The Team House - John Gartner served in the Aussie SAS, Rhodesian SAS, Selous Scouts and more, Ep. 77

Episode Date: January 23, 2021

John Gartner served in the Australian SAS, Rhodesian SAS, Selous Scouts, South African intelligence, and as a trainer for Sri Lankan recce teams. He then went on to do executive protection and security work for incredibly wealthy individuals before starting his own company. His memoir is titled "The Fading Light." Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents,

and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Hi, Hey, everyone. Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with co-host Dave Park, pouring himself a little drink here. What are you drinking, Dave?

Little hinky dinks, rye whiskey, working man's rye whiskey. Oh, okay. This is episode 77. We're here with our guest tonight, John Gardner. He is the author of The Fading Light. I just finished reading this book yesterday. Really, really enjoyed it. As you probably guess on this show, I read a lot of these books. I read a lot of memoirs. This one stands out, though, and I'm really excited to talk to John. He's joining us all the way from Australia, and a totally separate. He's about an 11-hour difference. So he's not having a drink. in the AM hours. He's enjoying a water. I'm sorry about that, John. I hope next time when the pandemic is over, we can do this face to face and have a brusky together.

But you can't hear us? John. There's a delay here. Unfortunately, I'm still hearing what you were saying a couple of minutes ago. Okay, so we'll deal with that as best we can, John. Thank you for bearing with us here. So John served in the,

the Australian Special Air Service and then in the Rhodesian Special Air Service, then the Salus Scouts. Then he went on to some very interesting assignments working in South Africa, included working for South African intelligence, and then entered the world of private security contracting. Where he did work in Sri Lanka back during the 90s when they were at war, in the 80s when they were at war with the Tamil Tigers. And John was there training executive protection teams, close protection teams, and trained the Reki teams in that country. He went on to do executive protection for a Saudi Sheikh, and then went on to do a lot of security work for mining concerns in Southeast Asia and Africa, and even some work in Libya with the Gaddafi family as we get towards the end of the book. So there's a lot to talk about here. We're not possibly going to get through John's five decades of experience, but we're going to do the best we can. So, John, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

I can see you've just stopped talking, but you're still talking into my ears at the moment. So sorry, a little bit of a sort of repetition of what you're saying here on the audio. But good to be here. So it's okay, John. It's Australia. The electrons have further to travel. We'll do the best we can. So, John, the first question I'd just like to ask.

We really ask all of our guests is if you could tell us about. you know where you grew up your upbringing in Australia how you came into the military and eventually the special air service sorry jack there's at least a minute delay on everything you're saying here it's coming through to my ears here so it's a little bit difficult i know it's i know it's australia but okay to answer the question which is just finished now about where i grew up i actually came from adelaide very bit of a sorry that's all good it's still coming back at me okay so i grew up in adelaide lower lower socioeconomic background unfortunately and uh and when i when i grew into my teens i decided i'd

wanted to go into the army but uh no it's sorry it's it's it's bouncing back and started duplicating the conversation here sorry i i'm trying i'm trying to talk but then it comes back with all right of said a minute ago. That's very odd. Do you want to take your earphones out and see if that works? Unplug the earphones? Yeah, I can hear you just. Can you hear? Yes, sir. I hear you fine. I at least two minutes behind what you're saying. I start to say things and then you come back in. It's really cool. I can't. John, you don't have YouTube pulled up. I'm just hearing you say take your earphones out now. Yeah, is your YouTube on or something? Like, is there like there another source?

No YouTube. No YouTube. Nothing's done. Everything's off. I'll just make sure everything's off. Sorry, guys. We didn't actually have this issue in our technical check. Yeah, when we did our check.

But, I mean, can you hear me now, okay? I can hear you perfectly now? Can you hear me now? Sorry to the little hiccup there. Yeah, no problem. No problem, John. Please continue. Tell us about your growing up in Australia.

Okay, yeah, look, as I said, I'm born in Adelaide a long time ago now when I think back to it, coming up to 70 now. So when I was sort of, you know, we came from a bit of a poor background in Australia in the 50s and 60s. Wasn't a lot of spare money in the household. And I decided, you know, early in the peace, you know, a lot of, I was a great reader when I was in my teens and military stuff really has sort of appealed to me. So I decided by the time I was 18 really that I wanted to go into the army just to serve as an infantryman. I had no ambitions to anything more complex than that. Vietnam was pretty much in full swing then. And 18, 19 year old guy, you start to sort of, you know, a bit naive about the realities of war.

So I enlisted in the army in beginning of 71 and went across to recruit. training which was a three-month thing and which really just sort of brings you into into thinking along the military line i then opted for infantry extended infantry training and i went across to to the infantry battle wing which was just outside sydney and while i was there um because i was sort of being groomed through that training to join one of the um reinforcement battalions or or platoons or companies, whatever it was in those days, to go to Vietnam. And there was a sort of a bit of a road show from the SAS. And they were just sort of coming around and talking about the unit and what the unit did.

And I thought, well, why not try that? You know, it was a new concept in those days. Not I wasn't the first in that group of younger guys to be approached about going off and attempting the selection. there had been one or two other selections before me, but I was 19. I put my hand up, I was fit and fit healthy, and I decided, no, that's it. I'd love to make the effort. And I went through the sort of testing, which was really just a physical thing.

And after nearly six months military training, I was as fit as fiddle, obviously. And off I went to West Australia, where I was sort of had to wait for a couple of months, pending there was a selection course underway. And then after a couple of months, I think it would have been around about September 71. My selection course got underway and it was tough. You know, every generation says their selection course is harder than the one prior to that. And I'm still hearing that to this day about how hard a modern selection is. But we get through it as best we can and I got through mine and I ended up doing a paracourse thereafter.

So at the end of my first year, I'd done my infantry course. training i'd done my and attempted and succeeded at the s a selection and done my paracourse that was great and going into 72 but you know in 71 october two squadron of s as regiment was withdrawn from Vietnam they were the last ones up there and so looking into 72 i knew then i was never going to go to Vietnam and and i think in 75 was the final sort of swan song for the Australians there as for the US forces. So 72, 73, I didn't really have much on the go in the way of operational opportunities. So I just put my head down and did what courses they asked me to do, which just added value

to what role I served within the SAS. I was in Sea Troop, which was a vehicle mounted troop of one squadron. And we embarked on projects up in the Northwest, testing new equipment, new tactics, and strategies on long-range reconnaissance type ideas. And that's where it stood for two and a half years, really, the two of the last two years, 72 and 73. And I can't say, I say in my book, you know, that I was looking at other things, but I can't say I was bored.

You know, to be a member of the Australian SAS in my early 20s was quite a coup, and something I was very proud of to then and to this day. but I also wanted to test myself in a combat operational zone and the word was going around that there was something happening in Radesia there was a war on and the Radiesian SAS was recruiting people or inviting people to attend and and undertake their own selection so I sent my my application off to Salisbury, Radiesia the two army headquarters And come Christmas 73, I got the offer back saying yes, we'd love to have you over here. We'll refund you, reimburse you your airfail.

You've spent six months so you don't just come over for a holiday and leave us a month later. And we'd love to have you do the selection course for the SAS. So in early 74, March, February, I'd left the Australian Army and spent a bit of time at home in Adelaide. And then in March I embarked on my journey into Africa. And that journey is still underway. It's just incredible, John, that you were able to submit, like, your Army paperwork to a foreign country, be like, hey, I'm SAS here in Australia. Can I come be SAS in your country and fight combat operations? Yeah, it was.

I mean, in the circumstances, it was slightly different. You know, Rhodesia had a small white population. and and and and and and and and that stage the war wasn't as intense as it became of course but they were they were planning for the future and and it wasn't unusual from you know even when i was in the Australian essays there were at least two Americans i can remember being there there was certainly a number of British guys English guys and and I think one or two New Zealanders so you know it was was a reasonably cosmopolitan operation in in Australian essays so I I think I I think what had happened was in late 73, the Rhodesian army had sent out one of its recruiting

offices to Australia. He had to be very low profile because of sanctions, of course, and no one recognized Radizier in those days other than South Africa. And he'd been doing a tour of the sort of, you know, around Sydney and Melbourne, and the work got around and that they were recruiting, looking to recruit Australians. And that's how that happened. So I wasn't the first to go there. one two another three ahead of me also from the australian ss um one of whom eventually got

killed in 74 and the other two spend the time spend a year there and then then left but um and a couple of Australians three or four actually came after me and so yeah probably maybe around eight to 10 ozies served there over the period of time i was there on top of that there also a lot of breths and a few americans came across as well you know john john murk. For example, you know John and John Early, they're quite famous guys. And they came out. And Bob McKenzie, of course, was there well ahead of me. And Bob became quite famous on the network as well.

So it was a very cosmopolitan operation. They were very welcoming. You would think as Radizians, they'd be a little bit xenophobic about foreigners coming in, particularly when it was a war footing. They didn't trust people. You would think dramatically. but within the SAS once you sort of did your time, did your selection and showed you were committed, you became one of just a number of redisians, you know, you were an Aussie there, but or a Brit or American,

but essentially it was still a Redisian. And, you know, people over the years have said we were brought in under mercenary contracts and so forth. That's nonsense. I actually went to Redisian. My first starting, my first monthly salary was one-fifth of what I was earning. the Australian SAS on the exchange rate of the day. I mean, I think my first salary was $100, hundred Redisian dollars a month, you know, which was okay.

You know, everything was checked there, but there were no mercery contracts. We went in as members of the Redisian security forces on exactly the same terms and conditions as any other regular Redisian soldier was on. So a lot of sort of nonsense over the years spoken about those as contracts and the time over there. But, yeah, it was a great place to be. Rhodesia had had some, a lot of pluses, beautiful location, of course,

Central Africa, beautiful geography, and a war that was actually growing in intensity. So I always think that, you know, Rhodesia was what we fought for, the reason we just, and I think events have proven me right over the years, that, you know, just because, you know, white government is not necessarily bad,

government so and i think we made i think the politicians made some errors along the way some strategic errors that they probably could have reached a better conclusion um but um it it is what it is bredisia was a great place to serve and uh and from a military point of view i i think i achieve quite a lot did they make you go through s as a selection and training all over again yeah they did and that was that was the term term and condition one of the terms of conditions i I actually had to do a parachute course as well. So I did the selection. There was one finishing just as I arrived there,

and one of my Australian friends from SAS was just finishing that, and he had just come back into Cranbourne Barracks in the week that I was there. So I had to wait a few weeks. So when I did my selection, it was with a bunch of young guys who'd done their basic training over at the Redisional Infantry and a couple of older guys about my age. We did our selection. It was held in the eastern highlands along the Mozambique border. It was tough country. You know, world's view is the highest feature in Bredithra, I think, and Zimbabwe now.

And I remember walking down and around that for a few days. So it was tough, but it was, but it was short. So it's really one of those where you set your mind to it, you know, okay, seven to ten days and you're through and you can get through it. can get through it. So it's it was a wasn't as prolonged as the Australian one but the Australian SS selection was more of a learning curve as well. Not only did we do a a beasting bit at the end where we had to reach certain milestones in on our own in pretty tough country. But with the Australian SS it was also teaching how to operate what you know how to work in a patrol certain skills and so forth. So whereas Radizia didn't need that they just wanted guys who had

previous training to come and test themselves on the selection. And if they passed it, they went into the unit. They had to do another paracetry course, of course, because they used the old Dakota there, the DC3, C-47. And in Australia, I jumped out of the Herks, the C-130. So I had to jump, I had to sort of just really sort of requalify on the, on the Dakota, which was pretty straightforward. And, you know, eight jumps and I was qualified.

But I was entitled before that to wear my Australian SAS wings, which is SAS wings internationally. So even before doing the selection and the paracourse in Rhodesia, I was still walking around with my SAS wings on my shoulder. So to prove that I'd show that I'd actually served previously. And as I said, everyone was very welcoming. There were no stresses, no strains, no, we don't need you sort of stuff. They knew that they had a fight on their hands.

and manpower would always be short. So there was none of this where Redisians, you know, Radians never die sort of thing. They all knew that, yeah, they would lose men over the course of the war. And obviously they would need to supplement them with wherever they could get them from. John, I know that we have a ton to get to in this book and that the Australian SAS was just the launching pad for all this. But that is, I mean, that is in and of itself, like a major achievement.

and something that I think a lot of our viewers would have been interested would would be interested in what it was like at that point in time when the road show came through what was it that did made you Roger up for that you know to put yourself through that selection when you hadn't really been thinking about it being a parent can be really challenging child and family resource network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting.

Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with children. parenting visit child and family resource network.org today well yeah I had I never even heard of the SS to tell a truth you know special forces as a as a young teenager late teens and so

forth but when that road show came through and I think it was just the way it was presented the presenters were very good they they they of course they're going to talk up the SS they're access that they were SS and soldiers themselves and and and I just thought yeah you know do I really want to go into the sort of the the the the the middle of a lot of guys infantry you know platoons and and companies and battalions or did I want to be a little bit more sort of independent and and a little bit more um out of the ordinary and I think I think at that stage because I was fit and healthy and and and I had as I said have been a voracious reader I had a lot of books about wars in Africa I was I was quite sort of a fan of the way the Israelis

for it there was and so I had a real sort of bent for the military anyway and I thought well if you're going to be serving in the military why not sort of served with the best and and I don't mean to denigrate any infantry battalion or any other service or arm but the SAS has a certain cachet about it there's a sort of reputational thing that goes with it even to this day and we are having problems here in Australia with some attitudes but in those days it was something that that I aspired to, I thought, well, why not put myself to the test? And when I got over there to Swanbourne, to Perth, I was accommodated actually with one squadron. Even though I hadn't done the selection, I was actually put into accommodation

with one squadron who were serving SAS soldiers. So it was unusual to do that. Normally they would keep a separate. So for a few weeks ahead of the selection course, I was actually rubbing shoulders with professional soldiers, all of whom had come back from Vietnam, they'd all served there. So it just fired me up to really sort of focus on making sure I was fit and healthy and permitted. At 19 years of age, you're not arrogant, you know that there's a lot you don't know. And I was prepared to put my head down, work hard and start the selection course, which I have to admit was very, very difficult. It was divided into several phases. The first phase was actually just offshore of West Australia, which is a place called Rocknest Island, which now is a tourist

spot. So a few cases off the coast here, very popular tourist spot for West Australians and others. But in the early 70s, it was actually an old military base, and it had been a military base. So we went over there and the first two weeks was a lot of sort of running typical, as you would expect, in a special forces type thing. Run, run, run and you're always tired. But at the same time, you're also in a classroom. You're being taught map reading skills and first aid and how to operate as an SS patrol and so forth. And we had about, I think we had about 120 to start there. And they started to drop like flies actually.

day by day there'd be another two or three would put the hand up and say sorry it's too tough too hard and they whittled us down quite quite well and uh so at the end of that two weeks we probably lost 20 or 30 guys already which looking back now it surprises me because um you know when you think about the where it was the environment it was a small island was you just had to run around and and keep you sort of focus on what you were being taught so the next phase was was back on on the mainland and then Then we started putting into practice the patrolling skills that we'd been taught. So we were down in the bush, bushland, the forestry down in south of Perth. And phase three, but that was a couple of phases.

And the Sterling Rangers, which was more independent. We were given milestone targets to reach across land. You know, you had to climb very big features, reach certain points within certain times, and then move on to the next. So very much a test of endurance and working alone. And the last phase of that was the two, I think about 10 days of learning, you know, the potential skills, you know, small craft handling, a bit of diving and so forth, so that you could decide which truth you wanted to go in and if you had any say at all,

but you can make your choices. So at the end of the eight weeks, we were down to, I think, about 16 successful candidates who had actually passed. So it was quite a large attrition rate. So when I say that selections are tough, the fact is most, all of the guys who started were all military guys, obviously, you know, they were soldiers, serving soldiers. And generally they would have been quite fit and healthy, so to have been allowed to do this SS course. So I guess looking back, it must have been a lot harder than I thought at the time, because that sort of attrition rate I mean you're talking maybe 15% pass rate I think at the end of the day

that's you can be a little bit cocky and think well yeah you know it's nice to be you know I think I deserve a little bit of accolade that goes with being in special forces because I work damn hard to get there sure the next phase of course was the parachute course which was said we had we were sent over to the eastern states and we jumped out of caribus four jumps out of caribus and then we moved up to the C-130 and and And we didn't finish the paracourse because of the D-Z had some low cloud covering. And in those days, more or less, the Defence Forces closed down at the end of the year for Christmas.

So we ran out of time. We'd done six of the eight jumps we needed. So I was sent home on leave to Adelaide. And then in 72, I was then sent to a medic's course in Victoria. I went there by train with a bunch of, I've been with a bunch of other S-A-S-guided with a bunch of other S-A-S-guised. qualified guys and then when I went back to Perth after the end of that four weeks later they flew an aircraft over some parachutes and we finished our two jumps day and night and that was the eight jump qualification level so early 72 I was I

was there and I put my hand up I liked the concept of long range desert group David Sterling Western Desert sort of operations from the Second World War and this the Australian SS was was diverse developing this sort of longer range desert capability because they were looking to defend borders. You know, this was in the 70s and everyone's taught about the communist scourge and the onward and upward march of communism coming down. So we needed to be able to operate in freely within the northwest of Australia. So we developed, we started working on those concepts. And looking back now, it was very unsophisticated compared to what equipment's available now to mobility troops.

but we we were the we were the sort of i guess we were the pathfinders there that we were the early guys who uh who worked out how best to operate you know the all of the pros and cons of that sort of role and all of the difficulties and challenges of working in a very very tough geographical regime yeah john in uh you talk about in the rhodesian s i mean some of the people you mentioned in your book are legends peter mcali's uh tim backs john murphy ron rey dynne Donvee Daly of course, Chris Schoenberg, Dennis Crew Camp. So really amazing folks. Can you tell us about what it was like in the Rhodesian SAS, the men and the mission, the operations that you guys were conducting at that time?

Yeah, in 74 when I got there, the war was really in its sort of evolutionary stages. You know, the Zipra guys, which were the Matabetes under and Como, were in Zambia. The Zanla guys were the insurgents, and we used to call them terrorists, but as I've gotten older, I give them respect. They're insurgents. They were fighting for what they believe. So I give them respect for that. So the Zanler insurgents were operating out of Mozambique, but very low profile at that stage, because Portugal was still the administering authority. Fremonti was fighting for its own independence within Mozambique and doing a pretty good job.

The Portuguese, there were elements of the Portuguese, army that was conscripted and they and I guess with conscripts they don't want to be the last soldiers to die before peace is declared. So the morale within the Portuguese army was probably not the highest. There was a lot of political sort of disharmony back in Portugal. There'd been a coup and so forth. So the right-wing government had been overthrown and the left-wing government had come into power. So they were talking already about abandoning their colonies in Africa, which they were talking about. which was Guine Basel, Angola and Mozambique.

So the Portuguese soldiers in Mozambique weren't that sort of keen to operate and be the last, had that honor of being the last Portuguese soldier killed in Mozambique or Angola. So in Mozambique they were pretty much sort of locked up in their modified protected fortresses, I would say, Aliamento's they called them.

And they rarely emerged from there. So Pridima had pretty much of a free hand of moving around and and ultimately when when the government in in lisbon gave independence to to mosenbeek prolimo was the the organization that obviously came into power under samora michel within that structure the zanler guys were were being trained overseas some in some in puber some in russia some in china they were trained all over the world north africa and so forth tanzania and uh and they they were coming down, though, were sort of making their way through Mozambique towards

Redish borders. But not in huge numbers at that stage. That only came from a really about 77 onwards when the numbers really magnified. But in 74, 75, 76, a lot of operations were small operations, you know, all into Zambia, all external for the for the SAS and and the Saloon Scouts also operated some externals as well. But the SAS was primarily working across in Mozambique. When independence came and Prolimo took quite a sort of aggressive stance, Samoa Michelle closed the borders with Radizia and more or less sort of set himself against the Rhodesian army and that just sort of created a huge amount of damage for

his economy later on. So we were doing a lot of small foreman because we were used. Using alouettes, we can only use four-man teams to operate. So if you wanted a larger group, eight or 12, then you'd use two or three helicopters to deploy the guys. And that's what happened. I think the largest operation I did into Mozambique

in the mid-70s was 12 when I was under March, Captain Martin, Lieutenant then Martin Pierce. And we did three helicopter, looked to the border and walked in and laid an ambush. So it was harassment, reconnaissance and hitting small camps where we could. The big camp attacks only came later as Zanler guys started to sort of build up their numbers and their capabilities. They started to establish themselves in bigger camps in Mozambique. And then from there they would sort of radiate out into Rhodesia.

So 74, 75, 76, interesting times individually. not the huge operations that came later. In the book, you mentioned some, I mean, there's honestly some pretty brutal depictions of combat. I mean, I think you're really candid about, well, I think one of your early contacts, it was a female gorilla that you put down and there are some mercy kills involved in it. Well, you know, people, people sort of, you know, I know guys, I know when I first was first trained in this, train in their essays.

when you when we and i saw it in iraq years later people don't want to get killed by ghosts you know they they've shot the guy they've knocked it knocked the enemy down they walk past and then the ghost the guy sort of come back to life and and kills you from behind so you have to be questioned and when you we would jump into it because we had very few helicopters a lot of the camp attacks we did even though they were smaller camp we actually jumped into these things we would um envelop them from we would use helicopters obviously to put the fire lines down but to put the stop groups in we would you know the assault group would come in by generally by heli and and the stock groups would be parachuted in in in to to block off any escape so yeah and then you would work your way into

to those camps and and you were fighting as you went through so as i said not huge battles but but you know you you're going through the bush you know that people are there hiding You're firing at very sort of fleeting targets, things that you can't see very easily. I remember sort of rounding a bend in a river in a firefight and engaging targets. And then as I sort of came around Ben, there were three women there, and they were villages, three women sort of standing up in the middle of a contact between the Zama guys on one side. And I was with John Murphy at the time, actually. and us on the other. And I remember having to stop and sort of say to these women or actually

sort of indicate to them to get down. I was using hand movements to tell them to get down, get down. And one of them had been wounded in the leg, which we, which we dressed. But yeah, so it was a very difficult environment, you know, sort of you had to be very cautious about about making sure because there were a lot of civilians in these areas, locals. And then, and like most, most insurgent groups tend to sort of put their camps close to, to villages and so forth where they can get fed and they can have the women and so forth and they can engage with the locals so it can be can be a little bit sort of dawning at times but yeah that woman was was a combatant and she she was she would have killed me if she uh if she'd

had the opportunity we knew that it was sure be killed this was the nature of this war it's a bush war um there's no Geneva convention there's no sort of you know lines where you sort of stop and so see okay fine he's surrendered and and white flags up in a bush war and i would imagine it was the same in southeast asia in vietnam but in an in african wars it you had you fought you fought through and when i went to sri lanky years later i would teach my trainees there that when you attack a position you fight through um you take you're not taking prisoners because they're fighting back so you're fighting through you get through you fought through you've regroup on the other side.

You don't want to be shot by people you've left behind. And that actually the Brit guys who were working with me at time thought that was a little bit rough and ready. And I said, no, this is the reality. You know, you don't want people to sort of look dead, play dead. And then as you've gone past, they grab their weapon or throw a grenade or something out here, and you're dead. And that was the nature of the war. It was brutal. But it wasn't unfair.

You know, I expected it. Yeah, we train American soldiers. I was just saying we trained the same way in the United States military. I mean, putting a few insurance shots in an enemy as you pass over them is not illegal. There's nothing criminal about that. But I mean, you were quite explicit in the book, and I mean, you don't spare the details. And I think it's good for people to hear the truth about what war is like as opposed to some sort of sugar-coated bullshit version of it. Well, it is.

I agree. And you know, when I wrote the story, look, so a couple of guys said, oh, wow, you know, you were quite open there about a couple of things. And I said, well, you know, look back to what I said at the beginning. When I was 19, I went into the army. I had this very naive sort of sense about what war offered. That, you know, there's a lot of glory and medals galore and so forth. And the reality is far different. There's nothing to be glorified about war.

I think war is, wars should be fought by professional. you know so i'm not a i'm not a believer in conscript armies i think you need to have a professional um force to fight wars and when i when i lost my first friend the the australian guy ken smith who who uh was killed in 74 he'd arrived and reduced just ahead of me so he was operational before i had done my selection and he was a good friend i've done my australian essay selection with him and he stepped on a landmine in mosenberg and died and all of a sudden there it was in my in my face this at at his funeral, at his funeral service, which was held in Warren Hill Cemetery just out, the chapel out there, just outside Salisbury. I heard his fiancé sobbing very, very loudly

and I was at the back of the chapel. And it just struck me that, you know, war is hell. People like me, we, we pursue, we follow the drum. I enjoy what the challenges are in a military career. I never wanted to be a peacetime soldier and I pursued my career through armed conflict. But I wanted to make it clear to people that it is a tough, a tough business, and there's nothing nice about it. There's nothing, you know, you look at all the movies that come out over the years and, you know, sort of one hero will sell, we'll kill 20 or 30 people in a firefly. I'm talking about the John Rambo type sort of characters, you know. Wars not like that.

You know, and I described on one of my recent YouTube's about one of my friends being shot, there was a friendly fire, if there is such a thing, and holding his hand and listening to him cry as the pain was sort of ratcheting through his body. And despite the morphine I was giving him, and to look over from him to another second one who'd been injured and shot by the same friendly fire incident,

who was semi-conscious and eyes lolling. This is not a pretty picture. So I wanted people to realize that, you know, the war is difficult and the sacrifices we made, you know, to go through year after year in a combat environment like Rhodesia where you were fighting for what you believed in, as most of the people were, I wanted people to know that we made sacrifices, that we weren't a bunch of crazy foreigners coming over.

We were as committed to the cause as the Redisians were. We believed in what we were doing. And whether the sort of history sort of at a time or politics at the time and history since then proved says we're wrong. Well, I don't know. I don't agree with that. I think what we did was worth fighting for. And there were values that we were trying to protect. And I think 20 years up or 40 years now after independence in Zimbabwe. And what you have now as a kleptocracy, they've stolen the, got the country blind.

You've got the top cream politicians and military people as rich as crisis and sort of 75% unemployment. You know, and people are struggling to feed their families. So, you know, those sorts of contrasts, I think, need to be highlighted. And when I say, I fought for a cause that I think probably could have prevented that. we didn't get the chance to prove that. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five

with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Other banks go out of their way to make redeeming credit card rewards needlessly complicated, like how they require minimums, or force you to use your rewards before reaching some arbitrary expiration date, But Discover isn't like that. With Discover, you can redeem your rewards for cash in any amount, at any time.

So you'll never have to jump through hoops. Unless you're like a trapezeist, then by all means, go right ahead. Learn wordiscover.com slash redeem rewards. Terms apply. John, speaking of challenges, one of the things that you were involved in with the SAS is you did some combat free fall jumps, which not a whole lot of guys have had. opportunity I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about that sure it's coming to last few months of my service with the SAS I was coming up for three years with

the Redizian SS and it was December December 76 now I was due to take this charge in March 77 and Mike Graham was the was the temporary stand in OC of the unit at the time Brian Robinson had been there going off somewhere anyway major Mike Graham Mick Graham was was in charge of and he decided he wanted to do some sort of real SAS stuff and and that was in his eyes that was free fall and long range reconnaissance so there weren't many free fallers in the unit at that time. I was one of them I'd done my free fall court 74 and hadn't really jumped much since then we did the occasional sort of a refresher jump it so December 76 Mick Graham said look we've got we've got a target over here we want you to have a look at this sort of camp and so forth and we've got some good intel but go in and have a look and you'll be doing a free and you'll be at the extreme range of the aloead helicopter on on the pickup so um just i've worn

you out and and yeah that that set the heart quivering a little bit but uh um so we halo in those days was very rudimentary i mean a friend of mine served with two two s and herriff and uh i think he ended up doing something like two thousand jumps and john early was was a was a was a was a you know multiple thousands of jumps man himself so um i hadn't done many but the kit and equipment that you have now is so so good but in those days we had nothing and uh and we were all prepared for it to tell the truth we were going to do a last light jump and and we got into the deck and we were kidded up i had the i had the um heavy uh hf radio because i was the communicator i was very good morse operator so i was carried the radio and uh andy chate who was quite

famous in Sea Squadron was a well-known sergeant, quite an iconic figure. And there were several iconic figures in those days, and Andy was one of them. Myself and Frank Vivius was another sergeant and a fourth guy, a young guy called Mukal-Mulman. So we went to New Serum and kidded ourselves up. We were heavily, heavily equipped, of course, and threw our TA tactical assault parachutes which was a steerable thing not not not a square parachute just around one but but could steer it and and they always said they it guaranteed you a soft landing in in the bush at night times when you couldn't see so we embarked on this thing and we learned afterwards that you know

the lessons learn was we should all have a little uh vh f radio with us and and we should have had a little night light on our helmets and and and everyone should have been carrying maps which we're none of us only Andy had the map in those days so we had no personal oxygen and the oxygen was from a hospital tank that had been fitted into the floor of the deck and and the hose is snaking out from those and we all had the individual sort of face masks to to hold up and until we were we were ready to go now Rhodesia and Mozambique was at 5,000 feet above ground level where we were operating so When we were talking about ASL above sea level, you had 5,000.

So we were jumping at probably, well, the first one was around 15,000 feet above ground, 20,000 feet above sea level. So we had to have the oxygen in the aircraft, and that's how we did it. We were sort of standing there ready to go. Each of us had our oxygen masks with the long snaking tube to the tank, and standing in the door ready to go. Now, I could see, I've cracked my ribs on a, on a, static line insertion when we attacked a camp in Mozambique only several weeks early I had three cracked ribs and one was broken actually and so I was in recovery and and you know free fall

you have to be able to arch your body quickly and and fully and and to to fall to face down to maintain the stable position but with cracked ribs it was a little bit more difficult so when we finally got to we got stood in the door I could see the sunset So looking down below me, 15,000 feet at the ground, it was dark. And I knew how well we're jumping too late here. So looking at 15,000 feet, we were still quite light. Looking down below was quite dark. So anyway, order was given.

Andy was first out. I was second out. Frank was behind me and then Mocha was at the back. So I jumped out and immediately started to tumble because I also had the heavy radio. So my pack, which was mounted on. the back of my thighs and wrapped on my thighs was quite heavy and uh and before i knew it i was tumbling and tossing and turning in the sky um and as i was getting lower it was getting darker and uh and eventually i mean i told myself to hell with the pain of the cracked ribs i have to

arch myself properly so i can get stable otherwise i'm going to climb into the ground eventually i fell i was falling stable looked around me couldn't see another body body in the sky and it was getting very dark. So as I said, we had no lights on. We had no lights of our own. We had nothing to illuminate ourselves in the sky so we could see one another. And by the time I'd tumble, I was probably sort of some distance away from the guys because they'd obviously sort of stabilized quite quickly.

Anyway, I decided, as I was coming down, I'd pop my shoe at 4,000 feet, rather than the 2005 that we would normally do operationally. I popped it at four so I could have a good look around, which wasn't a great idea. And looking back, of course, it's easy to say that with hindsight. But I was high and I was looking down into the dark. And of course, the TA parachutes we had were olive green. So there was nothing to make them stand out. There was no illumination on them. There was no day glow type thing. I couldn't see a thing. So eventually when I landed, I had no idea where I was in the bush other than the fact that I was close to the drop zone.

I actually sort of tried to pull my shoe out of the tree where I was sort of where I was entangled and I couldn't do it. I was on my own so I thought to hell with this, I'm not going to hang around. And I moved off a little bit from that parachute and took up a sort of spot where I thought it was reasonably safe or reasonably thick bush. And I stayed the night semi-alert.

I got a little bit dovet. during the sort of early hours of the morning. But just as first light was sort of coming upon me, I saw a little hill not far away from my position. So I climbed up on that, and I set up the HF radio I had, being the communicator, the signaler. And I fired that up,

and I got in touch with my headquarters back in Rhodesia. And Bob McKenzie was there at the time. I think it was a Motoko, which was a forward headquarters for us. And I was communicating with the forward headquarters in Motoka, probably. And Bob got into an aircraft, a small aircraft, light aircraft, and flew along the border using VHF comms down to establish that with Andy Chey and explained the situation and where they thought I was and where I thought I was. and Andy sort of

probably about 10 o'clock in the morning Andy sort of I saw this figure emerging from the bush along the bush in front of me towards his feature and it was Andy Cheat so I was about three Ks away from those it turned out so

quite a separation in the air so we learned lessons from that because the next ones we did after that we all had a small walkie-talkie a UHF com which we could fit into our magazine into the AK magazine duct and we all had maps so we always knew where we were and we learned lessons. So you learn lessons from bad experiences and we did learn them and I did three of those.

They were quite successful. Mick Graham liked the concept. So no sooner had I been recovered from the first and I was preparing for the second one. It was actually under Frank Bivier's the second one and he wasn't on that. And we did that one and then we did a third one. So I think within three or four weeks, four weeks, I've done those three free fall insertions. And then Mick Graham went absolutely crazy about this concept. And so, this is so great, you know, so efficient. I spend it.

I think it is because each time we go and there's been some sort of problem, which diminishes our effectiveness. And it's none of the fact that we can get in there and we can show these guys that we can move around a long way in. I said, well, fair enough. So I took off on a fourth one and we took off three nights in a row and each night we had a problem. The first one I think was couldn't get the landing gear up. The second one was a problem with the oxygen. Third one was a problem with icing of the wing. So Derek DeKock, who ran the parachute training school at, who was a wing commander, I think,

he was on board as a spadgerent. After the third take off and would turn around the third night, he said, no, no, God said this is not going to happen and we'll cancel the operation and I'll tell the the ultimate ravens I said I thank you very much I'm much much appreciate that so and it was only weeks later after that that I left the army and took my discharge from the Redisian SAS and and decided couldn't really decide what I was going to do then so I returned to Australia with my wife I had I had one child as well by then she was a year of the daughter and

my wife cass and i came back to australia um for three months and i went home to adelaide to to see family introduced my wife and daughter to them and uh and i must admit after about two weeks i was sitting there thinking oh my god i've made a terrible mistake and uh we need to go back to africa and uh interesting took us took us about three months before we finally got back there i thought it's interesting that throughout your book it seems like there are several attempts for for you and your family to return back to Australia and try something like normal life and it didn't seem to work out?

Well, in 77 when I went back, I'd actually been in touch with the CEO of and the adjutant of the Australian SAS Regiment. And I said to, I've written to them and said, look, I've done time in Rhodesia. Would you take me back into the unit when I come back? And he actually, the adjutant wrote back

and said, I've spoken to the commanding officer and he said, yes, based on your service history here and your service in Rhodesia, you would be welcome back into the unit. So I came back and that was my first thought, but that was in West Australia. Now, when you come from Africa, you land from Joe Berg,

your first landing is in Perth, where the SAS is based, but my family is halfway across Australia and Adelaide. So we went back to Adelaide first. And after that, when we landed, we carried on through to Adelaide, and that's where I spent my time. And I was thinking about it,

But as I said, I missed, I missed Traudisia so much. And I missed my friends. And I met people like Pete McLeish and others and Chris Schoenberg and so forth. I knew them well, Bob McKenzie. And I thought, well, this is really where I want to be. Going back into the Australian SS would be going back to where I was in 74 when I'd left. There was no war on the horizon. There was no operational deployment.

And it would have been just a training role, continue, you know, retraining and retraining. And in those days, Service in the SAS was great, but you also, not only did you do your training, but you also had to maintain the barracks, you know. So there was an operational squadron that actually had to do administration, and that could be working in, you know, cleaning pots and pans in the messes or picking up the garbage. Now that's all subcontracted out to service providers. But in those days, one squadron would do it in a roster type system where you would. would be doing these these these these camp duties barric duties and and then the next month you'd be operational or training or something so it wasn't something i wanted to go back to uh after being

in radisha and and knowing that when you came back off your r andr you would be deploying back onto operations so going back to um radizia was to me the was a no-brainer really uh it was nice to have gotten out to adelae to see my family um to introduce my wife and daughter to them um but really I my month would have done that and and but it took us two months because we had to sort out visas and and and residents permits and things for my wife and and and there are a lot of a lot of admin things to sort out but eventually we got back in in july 77 and uh and that's when i that's when i was pleased to be back there tell us about your uh about joining the saluce scouts because correct me if i'm wrong i've read that there were like a political rift between the

scouts and the SAS that they didn't necessarily get along so well. So I was interested that you went from one one year. Two special forces units and they always think each special SM unit thinks it's the best, of course, you know, and so it's going to be a bit of sort of, but it was good nature. You know, I guess Seals and Green Berets would be a similar sort of a comparison in the US, Navy, Navy Army type thing, but never heard of. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So, so, um, look, The fact of the matter is the basic sort of foundations of the Salute Scouts was formed by SAS operators. You know, there were a bunch of SAS operators, many of whom had come from the RRI

originally. So there was a linkage to the Radizianianite infantry and the SAS C squadron. So any good, any banter was good natured. There was no, there was no, there was no evil intent or malcontent about this. This was sort of just general SF, we're better than the new type things but we would say no we do it we do the job differently that's all so i was i got back to solesbury in 7 july 77 i wanted to i i met up with some of my old sea squadron blokes and uh but i was keen on on looking at salute scouts and and i was actually walking across cecil square which is in the center of salisbury and john murphy had heard i was there and i mentioned it in the book and john came looking for me and in salisbury a small city there was

There was no place to hide in those days. If someone was looking for you, they would find you. And John sort of intercepted me and said, look, there's some people out of Sully Scouts who would like to talk to. Chris Schoenberg's out there. And there's a guy who's running the Rekky Trip called Neil Krill. He's a major. He's a great guy. And Ron Reed Daly is looking to sort of expand the Reky Troop concept.

So to move off from the pseudo operations and to actually use an in-house reconnaissance capability to identify targets and Chris had already embarked on that with with his sidekick which was Tim Kalo there was another former SAS captain so you've got these two former SAS captains in RECI troop Chris and Tim Neil Creel was a former RRI captain who had become major with the Salus Scouts and little Johnny Gartner coming across there as a sergeant from from C squadron so I was sort of um but you know it was it was a great environment rank really didn't count much with ronry daily it was was your performance and uh i went out to in coma and thanks to john murphy he introduced me to nil creole and nil creole introduced me to uh ronry daily and neil said look we

are looking for some additional recic teams chris you've worked with chris previously and he knows you well and would would be keen to have you come across and would you be interested and I said, yeah, that would be great. So I attested virtually within the next couple of days. I signed the document, Ron Reed Daily, and said, look, we can give you a month-to-month contract. Who knows what's going to happen? We're not going to tie you down for three years. The war could last another year, could last five more years, but you do it to your heart's content.

And you gave me a month-to-month contract, and I signed that contract, and I was on a 30-day notice. And I guess that worked both ways. He could have sacked me on 30-day notice as well, but it never would. came to that and and and and and I was pleased to have that I thought I was I thought well you know must be something special about me if he's going to give me a 30-day you know month-to-month contract and I can come and go as I please but you know you I was pretty quickly brought down to earth you know I was there to do a job and and Ron Reed Daly was was was was the guy to work for he was he was amazing commanding officer um he built this unit from from scratch he had the concepts he was

he was and like me he came from the ranks you know he was a former sar major um from the ral i he was the regimental sa major at uh at the r s m at ral i and when he went into retirement so he came back under peter wals general peter wals as the as uh and offered this new unit which he formed himself so of his scouts and uh and he developed himself and and the loyalty to him within the unit was was quite immense you know it was unusual you know the the There was a great deal of devotion to Ron Reid Daly. So down the road, when a small element betrayed him and bugged his phone, there was a fair bit of heartache about that because Ron had been such a great,

was a great commanding officer and didn't deserve to have been betrayed by that, regardless of what the suspicion was about. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them on. their parenting journey everyone is there of someone they can turn to for help with parenting visit child and family resource network.org today activities are allegations which which were proven

false so one was great to work for and then and nil cruel particularly so because um nil didn't bask in you would think as a sort of a running three small teams of two men each um doing external operations which were quite challenging that nil would sort of gloat and bask in other people's glory. He wasn't like that at all. Neil was there to support us 100%. He gave us everything we needed. He was extremely concerned about our well-being and as probably one of the best officers I've worked for. And then you know some issues down the road with him. We all have sort of problems with, you know, personal clashes from time to time, but but realistically, Neil was was a great man to work for a good officer and he turned Recky Trip into quite a sort of iconic unit.

within saloo scouts and i think within the redisian army um two-man reconnaissance is you know you can look at and say oh how dangerous that must be high risk and in a way it is you've got no firepower you can't defend yourself if you're compromised in the bush but at the same time it's harder to find you and you can you like phantoms in the bush you know in the forest you you leave very little score and you you can get in close to targets and and nobody expects to see two guys wandering around the bush. So it was a great concept. And I think with the three teams that we had, Chris Schoenberg and his sidekick, African partner, Tim with his and me with mine, I had Stephen and Paul who was a Matabili, he was a sergeant. He'd worked for Chris Schoenberg

and there was a second one, Martin Chondor, who was Shonna. He was also very good. He'd worked with Tim Callow. And when I joined Recky Troop in, so that was by late July, early August, and Neil had picked me up in Salisbury and drove me down to the low felt to Trezzi, where we had a fort at Buffalo Range. And Stephen and Martin were there waiting to do things. So Neil dropped me off at the Salus Scout Fort and said, basically, John, make you do your own thing. The commander of the fort was Bert Sachs, a major. He said, Bert will look after you and he will give you some jobs and go and do it and show us what you can do. And that's essentially how I operated for the next three years, nearly three years.

And to be given the liberty of doing your own operations and not having somebody micromanaging you, particularly in special forces and the military, is very unusual. but with Ronry Daily I would just pop into the opt-room in Como and I'd ask the in people there what was current what information were they getting on potential camps and so forth and I'd be given all the information and I'd say to the Neil I'd like to go and have a look at this and if there was no other pressing demand essentially he would say yeah okay fine well let's go to Motoka

and we'll do it from there so or entirely Grand Reef Fob whatever But within that, of course, there were also other operations that came from command, and I'd deploy on those as the order came down. So it was a very, for me, a very innovative and very independent thinking operation. And Ronri Daly allowed me to thrive there. And to this day, I still appreciate everything he did, because it gave confidence to me about where I was going and what I could do. And reputational, it gave me a good,

reputation as well. I had quite a good reputation in the end as someone who was prepared to at short notice, jump on a plane and jump into Mozambique or Zambia wherever to do what was required and no song and dance, no drama, no histrionics, just get the job done and come back home. Could you talk to us about running pseudo-operations with Stephen? Because I thought that's one of the more fascinating parts of the book where you guys are disguised as the enemy and you were able to get quite close to the enemy in some of these reconnaissance operations. Well, that was it. You know, Stephen was, Stephen was black and I was a tall, skinny white guy, but I would, you know, sort of black in my skin and we wore the same uniforms as where we were

operating. In Mozambique, Stephen and I tended to wear olive green or Portuguese tiger stripe type camo, which is what the Frilemo, Mozambique military would wear. So, with Stephen, as a two-man call sign, Stephen was always in front because if we ever encountered someone, as happened from time to time, we ran into a hunter once, we saw him before he saw us, which proved that we were pretty good, but we were there, you know, so we had to, we had to sort of grab him for a couple of days while we were doing our job. And Stephen could talk to those guys in Shona, they always spoke Shona across that area where we were operating. The kit we carried was I carried the AK and the chest webbing.

And so we looked very much like from a distance, you know, we looked, if anyone had seen us. And we always counted on the fact being two, not many people would see us anyway. And we moved from point to point. We had a specific task to do. We made our planning. We would go there generally on, you know, map reading, of course, no GPS in those days. And we'd read our maps and work out where. we were and sort of move our west sort of stealthily towards the suspected area that that might be

a road or a camp bridge or whatever we had to look at you know so yeah Stephen Stephen was was a good bushman in himself i i was learning as i was going i i came from a city environment but i've been in the military now by then for six seven years and uh and and my my my bush qualities were getting better and better um and because i was carrying the radio i was number two in the in the call sign and I was carrying a heavy pack actually. So Stephen was happy to be the front man, the scout. I was the number two right behind him. And when we're talking about sort of right behind him,

the distance could be if we were walking down a part towards camp, as I said, in one of those descriptions where we went into an enemy camp. I was about a meter or two behind him. Generally in the bush, I might be 10 or 15 meters behind him. And when we sat down, we'd stop, We worked on the basis because we had so much kit and it was always a tough terrain, you know, it was either hot or wet. So we would walk 40 minutes and rest for 20, walk 40, rest for 20.

And then we would take a sort of a midday meal, carry on walking until later in the afternoon, and then we would sort of move, start looking for a nighttime LUP where we could lay up for the night. So the routine was pretty much set. We knew what we did and we were very quick, comfortable working with one another. We would sit together back to back when we're in our LUP, you know, a couple of meters apart sometimes, but you know, sort of so I could just sort of reach behind and touch him if I saw something coming and he could do the same for me. And and we were always alert, you know, sort of we would have our main meal middayish and then then we carry on. So the routine was fixed, pretty much fixed and and I liked the operative

of working two men. I think it sort of created a sense of independence and and capability and the ability that you were responsible for your own well-being. Whereas when you were doing four man, five man, ten man stuff, you were just one of a number, another number, you know. So the two-man stuff was high risk, but I qualified that by saying because we were so good in the bush, the risk was minimised because we were sort of pretty efficient. pretty efficient. John, when you, so when you left the SAS, the Rhodesian SAS, I, and then you went back, you said that you had had your eye on the SALU Scout. What, can you kind of tell us like what the difference between the two is and what was it about the Salus Scout after being in

the SAS that drew you to that or what piqued your interest? My, pick my interest was a two-man stuff principally. But Saly Scouts also had been operating. Even with the SAS, We've mounted an operation into Mozambique, and would have been around about sometime in 76, where Saloo Scouts had a Salus Scout team had been across the border and had identified an enemy camp, but they didn't have the capacity to take it out. We happened to be in the area,

so they briefed us on the camp, and we went across, and SAS callsigns went across, some of us walked in, and then the strike group, the assault group, came in by at first life. by helicopter and we went through that camp in no time and then came back out we were i was back in redesia um by sort of like 637 having breakfast you know and i liked the concept of what the saluz scouts were doing then they they were in their pseudo operation pseudo meaning that they

masqueraded as the enemy now the shono speakers were working mainly in moshonaland and which is the eastern side and the the matabili the sindabelli sphineli because were working against Zipra, which was mainly in Matabili land and ultimately into Zambia. So the groups were generally sort of 15 to 20 black soldiers and one or two white soldiers as the pseudo operators, dressed blackened up, you know, typically black. But the black guys did most of the work. They would walk into villages masquerading as Zanler or Zipra. They would talk to the local communities.

people there and so you were looking for comrades, have you seen any other comrades in the area? And if the villagers had that generally say, yeah, there was a group just up there, you know, two days ago, you know, so we fed them. So, so that's how they worked. And it was very, very efficient. And they terrorized, they terrorized Zama. Zipra, not so much. Zipro was a different sort of matter, but Zama guys were terrified of these guys. And I've heard of blue on blue on their side, and where they, you know, two Zahma, of groups of insurgents would come across one another in the bush and fire upon one another thing. And the other group was Sulu Scouts.

So or Soussaf, they called them in slang terminology. So it was a very efficient way of operating and I like that concept that I didn't want to be in a pseudo group. Runry Daly because he was innovative, saw the opportunity to do this small team stuff. Chris Schoenberg was the first exponent of that. Chris was very famous, quite an iconic figure. And Chris, Chris created this aura around himself and he manipulated himself. I love Chris. I think he's a great guy. And I had done a two-man reckey with him in the SAS just before I took discharge.

That would have been early 77 before I left. And Chris came into the barracks looking for somebody. I was there and he said, John, do you want to come on a job? I thought it was a four-man recic team, the usual SAS thing. And he said, no, it's just the two of us. the two of us and we chop it up well we drove up to matoka i think which was north of north of solesbury and we chop it into mozambit and we did what we had to do for three or four days and and we'd chop it out and i didn't see chris again for for some months after that i took my

discharge then shortly after that so i like that concept and chris chris was i mean people go on chris was always going on about a one-man rec he is the best way to go you know one-man patrol which which is pure bullshit of course because you need somebody to one to give you moral support um you need somebody to sort of bat ideas off you need somebody to to help you if you wounded or injured or sick and the one man guy in the bushes it's it's become a bit of a myth now that chris sort of agitated for one man stuff no no not true you always needed to two was the minimum and uh and this was the concept he brought out to run re daily who liked it and uh and chris brought Tim Callow out, they were good mates and Tim was happy to do the two-man stuff as well.

Tim was a bit like me, long and lanky and stuff out like dogs balls as well, you know, because we were so tall but but it was, yeah, sorry for the language there, but it was a great concept and and I was happy to do that. I, in Sea Squadron it was great and they went on to great things. They became, in my view, Sea Squadron, which eventually, became Rhodesian SS regiment really took on a light infantry role and they went away from their special forces thing which is principally reconnaissance and and that was a lot of that was due to the circumstances of the time small numbers of men big camps to attack and so forth so when you started to hear about C squadron operations in 77 78 79 they're large operations they're large

groups you know 10 or 20 guys so more of a light infantry very offensive capability in and out very quickly and and smash the enemy and come home. So I didn't really want to go down that part. I wanted to test my skills. I wanted to be more independent. And I thought that the two-man reconnaissance concept was something that would be an evolution in my career and the way I operated. And I had no regrets about it.

You know, I didn't go on those. I know there were the big operations in 7778, where they struck the big camps of Temui and Chemoya. I didn't get to go on any of those big camps until 79 when I was on the last attack against New Chimoyer. I think the Zana guys called it Mavondi. That was about 4 to 6,000 guys in it. But I didn't do the ones with the SAS

and I was still doing my reconnaissance stuff and I was happy doing that. And I thought that my school levels were getting better every year. and I think for me moving to Salus Scouts was an evolution in my career and in my school levels and how I adopted new tactics and strategies and how I looked upon war after that. You know, sort of my whole, I think my whole philosophy changed, but you know, you can do it. Small teams can do a lot more damage by being on the ground and calling it an airstrike and it's a lot cheaper than putting 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 guys on the ground for a lot.

a quick thing and taking casualties and the costs involved in that. So, you know, small, special forces concept has always been small teams. And the Australian SAS was five, Rhodesian SAS was originally four, Salus Scouts was two with the reconnaissance concept. And from five to four to two, for me, was the logical extension of reconnaissance. And speaking of which, John, another moment, moment that you know I think you were very honest about in the book you know as as effective as the Salus Scouts were hunting down and killing the enemy there's also

that incident with airstrike with it where the 10-year-old girl was killed that you say is something that you know haunts you for the rest of your life yeah and and I put I could have I could have kept that out of the book but and and someone said you know maybe John Jim Truscott who who's a former major from executive officer here at SS does a lot of reviews and and He did a very, very complimentary review of my book, and he said, maybe, maybe I was sort of unburdening my soul. And I think, you know, perhaps that's the case. Stephen and I had taken a local guide in and he told us about the whereabouts of this camp,

which was not far from the Redesian border, but it was some important people inside it, and sector commanders. And we'd gone into, to reconnoit of this place. We mounted an IP from a feature just north of it and identified the geyser in the course of the day when they were wandering around the road there and down to the river, which was just below our position. And that night we went in. And I said recently in another presentation

that perhaps it was a little bit of bravado. I didn't really need to do it. I knew where the camp was. I had the air photo run and I had the map. But I guess I just wanted, people were saying, people, you know, have you ever done a close in RECI? And I said, well, no, close enough, you know, close enough is good enough. And then I've had some successes by doing that and calling an airstrikes.

But I thought the risk was small. There weren't that meant. It wasn't a big camp, but they were important targets. And we went down, I said to Neil Kriola in the evening, I was going to do a close in Rekie just to have a look at it. And we went down. The guide was from that area, obviously, and his crowd, his village was close by. And so I dragged him down with me.

We took him down the hill, Stephen and I, and we left him at the, he pointed out the entry to the path. Because having come from the area, he knew where it was. And we knew where it was as well on the map. So he took us there, and I pushed him into a dark space under the shadow of some trees. and I said, just wait there, and if you hear any noise, go grab your family and go back to the top of the hill because we were in very light order. I was just carrying my chest webbing with three or four mags,

and Stephen was the same, and we left our main equipment back up on the hill. We'd hidden it away there. So we walked into the camp, and it took us a while. It was like 45 minutes. It was very nerve-wracking. It was a pretty full moon, so we could see pretty clearly.

week, we got into this, the camp, the path and it came out to an opening and there was a large opening around which there were a number of huts and I could hear them, I could hear people shuffling and Stephen and I was sort of whispering to one another at the, before we started walking around the opening. And we could hear the sort of, you know, knocking of this and as people shuffling their sleep and have a couple of snores and so forth and I'm a bit of a snora myself so I could sympathize with that so we walked around these huts now these are African huts with mud and mud and timber you know and that's rude so just knocked up by these guys obviously what they got the locals to do so there were there were a lot

of gaps in the walls of course and and I could see through those those into the inside was dark but I could see in enough to make out some detail and we walked around these things and I was half expecting someone who's sort of yell or a grab a weapon or a cock a weapon or something and the hearts were in throats at the time and we went around it and we got back to the path we knew there were maybe 10 guys we didn't know how much how many guys were actually sleeping in the bush we didn't go into the bush because it was quite sort of high grass and it was a bit noisy as we you know to try and get in the So we just wanted to identify. We knew the important guys were in there would be in the in the in the in the in the center of the camp. So we got back to the path whispered about what we were going to do. Should we attack it? We both agreed we didn't have the munitions to do that. We probably sort of we certainly could have opened fire into the huts and injured or maybe even killed some but we didn't have grenades and so forth. So we didn't want to get caught between what may have been in the bush and and these guys. So.

We walked back, we decided we were going to call it an airstrike, and we grabbed our guide, went up to his village, he grabbed his wife and two children, and we went up to the back to the hill. I established Collins with Neil Creel, and Dave Scales and Butch Atkins were my signalers back there, and they were in camp at Adam Tarley. And Neil Krill got in touch with the Redisian Air Force in Guelho, and they arranged for airstrike for first light. And that came in, 200s, two cameras, and they identified. They had a photo of the air photo as well, a copy of the air photo. So they more or less knew where it was. They wanted them to attack from the west to the east,

which would have run along the line of the path into the camp and beyond. but because of the hills were so high on that western side, the pilot said, I can't do that. We have to do it from north to south, which was more pinpoint. But he said, no problem, we know where it is. We'll hit the target, no drama. And then the cameras with their shrapnel bombs, their bomb run, would take care of anything else.

So the first hunter came in, the second hunter came in. It was a magnificent sight. I must admit it was great. I was eye level with these guys. the noise, the clatter, the munitions out and going out and so forth and the impact on it. And it looked very accurate. And then the Canberra came in behind them and did their bomb run. So we were pretty sure that we would, they'd hit the target and anything peripheral to that.

So no fire force was available, but the Helies came in about an hour and a half, two hours later, and with some troops to, and then we went down the road yelling out to these guys because they knew there was a solution. scout team on the ground but they didn't i don't think they realized that we had some locals with us so there's another four people black faces wandering down the road and i wanted to make sure that these guys didn't uh didn't fire us in nervous and so we let we got with them at the entrance to the path which led into the camp and then i left the family there and we walked down and there was a little girl killed she'd been killed by the airstrike um she was spelled over her her cycle bicycle and i said to to the guide i said to him who's the who's the girl and and he said well she

she's a local girl she she brings vegetables and fruit into the amp every morning and i said well we didn't know that you know so um it's a terrible thing i hate that term curilateral damage because it implies that it's unavoidable and we all move on but but there's a trauma that goes with that when an innocent person is killed and that little girl was about 10 maybe 12 and years of age and it's always sort of burdened me ever since then. I don't suffer from PTSD. I'm not one of these who's sort of woes me. I need help and I'm a victim of what I've done in the past.

But I do from time to time think about that. And when I talk about it, I can get quite emotional about it. So we didn't want to do this. This is not what we were doing. This is not what we took great pride in our professionalism and our skills and our capabilities to, So to have something happen like that was, well, it was sad, you know, and traumatic. And both Stephen and I were very, very upset by that.

And when we got back to, we put the, we caught the helicopters in to pick us up, and we put the family on one, and we jumped in with the family. The two children were quite small, so they could, we could all fit into the one aloeette. And we got back to Grand Reef and handed the family over to special branch. they were rewarded and relocated somewhere. And Neil was there, and Neil knew about this and what had happened. And he understood. There was no bravado with Neil.

He could see Stephen and I were upset by this, and we weren't talking much, and we were quite sort of withdrawn. And he said, look, you guys need to go back to Salisbury, and that's what happened. We went back to Salisbury. It's just something that happened 40 years later, over 40 years later and I still occasionally think of it and know that it was a bad thing that's happened and

and something that I can't we never forget but we move on life has to go on and as long as I I tell myself that as long as I can feel the the sorrow for that still then you know there's a I'm not the hard-hearted person that maybe some people would paint me so yeah it was a was a sad thing sad event probably avoidable if we'd done if we'd actually hit the camp ourselves it would have been avoidable actually and and i often regret to this very day that maybe uh to hell with it that we should have just opened fire and taken taken on what was in the in the in the in the in the huts and then laid it down the path until the fire force came in the morning and and check our how the what casualties we inflicted but but we didn't the decision was made and while that was great to see an airstrike the outcome was with the little girl was was quite quite a sad event to

to to have to recount even now did did that event influence how you conducted future ops in in any in in in different capacities always made us alert to the fact that there were civilians remember you know we were our operations were in primarily in in mosenbeak i i did know with salus scouts i didn't do one operation internally within Rhodes borders other than on our way to a project in the task in in Botswana we did a short thing out of wanky when when we passed through but all of our work was in was in Mozambique a little bit less in Zambia and and and the Zandler guys sort of were mingled with the with the communities you know they they built camps close to villages and and and and particularly as they got closer to the Rhodesian border.

So we had to always be very alert to the fact that we didn't want to inflict casualties on innocent people. It already happened to me with C Squadron in an ambush in 75, that one I talked about previously with Martin Pierce. We'd ambushed 23, a team of 23 insurgents, killed 17 and seriously wounded six who escaped. and then several days later because we were told to stay in we've taken two casualties as well as I mentioned and and you know we were told to stay in and in low light and poor conditions and rain we misidentified a tree of guys coming down the path we thought they were armed and and we engaged them and they turned out to be civilian so we didn't want to do that all the time this is not what we were doing and and um as I said, collateral damages. It's a horrible terminology. It means you don't get, it implies you don't care. We did care. We didn't want to, we didn't, we didn't sort of, it didn't deter us from doing our job.

It just made us more cognizant of the fact that civilians were there and we had to make sure that sort of in the future, if we were going to bring in an airstrike that we had to be much, a little bit more cautious about how we did it. And that's, that's what we did. So, yeah, just sort of. of broadened and perhaps an increased level of caution about how we operated and perhaps more focus on our school levels and making sure that we didn't do anything that would lead us to have regrets down the road. So jumping ahead a little bit, the war in Rhodesia comes to an end in 1980 with a collapse of the Rhodesian government, Robert Mugabe, of course, coming to power.

you and you take your family by this point you're married to Cass you have two daughters you guys make your way to South Africa and now you enter a different sort of world you're not quite in the military you're not quite out of the military you're in this sort of nebulous gray area with the South Africans can you tell us about Operation Barnacle and this sort of interesting paramilitary world that you were brought into Very shadowy world that one was, but yeah, look, I took, I took discharge in December 79, and that was when Lancaster House was on. And I actually, Cassius and I decided, you know, time was up and let's go, let's go and find a job. So I actually applied for a to a mining company, and they let me down to Sando one of Emmer of mine, where they offered me the job as security manager.

And we got back to Salisbury and, uh, and Pete McLeish came down from Benjura. and said, oh, no, no, come work with us for a little bit longer. You know, election, there's going to be some interesting times ahead. So I said to Cass, would you be okay with that? And she said, yeah, do what you have to do. So I did that. And I went up to Benjura, which was the sort of fort where the special branch guys, who were Salute Scout Special Branch, led by a guy called Chief,

I think he was sort of Chief Superintendent, like her a Lieutenant Colonel rank, Mac McGinnis. And he was running pseudo-ops and all sorts of strange things. out of that. And I went up there and who was there, but Neil Krill and Chris Schoenberg and a couple of other guys I knew. So I was talking to Neil. Neil said, I've got a job for you to do. Would you do it? And Mack said, yeah, go off, you can do it. And so off I went down to South Africa with a team and we did the job in Botswana and came back. And I got back to Ben Juerre to be summoned by Mack to say, oh, Pat Armstrong, who was then the CEO of

Sulu Scouts, is very unhappy with me. with you i said why said because you gave 30 days notice but it's still december and you're you're you're still a salute scout and he was wondering why why i'm using salute scouts without his authority so i thought well yeah okay fine a little bit sort of um comic in a way you know but nil sort of said to me look i'm working with with south african special forces i'm a major in south african special special forces love to have you chris schoenberg's working with me and a few other guys you know. And we're recruiting at the moment because Radiz is finished.

We can see where it's going. Some people didn't. Some people believe that, you know, that Muzra Awa would defeat Mugabe in the elections. And the sort of Ian Smith regime would continue to call some shots. But never happened that way. And so I went down to Pretoria with New York Creel. And we went out to Special Fort. General Fritz Lewis was the GOC Special Forces, General Officer Commanding Special Forces.

And he was based out of a building called Zanzar, Zanzar building in Proust Street in Pretoria. So Neil dropped me off there and said, hang on a minute, I'll park the car and off we went. We went upstairs. And I was introduced to General Fritz Lewis. And he was a great guy. He'd served in, and it was old and he served in the Western Front during the Second World War. So he was anglicised. he was an africana and a brood of honda but but he was anglicized he liked he liked

rodesians he liked dossies and and brits so he said to me nil says you want to join us and we'd love to have you and i can offer you two options here one is i can put you in the brown uniform of the south african army and we'll give you rank and you'll work your rank through its structure as you go along and it's a good career move however i can also offer you a job with Armaments Corporation, Arms Corps, through their special operations division. And I can pay you, you won't be an army in the military, you will be doing special forces work under Operation Barnacle. You'll have no rank, you'll just be a Mr. Civilian. And I can pay you a lot more money. So of course I was, I was moving relocated in South Africa and money was always a sort of

motivator in those days because I needed to set up a new life in South Africa. So I said, General thanks very much, I'll take the contract with Arms Corps. And that's how I entered Op Barnacle through a, through, through Armaments Corporation. It's funny because recently when my book came out and some guys in South Africa sort of made some inquiries to friends of mine who'd served with South African Special Forces and said, who the hell is this guy John Gartner? He's not on the database for Special Forces in South Africa. and they said, hey, step back, step back.

This guy was actually involved in slightly different way, but he was definitely in special forces, but you wouldn't have got to know about him or hear about him. So I got the tick of approval eventually from the South African Special Forces Network down there. So that's how I operated. I got paid more money. I got better allowances and things, but the job was the same.

And Neil tasked me on a few things, the first of which was to return to Zimbabwe. and to really sort of establish a bit of a cover there and find a job and just be be ready for to do what I was told to do you know so and that's what I did and it was a very tenuous time of sort of you know to transition from Rhodesians involved with the Mugabe regime and all the security people didn't trust the old Rhodesian army bloke so there was a lot of mistrust and that we're all South Africa and spies by then.

So it was very difficult to live freely and easily there. And I was arrested once in early 81 by under suspicion of trying to kill an ANC research officer, which was pure nonsense. I happened to be in Salisbury at the time, but I was there for a wedding and I just happened to be seen in Salisbury and I was living down in Bulaway. So I got warned that I was about to be arrested. that I was about to be arrested and I actually rang the special branch in Bulaway and said I understand you're looking for me and here I am come and pick me up I'm

at the Bulaway Sun Hotel and they came down and picked me up and kept me overnight in the cellars and interrogated me the next day and I convinced them that I was innocent I was there for a job and with a security company that I was which as my was my cover action and they released me so they believed me that time but Yeah, and 10 months later, because I brought my wife and kids back from South Africa after that event, that was in early 81. And then 10 months later on a Friday afternoon, I was driving back into this security company where I was working, and that was the cover I had. And the ops manager there was ex-special branch himself, and he sort of came siding up to me and said, hey, my friend, I've got some bad news for you. I've just been told from Harari that the intelligence guys, this was the CIO, which was a bunch of thugs by then, they put out the order to arrest you.

And this time it's serious. So I scrambled home, jumped in the car, scrambled home, grabbed my wife and kids and said, time to go. We're always expected that we'd come. And we disappeared into the farmlands north of Bulaway back on the road towards home. carari and where we had a safe house. We knew there was a safe house and we went there and three or four days later we one morning we we drove in the early hours of the morning to a small airstrip towards a place called Gwanda and Neil Krill flew in low level and in his we had an aircraft which

belonged to Barnacle parked down in Lanceria and Neil flew in low level landed picked us up and turned around and off we went and we flew back to South Africa So there were risks involved, you know, in being well known. I was well known. And people just said, oh, John Gartney, he's got to be a South African spy, or John Gartney's got to be doing this or John Gartney's got to be doing that. And so it was very, I mean, compromise was imminent. It was ridiculous.

We were too complacent. And luckily, we had early warning from people who were prepared to sort of give us and bring us and say, yeah, you're going to be picked up. I thought that this was really one of the more astounding parts of your book, John, was that your wife and kids were part of your cover for a lot of what you were doing at this time. Cast your wife, the two little girls, and then you had a third little girl. And I mean, they were with, so the two older ones were with you, when you escaped on the prop plane, making your way back to South Africa when you get compromised.

And then later on, I think, were you in Zambia or Botswai? And there are a couple times in your book where Cass puts her foot down with you and is like, no more, John. And, you know, it's funny, a couple of months ago, I gave a presentation to the South African Military Veterans Association Organization here in Perth. And they were asking for an overview. And I had a full house. And during the course that, I mentioned that Cass was also as much a part of my story as,

because she was there that night, as much a part of my story. as anything else and and without her i couldn't have operated and they applauded her they they said you know and guys said to her or came up and so my wife would never have done that you know and we we take our hats off to you cast cass was cast was brave and uh and and and and not page i mean she was she was she was part of my of the family group she wasn't on salary you know so look it when i look back on it it was stupid i um there These were hard African men, you know, and people sort of say, oh, they're Africans, they're not very good or they're not. No, these guys were really sort of efficient and ruthless.

And one of the things of doing, being able to do the job was to, if I was to do it efficiently, I couldn't have my wife and kids sitting in South Africa and me being in Bulae because it compromised me immediately. Everyone knew. And when I was picked up the first time, they said, well, why is your family in South Africa? South Africa and you're here. And I said, well, I'm actually coming back here and I'm here for a job. I'm going to an interview with this commercial security company. And my wife and kids will come back.

I don't want any more to do with the military. So they said, okay, fine. And that's why they released me. But as I said, I got compromised down the road. And I'm ashamed in a way to say that I involve my family in these things. I think you, I think you'll see at the beginning I dedicate this book to because without her and I say in that without her I couldn't have done anything she was my my anchor in life and and and without that support who knows where my life would have gone but certainly

she was she was as as and she knew the threat she there was no there was no mistaking the reality of that environment she was not she was not blind to the threat but yes she did this and And I think also we probably presumed, and more than likely was accurate, that if I was arrested or anything happened to me, they never turned on the families. They never went after the families. So we were pretty confident that that was the case anyway. So yeah, in a way, I regret it. And when Neil picked us up, I mean, my daughter was, and Melanie was. was this was in 81 so she'd just turned five and Sarah was two when when we were running around the the

air strip getting on board the plane Cass had done has had had Sarah in her arms and and Mel was holding hands and we we pushed them into the jump them into the aircraft and and to them it was great this really I were flying low level and there was a chance we'd see hip by across the as we crossed the river in both or something so my kids were well wide-eyed, you know. And Cass was relieved to be out. But we left with nothing. We had nothing literally I drove down to the house. I grabbed my wife from kids and said, we're going. We're going to the farm at Fort Rixon. And she knew immediately straight away that I'd been compromised and there was no time to waste. So she was remarkable, is remarkable. And she did it, she did

things that as far as I'm concerned she was as brave as any SAS to Salus Scout soldier I served but she she was she put her put everything on the line which is more than a lot of people did yeah so um and and we duplicated that again down the road in when i when i left special forces in south africa and joined and was recruited at national in national intelligence service and we deployed to zambia and she came along with me and as you said by then i had three children my youngest Rebecca was like six months old when we were driving to Zambia the first time to base ourselves in the soccer and and Rebecca was still breastfeeding at that stage so you know there's a family driving after we've been compromised in Zambia sorry in Zimbabwe

I was well known and and I'd been I'd been compromised earlier in Zambia and when I was working with Salus Scouts. My name had come up there and during sort of a, they were sort of rolling up some Salus Scout spies at the time in late, in those 79. So I was a known, my name had been bandied around in Zambra as well. So the fact that we went back with National Intelligence Service, and by then I was applauding myself that I was an National Intelligence Officer with NIS and this was the peak of my career and and and that we were going to Lusaka but we got we got away with that and and Cass was with me but eventually as you said she she said enough is enough we were in Lusaka there was no there was going to be no light aircraft flying in to pick us up if we were

if we got into trouble we're a long way away and and and and we had three children and I was having problems with immigration getting um work permits and things, they were screwing me around. And eventually I said to cast no time for you to go back to South Africa. And to hell with what my hand was in South Africa in the intelligence service would say, you're going back. And I'll take the chance on compromise. And if people ask me why my family's in South Africa and I'm here in Zambia,

I'll say I'm just building a business. So, and my family is safe because the conditions in Zambor in those days, you know, it was difficult to get rice. and sugar and cooking oil, the basics of life, you know. So it was quite sensible for people not to be, you know, families not to be living, schooling was atrocious. And of course the medical services were just second or so second rate that they were third rate, you know.

So and I didn't want to expose my children to poor medical services in a third one environment. So people understood that and that's where it was. And my wife returned to South Africa and set herself up in a place of saying, which was a weight off my mind as well and I could operate more freely without having to worry about them because when I was in the Saka with NIS I had the one car but Cass and the kids were stuck at home we had a small apartment which wasn't the most luxurious it's what we could find in the soccer at the time and we made a home of it as best we could but Cass and the kids were stuck at home and and I would have to take time out from my from my duties my in my in my duties to go back and hunt down for food and pick up cast because we'd heard that there was some cooking oil in the cabalonger supermarket or something.

So it was not practical to work like that. And when I look back on that, because NIS was probably the worst job I've ever had, the intelligence service, you think you're a spook, you're at the top of your career. The reality is, and as much as I like South Africa, we did our job there. but we weren't greeted by the South Africans as well as the Redisians. The South Africans were much more arrogant. They believed that they didn't need us. And when I was being going through the recruiting process with NIS,

it was an Afrikaner operation. These were all Afrikaners, all brought up on us. This was the cream of the crop. These were the best people, supposedly. And they didn't like foreigners. And they made it quite clear to me. One of them told me, said the only reason we're using you, is because you've got an Australian passport.

And I said, well, I'd like to think that you're using me because I'm actually good at what I do. And he said, yeah, that too, but, you know, the Australian passport helps. So, you know, when I, they said to me, you need to take your family because it's all part of you cover. Cass was up for it and we went, but it was a stupid move on my part and something I regretted.

And we rectified it quickly before there was any compromise because we didn't have, I didn't want to go through that path again down that path. of having to, you know, sort of sneak out of another country as best I could with a family in tow and putting them at risk. John, how, we know you went to Rhodesia and joined the SAS and then you left Rhodesia with Cass and a child. How did you meet Cass? Well, actually, I was, in 1975, I was, we're all a young bunch of guys, you know, and in the SAS, one of the guys. guys said, oh, we're going up the nurses quarters tonight.

And that's where all the nurses are, the training nurses. And they're all like 18, 19-year-old girls there. And I was 22, so I was a bit older than that. But so I went up there with these guys one day, and I was sitting around talking to a bunch of girls in the living room because they were very, you know, they were chaperone. They weren't, they weren't allowed to, they could come down to a public area and talk to us. And that was it. And hopefully you'd make a, create a link or a relationship just through those first sort of

meeting but Cass popped her head in and then I looked up and I saw her and she was this cute little thing and with big beautiful eyes and I saw her and she was she got a little uncomfortable in that environment she'd heard that there were a bunch of SAS guys there and and she didn't lie it didn't stay long so I actually didn't even get a chance to talk to her but I did note her I did think yeah that that's a pretty girl and and I found out her name Cassie as she was called then and and she was the young trainee nurse and she was she's going out with a guy i knew in in c squadron and uh and i she he came up to the to the troopey's mess one day and i'd been i'd knocked back a few brandies and coax and i was feeling not

drunk but cheeky and uh she came she was with him out in the in the area and she came into the bar to to buy a coca cola and i was the only one there so i sort of turned to her and i said hi cassie and when are you coming out with me? And she said, well, when are you going to ask me? So a little bit of flirtation. And then it was a couple of months after that, but I did work up the courage to ask around. It was quite fortuitous because I'd broken my arm on a static line jump.

I'd done a static line, practice jump, down at New Serum. And the stick was a fast stick out. And because it was a Dakota, And the slipstream was a strong and the guy ahead of me, the static line still flapping in the breeze as I went out. And that static line wrapped around my left arm. And I pulled it free. But it snapped my arm in multiple places. So I had been in hospital.

I had plates put in it and to rebuild the bone and get it back in position. So I was actually stuck in Salisbury. And because my singles was good, my morse was very good. I was doing the Morse code stuff. I was doing the support to the SAS call signs in the field in 75. So it gave me a chance to spend more time in Salisbury. I met Cass a couple of times socially and we started going up. And we got married in 76.

And yeah, just not far from where I'd arrived in 74, which was in Salisbury Airport. Cass lived just up the road from that towards the RLI barracks. And yeah, so a not a whirlwind romance. It took me a bit of time to convince that I was worth the effort of going out with. And we've been together ever since 40, 45 years now. So, yeah, she's a star. Yeah, that's amazing. John, one of the things I would be remiss if I didn't ask you,

because you tell a story in this book that kind of knocked my socks off. I think it was early on when you went to South Africa, and you're talking about this planned operation to hijack Mugabe's airplane. Could you tell us about what that plan was? I mentioned it because it was so zany, and it was never going to happen. We knew that. But this was what was going on. In this sort of period when the Lancaster House imposition had come and gone,

we knew that there was going to be a transition, that the election was going to take place. And as far as I was concerned, Mugabe was going to win in a landslide because he dominated the rural areas. And Joshua and Komo, who was representing the other party, Zipra, the Matabili site, was going to win Matabili land, 20 seats up for offer. And Koma was going to win them. There was no question about it. There was no viable opposition. And he was the old man of the of the Rhodesian politics. He was seen as a freedom fighter going back to the 60s.

It was evident to me as an outsider perhaps, and I think to most of the guys I knew, that Mugabe and Kamo would win the bulk, if not all, of the black seats. That's 80 seats that were up, and there were 20 reserved for, I think, 10 years or something for whites. So the election, Mugabe came back from Mozambique, of course, from Mapuche with his central committee and all the other odds and sods around him and there was there was talk that he was threatening to go back to war this is before the election he was threatening to send his forces back to war because he thought that um excuse me solesbury solesbury the government was was

impeding what he was trying to do and was trying to tamper with the elections um he was doing exactly the same thing of course um you know there was no ways he was definitely um and running, calling the shots in the rural areas. His people were intimidating the communities out there, the locals and even those who went, there were a number of them went into assembly points, but the hardcore guys didn't go into the assembly points. He sent all sorts of odds and sods,

young guys with old weapons and things, into the assembly points to make up numbers. But the hardcore guys were still running around the communities and putting pressure on the locals. So obviously, Mac McGinnis was sort of coming up with all these weird and wonderful special bunch of guys sitting in, sitting in isolation in Benjura, sort of fabricating these crazy sort of ideas. And one of them was that I would, I had a small team of guys and they gave me a 38 revolver and said, this is yours. We're going to get you under the plane. Mugabe is talking about sort of abandoning Rhodesia and going back and resuming the war from Mapuche, which was never going.

going to happen by the way because Samora Michelle's economy and infrastructure have been totally destroyed and the reason he forced these guys to go to Lancaster house for the discussions on independence was because his economy could no longer afford the war and so Mugabe was never going to go back with the blessing of the Mozambique government but special branch these guys apparently believed it and said he's going to go back and we're not going to tolerate this so when we're going to put you on this commercial airline that he's going to be using which i think was t ap or something in portuguese regional airline and uh when when they take off you're going to hide you'll have you'll be on you're going to hijack this thing and fly it down to or send it down to port victoria and we'll

offload the guys there now months later it didn't happen by the way because it was stupid it was crazy um months later i was talking to pete mcleash and he's and i raised this crazy idea with him i said Can you believe the sort of stupidity was coming out of the mouth of these guys in in Jura? So these were the elite guys, the supposedly the best informed in the country, the top echelon of special brats. And they're coming out with these zany ideas. So I was actually told that I, there was going to be an attempt on this aircraft. And if it failed, I was to take it out of this guy with a Sam 7, a Sam 7, yeah.

I've been given Sam 7. I said, you're joking. He said, this was, this was it. I said, well, that was me in the plane supposedly. So he said, well, there was unlikely because, you know, where were they going to sort of stand to position? Because the whole thing was ridiculous. But the reason I put it in the book, because I wanted to show just how desperate some of these people became at the end of the war to retain the status quo. It was, was lunacy.

And by then, I'd already, I'd already embarked. I had signed my contract with the arms corps in south africa i was a member of the south african security and and military establishment and and and really for me and that time had come and gone i'd moved on from radija rhodesia was was going into the the dustbin of history um and uh and we had to deal with the with the new order and so you know this this craziness was was just sort of a i think it's just the the last kick kick of a dying animal and yeah yeah that these guys were trying to do these things which was never going to happen well it's also it's also what happens when very smart people sit in very small spaces and and don't i mean we have fidel casros exploding cigar right

i mean we we have all the we try to like poison his underwear or something right right we have all these brilliant ideas created by people who aren't actually out there trying to execute them or you know or don't have to execute these things totally yeah yeah Yeah, I know. And the bizarre, I mean, it's not just them, but there were all sorts of bizarre plans are going on. And, you know, there were sort of supposedly attempts to blow up Mugabe's convoys. And it was ridiculous, you know. I was actually, I saw some of these special branch guys, senior guys after the election. I was actually in South Africa when the election took place and the results were announced, but I was back in soon after.

And these people were Ashen. They could not believe that the election turned out as it was. And I was thinking, well, I'm just a simple Australian who's fought a war here for six years and sort of, I think I've picked up the mood quite well. You guys have all these resources at your fingertips, all of the spies, the informers, the money. And you're sitting here telling me that you actually thought that Mugabe and Komo were going to lose the election and revert to war. It was just so stupid. They convinced them.

You know, even the year before, there'd been the first election that transitioned. Smith recognized, they saw the writing on the wall, you know, and the South Africans were pressuring quite severely to get to a solution and independence was going to happen. They were holding up munitions, they were holding up fuel, so we weren't, we were having trouble operating. So Smith embarked on an internal settlement with Muzarewa and Dhaban Ngu Sotali, who had been Mugabe's boss at one stage and but had been sort of moved from that to that position as as chief ahead of of uh of uh Zanu and so he was in said internal he was seen as a bit of a sellout

so all of a sudden you have this internal settlement settlement and yes they've they've embarked on a sort of a method of transfer of power and then they came out and we're going to call it Zimbabwe radesia and everyone was in disbelief saying well how half-hearted is this if you if you not even prepared to surrender the term Rodecia, the name Radecia, how serious are you? And of course, they weren't serious. They tried to manipulate the transition to a black government at their own pace. And if they've done this a couple of years earlier, maybe brought in Komo on board and when Sotoli had a little bit more sort of reputational respect. But, you know, by the time they did sort of understand that, you know, we really really.

do have to share power here. We're not going to be in control for a thousand years, as they announced some years previously. There was the winds of change going through Africa. The South Africans said you will have transitioned to an independent black majority government, and they probably could have worked a better solution. But Ian Smith, for all his positives, was a little bit pegged at times in obstinate and stubborn. And I think he got out maneuvered by some of these quite sort of duplicitous Brit politicians and honestly believed, I think, that in the end, that, you know, he was betrayed totally 100%. But he was a party to the screw up as well, you know. If he sort of recognised the realities a year or two earlier, he might have been able to sort of do

things a little bit better on his own turn. And we might have had more international support, which might have enabled us to fight longer against the Zanler guys who refused to lay down arms. But these are all might have beens, you know. This is 40 years ago, and the reality is it never happened that way. And, you know, the Redisian community has spread throughout the world. Through Facebook, I'm on a number of Facebook pages, sites that celebrate Redisian. And most of those Redisians were innovative people and made good lives elsewhere, Canada, USA, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. But they still long for, you can still detect in their post.

things they just how much they loved that country and how much it meant to them and the same for me I felt the same even now to this day my wife my wife's not as melancholic as me she uh she's a little bit more down to earth and and she'll tell me that you know you've been melancholy again about rhodes you know you know life's good and you know let's forget about it and and and i tried my best and from time to time my heart goes back to to reddish and i think you know we maybe could have fought longer it harder but to to what event and what purpose said. Right.

Yeah. It was a transition time. John, you talked to, and we need to get us some questions here quickly, but you talked about Armor Corps and Project Barnacle. Did you know what that was going in? And for those of us who don't know what that is, can you tell us what it is? Yeah, Barnacle was, I mean, South Africa was comprised of special forces to us reconnaissance commandos one one four and I'm not sure about two and when when

independents came in South Africa they actually absorbed a fair number of C squad and Radizian SAS guys into South Africa and Special Forces which was co-located with one Rekhi down in in Durban on the bluff and that became six for Connoisse's commander and they took a lot of black guys mainly from Saloo Scouts probably some IRA guide and they put them into northern transvaalene and they had a called Palabora and they became five reggae commander so that was your special forces units of your organization but but general general Lewis wanted something a little bit off the books and that could could do things a little bit more you know sort of further afield and not so

military focus more of reconnaissance understand what was going on identifying potential targets and so So he put a fair bit of money into an operation which was run out of a small farm to the western side of Pretoria and called Barnacle. They called it Operation Barnacle, but it was a special forces unit, had a huge budget. We had our own aircraft and we did operations across the Southern Africa region. I mean, I did operations that took me to Angola, working with one Reki commander on a military role. I was working across the region to Lusutu, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zaire, as it was in now Congo,

up to southern Zaire, and Swaziland. So all over the region. And then essentially that, for me, it was a reconnaissance role. I was told that there might be a target here, a target there. We wanted you to go and confirm that. And I had pretty free range across the region

because of my nationality. and I wasn't so much, I didn't have a South African accent. So South Africans coming out into what we're called then the front-line states were immediately suspect. They were believed to be South African spy, whether they were or not, was it appropriate. If you were a white guy from South Africa or Zambia or Zimbabwe, automatically you were placed in the spy basket. And you know, not everyone was arrested, of course, but they just looked at you and they were very suspicious. So I could move quite pretty. And Neil Krill ran that well.

And we had a reconnaissance element, Chris Schoenberg, and was there. Tim was there. And we had the capability to do the two-man record, which is what I did in Angola. But we moved from sort of role to roll. And I think, Neil Kriel had a falling out. General Lewis retired. Neil Krill had some falling out with command. and he left and a bunch of South African guys,

Air-Chi Commandos, came in, and I knew them, and they were good guys, but it totally changed the sort of tenor of the place. So it wasn't so much Redisians and Oz and Brits anymore. It was principally South Africans, and it defeated the purpose, I think, of that particular group. They already had the Redic Commandos and so forth. They didn't really need to push guys who weren't Redisians.

Redisians and had served in Rhodesia into the group and that's when I started to think maybe it's time to leave and and I looked at alternatives and that's where my eyes sort of eventually landed on National Intelligence Service and went across there. But Barnacle continued after me and was eventually disbanded towards the era of the transition from, you know, from the from the old aparthe regime to to the ANC regime and then a lot of these groups there were other groups around i'm sure and they were all sort of rapidly folded up and and guys were paid off and they went off and established their lives on doing other things so um a little bit murky about it and i think you know there's a history books have been written about it since then that

that they got up we all got up to these sort of dirty dirty jobs and we did bad things and not and I'm not in my experience. I knew what I had to do. I knew what was required of me. And I had a very, I think, honorable sort of intent in everything I did. I saw South Africa's enemies as my enemies at the time because I was, of course, South African military man. But, and I was loyal to that. But, you know, in the end, the loyalty wasn't too way.

There was a sense that they didn't need us. and I found that when I was with NIS and I mentioned in the book that you know after all these the years of activity I'd been working up and I was taking my family to Lusaka I took them they went back to South Africa I stayed on in Osaka undercover and when I went back to South Africa for a debrief one day with my division sheet he threatened to burn me to the Zambians if I didn't follow his instructions which I I disagreed with so you know for a man and my handle was sitting next to me at the time and and who was an Afrikaner as well. And he'd operated. He'd been an operator, field intelligence officer. And when I walked out to the car, he said to me,

you know, I've never heard that before and don't take it seriously. And I said, no, but once those words and threats are issued, it's always going to sit in my mind that, you know, that he might do that. And as I said, a performer Salus Scout captain,

a friend of mine, Mike Borlays, had been arrested in Zambi, been barely beaten up in 79, and put on trial sentence to a long jail sentence for being a Redisian spy. I'd been compromised. My name had come up around that period as well.

And I've gone back there regardless. And I'm sitting there listening to my division chief, who was a senior man in the intelligence service, with responsibility for Central and Southern Africa, he's threatening to burn me. And that's the exact word he used, to burn me to the Zambians. And I was gobsmacked and flabbergasted.

and that's why I left. I actually drove out of South Africa the next day on my way back to Zambia, and I got halfway through Botswana, and I stopped and thought about it that night, and I turned around the next day and said, I'm not going to take this, and I went back, drove back to South Africa and resigned that week. So all of that work of building a cover,

and I had a very good cover in Zambia. I had very good relationships with some senior people, military people who eventually went on to a very high-powered political career. And I was doing very well. And that all was abandoned. I abandoned it. And I said, that's it, I'm not going back. And that was the end of my, that was officially the end of my my organized security career. That's when I went on to the circuit and started working privately in the private field. Let me, before we get on to the Sri Lanka adventures, let me get to a few questions real quick

here from our viewers. DJ says, great book. great book john uh great show as always jack and dave hammer and nails thank you uh bp easy thank you and d p easy again any operations in the congo or angola i think you sort of um uh answered that one already didn't you john you talked about i did yes i did a reconnaissance i did that reconnaissance role a two-man recchi i worked with a amount of uh undungwa with the one RECI Commando guys. A couple of them I knew, six RECC had been abandoned,

and those guys had been amalgamated into one RECI, and there was an Australian guy I knew quite well. Won't mention his name here, but he was starting up two-man Racky stuff, and there were three or four other teams there, and I had just hooked onto them through, because they had the administrative and logistic support in place, and I deployed as a separate team as under the one-recky,

command commande and and we did a job up in I was deep into Angola and and did a reconnaissance and recognized in an area that needed to be assessed and it was a large a oh and and I did the job in two weeks and we came back so so that was essentially my only job in Angola and shortly after that I was deployed to to Mozambique on a similar sort of thing and in the book as you read I I got compromised and got chased out and almost lost my life there. So I did do the military stuff from time to time, just to keep my hand on the wrecky stuff. And DJ says John mentioned Neil Creel. If Will and could he talk about the South African ops then? Michael Schmidt published a pretty salacious account recently with

Creel as the central figure. He did. Death Flight and I did read it and I'm not, look, I think it was poorly researched and certainly from what I've seen it's been not known not many people in my circle have wanted to read it you know all of these accusations come out 20 20 30 years after the event that they were these death flights that of dump people in in the Atlantic Ocean I worked with Neil I knew Neil well I knew how honorable a man he was and how brave he was and and and I don't believe that that he was involved in anything like that I knew how often that aircraft blue and I'm sure it sort of was flying around the region. It dropped me off in Caprivy's trip a couple of times, which is why I get a mention in that book just by name as a passenger.

But no, yeah, Neil, Neil was an honorable man and brave and, and I don't accept that this was an accurate reflection of his career with the South African Special Forces. I'm not familiar with this book. I did read Peter Stiff's book years ago, that this sounds, is this the flights were supposedly they were strangling people they thought were going to go to the press and dump their bodies into the ocean yeah look these sorts of things came out you know these rumors always bound and and uh this this new book came out it's called death flight and uh and it's of course been it's been well received by elements in south afric because it under it's reinforced as a narrative of people who want to believe that but across the other side of my network

of people. They're appalled that these sorts of things, we believe mistruths. But, you know, how can I prove one way or the other? I know the Neil Krill I know was a brave individual. He was committed to his task. It was totally devoted to his personnel, his subordinates, and he was loyal to his superior. So I don't believe that he was involved in this sort of stuff, and nothing will convince me that he was. As Mr Creel passed on? Unfortunately, Neil, unfortunately, I don't know what happened. Neil died two and a half years ago.

I'd seen him only a couple of months earlier. He was in very good humour and great form, and he was talking about the future and what he was going to do. And then a couple of months later, I heard that he had taken his own life. And it was a shocking thing to have happened. And, you know, when I was first told about it, I was told within hours of it being known. and I thought that he died and and because of the time the previous time I've been him he was so he seemed so content with life and and I took only took about sort of a few days a couple hours actually a day or so because of time differences and before it became quite common knowledge that he'd taken his own life and and then whatever the reasons where I I don't know he the author of that book says maybe maybe he took his own life because he was worried about the future and

would lead. I don't think so. Neil was not worried, not a guy who would worry about, you know, accusations being levelled against him. He would, he would confront those challenges head on. And and I think just there could have been a number of reasons. People, you know, depression, we talked about the residue earlier, about PTSD and I think someone sent me a message the other day about PTSD across the Australian army and apparently in the last sort of 10 or 15 years, 700 former Australian soldiers have taken their own life. So there could be any number of factors that relate to that, not always war related.

It could be career, it could be, I mean, I'm turning 70 this year, and I get depressed sometimes that maybe, you know, the, I'm not going to have these exciting things to do in the more, the opportunities are not going to come away. And I can sit and sort of put my head down from time to time, and I'm one of these people who will quickly bring my head back up again. But I know a lot of people don't. And I, you know, it's just sad when it happens.

And I commiserate with the family. I know I know Neil's wife and I'm in touch with the regular. And I think, you know, sort of she's dealt with it. And she defends his name and as she should, as those who know him should. And I do as well. John, tell us then about fully leaving the military behind this sort of murky intelligence world behind and going on to the circuit, going going into the fully into the private sector and catching this job in Sri Lanka as this island

nation is really involved in a tumultuous civil war with the Tamil Tigers. When I finished with NIRS, I'd been in touch with David Walker who was well known and there's a book that had been written about Keeney Meaty services recently that I also assassins right i i disagree with a lot of the sort of that that story but um david and i had been in comms over the years and through mail actually in those days pre pre internet and uh he'd actually sent me a letter in 79 saying your cb has passed being passed across to me and looks impressive maybe i have an interesting job for you one day and so we we sort of build a relationship by by mail and i never had the time to get up to london the medium and he wouldn't give me offer me a job with that

actually having met me so um when i left nis i thought to hell with it i jumped on a plane to london i had a friend in herrifford to s who'd served with in r ral i with with in the iridian army was in the ral i and he'd gone back to herriff and so um he picked me up and took me to herip and and then i i made my way back to london to meet with david the following week and it turned out this was in uh 86 um it turned out that the mid-minute 86 by the way and it turned out that they they were putting a team into sri lanka which was to take on the army training team they'd already been there 18 months or so training the special task force which was a a protective team for the president um which came under the police but they were very

good the shtia but they enlarged the contract to an army team there was one vacancy as it turned out fortuitously when i was up there and david said there is a team going back in two weeks time would you like to be on it there's one slot there and i said yeah and i jumped at that so that was my introduction to the commercial world of a private military company or private security company doing military military type roles and yeah so i i arrived in in colombo in july 87 and then immediately was attached to to the army training team and and i did that for five months at a place called Marjor Oya which was in the center of the island and they, the army rotated their battalions through for retraining and upgraded training. So and ahead of them going back to the field.

So I met a lot of battalion commanders and company commanders who eventually became, you know, brigadiers and so forth. So I was involved in training company by company and then re so that they could redeploy to the operational area. They were reasonably well trained, but they needed some upgrading to their skills and a little bit more focus on some of their combat drills. And that's what I did for five months. And that project actually sort of, I went back to South Africa at the end of that first five-month period and with a renewed contract for the new year. And then when I got back to Sri Lanka in 87 after that time back in South Africa, I was told that the army team. was being training team was being broken up and i was sent up to palali which was the fort up in jaffna and that was surrounded by tamil tigers the l t and and that was always under always under

attack morta morta and small arms fire and so forth so for me it was a great place because i was on a forward operating base and i was actually training guys in situ who were then sort of going out the next day to do clarets patrols and and to push the tamils tigers back so it was a great job but halfway through it um i was told the army commander look he he took a budgetary sort of decision and said i don't need this army training team anymore and uh and and and i was out of a job so and i spoke to the base commander i said what what went wrong he said i've no idea he said we love what you're doing um so within 24 hours i was sort of called from from by by bain baidie who who's running the KMS team down in in Seoul in Palombo and he said look you're your people

know you now and there's a job to be doing at the Navy at Trenka Mali which is the big Navy on weapons heavy weapons for base protection and they want you to do that so there's two months left on contract do you want to do it and I said of course I do so I jumped from from army to to Navy and and went across the Trinkumali and and you did you do it and you want to do it. two months there and I was training them on the 12-7s, the 14 and 5-5s, the 5-0 Browning and 81 mill motors. So it was a great job and the Navy guys who were under training was so sort of grateful for the fact that their government, their commanders that had employed this highly trained battle-hardened Australian warrior to come and teach them how to sort of protect

themselves. So I was very, very sort of well received there. And that lasted until I went back early because Sarah had been injured in a car accident in Australia. So I cut that short by a couple of weeks and came back home. Sarah was fine by then. The Navy job obviously ended mid-87. And then David Walker contacted me from London and said, how would you like to go to the special task force team? Because your reputation is great.

and with all your experience they'd like to have you there and particularly after we spoke to the CEO of STF and he said as long as we don't want we don't want army rejects but John's the guy we've heard a lot about him so so I ended up for the next 18 months working with the special task force which was which was based they were operating mainly out of the east in Batji Kalawa that their operational area was the eastern side of the island and the army had at the northern side, which was Jaffna Peninsula and north of that. So it was a great job. And I was sort of initially involved with training of their carders for selection

and getting to that stage where they would come into the unit. And at the end of that first year I'd been with them, the budget was cut down again. So the entire training team, STF was cut down from 10, to four and I was one of those who was retained to come back in 88 to run the training and run small team reconnaissance. That's what they wanted. So my specialty in Africa stood me in good stead in Sri Lanka and they knew what I'd done. And they said, this is exactly what we need because our guys are a little bit worried about going into the jungle.

So we need you to teach them how to find the Tamil tigers and bring them to battle. So I embarked on that for a while and then I was eventually given the task to train the because the STF had the contract or the job, the duty to protect the president, the prime minister and members of parliament, members of the cabinet, mate. And I was asked to provide some upgraded training to do for close protection for the presidential protection team. And that's essentially how I ended my career in 88 with Sri Lankan Defence Force. because at the end of 88 the president of the day stood down new president was coming into power in january 79 and when he took power um he decided he couldn't they weren't going to waste money on on expatriate trainers so i was back home in australi without a job and i thought well grab the bull by the horns and i contacted the defense attach at the australancan high commission in camber and said this is my background if i can ever help you guys again let me know He passed a letter on to the Commander of Special Task Force in Colombo, who immediately wrote me a letter saying, we'd love to have you back here for two years, please come out.

So I did. And while I was there, I was just prepping myself, and they hadn't worked out the contract, E, Doug. And I was actually in Sri Lanka when David Walker rang me from London, said, I spoke to your wife, Casson. She was very tight-lipped about where you were. But as soon as she knew it was me, she told me where you were. and I'd like to offer you a job and be careful with the Sri Lankans because they are slow to pay.

And I went back to the Sri Lankton and said, look, I've been offered something in London. I'm going to go and take it. And you work out the contract things. And as soon as you've got everything done and the budgets applied to it, I'll come back. And they said, that's great. Yeah, we'd love to have you and we'll sort it all out. So I went to London and that's how I started working for Saudi Arabia, the former oil minister, Zaki Yamani, and I worked with him for six years after that.

John, Brad asks, what was the hardest group to train and what group ended up being the best performers? I actually don't think anyone's hard to train. I've had arguments about this with guys in the past about, oh, you know, Zulus make better soldiers than horses and somebody else is a better soldier than this guy. I say, no, if you've got the right material and the right attitude, you can train anybody.

And so I've never actually sort of had a problem. But probably the best results that I've actually been able to see firsthand is with the Sri Lankans because not only did I train their infantry companies in some pretty advanced combat skills, but I saw them respond so positively to everything I was, I mean, they were hanging on my every word at one stage, you know. And to this day, I still had relationships,

comms and regular comms with the former battalion and commanders who ended their careers as brigadiers, who still keep in touch with me and say, I still remember that training, John, from those years, all those years ago, it was the best thing that ever happened. So from a perspective of reward, I would say that the Sri Lankans were the best, but my view is you can train anybody.

If you go into it with the right spirit and the right attitude, you can train any man up to be a good soldier by placing confidence in him, expressing approval at everything he does. I'm not into the shouting and yelling and screaming. That's never been my thing. I don't agree with it. And in fact, it was funny because Pete McLeese said to me recently, he was watching something about where someone was screaming in someone else in some of a priest's face.

And he said, John, I went through British parachute regiment, British SAS, Redesian SAS and South African Special Forces. I never ever had someone shout in my face and and I never shouted in anyone's face. He said, why did that? In fact, he was talking about that there's a commercial TV show called SAS, Who D-W dares wins, which takes civilians, normally B or C-grade identity, and runs them through this sort of supposed S-A-S track.

And all they do is every episode seems to be they're screaming and yelling in their faces. So to intimidate them. And we don't do that. And so I'm not done that sort. So to answer the question again, the Sri Lankans, to see the rewards from what they did and how they ended there, took up their training and applied it operationally, they were great. I really, I really loved working with them. And to this day, I still think it was one of the best jobs I ever had. John, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Dave.

Oh, I was just going to ask because you, you know, from this question, you know, when we talk to special forces guys from Vietnam or Macfee Saug or guys who've worked in Afghanistan and Iraq, talking about the local cultures, you know, you worked hand in hand with one Rhodesian, with a, with a local tribes. like what went over the border with with one person and then you went to Sri Lanka and worked with them how was it for you interacting with different cultures was there ever any culture shock or was it just something that you kind of had a natural proclivity for that you adapted easily yeah you know people people sort of say Australians were a bunch of racist boston so many know we sort of you know we we we've kind of we've we invaded this nation 300 years ago and people are still paying the price you know that's not true we're probably one of the least racist nations in the world and and i and i pride myself on the fact that i don't look at it faces black or white i see him as a steven or a peter or or whatever you know and and that's how i've always adopted my approach to dealing with with soldiers um i i've never ever had a problem i i just sometimes you have to maybe maybe you sort of be a little bit patronising towards them at times or a little bit condescending because they don't quite grasp

what you're trying to say but but once you get past that and you sort of build respect and mutual respect both ways they see that you respect them and they're much more responsive to what you're trying to teach them and and i've always found working with with people in in asia in Africa even south america where i have been as well um i've never had a problem i i've had no issues with dealing with people i just treat i treat everyone the way i want to be and i guess this is a truism in life. I treat people away I want people to treat me. And I try and sort of understand their needs. And in the last sort of few years, I've spent a lot of time in Africa and central Africa, particularly on mine sites and things with security projects, more working with Australian and multinational clients and so forth. And I deal with black workforces. And essentially, I relate to them as I would any soldier, you know, what are your problems? How can I help?

I want you to do this. I will give you this in the exchange. do I expect this from you? So, and it works as long as you sort of treat people well. And as you said, the baseline is treat them the way you want them to treat you. Yeah. And John, I mean, if you were a racist, you would have been shot dead and left out in the bush in Rhodesia by your partner for 40 years ago. Yeah.

You know, that would have been, that would have been. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, people like Peter, I'm sorry, people like sort of Stephen and Martin and those, and there was another one. who was very good and then the last guy I worked with was a big shonah guy called we called him

amin and and you know that last job we did we stayed on and watched that big camp that we'd struck new chumayo that we'd destroyed and there were hundreds of insurgents coming backwards and forwards over the next few days and he and i stayed in and and and watched them as they moved around that camp and he could have compromised me or blown me or sort of killed me and and and nothing if i'd been a bad guy and so the fact that i'm still here talking about those days, shows that I respect people, I respect everybody, and I expect, you know, people respect me in return. And if, if, and sometimes, you know, there's sort of, I guess I don't like to stereotype people, but some, some people in the world can be a little bit arrogant.

And I found, whereas I was dealing with some people in, in, maybe I shouldn't mention it, but up in Myanmar, Burma, the generals that I was dealing with were a little bit arrogant. they thought they knew everything they didn't need any any help and and there have been others in parts of the world but in the middle east for example that that can be a little bit arrogant at times and you know you you deal with the arrogance and and if you don't want to work with those people you walk away you know that's the nature of a private military or private security company you can walk away from the client you know you're not under orders to it's not like a sort of a national deployment of troops to somalia as example with US force special force special force

in Somalia, they go there, they're told to go there, and they stay there until they're told to leave. You know, whereas in the private world, you can say, no, I'm not going to take this and say, thanks very much. And I'm leaving. I'm going to something else. John, I would, I'd like to ask you if you'd stick around for another like 10 or 15 minutes to do the bonus segment with us. I know I've already taken up like two and a half hours of your time. But your, your memory, the fading light. Where can people go and find your book, John?

Best is Amazon. Because most of my readers now are Australian or European or American now. And it's starting to sort of build up ahead of steam. It surges up and down on Amazon book. But I think for Amazon.com, for US and Amazon.com.com.com. In Australia. And there is an outlet in South Africa that provides it, Warbooks.co.org.z.a, which Pete will read for those in southern.

Africa who don't want to wait too long and they can get it in South Africa through to Pete at war books.co.z.a so that's where it is. And we haven't even gotten, I mean, you have to read this book. We haven't gotten to like. Yeah, this is about John's 50-year career right in and out of the military. So like we're just scratching the surface here. We're like, we're like 14 right now. Yeah. And I mean, I read this book last week and I underlined and put, well, kinds of notes in here. I mean, this was really, this was really a well done, a phenomenal book, very well written as well. On top of, you know, you're a good writer, but also have the, the experiences in the background to really make this a unique book. And I really enjoyed reading it.

So I hope you guys will check that out. I want to thank everyone who joined us tonight live and, you know, contributing to the conversation. Please make sure that you like the video. Give us a little thumbs up leave us some comments what you think about this subscribe to the channel if you haven't already subscribed or or on iTunes or Spotify yeah wherever you go for podcasts yeah also we uh BPA Izzy thank you very much for the donation and I you retried to your message or redacted it retracted but I saw it and this is what we'll do with it thank you and yeah other than that there's also a link down the description to our Patreon page if you want to get involved in supporting this channel and gaining access to all the bonus segments that we do.

And there's also a link down there to our merch page where you can get Team House T-shirts coffee mugs. We got it all. Yeah, and we will include a link to John's book on Amazon. Yeah, absolutely. And next week, next Friday, we're going to have in studio my friend Adam White who is a a former counterintelligence agent. Actually, I met him when I was in college. So he is gonna be here in studio with us next week. This guy has a wild story to tell. It's gonna knock some socks off.

So I hope you'll join us next Friday. We'll see you then. And thank you, everyone. John, thank you so much for spending time with us. We really appreciate it. No, I appreciate it. I mean, I've seen your previous sort of guest list, and that's very impressive.

impressive so to be to be brought in amongst that i'm very flattered and very honored thanks great talking here you are a giant amongst men so we we are honored thank you and thanks thanks a lot there we go okay we're out uh john do you want to take a