imperial College to try and understand whether there was a course in coding I could do or some element around sort of cyber or that side of things. They did in the end offer me a place on a Masters in Resilience and Security, but on our walk around a guy called Professor Deep Channa, who's the head of the Security Science and Technology at the Imperial College.

So really, really significant. Imperial College is an incredible institution. In the walk around of the Innovation Hub, I was introduced to a guy called Richard Statham. And he, eight years ago, met, I don't know how long he'd known Vincent Tellenbach, he's an engineer before. But Vincent Tellenbach had been writing waveforms and he did it in Cooperation

Coordination with John Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger Institute, John Hopkins University. So medical grade waveforms when they were written to deal with pediatrics, neurological conditions, very, very challenging ones. In some cases, it's sort of nothing to lose type stuff to sort of affect neurology. So Richard Stafam started a company called what's now called NMEZ Groups, a neuromuscular electro stimulation group. And over the next eight years, through a process of engineering, So none of this is brand new in terms of it's a trusted technology, it's an EMS background. But they've found a way of making a superconductive

membrane that can be rendered into clothes. And therefore the platforms you can put it in are endless. Like so, and these are trusted technologies that have already been used. Same value as TENS, although TENS is just for pain reduction. Is that what you have here? Yes. Let's see it.

This one's the suit. You can make it into bands or anything you want. I mean, that's the key thing. And the really, really clever thing that's happened here is its innovative applications of trusted technologies. These technologies are very very safe but they can be made to be very effective and quite powerful and essentially there's a membrane in here. This is brand new and it just got arrived from Taiwan and this is a next generation suit. I've got my generation one

suit down here that I used this morning and this membrane is even more effective than that one. So you've got the membrane, you've got the waveforms that are medically grade authored and that's really really important. It's all about the person that creates these waveforms that signal into your neurone points. Then you've got something called a stim which is a gateway. It just clicks on and you press that button and it connects to an app on my phone. There's banks of programs or waveforms in my phone. They're all different and they all communicate into that main your own point and the neuromuscular junction and they get the action potential in the muscle to contract.

So it's a hundred percent recruitment of the muscle. But a key point in this, and again when I, Richard said, why don't you come in for a demonstration? I said immediately yes, because they knew my provenance as a SAS trooper. Clearly they turned it all up to about 70. And had me running through samurai things. And I think one of them, the gaming side of things, I was making my way to a nuclear core, and I was just getting hit and hit further and further. And essentially then, you've got outward-looking sensors

that can simulate gunshot, so I can contract the muscles. Wow. So it's really cool, right? It's like the key point is your neuromuscular junction. So what is this doing? So this is affecting, sending a signal into your neuromuscular junction in any different muscle group. And if you look, you know, in the suit I was wearing this morning, there was no lower back

panel, whereas in this, there's a lower back panel. Now I've only got three stims in me I should have four I usually use four because I picked up the heart rate one that I don't use instead of the fourth and I left a little bit of K-Arkly from the UK but essentially you know you just adapt your stimming to the muscle groups that you want to have an effect over and you can put as many on as you like. So I generally they use four the stims can go up six eight whatever but this suit and it absolutely unique there is nothing in the world. Other suits have got straps on, they've got wires, they've got programmed stations. Generally gel pads

are used to communicate a waveform. There's three different membranes already tested that are even more stretchy and conductive. So when you take this to a racing driver and say, look, you know, we can give a beneficial waveform into your physiology that not only conditions you to be stronger fit faster in your performance but we can actually generate beneficial enhancements in your overall physiology and I'll come into some of the case studies we've you know I've been involved in. But the art is not to say that really really expensive racing suit you've got, well you've got to wear that underneath. No, it's to engineer it into that suit and that's what's quite incredible. So the

adaptability of this platform and the applicability to all of the different, so the segments would be specialist professions, and I define specialist professions by any profession that challenges human biology, right? And the astronauts are the epitome of it. The special forces communities are really interesting set of people that have got explosive blasts going on and everything, but the astronauts go into an atmosphere with no gravity. So immediately it's compromising your ability to regenerate all of your physiological functions, your neuroendocrine functions, your brain health is immediately affected, neurology across your body and your system

is. You're getting interference from radiation at a cellular level and you're in a confined environment where you can't move properly. It's an absolute, now it's well known in space travel, but there's so many other ones. You look at fire brigade, they're using breathing apparatus. That's changing you. You're overheating a lot of the time. Lots and lots of exposure to toxicology. It's very, very demanding. You have to use the stairs and carry, you know, so there's all of those performance-related things that challenge human biology over time. These are what leading to the behavioral changes. They're leading to predispitions to certain diseases later on in life and neurological conditions.

Right. And so that specialist professions, you've got what we call recreational fitness and sport. So elite sport is in specialist professions. Right. So that's a real key definition to have rugby players, boxers, NFL players are quite interested. So high performance type occupying. High performance, you're getting paid right.

Totally different approach. It's not health. You know, you're trying to protect health. You're trying to condition. Whereas in recreational sports and fitness, a lot of it might be aesthetics, but essentially it's underpinning health. So recreational sports and fitness, you know I can see this belonging in health clubs on subscriptions and we've been talked to quite a few already. These are the sorts

of things that will enhance. Gaming is a really really interesting one right? You know like FIFA 24, I name it making gaming healthy. So you're a teenager and you're playing your FIFA 24 and I'm a big advocate of gaming. Gaming's brilliant, right? It improves security. It's like, they've found the beneficial mental aspects to gaming. Like as elder as a lost world, you know, the children can get lost in this world and it's actually not that bad for them.

Now the aspects around social media are totally different from what gaming is. Gaming communities are pretty decent communities to be involved in. But you imagine if you're playing FIFA 24, the soccer game, someone sort of comes in and tackles you from the right and you get a beneficial stimulus into your quad and your neurone, you're actually generating a physiological function that's benefiting your brain health. And I'll go into the mechanics of how this works in a minute and the key aspect of neuromuscular junctions in a minute. But essentially, if you think that you can take, make sleeves, you can make bands, and you're really, really cheap bands.

You can adapt it to the different markets. And the last one is medical therapeutic. And this is, I've got great friends who've got Parkinson's. And I always have wondered, what led to these neurological conditions? At some point there was inflammation caused by stress or caused by some environmental factor you're exposed to. Genetic preconditions are different.

I mean, let's face it, they're only percentage points, subjective, whether that was ever, you know, people who end up with cancer, a lot of it is down to pure bad luck. But you can adjust the probabilities of your exposure, but it doesn't precondition you not to get it. This is really fascinating in biology, because I think if you look at pharmaceuticals, they cannot, you know, I believe in the power of pharmaceuticals and what they're doing and interesting a lot of the new drugs are

Communicating into your own systems to say go and tell us T cells to do this You know the car T therapies, you know get that receptor to go and enhance that inhibit that express that rather than Interfering in the way they have done before but what I've always remarked about Pharmaceuticals is actually because we're individualized in our whole physiology and biology and interfering in a way they have done before. But what I've always remarked about pharmaceuticals is actually because we're individualized in our whole physiology and biology, we can never be sure what that drug is doing to you. You can't be sure, you're basically looking at

what comes out on a conscious side. There are some tests probably you can do. Whereas if you look at your own physiology and see where that can be empowered and you use applied, there's a family of technologies and I've not come across a lot that apply in a non-invasive way. Essentially it's like cleaning a spark plug. It's like enhancing, putting better fuel in. And what they're doing is, in this particular technology, it's enhancing your motor neuron points. It is at a local level, contracting the muscle. You will see if you want 20% better

cross-sectional muscle mass, you'll get that. You know, and I'll remark on it, is big muscles don't mean strong muscles. And they certainly don't mean healthy muscles. What healthy muscles are is the interaction between your neuron point and the motor point. And this is what is absolutely critical to your nervous system and the neuronal pathways that are created. And I've always thought, and again it's a confusing concept

for me, I've sat down with a piece of paper and gone, you know, go back to the work I do with the breathing physiology, it's probably the last aspect I'll come on to, is how do you get people to understand that the power of your physiology itself and your brain and your brain stem. Because it takes over and it's trying to protect you. You're built for survival, right? So when you have a shock, you're actually better off handing control back to your unconscious.

For human evolutionary biology, it's become highly, highly tuned. And your brain is locked up in a dark cavern and it's receiving senses and signals that build up neuronal pathways and patterns that become preferential, right? So when you looking at what's important when you get under stress,

so what is the fractions? How would you put this in figures? Your conscious mind, everything that we spend so much time concentrating on, affirmations, whatever, and your unconscious area that is driving your physiology and ensuring it remains harmonious. And the figures might as well not worth be quoting apart from the size of them because I came across it quite recently in a news article and it gave

the answer. The level of information you can process per second consciously is 10 bits per second. I've seen the highest level of estimation of processing thought consciously, that ability to pick up that, you know, I want to do that, it's become important, is 40 to 50 bits per second. The level of sensing of information that is going into your brain that is getting processed and either being flagged up as priority or not at all is a hundred million bits per second. Wow. And to describe what that, and you know I've wondered about it and I've gone how do you describe this to people? How you know by doing the wrong breathing technique you are undermining your physiology and

if it's so long as it's zeroed and it's functioning properly you're far better off-handing control to that right and to describe what that means you know that I don't know it's an air conditioner isn't it? It's been going on all along I've taken that in every different texture and every pattern in this room. I've taken in My brain has been processing information on a subconscious level in a massive volume but consciously I've been doing an umpteenth amount. I thought in visual terms, what does this look like?

Is this the surface ocean via the volume of it? I mean, it's an absolutely extraordinary fraction to look at. Yeah. Absolutely extraordinary. And this is where I've become absolutely sort of firmly planted in non-invasive technologies and technologies I'm involved in is really two.

I'm a data subject for one and highly involved in this one is Because I believe they can be used very effectively. So what I'm what does it do? What does the suit do? So if you put the suit on, you know, and again It depends what you want to do with it. So are you training for? you know Performance related thing the suits you you put the stims onto the necessary muscle point, put the suit on. As I say, this is brand new sent over from Taiwan by a company called McLaugh, who are leading investors in EMS technology and making conductive

membranes. The company has had a relationship with them very, very whole on. And they're quite remarkable people, actually. So you isolate muscles? Yeah. So in each point in your muscle, so say for on, there's the other stim, and connect it. Turn both on, connect it through and it goes into your motor neurone points of that muscle mouse and communicates a signal. It puts like a signal all the way through the membrane that releases the action potential down the muscle fiber. The bits that I'm not interested in Stronger Fit Faster, so when I had my demonstration, I was immediately,

I'm conscious that neurological deficit that is there, I'm never complacent about. I don't know what my outcome is. At the moment, I've got a lot to be thankful for, but that doesn't mean it's good in the future. I know people with neurological conditions that are very, very complicated for the people around them. I'm not complacent about this.

Doesn't mean that I believe that the outcome. So when I put this suit on, I was like, this is a key driver of your physiology, your new muscular junctions are the most powerful element I know of that can drive brain-derived neurotrophic factors. There's another family called glial cell-lined neurotrophic factors. There's one I've even just learned about that was only found in 2010, I think, called cerebral dopaminergic neurotrophic factors.

And all of these factors are responsible for removing proteins and macrophages in your brain. Oh, good. So what happens is when that stimulus goes off, your neuromuscular junction prompts your muscles to release these factors into your blood. And obviously, through your blood brain barrier, that's the individualized bit that lets the pharmaceutical in or not.

And we have very individualized biology, including our blood brain barriers, can be very fussy. So the original principle I'm looking at all of this technology is being able to press on the factors within your own system. Okay. Your body will work out the harmony they need to happen.

Wow. Whatever's gonna be happening is gonna be beneficial. Now we can't say to what extent we'll be successful in treating a condition, but say for instance, stroke. Stroke is a brilliant example of how incredibly resilient human beings are. You can have people with critical strokes. So Eli's stepfather had a very bad stroke, had to learn to write again, had to learn

to read again. Now lives a happy life and all that he has is a slight deficit movement down his right hand side. That's an incredible example of what your body comes back from and someone approached the company and the neurologist physiotherapist at the time, she's currently stepped away from the company and studying extreme med which is again very exciting area, worked with the engineer Vincent Tellenbach, he's the original author of the medical grade waveforms and they were approached by someone who had a very very bad stroke and had drop foot. So drop foot is when you don't

get clearance off the floor very well. And of course the key risk is not necessarily anything other than fall. So what follows not being able to clear things off the foot is you have really bad falls and you injure yourself. So the neuron point that fires the foot, and I'll show you the video on my phone of this actually happening on purpose, so the company put motion detecting sensors around the gate and pressure sensors to analyse the gate and then worked out the timing on which to fire the neuron using a stim and a band of membrane. No one quite knew what would happen and it came back to a 90% reaction and that's purely because the signal reminded the peripheral

nervous system and rebuilt the neuronal pathway and the central nervous and say this must happen and it's happening now. And incredibly, it only took a few weeks of using that stimulus, a very simple thing. It's just sort of signaling and saying, fine now. Interesting. Yeah, so it works both ways. There isn't like a link between your brain, your body, your endocrine function, your nervous system. And it works in unison and harmony. Right, and what's more, they're safe

because when you're pressing from the outside, everything's harmonizing on the inside. If your blood pressure has to change, we'll come onto breathing physiology in a minute. But remember the tachycosubocardia and myopathy, slight change in the integrity of the heart changes elements of your blood pressure, changes all sorts of things, heart rate variables, changes all sorts of factors that have to

remain in harmony within your physiology for things to remain stable and set. It's absolutely in tune with one another. When something changes like there's a factor that comes in, it rebalances really, really effectively and really well. When those factors are going up into your brain and clearing out cyanuclein proteins and beta amyloids, so beta amyloid being Alzheimer's, cyanuclein being Parkinson's. I'm not sitting here and saying this solution

to Parkinson's, right? But I do know putting deep implants into the brain, whilst it's absolutely exceptionally brilliant work, it's still like playing the piano with a mallet, right? You're introducing a foreign body into it. When you have to do that, you must. But my key question is how much more could we be doing a lock-knock earlier?

20 years? Usually is the lead time No, there's a ton of people out there that exhibiting operator syndrome type symptoms That have neurological elements to what they're doing and what would happen if we can boost their physiological functions Not only whilst they're serving But you you you encourage it. And to put this in words, I was getting on a train to London and I bumped into someone I knew well because he was a quite famous rugby player, but he didn't know me.

I was just from a local club. And I didn't say hello to him because I just was like, he gets it all the time. But then I saw the train was delayed and I was walking past the window and saw him sitting down and I said, OK, well, I've been stupid. Let's at least go and say good morning. And I got chatting to him and he started talking about his sister. His sister had a syndrome called Gwilhom-Barry syndrome. It's where no one really knows what kicks it off,

but the immune system starts kind of interfering with the peripheral nervous system and it starts resulting in a breakdown in motor control. This syndrome can end up in locked-in syndrome, full paralysis, right, at its worst. Sometimes it reverses itself and sometimes it ends with lasting consequences, deficits in motor. It's usually treated because it's essentially an autoimmune system first by blood transfusion. But as it happened, his sister was pretty much immobile on the sofa and losing mobility fast. She was presenting to a neurological

consultant in a wheelchair and that was on about September the 23rd. I heard of it and phoned MS, the company, and said, hey, can we provide some products to this? It happened there were a load of prototypes lying about on the neurologist, physiotherapist floor. So I said, can you send them over to me me I can drive around this person's house we can give her a quick coaching course in the simplicity of using this which you put it on press the button trust in it and you can do an assessment on where she sits and you know I drove around the house took round so took round the prototypes took round download the app and explained exactly how the technology took around the prototypes,

took around, downloaded the app and explained exactly how the technology works. It communicates waveforms into your own points. It cannot do any harm. The risks are very well defined and it can only do benefit. Then Vicky, so Dr. Victoria Sparks, a neurologist and physiotherapist at the time, did a connected

on signal and did a full assessment of her. And then the prognosis was really quite sort of, really, you know, it's like the, her own neurologic consultant was saying, this is really, really concerning. And we left her to it. Said, look, you know, you can contact us any time, but get on with it. And she started using it. And within a week, she could get up off the sofa unassisted. Wow.

And within two weeks, she was sending videos of her walking to the pub with her family. Wow. But most significantly, in four weeks, her neurologic consultant and her neurophysio team signed her off to drive and go back to work. Now, roughly at the time when we introduced the technology to try and help, she had a second blood transfusion. The first blood transfusion hadn't worked for whatever reasons. Whatever it was, a combination of the blood transfusion and the helpful beneficial stimulus acting as a catalyst or a solution. We're not sure. Right. Her neurological consultant and the neurophysio was off to meet us. They've described their recovery, which was a month. So a month to get signed off

back to work. Wow. She's an incredible woman. How often did she have to, how long did she have to wait? You know, so this lady is, and this is an important point as well. So I think she was using it every day and just went for it. Right. And every day for how long? We gave her bands and you know, for a month and she kept on using it and she describes herself as back to 95%. What I'm asking is how many, how long does she wear it?

Does she wear it all day? Does she wear it for an hour in the morning? I'd have to explore that. I think she wore it for hours at the time, like one hour at a time. When she was immobile on the sofa, she really had nothing else to do. And so constantly, constantly waking it all back up. How long do you wear it for? So it interchanges.

The beauty of technology, it'll work with you, right? So it's just going to do whatever you do. We have experts. So Owen Laces is the program development expert. He's a leading coach in the Irish Sports Institute, quite a famous sports performance expert. He's got his own sort of studies and case work, so he formulates the program development. So you can just do programs. So I've got 80 minute programs, 35 minute programs, all different wave forms.

This morning I was on capillarization because it's quite nice and massaging. I didn't want to absolutely wear myself out for this. So I'll come on to how I've sort of lined up for this as well because it's a very, very important part of this. So it really kind of sort of just works with you. And interestingly, I'm testing hypothesis in my head because your body only regenerates from repairs

when you're asleep. So is there a way for we can write where you just wear a set of pajamas and just buzzes away very, very nicely for you? Because if it's generating beneficial factors, is there a further repair element? I have to talk to Vincent. I'm not a biologist.

Very interesting. I'm just quite perceptive. And I've done all this by reading books what books what have you noticed so I mean I've and I don't use it all the time but I have weeks off without using it and then I'll use it for concentrated periods and I've used used it in the days I've arrived since Nashville so I don't know I want to tune out of the weariness of travel. I've also tested it very, very hard, because I'm very, very interested.

And as I say, I'm like this really, the way I am valuable is by supporting other people's case work, and I'm a good minion to use. I've got an understandable about history that comes with some exposure, well, irrefutable exposure and expected challenges. And this is why the people I'm coming onto, I'll come to. So the day is quite precious, but I've gone out myself,

I'll go running in it and I just tune it in. And a lot of time I just leave it off. This suit has just arrived from Taiwan, as I've said, made handmade by McAuloch's team. And they're an incredible team, experts in conducting membranes. And they've made this beautifully. This is the next generation up from one.

So I'm super excited to turn it on. I reckon this is like a bit of a sewing machine. Now, you imagine if this is if you made this all informed and you say gave it to people exposed to certain environmental factors that are gonna challenge them, you just have beneficial stimulus as keying off outward looking sensors.

You imagine the benefit for training simulation. The proximity were to a blast, and you get a contract in. The applications are really very, very broad if you think about them They're applicable to all human beings, but particularly ones who are mobile So if you've got people who are mobile and waiting for an operation and need to drop their weight you need to do whatever Okay, what's the way for them for that? I'm not saying this technology is a panacea But you start combining these families of technologies up

They start becoming you know you in unison quite powerful and the casework we've got and I can go into lots There's a NASCAR Racing driver who's still racing? Because of the use of the technology Wow and she is offered to do her like she she's done like a run of a recording of Her particular case. No, there's lots and lots of case work now What's the name of the company? So M Mez Group AB is this company now? They're Swedish company by heart, but they're kind of sort of mixed in everywhere. Vincent Tellenbach is an amazing engineer Incredible. He's got 30 years just under 30 years experience writing these waveforms and works incredibly closely with Imperial

College. So these waveforms alongside other types of signaling, because your body's all told electric. Right. And so these waveforms, if you pick the right ones, you can initiate some really, really clever changes. How powerful they'll be are actually up to your individualised biology. It's guesswork from the outside, but it's going to be beneficial. My original hypothesis, and it probably starts with the fact that I've got close friends with Parkinson's, and you see the conditions that they face on bad days, days when the weather's not good. And somehow finding something that can happen before you have to resort to the invasive procedures

is only gonna be good. And it has to be, for me, technology has to be accessible. In order to be accessible, it has to be affordable. And it needs to be made available to those that will benefit from it. Talk about this technology. This will be quite expensive, but it's the preserve of specialists and people who want to spend a lot of money on their sports, recreational fitness.

How much does one of those cost? Well, it's previously on the market and you remember that you've got this that can actually be made for you've upscale the production of this. This actually can be made extremely cheaply but the overall product involves an app, involves potentially a subscription. It depends what you're asking for, is it a bank of programmes or expertly written. But when it comes down to providing it for medical use cases, for therapeutic cases, it can be made to be really cheap. Now once you get into the scaling up of this, you can make accessories.

The box of accessories I've used, and I'll show you some videos afterwards of some of the stuff we've took into Ukraine to help with the war injured there. And they're just simple pads. They're not unique to the company. There's only a few companies that do do it. But I've got an app on my phone,

and I've got banks of programs. So is it a licensing fee? Some customers, you know, the good thing about a product is it's built up over, you know, you look at the number of touch points, right? If you just need the membrane, because you want to do an incredible line in sports, but it's a little bit more expensive.

An elite running range. Just need the membrane. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I have not yet come across a garment that has an active technology in it. There's lots that inform, you know, I've done biofeedback assessments now with various bits that get pinned onto you. I have not yet come across a viable garment that has an active technology in it that can

act on you. So I think this is very much the start of looking at these non-invasive technologies, all of which risks can be defined. They're really quite, they're very safe. They're born out of medical markets with the EMS family tens. Now actually, they shouldn't be like put under the same sort of discretion under sort of FDA certification as other things, because they are enacting on your own biology and physiology. And I noted in one of the previous podcasts, I think it's in executive order or something about make your own mind up.

It's about medical things that people can opt for. I might be getting this slightly wrong, but it's people's own choice to get involved with certain technologies. Now, if you've got Will and Barry syndrome, got a neurological condition where you think, do you know what? there's nothing to lose in getting on with this, go ahead with it. Go ahead with it, because it's non-invasive and the risk can be very, very well defined.

You know, and if it does small amounts of good, so be it. But in the cases we've used and we can see, it actually is quite powerful. And especially in combination with other things as well. Very interesting. Yeah. And it's that key thing, right? So how do people find it? So at the moment, the, the gen one that I've got here, we've taken that off.

Now we're consolidating that and we're making it as a preserve to support war injured at the moment the garment itself is is Nowhere near as good as this one. Mm-hmm So I think at the moment the strategy will be to work business to business and work with special Specific okay, so this would go to This would this would go an individual cannot purchase us this would go to not right now an individual cannot purchase us this will go to not right now Okay, they could have done the older one, but actually we're in a much much better spot So this company I've been well, you know, I've been involved in the company unpaid for three years

Absolutely loved it right, you know the end of the day I've really really believe in this human performance health and technology is something I would Be pleasure to be involved in the in the next 10, 20 years, right? It could be that thing, you know, it comes with a risk these sorts of companies do sell through but in this particular case I've witnessed what they're prepared to do over the last eight years and all of the finance has gone back into developing the product and they're actually in a really, really prime position to enact this on certain markets. And the more difficult markets like specialist professions and medical therapeutic, they're gonna take more time.

You need certifications for medical therapeutic to use it to its sort of more heightened abilities. Principles of it couldn't be more simple as we've talked about. It's an acting on your innovative muscle and it's promoting physiological harmony as well as helping you train and be strong or whatever you want to do, create lean muscle mass, improve cardio respite, whatever it is, there's a program that can be formed with waveform where that can play a part.

So is there any, for somebody that wants to use this this how would they get their hands on one? So I think that comes quite quickly hopefully in the next few months The company is in a position where it can scale up a new set of these have been made for trials and testing certain Sort of people at the moment We're talking to a company about potentially an agreement We're talking to a company about potentially an agreement where this would be made available to their customers. What you're looking at is the first instance of an integrative technology being part of a garment, which is quite an exciting thing.

You can see where this can really be very, very effective. Very interesting. When it comes to sports and recreational fitness, you can sell it to individuals, but actually it's probably better bun through professional sports and health clubs. You know, first as a subscription model, whatever, then there'll be some instruction. You know, you don't need instruction.

You can just put this on and use it. And the programs are set with protocols in it, which ensure that you can't really mess it up. Well, now guess what? Your body does a really good job of protecting itself anyway. So if you choose to kind of sort of choose to sort of really sort of go offline with it, you can't really do it

because your body will say, no, no, I don't really like that. But you know, some education and some built-in protocols are necessary in any technology, especially when you can never compensate for the random choices that people can make. But essentially the risks are rhabdomyelitis and I've looked in all of these different cases and you can give it from training so you can do it from negative risks. It's not very often at all, and certainly in my view, not made more likely

because of the use of technology, but it's a declared use. So if you do incredibly hard negative reps in crossfit movements, for instance, you can overwork your muscles. So all of those protocols are built into the programs already. Introductory use, but that's actually, you know, for programs like this, but once, you know, and this is what we hope to do is, is transform it into a

number of markets, but really the true value is in the medical and therapeutic world, you know, and that is going to be a longer piece of work, but it's already been happening already, you know, Vincent Tellembach is the incredible person really behind the design and engineering of all of this. You know, the company has now taken it on to make it something that can be made accessible and available to people. Incredible companies like Macalot are able to make garments like this. The next one is incredibly well engineered it's got

like lymphatic drainage built in textiles and stuff and it's almost unnecessarily over engineered. I think it's going to be to kind of prove a point. This is the generation that could you know fly. It's got a more conductive membrane than the one I use and I haven't used this yet so I'm going to enjoy seeing what that that feels like. But again you know it's the key one is to technology is useful if it's available to people and in order to do that you have to be able to have to be an adaptable product that can be made you know affordable to people in whatever markets you're moving into and

you know you can have a massively engineered thing because your needs and requirements around a profession. You can have a very, very simple thing that has a membrane that delivers something much less complicated in terms of waveform, but it's generating what you need. Yeah. Underpinning health. Man. This is hand in hand then with, so I went down to Snowdonia there's an ex former

colleague is actually from from the SBS called Gary Bamford and he formed a company called Gerardus and he asked me to come speak to his the people that were on a walk around Snowdononia. And during that walk around, I met a gentleman called Dylan McKay. Now Dylan McKay is an ex-performance expert from New Zealand, but at heart, he's Army Technicians Officer, Arms Weapons Technicians Officer, EOD at disposal.

And he's become central in breathing physiology. And when I met him, immediately, when you can tell that someone's really, really interesting, and not only really well-centered, but there's expert knowledge there. And I started talking to him. He said, are you willing to become a data subject for us? And I said, well, why are you interested?

And he said, because we know your your background but you present very normally and so we wouldn't mind seeing your physiology you know through breathing cat catnography which measures the acidosis the chemical axis levels in your tissues through breathing it checks whether you're hyper catnip, so low CO2 level, so it affects your oxygen uptake or not. So I obviously willingly agreed, sounds like an amazing opportunity to me. One thing I've learned in this transition process is size up opportunity, as in why I'm being asked, but if it makes sense to take it.

And it's by having that attitude towards these that I've become involved in these technologies. So I started building up a baseline in technology in understanding of my own breathing physiology with Dylan McCoy, he looks at all my data and goes, you know, and I've started then finding out what resonance breathing frequency is and are you aware of resonance breathing frequency? So resonance breathing frequency is essentially

what people are trying to achieve by box breathing. Okay. But it's very individualized to you. So and that's a point where you can get amplitude in the harmony of your physiological function. So you can empower it. So when people are doing these breathing techniques, they're doing quite an inaccurate way of what this capnography will do which will show you mine for instance is 4 so and the bracket is 4.5 to 6 breaths per minute so that shows you how individualized it is but it took an expert to look in and say actually yours is 4 but once you get it right your physiology becomes very very powerful and re-centers itself. So feelings of anxiety dissipate. And the scientist behind all of this is a guy called Dr Peter Litchfield.

He invented this, which is the catalograph. And it's a clever box. That was again, I used this morning. And I don't do, you know, I'm basically gearing enough sessions to inform Dylan Mackay's work but also I'm benefiting from all the expert knowledge that is coming back. Essentially, it's a, you wear a heart rate monitor, you put the nasal cannula in and this clever box here measures the acidosis levels and your breathing rates to see what your end-tidal CO2 is. And obviously if it's too low then you will be out of kilter and this is where

some of the behaviors, so they are very involved with operator syndrome. I think they've been quite involved with, I think it's Dr. Chris Frew's work. And they're quite well advanced. And breathing physiol, anyone who uses breathing apparatus, like some divers, barbeque, this should be absolutely baked into their sort of rekey process. But actually it's very fundamental to a lot of other people as well.

So again, I'm working very hard with them. And through that process, and Dylan Mackay is utterly fascinating. It's almost like my therapy going on to a session. And that's where we worked out right. Look at that. Yeah, yeah. Yes, please, there's that naval canyon, the pulsar that we were at. And I never realised the complication of each breath processes

and and you get a graph so I plug this in and put that little thumb drive yeah thumb drive into your laptop you know I was doing it this morning in the gym because I did one of Scott Sonnen's regimes in order to prepare myself you know you know I'm interested in seeing, you know, certain different types of workouts, prepare yourself in certain ways, and I had quite an interesting experience doing this. But in all of this, I'm measuring my breathing physiology

and giving Dylan that data. And he's able to see one, he's said, right, you know, your physiology is centered, right, so you're not traumatized by anything. We know that. You know, although you're laden with the normal stresses of life, you're not out of kilter, right? So that's an important thing to know because if people are, and I think this originally

started a long, long time ago with Dr. Peter Litchfield identifying that dysfunctional breathing behaviors had an association to epilepsy. And it's like sort of unregulated neurotransmission. So again, it's all has relevance in any of those environmental factors, explosive blast, exposure, you know, stress loads, absolute direct relevance to all of this. To re-zero, it's like again that analogy with the site. Your body physiology is your most powerful aspect of how you remain good and centered. It's all of your behaviors. But essentially, martial artists used to do

meditation and that was their way of studying it and getting this centrality around physiology. Well now we have a technology. You can plug it into a laptop. You can see. Like last night, I went on my breathing resonance frequency, which have made amplitude for my physiology. So if I was going to sleep well, I'd definitely hear it saying, no, I didn't sleep. Well, I did sleep well.

I just didn't sleep very long, which happens. So, but you know, that in itself is a reassurance, you know, I'm in tune, right? I'm in tune. So ready for this. What becomes even more exciting is, you know, I've just done their biofeedback, they use something called Splendohealth, which is a platform for testing your cardio respiratory fitness, but also your cognitive abilities. And so I drove down to Dylan's house and we went on the assault bike, did a series of cognitive tests,

doesn't take very long, but I was fitted with monitors to measure oxidation in my tissues, so my quad, and in my prefrontal cortex. I measured the heart rate variables, measure all sorts of stuff in biofeedback and I've got a report back. And remembering this is not to prove I'm some sort

of superhuman athlete, because I'm not. And you know, I live life in a very kind of balanced and natural way. I don't make deliberately unhealthy choices, but I think part of life is making realistic propositions to people that can fit around how they need to live. No one could be in the gym at 4 o'clock every morning. And if you do, you're probably canceling out a relationship

you really cared about as well. And there's nothing more annoying. One of the speaking things I do is high performance, not high maintenance. No one wants to know you've had an ice bath, like this morning or if you didn't sleep well how you won't be able to work effectively. You know it's like you become awful and you're like going on to ice baths, cold water therapy works right initiates metabolic change. This all stands up people live in thermo-neutral environments too much but why you need

to go out and buy a $400 ice bath? And I implore people not to jump in ice baths. It shocks your system. 18-autonomic sets of muscles around your heart. Now if you want to have cold water therapy, best way to do it is, one, you have a bath in your house usually, but even in the shower, have a normal shower, and then just gently turn the cold water down and that's why you're not

Setting your sympathetic nervous system off against your parasympathetic It's quite a dangerous thing to do because your physiology is trying to take over If you dunk yourself into very cold ice water Elite athletes do this to do something else with their muscles unless you're training for an elite competition You just want to initiate healthy metabolic change at a cellular level. So all of these sort of lifestyle theories that are pushed and all become almost cult-like

in their kind of sort of way of commercialization. You must be one of these and this is the result. No, it's a mixture. And they don't have to be severe. And some of the advice that's given down at sort of local level, local gym level in small towns is really quite sort of horribly inaccurate. I don't think it's intentional. Now, so these breathing techniques, you know, the first thing to ask the breathing technique is how do you know if it's in tune with your individualised breathing? Because you don't

know your resonance breathing frequency. You can, these days, you can plug yourself into a technology and have an expert look at it over the cloud. And they say, yeah, you're in tune. I reckon it's 4.5. Tweak it, tweak it, tweak it. So it's a fascinating area of work. Now Dylan McKay, so going back to what I'm really,

really interested in is how do I now train and activate my physiology to protect myself from neurological deficit that may or may not be there. Probably is there, right? We've had lots of exposure. So Dylan Mackay works very closely with Scott Sonnen. And I didn't know much about Scott Sonnen first, but I've looked a little bit into his history, which is utterly incredible, to be honest. He's got a lifetime history that people understand. He's been a professional fighter, he's a master of sport but he works closely with Dr Peter Litchfield on breathing physiology also and well it's in close partnership with Dylan Mackay. I've actually been invited

to be a demonstration model on one of their webinars. But so I looked in, the first thing Dylan Mackay sent me was a program of Scott Sonnen's theory on how to adapt exercise to tune yourself in for for instance creative thinking and thought but gives the reasons why. And this is exactly, you know when you come across someone who's an expert and all of a sudden the jigsaw puzzle keeps coming, it starts patterning together. So a lot of the research work I've done has been AI models asking them more and more precise search words to paint dots together. But essentially, you're sort of passionate together with interaction

with experts, books, and online learning. Because I can't go to university, actually, I don't think I'd have this approach for this. Scott Sonnen's work really, really underpinned it because what Scott Sonnen's work is, is how to modulate exercise. First of all, dress exercise. Exercise is actually some sort of proxy in human evolution with biology for exertion. You need to exert yourself in one way or another, challenge and form movements through your neuromuscular junctions that keep your body, your brain being part of your body, healthy and safe and your physiology is intuitive and adapts to that. What Scott Sonnen's programs is looking directly at that and it's fascinating and there's

something called the Goldilocks zone of moderate to high intensity sessions, so some are 20 minutes, some are 10 minutes. So Dylan's been setting me these because I'm actually really interested. How creative am I? So I've been tuning in for this. I don't know how great waiting for some, I don't know, some, some, um, uh, confirmation or not, right? I did three sessions running up to this and I got one completely wrong.

I overexerted and went into stress and I could feel that my body is quite stressed. I added weight into it, which they're usually body weight. But the core concept is complex movement. So movement is described as complex if it moves through four sets of different muscles, neuromuscular junctions. And your central nervous system will then recognize this as a pattern that is beneficial and generate these factors that I've alluded to, these family of glial cells that will move through your vascular system up into your blood brain and activate in order to create

stronger neuronal pathways and your brain is everyone talks about brain plasticity you've got neurology plasticity throughout your system and it consciously adapts and changes to everything you've done so you can programmatically strengthen pathways in a conscious way and this really really started interesting me because you end up asking any question you go back to the original solutions with your physiology, right? You need to just need to know how to empower it and what Scott Sonnen's work does this. And if you do patterns of complex movement, so I do every minute on the minute sessions for 20 minutes, I did one

of those today and it's just a complex movement that enacts those systems then not only is your brain far more creative for periods of time and the benefits of doing it are huge but the family of glial cells is astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and glial cells themselves of which then they're further defined and they all have slightly different roles so astrocytes do lots of stuff but essentially keep the dendritic, the forest of sort of dendritic connections that can form up into new neural connections. Axons what join those synapses, those dendritic ends together. What happens in Scott Sonnen's particular regime for Goldilocksone for instance is it keyly activates oligodendrocytes that

create myelination of the axon. So when you talk about myelinating axon, it's conductive wrapping around the axon that strengthens the signal. So it strengthens the urinal pathway. So when you're looking at these experts, and again, the academics have probably been sitting on these answers for ages, but they haven't put the dots together in terms of application. But this is where experts like Scott Son and Dylan can make a huge amount of difference. And the work is already there. So using, and again, it struck me that people struggle to compensate for the challenges of their professions, challenge of their lives. The rates of Parkinson's are flying up right so we can't say do better. Either

lifestyle doesn't allow you to. The commitments you have done do not allow you to exert yourself to a relevant level or there's preconditions in which you can't. whatever it is, these non-invasive technologies can pick up a lot of the slack and they can perform a lot of the mitigation for it. And this is, I think, quite important because I always work off the premise. Going back to Guillain-Barré syndrome, there's a certain factor, an element of factors that have to be involved, which is expert knowledge, willing patient or subject mindset, and applied technology.

And it doesn't, we don't know what that applied technology is until we know the problem. But there's a set of them and they all signal in and key off your own biological function. So go back to the lady had Gwilym Barry syndrome. Expert knowledge is fundamental and key off your own biological function. So go back to the lady had Gwilym Barry syndrome. Expert knowledge is fundamental and key. Came from the neurologist consultant, neurophysio team and Victoria Sparks. She did the assessment, said this is how you use technology. But I would suggest that the most powerful element of that

was that willing mindset. And that enacted on her system itself. And the applied technology gave it a real kickstart, like a jumpstart. And once it gets that message, it re-patterns that neuronal pathway very, very quick. So going back to Duncan Slater, right? Duncan Slater, the WMT I met I mentioned earlier he's had some

problems with his injuries previously and he's got some vascular shutdown that's happening. So I introduced Duncan to MS group as a company and really just just you know see if, the complexities around the injuries are really quite considerable. And I'll come onto the unbroken foundation in a minute. Once people become, have limbs amputated, the trauma around the thing I think we've covered, right? That's gonna be a deeply traumatic experience,

but humans will get beyond that, right? The complexities around the injury are far more consequential because you're at biomechanical disadvantage driving your own physiology. If you think if it's one leg, the amount of movement you depend upon and how much that's enacting on your overall system, So you have to find mitigations. So Duncan Slater, he's an incredible person. He's a speaker as well, a huge, huge character. And he's the only Ampetito ever done the Marathon des Arbre. And he's done it three times and he finished it once.

And yeah, exactly. He's absolutely brilliant. And he got his stumps made, sorry, his prosthetics made for himself because the ones he got given melted and debrided his whole layer of his stumps at first attempt because of the heat. And I won't speak too much on behalf of him. He is just an incredible person. So he's now getting a bespoke suit made for him by the same people that have made this Oh cool

Because in the use of the technology we've seen his vascular system open back up But also if you think about phantom pain In that cavern that's in there getting fed hundred million bits of information per second when something crisis happens your consciousness isn't powerful enough to get that to make sense you know if you put signals through neuronal pathways in a localized area it remaps them Wow therefore you can deal with phantom pain Wow which is he tried this shit so he's he's got at the moment he's got pads, gels, straps.

He's used it quite a lot. It's helping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the end of the day, he's got this problem because they went to see a consultant about this vascular shutdown. And these consultants used to dealing with people, eight year old hearts.

And he said, well, it sounds like we're gonna have to cut more off. And Duncan was like, you may as well throw the prosthetics in the bin. You know, Duncan's in, he, a single gentleman in an Italian shed made his prosthetics, which he then went and completed the marathon des Arblons.

So we're gonna do a lot of case work now around Duncan to ensure that the technology will make a massive amount. Rematch pathways, building vascular access back, already doing a really good job in a very simplified form. So if you make it powerful as this sort of thing, the coverage of the membrane is much, much bigger. And because it's so effective, the membrane, the waveforms are so intuitive.

It's like a sewing machine. If you compare some of the EMS products, they're like come from gel pads, it's like getting a lot of heat from the air. You know, again, that's how some of them have been built. You know, they're like suits of armor pads is like getting a hit with our concert with all of the others. So what we're excited about with Dylan Mackay is I'm going to start introducing other technologies and there's being very central one because I'm very, very familiar with it, but not ruling out others and going and doing this biofeedback platforms and mapping the physiological adaptations. This is really exciting case studies that we can do.

We can do them quite simply. It's got willing human biologists that want to be involved. There's plenty of research that shows neuromuscular electro stimulation builds back axonal regeneration. Some of the consequences being too near to explosive blast, of which the mechanism is there's lots of water in your head and as the wave hits your skull and goes through, the water cannot move out of the way. And it creates a turbulence. It makes a shearing mechanism between the gray and white matters, right? And it creates axonal legioning, amongst other things.

And your brain is extremely good at regenerating itself. And I think when the winds are fair, people keep up with that deficit. But when they're not so fair, so they do less exertion, they're in a worse place. It's like a bow wave catching up. And it's not a precondition, right? So there's plenty of research, mainly from the medical world, that shows that neuromuscular electro stimulation, electro stimulation around the base of your CNS can reverse an episode of depression on the dot. Wow. Because it just promotes factors, right? You rely on every day.

And this is, you know, these simple things can act in concert with all of the incredibly advanced things that are happening on. So, you know, and so I'll come on to Things that are happening on yeah so you know and So I'll come on to Ukraine, you know, so again, I was introduced to a person called Liam Sullivan. He has a Charity page will tackle it matters. It's quite a new one Essentially, he's been going in that Ukraine for a long period of time He's quite famous for providing 140 pairs of socks to a frontline unit in during winter

I mean it's pretty tough for him and I got a just a call because people knew that I was in and out of Kiev quite a lot Saying you know if this guy needs help or would you be welcome to meet since meeting him? I realized he's very involved with putting in football pitches and Creating a football tournament in concert with Champions League clubs and Premiership clubs. Because a lot of Premiership clubs have amputee teams and Parkinson's teams as well, you know, they have community hubs that are very, very powerful. So I came into contact with them and obviously as you look at this, the relevant technologies, this is extremely important when you're re-, this type of technology is extremely important when you're rehabilitating

Conflict injured and Ukraine has a problem As a problem in complexity of its injuries and volume of its injuries Right a lot of them are amputations and almost all have some sort of neurological conditions So when we last visited Unbroken foundation we took them some bare elements. And obviously a lot of these people were amputees and we're turning up with suits with arms and legs on them. They kind of looked at us quite quizzically.

We gave them accessories instead and they're using the accessories. And again, I'll share some videos with you. The accessories are incredibly good and powerful Because again at the end of these traumatic amputation sites They are using them to reactivate muscles and you know again a lot of these people have got some very very This is working for them. Sorry. This is yes. Yeah, so the initial sort of feedback We had is is really really overwhelming. I think it's probably because it's so accessible It's very very easy to use. It's not complicated. They're treating like I forget the numbers, but I treating a huge volume of patients But this also has an association they're using a lot of you know, I saw some of the pictures

They they call it bringing it back to color. And get these people, some have been held captive, a lot of them traumatic injured, and they do this exercise of getting them to do art. And it's been an incredible insight into how they treat these people. Try them, get them back to a stable life. And, you know, for instance, in week one, they'll only use red and black. And that's a picture into how your mind's working. But when they start using colour, you're seeing things. So they're very, very developed

in how they're kind of treating therapeutically and injury-wise these people. And sport is a key part to it. So Liam has started up this amputee football tournament. The first one is in Arsenal training facilities. The second one has just happened and it's in, it was held at Sandhurst. Oh cool. Yeah it was very cool and we had some fights and I've got to emphasise I'm a friend of Liam's right, you know I support him wherever I

possibly can but it's his thing. The football tournament says him and he does some other incredible work in particular with associations like Unbroken. It's really cool. Yeah so and it's a powerful message right you know it's like conflict is an inevitability in life it's going to happen yeah and in some cases the outcomes are pretty tested. But watching these amputees, and they are athletes. They're treated as athletes in football tournaments. And they're looking at some of the prosthesis that they're having, and some of the innovative machine learning that's happening around.

I saw a person picking up a paper cup and teaching. It's absolutely brilliant. You're looking at these people, and there's no element of feeling sorry, you know you're like wow You know you need some support Yeah, you need if you can get made available technologies and a digital platform for support you can go take this home You're already just you know the the the powerful messages getting these people, regardless of the consequences of the participation

in the conflict, is incredibly important. And it should be celebrated as well when it's successful. And these are complicated programs, but they're all important ones and accessible. So the role these types of technologies will play in that are very fundamental and key, especially when paucity around treatment and resources are very, they're quite few.

And I can't remember the figures that Ukraine are looking at. They've got a big volume of war injured. But I think, you know, something like, you know, in a developed nation, you've got 15 per 100,000 physios, whereas they have less than 0.8. Wow. So, but what they are is gaining an extremely advanced insight into how to treat these, um, treat these things. That's really cool.

Yeah. And I just hope that, you know, that comes to a close and people can concentrate on football tournaments and building these pitch. I think Liam's put in 47 AstroTurf pitches into the country since that football tournament. But I really did sort of take note like that in the incredible role that technology can play with applied applications.

So I hope that this all transforms into something that moves. You know, we've locked into it. I've looked at how the company behaves. They spend the money on back into development. They're in an absolutely superb position. And I have every faith that we'll see this through. I think the next few months are going to be pretty tight testing.

But it is definitely an area of considerable value and purpose. And so in the central point in where I got involved in this, it sort of made its way through to making some sense. And that's been participating alongside people like Dylan Mackay. And it's been good for me. I've learned a huge amount. And you know, go back to what's a successful transition look like. Well, I'm definitely not an example of it right now, but if you learn, you develop and essentially you support other people's really credible work, I think

there's pathways there at least. Well, John, I love what you're doing, man. And this has been a fascinating conversation and where can people find you? So I have a LinkedIn site which is my main site, you know from previous profession there's not much before that. I also have an Instagram site and I'll be very very happy to share and you know I'll be contactable through those mediums and I'll be very, very happy to help anyone. Well, we'll link those below

and I just want to say thank you again for coming. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Former MLB All-Star Sean Casey, aka The Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park. Take my 30 years of experience. Take the wisdom and knowledge I've learned from the failures when I got sent down my rookie year. All the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless. Keep charging.

It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That matters. We talk about that. I don't know. I'm fired up. Baseball's back and it's gonna be incredible. I love it. The Mayor's Office with Sean Casey from Believe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.