The Team House - Rhodesian Light Infantry, South Africa Recce | Mike West | Ep. 294

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseBorn poor, he battled on the streets of the mining towns near Johannesburg; from orphanage to reformatory to warder on Pretoria Central���s ‘Death Row’. After a brush with the law, he went north to join the fight for Rhodesia, and served with distinction in the Grey Scouts, the RLI and then the SAS. Fighting ferociously to the bitter end, the politicians ended his war and he returned to his homeland to re-enter the fray with the Recces. Unorthodox in his methods, scornful of dogma, a rebel in their ranks, he rankled his seniors but was seldom far from the thick of the action. Attacking the enemy from the air, land and sea, he led from the front against the Russians, Cubans, Angolans and SWAPO. Like his mentor, Rhodesian SAS Captain Darrell Watt, the man he reveres, he was denied the recognition he deserved.Get a copy of Mike’s book here:https://www.amazon.com/Mike-West-Special-Forces-Super-Soldier/dp/079611546X?dplnkId=b8261bad-413d-44d8-b053-3cdc2b67b4c2&nodl=1—————————————————————-Today's Sponsors:PIA VPN⬇️https://www.piavpn.com/teamhouse____________________________________Pre-order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️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/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#RLI #RHSASBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park. This is Dave. I just want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor PIA VPN. That's private internet. Internet Access VPN.

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But you must go to PIAVPN.com slash teamhouse for a truly private digital life. One last time, P-I-A-V-N-com slash team house. Guys, you need this. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 294 of the team house. I'm Dave Park, Jack Murphy, our guest night legendary Mike West, his book, Mike West, Special Forces Super Soldier. Mike served in the Grey Scouts, the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and the S-A-S, and then went back to Reki when all was, it was set up.

and done and has done a whole bunch of other stuff. Please, well, thank you very much for joining us. And it's super late there, Mike. Thanks for joining us tonight. Pleasure, pleasure. Yeah. What time is it right now? Well, we're running at about just after 2, 20 plus 2 now.

Yeah, you guys are great. Thank you for doing this. Thanks so much. So, Mike, we always like to start these shows with a person's origin story. How did you grow up, you know, and what led you into the service? The child, as I could, we had a, my dad met my mother during the war. She was Italian. He brought her back, and we had a very bad life. And my mom ended up getting rid of us and dumping us in an orphanage, my brother and I,

which was, you didn't realize it at the time because everybody was, and it looked normal, but it was torture. So it was a difficult stage to go through, but it prepared a guy for life, you know, what lay ahead. So at the stage, it didn't phase you, it was difficult, but you went through it. And once we got out there, you know,

My whole life was always violence. My family was violent. My father was violent. My uncles were violent. They all came out of the war. They enjoyed the old fisty coughs and fighting. And we witnessed so much of these fights. We used to walk over to a place.

We lived in a mining town in Valcom, in the free state. And our entertainment, our television, was to go to the old Valcombe Hotel and watch out the Italians and the Afrikaners to get stuck into one another. Bottled each other. It was absolutely, we enjoyed it, you know, a lot of blood, and it was good fun. And that's what we lived with. There was a lot of animosity between us and the Afrikaans kids. But this stems now. The parents rear the kids.

I hated the English people. And this was about. So we ended up going to boxing clubs where I actually became a northern free state boxing champion. And we went through a lot of this stuff, a lot of violence, violence. But life was difficult. It was really difficult.

Obviously, we were very poor. You didn't worry about being poor because everybody was poor in the mining town. And my life turned out, I got a stepmother, my dad married another woman, stepmom and it didn't go very well and I decided to disappear. I ran away and I lived in banana plantations. I even slipped in a subway with some hobos and I slept in railway stations.

And this was the way I was going. And through this whole tour of mine around the country, I eventually landed up in a place called Pretoria where I had her aunt over there. and I must have been there two weeks or so, and then the police were looking for me. And then she notified, got hold of my parents, or whoever's got out, but anyway, the cops came and got me, police, and took me back.

And the plans were to put me in a reformatory, but some guy came up with an ingenious of an idea, and they decided to put me in the prison service, training college was in the Fuset as well in a place called Kruenstoy where they took me on and I went there and trained as a warder to go work in the prison.

So that was up to their very violent life. Let me tell you, these little Afrikaners found at us. I tell you, I don't think anybody got as many hidings as what I got, you know? I really, my brother and I got some

very, very seriously about these little Afrikaans. For Americans out there who don't necessarily understand South African culture, if you want to explain a little bit about Afrikaners of Dutch heritage versus people of British or Anglo heritage, right? Yeah, that's correct. You know, they still got anger from the rural wars when the English were down. Yeah, this anger still exists. And the parents installed this anger into their children. And these kids used to be like backhounds on top of us.

say. And we had a tough time. That's why my dad put us in the boxing, where to go to a boxing club. I remember I went to a boxing club called Western Holdings. And I had a coach, his name was Sorrow the beer. And I was, I went over there. And I did very, very well. Well, I had no option. You had to fight. And the fun part of a yaguer was the parents, my dad would be in the mine, everybody's kids would go in box, and the miners would bet probably at 10 cent or five cents. I don't know what it was. Whose son would thump, who in the club, you know?

And the coach sold all the beer. Well, he didn't really like English either. So I landed up in quite a few little skirmishes at the club as well. It was a very interesting childhood, but it, for the, for the, whole my whole upbringing was incredible violence I went home many a day with a blood nose and bleeding lips and you know in the black eye and these little Afrikaners really laid into us they actually hated us I haven't got another word for it you know they use the most horrific names for us in which you people wouldn't understand over there you know

the type of names they used in Afrikaans to us but there was a incredible unbelievable amount of animosity. And that was normal to us. And you mentioned, you know, the violence at home and the violence, you know, out in public, but also your school, I remember your comment about

your principal. I'm a headmaster, East. Yeah, that's quite an interesting date. We had a headmaster's name was Mr. East and my surname was West. Now, admittedly, was a naughty little bugger because I was a boxer and, you know, we were just naughty. And the school came down on the thing.

It was a very popular thing. The cane rises in the east and sets on the west. I used to thumb me. He really gave it to me. But I was naughty, man. I was a naughty little bugger. I know it. Yeah.

So you eventually, you get kicked out of school, basically. Your dad tells you you have to go back, Mr. East. says no, and you can't work in the mines, right? Quite correct. What happened was they decided, when I eventually got back after my little tour around the country when I ran away and I got back, they just decided I had to go. You know, they had enough at me. You know, one of the happiest moment was, was as I was leaving the school grounds,

now we had a duplex, and these kids were hanging out the window, and waving, and Allah's never so thrilled in my life. I really hated school. We did a lot of fighting in school as well, you know. But I hated school. And then I wanted to go to the mines, and my dad said, no way are you going to land up in the mines. So the problem came up.

The welfare took over with me, and like I said, they wanted to put me in a reformatory. And some guy came up with this brilliant idea, and they put me in the prison service college, which served me well, you know. It kept me out of trouble. And that was quite an interesting little trip. It was nice.

It helped me a hell of a lot in life. And when I'd finished doing my, that was in 1965. When I finished doing my prison service trading, they sent me, they transferred me to a place called Zondavata, near the Kalinan mine where that huge diamond was found. Now, at Zonderva Alto once again, I landed up in a lot of fighting, you know, with the miners' kids.

And I was just a bit of a rough here. And I wasn't a year of any sort, but I just somehow landed up, always landed up in the fights and the trouble. And I became quite a problem to this lot. We had an officer over there with a name of Snaiman, and they called him 007. and these guys couldn't handle me. And I got up to a lot of weird things, and I was making money on the side, doing other things. I would drive into town and go and work for Indians

and do illegal things for Indians, like driving cars and parking cars at places, and I got paid for these things. And I made good money, and they started to investigate me, because it didn't make sense how a guy, like me, could own Alpha Ramayers, then she had 50, hundreds, then motorbikes, and they just had enough at me.

But I was causing a lot of trouble, but on the other hand, I played a very good game of rugby because I was a violent little bugger. And in the end, they decided they wanted to get rid of me. And Birman, there was a guy at the Prison Service College. I can't remember his rank, Colonel or Brigadier. He was with the Northern France or rugby teams. They brought me to Petroia because of my rugby skills, you know, and they got me there.

And then they placed me in the gallows, the maximum security. And I worked in the gallows, not as a hangman. I just was one of the assistants in the gallows, which was a very, very interesting story. But inside the gallows, there was a gentle brother the name of Demetlius Sophrendos. That was the same gentleman that murdered the Prime Minister

Hendr Favut in Parliament when he stabbed him to death. Wow. So I got to meet this chap here over there. He wouldn't reveal anything, but, you know, I met the guy. I said that was a very interesting part of the history.

Now, while I was at the gallows, I started to moonlight by going and doing part-time taxi driving because the prison service didn't pay money. It was a pathetic story. While I was moonlighting on the one Saturday morning at the railway station, and all of a sudden we see this chapie come running along in PT gear.

And it was one of the convicted guys, a guy with the name of von Steen, he had been sentenced to death for killing of a, he killed a detective. He had an affair with a guy. guy's wife and then he murdered him and then he got the death sentence. And I ran over and I grabbed this puppy and well obviously he tried to resist which was fruit was he shouldn't have tried that anyway. But I sought him out quickly. We dumped him in the car and we raised him back to maximum security where he escaped from. And it was such a strange sight to see because they had, they must have had 200.

wardens with rifles and dogs. And they were going on this massive man on to look for this escape. And yeah, I suddenly pitch up with this guy at the gallows. Now, that made me a sort of a year, and I landed up in newspapers, with photos, and, you know. And what happened was this guy had quite influential friends, and they were, they decided there was talks that people wanted to kill me and, you know, things were going wrong. So the prison

service decided they getting rid of me out of Pretoria for my safety and they sent me to point prison in Durban, which was a real shit, I'll excuse the word. I managed to get out of there and get back to

Pretoria again. When I got back there and I looked at this lot and I thought I don't see chance for this discipline and stuff anymore. I just had enough of this lot. And I decided I'm now going to do, I want to become a full-time taxi driver. Now, you know, people

look at taxi drivers. I don't know, different countries, different opinions about taxi drivers, but those days, a taxi driver was an encyclopedia of knowledge, Matt. Let me tell you this. Now,

I did a lot of fighting in the taxi game as well. You hit people. It happened. I was just that way. inclined. And at that time while I was at the taxi, I was fighting for a Phoenix boxing club which was run by Tony Curram, a Lebanese guy,

a very, very good trainer. And the South African heavyweight boxing champion, Jimmy Richards was at the club. But anyway, that was all the interesting parts. And I had a fissie cuff with a one taxi driver

at the railway station. Now, it was a brute of a guy. and a very aggressive guy and everybody was very cautious of him because he you know he lost his school very easy he owed me money and i owed him money you know we had he owed me more than what i owed him but he had a very bad day and he decided he wanted his money and he told me listen i want my money or so i'm going to thump you know what i mean and i tell him to go and fly a kite you know and then this puppy came charging down on me which was the biggest mistake because i could throw the fist you know and i was boxing and I dumped him good. I beat him and he fell over a car and I was hitting him. People

pulled me off and this guy ran up towards the railway station with the railway police here. And while I was standing down at the station, he came out with the railway policeman and he was shouting, that's him, that's him, that's him. But I was angry at this stage at the game. And they told me, tell me I must come over and I just told him to go and fly a kite because I was very, very angry. But you know what the beauty here was? One of the other taxi drivers went up with him after I thumped him. And when they went into the bathroom,

and he had to rinse his mouth him, and the water was coming out of his cheek. I had given this guy. Oh, man, I was so proud. How he took the blow, I don't know. But the water was coming out of his cheek, and I, Allah felt chuffed with myself, you know, because he was an aggressive guy.

Well, anyway, I told him eventually, because the railway police couldn't get anything right, He went down to central police station to lay a charge against me over there. But this was on the premises of the railroad police. It was their jurisdiction, so they couldn't charge me. Anyway, this thing went up and down, and somehow the other, the railway police,

whoever's behind it, got sick and tired of us guys and decided we got to get off the station. They didn't want us there anymore, and it's good money, and everybody knew us. I mean, you could come to me as a taxi driver and there's nothing you couldn't have. I could arrange anything you wanted, you know? Encyclopedia of knowledge, anything.

It doesn't matter what you want. I could arrange it. And I had very good customers and I was making very, very good money and I was living well. However, they decided, you know, they had enough of us and they removed us of the station

and we had to go and start a new rank from Berlin Street in Petroleum. Now, you can't just go and open a taxi rank in a new area. You need clientele. Anyway, that didn't work out. So I sold my taxi. I had a yeoman vogue, a little automatic little job. And I sold that to an Italian guy with a surname of Bramande.

And he bought quite a few of these taxis. Well, he lost all his money eventually because it didn't work. I decided I went to work for a guy with a name of vessels. Good guy. Nice guy. They had a valiant, one of these old valions. And I was doing quite well over there, but while I was over there now,

there was a local pub called the Van Osel Pup, and there used to be all these rowway apprentices, the ruffians, man, really rough little guys. Always used to a lot of fighting, and the barman's name was Richard, and he asked me one day, don't you want to come and sort out these puppies for us, you know? And then every time they called,

I'd drive down, and I'd go and go. thumb these guys, you know. I got a couple of good shots against their head there as well. But anyway, I sorted this lot out in the pub. Now, this vessels guy, now I was losing customers would come to the taxi rank, and I wasn't there, and they went and complained about it. So he came and he gave me a bit of a bollicking, which I didn't handle, I told him to go and fly a kite. Now I was jobless. I had no work. Now, where do I go? You know, I need job.

At this stage of the game, I had married another woman, and I had a kid with her, and I needed the income. So I get an ingenious idea. I decide I'm going to join the army. Now, at this stage of the game, these special forces of South Africa, the Rekis, very well-known special forces, they were on the go. And I was sitting in the pub talking to Richard, and I said, said, well, I'm going to give this a go, you know.

I'm going to give it a go. So I go over to the head office, a whole lot of guys, we're completing forms, sitting there, we're handed in, we're waiting. And the guy comes out, we're speaking in Afrikaans, and told the guys, okay, we'll contact you, contact you. And they came over to me and said to me, you know, you can go. You don't qualify. I said, what's wrong?

I said, no, you don't have qualification because I was expelled. You know, he's done at six. I had a son at six certificate because I was naughty, and I was fighting and we were naughty little buggers. And I had no religious upbringing, you know, nothing. Religion didn't exist by us. We weren't worried about things like it. So yeah, I said, where do I go with all this crap?

So Richard and I are sitting in the funnel cell having a good chat, and we talk about Rhodesia. Now the war was on the go in Rhodesia, and I said, hell, man, I must give this a go. But now I know I've got absolutely no military. backer. I've never served. I'm a damn taxi driver. Came out to gallows, taxi driver with no military experience. How am I going to get into a military

organization? Now, way back when I lived in the Free State, a guy with the name of Bruce Fisher came and lived with us, and he was in the army. He used to spin a lot of garbage. I didn't know at the time. I used to believe him. And whilst it was a taxi driver, we would take a lot of the guys to the military base in Fertrake, Work there. And I used to listen to all these stories. So I decided, oh, I borrowed my dad's green pigeon station wagon, had a bit of bucks,

and I decided I'm going down. So I concoct the story, the biggest load of bullshit under the sun, about infantry, and I can't remember all the crap I put together. But anyway, when I got to Salisbury, I completed this application form, and I thought, I'm in the military. No, we had to go back, and they would inform me. you know they've called me up hell of what a disappointment to go all the way back because now you're going to ride in convoy with the bsap escorts here because the the convoys got ambushed by the terrorists on the road

anyway all the way back up no i'm speaking the correction maybe three weeks two three weeks down the line yeah i get a telegram ticket and all i'm being called up to go to to rhodesia man was i thrilled oh man I've got a job, you know, because I can't get a job. People didn't like me. Well, I didn't know why, but I didn't understand at the time where people didn't want to give me a job, you know. Anyway, on the train, got to Salisbury.

There are some guys waiting in the Jeep. Pick me up, and they drive me off to a place called in Coma Barracks to the Grey Scouts. Got there, it's horses and equestion centres, and I felt so proud. I've got a camouflage uniform boots and, oh, man, I felt on top of the world, you know? I'm in the military as a taxi driver

with the biggest load of crap. I don't know anything about military. Mike, how old are you right now? Like, not... No. No, at that point in time, at this point in the story. Oh, must have been, let me work it out. I had 17.

Let me just get, I was 27, 20, 20, 26 years old. So you and I went to war. You were kind of, yeah, you were kind of an old man compared to like a lot of the other people around you. Oh, well, they do military training at 18 years old. Yeah. Yeah, I come along as a taxi driver being 26, 27 years going to, you know, joining

the bloody army, you know. Yeah. And fortunately, the Grey Scouts wasn't a hell of a big combatant unit at that stage of the game. So I had to go through the equestrian center and go through all the nests, the ups and downs to get to know horses and fit, saddles, the normal stuff, which was quite fun. And they gave me a horse with a name of Wetfoot, a potent horse, a big puppy. And I was chaffed, but you know what the beauty is?

Now I'm sitting here. Yeah, I'm in the army, man. I've got no idea what anything is about. I'm just winging my way around, you know. And anyway, we're very fortunate to get through the question. I could ride horse because as youngsters, we used to ride donkeys and horses, you know, at the place called Rainbow Valley in the mining areas. So it wasn't a problem.

I just struggled to fit a saddle on a horse because I had no idea to fit a saddle. But I mean, obviously I mastered that. And, wow, man, a great moment of my life. This whole convoy got together, horses were loaded on vehicles, RLs, Beckford, and four, five, Merks. And off we go to a place called Niamopanda, which was, well, quite a way from Mozambique, but was in the eastern area. Off to our base camp. You must remember, yeah, I'm sitting as a taxi driver amongst a lot of people. Now, a lot of the guys that came from America, you name it, all over the world.

They joined Rhodesia because it was a war. They took everybody on. And all I'm doing, I'm just listening to all this stuff, but the guys are talking. Some guys spoke about Vietnam, and I was listening to all this stuff. And I just was winging my way around. I had no idea what's going on.

Anyway, we got to this place, Niamapanda. And there we hungri-round in the base camp, grooming horses, and doing guard duty and so on. And then on a day came, they said to us, okay, we're going to deploy. Now, the guy's name was Dave Sparks. It was my first team leader. He came over and he said, okay, guys, we're going out and, you know, we're going to deploy.

You know how proud I felt today. You know, you can imagine this taxi driver with a uniform. They gave me a heavy-barreled FN. It only took 20 rounds as same as any normal FN, but it weighed about three, four kilos heavier. But I felt an ace man. Now I'm sitting on a horse, like Geronimo, we're weapon up in the air, and yeah, we're riding through the camp, and all the guys are going, Oh, no way to deploy. I just wish I can explain how I felt as a taxi driver sitting on a horse with a heavy barrel machine going into war.

Got no idea what wars, but I'm on my way. Yeah. Anyway, that was unbelievable. It was, but as time went on now, I'd seen a black and white movie in my life about a war, you know, Second World War guys running with bayonets on rifles, and that always stuck in my mind. Now we're out to these horses and that, and I was thinking to myself, you look, I'm not a stupid guy, and I was thinking, oh, if somebody shoots at me on top of this horse, I've got trouble, you know, this typical custody over here.

And the other thing that got me very concerned. When we went into an LUP, which is a lineup place for the day, then the horses got to be tied at a certain area. Now, these things stomp and fart and, you know, they carry on. And horse flies, and it's noisy. So we've got to be quite a distance away from the horses because you couldn't hear a stampede coming with a noise that these horses made. And the other thing was fearful at night.

these things, they always make a noise. And I was scared we wake up one morning and the horses are gone and the terrorists had made hamburgers out of the bloody things. But we decided we, at nighttime, we would stay over in a protected village, which was a keep where all the locals were kept. Because of the terrorist activities in the area,

they kept all the locals in these protected villages. And there was a group called the Guard Force that looked after them. And that's how we would go out in the day, ride it down and sleep there at night. Now, there was a punch-up, there was a punch-up, but we had split up, and the other guys had a punch-up, and I arrived there too late,

and they'd killed two of these tears, and I was, oh, I was angry, because I wanted to shoot somebody, you know? And anyway, we burned to villages, and whatever the case goes, and I did a couple of these things, but I didn't get satisfaction out of it, apart from the fact.

that I was like Geronimo sitting on a bloody horse with a heavy barrel, F-Hen, which looked good, but I wanted to be the guys with a baynets, you know, charging trenches, and like I saw in movies. I just, I don't know, it just appealed to me. Good fortune came my way. I remember getting back to the camp the one way, and our officer's name was Kaywood, he was a lieutenant. A good guy, a good guy, and he said to me, listen, Mike, we're going to go and do a resupply with an RL, which is a Bedford. We've got to take some rations out.

I want you to escort me. Allah, too thrilled about it. By that time, then I got a normal effing. I got rid of the heavy barrel effing, because it was pointless carrying a thing with bipods. It took 20 rounds like any other FN. And I'm in the RL, in Koward's driving, and he's got his dog, which is a Labrador,

beautiful dog by the name of Blue, sitting between us. And yeah, we go, driving into the same. sunset. I never forget looking, you know, we were going east. And I just felt so much, you're sitting with this effing out the window, you know, oh, I'm serving a purpose. No idea what the hell is going on. And anyway, the roads are in a very, very bad state. And it's zigzag, zig all over the road because it's a lot of potholes and you name it, very bad roads. And I remember it's coming with a speed to the one side, to the left-hand side of the road with like a dip where we could

go through quite smoothly, and all of a sudden nothing. We hit a landmine. Oh, man. Now, I couldn't identify a landmonds for the life of men. They didn't even know what a landmine is, you know. I only learned all these things afterwards. What happened was, the vehicle we were traveling east, this landmine hit it, lift the vehicle up, threw it off the road in a southerly direction, a facing south. And there we sat. The windscreen was out and the dog was gone

and I was sitting there. It was just dust. And I didn't even, okay, I'll tell you what happened over there. Now I'm sitting and I looked over at Kewood, but my ears are blasted now, you know, the eardrums. And I made him saying, we must get out and get out. They can kill us, you know? And I jumped out. And when I got out, I'm holding my FN in my hand and it's broken.

I've got photos of it. It's actually smashed. Now, what happened was, good fortune. When the landmine went off, now what you must understand, the RL has got water in the tires for the shock,

then it's got conveyor belting, riveted on the floor, and then it's got sandbagging. So you sit with your legs quite bent. Then you've got to cross over seatbelt that ties you down. Now when we hit this landmine, it snapped the seatbelt

and hit me into the ceiling, the roof of a, of the cab. Good luck to me. The FN came past me and smashed and damaged. Broke the weapon. That had caught me under my chin, I would have lost my head. It would have

decapitated me. Anyway, I get out there. I'm standing with this broken weapon in my hand. I don't know what's going on. I'm deaf. It's a hell of a story. Your blue comes running over. Now, when the landmine went off, blue went right through the, where the

Winskin was, he went right through. but it came over all happy and no problem. All of a sudden, all these vehicles arrive, and these engineers now, I'm learning as I'm going along now. And we get a lift. They later say they take us back to camp. When we get back to camp, I'm with my broken F, and then we learn, there's a mine called the TMA3,

which is a Yugoslavia, and it looks like these cheese. You buy it in the supermarket, you know. cheddar cheese in the red. There's that shape. It's got no metal on. It's just the T&T. Now, this was a double puppy because the size of the hole

and the way it threw us. Now, I wasn't supposed to be alive, but I didn't know it at the time that I'm supposed to have been, you know, because I was right on top of the landmine. But I felt, I tell you, I'm proud of felt that one. I had survived this landmine.

Everybody slapping me on the back. My back was hurt, my ankle was hurt. My ankle was hurt, but I felt top notch. I had no. I mean, combat, man. This is what I've wanted. I'd be in war, and this was a... I was so proud of myself.

And whilst I was in the Grey Scouts, I heard about the Redisian Light Infantry. These guys used to jump into combat from Dakoters or deployed by Elwhet Choppers into the war, into combat. there's no question you go on the ground and you look for tours you were right in the combat and i thought hell i want to join this man you know i want to progress of it because this landmine really motivated me i i loved the i just felt like a hero man anyway got back did my forms and they sent me to ral and i landed up in a in two commander now remember i'm now 27 years old

and my troop commander was a guy with the name of mike rich he was a lieutenant he was 19 19 years old, 19-year-old kid. And all the youngsters, people around me are kids. And you're standing amongst his kids. It was another world, you know, but I was there, and I was happy I was there. And woe with I, just my luck, they decided that I was going to be one of the guys going to be trained as a paratrooper. Now, in Rhodesia, they had to train people in parachuting because we didn't have enough

aloeets to deploy everybody. So I landed up on a parachute course, basic parachuting. My instructor was a guy with the name of Andy Steen. It was a magnificent course. It was out of this world. Now I'm a parabat, a taxi driver, no war experience, on a parable course. I'm standing, and now I'm a parabat. And I've got a 19-year-old officer leading me.

Let me tell you something. This guy's name was Mike Rich. It looked like a Tom Cruise and a hell of a handsome looking guy. A smart guy. You would never say that this guy's a combatant. But balls of titanium, man. You must see these guys in combat.

I've never in my entire life up to that stage, I mean, what did I know about war? 18, 19-year-old kids like that are going to combat. What happened was I was very fortunate. I wasn't, we deployed to a place called Grand Reef. we're there and off go the sirens

we run to the Dakota the choppers are warming up the gunships the K cars it's got a 20-mull the G cars have got twin brownings on that go to warming up we've got the shoots on your weapon gets stripped and into the

into the deck you're going off we fly now I'm very very excited I mean I don't ever know what's going on what do I know I just hear these stories and then we get our stand up you know, hook up, check equipment, and then eventually out the door,

and we jump right into combat, man. You know how fantastic it felt? You know, the strangest thing is I didn't know any fear because I didn't know what war was. There was a hell of a lot of shooting and bangs. The gunships were flying around, circling, and 20 moles were going, and brownings were going. It was, oh, it was unbelievable.

There was links lobbying napalm. comes down strapping, and I thought, wow, man, this is beautiful. Now, this is my first time I've actually been in real combat. I remember being on the ground on the left flank. Now I've got the MAG, which, when I was at ROLI, they obviously went to eating less.

Now I've got a machine gun. It's a big puppy, it's a big weapon to jump with. About 13 kilograms. Anyway, I'm on the left flank, and as we're sweeping through, I'll see on my left flank, I see that as the choppers are circling, There are two of these terrorists under the trees firing through the canopy of the tree at the choppers.

And I turn this, I'll and I open up, and I get the spurts of sand, I take the one guy. It must have been, I reckon 80 meters. I'm speaking under correction. But I nailed him. The other puppy goes to ground and he starts opening up at me, and I enjoy that, and I ripped him. And I put a hell of a burst, and I got rid of him. And I used a whole hundred rounds over there to kill these two guys. Then I put a new belt on, and then we swept forward, and then I'll.

I gave covering fire and they did the rest of the job. I never forget when we got back to the camp, the mockery, because now the old man, I was the old man. I mean, these are kids, man. Right. I fired a hundred-run, and the commander of the Blaze Cap was mocking me that it took a hundred-d-runs and killed two guys. But what he didn't know, I was a bloody taxi driver.

Yeah. And I enjoyed it. You know, Dave and Jack, I just want to tell you something, how this relates to the story. Two women are sitting and having tea and they're chatting about the kids. And the one says to the other one, oh, my son has gone to the military. They've given him a uniform. They've given him a big steel helmet.

They're giving him a gun and boots. And he's going to go in and kill all these people. And the other lady looks at it and says to her, but aren't you scared they're going to kill him? he says, but why would they do that? They don't even know him, you know? So that sort of gave me that feeling. Yeah. I went into combat.

People were shooting at me, and I wasn't scared because why do I know that bloody war, you know? But I enjoyed it. It was fun. How, can I? Numbers of these punchups, a lot of punch up. Mike, can I just ask you real quick because, obviously you, when you were younger, you were very,

it seems like you were very anti-authoritarian, right? You were your own person. How did you find your way to mesh with the military where that part of you didn't come out? I was so keen to have a job. I just fell in with the story. I just followed orders. I just did what I did, you know?

I just blended. It's just flexibility, call it that. And the most difficult thing for me was, Dave, he must imagine, these are youngsters, man. Yeah. Kids. Yeah. And in that contact, I saw these guys in action.

And you can't, you don't see this anywhere. It's unbelievable to see 18, 19-year-old kids carry on. I'll explain a bit further on. Anyway, I landed up in a lot of punch-ups, and I enjoyed it. And I know there's a lot of talk where they say, everybody craps himself in war and that but I just couldn't wait to get out of the bloody plane

I don't know what it was I just got a hell of a thrill out of us I saw didn't even worry about death death never worried me and we went into where the Sulu scouts would be on the ground they would pick up the terrorists coming in the country they would notify the fire force in the area

and then we would go out And we went out for another punchup with a nice big group of tours over there and we jumped out. And I had the MAG. Now the MAG, if you see the fight, there's a massive weapon which is strapped over your shot, it's massive.

And I'm coming in for a backward landing now. You know, they're taking shots at us coming down and I connect the ground without knowing it, the butt breaks off this MAG. And I'm on the ground, I loosen it, they get it up, and I pick us up and it's like a submachine gun. But the butt still is

touching the slings. I throw it over my shoulder, I got the pistol grip, I loosen the bipods. And I tell you, it must be the first time. I don't even think Rambo has done this, right? And I go into combat, didn't perturbed me, I'm honest with it, didn't even perturbed me, and I've got this thing and I'm

having ball, man, I'm going in, I'm having fun. Anyway, we called a lot of guys there and the one guy managed to slot one of these guys who was carrying an RPD. Edward Lindle was his name. He passed away recently. He was 18 years old. I was towering over these guys.

These guys had bum fluff, man. You can't believe it. The bravery is... I can't explain it. Anyway, they give me this RPD and they took some tears. I don't know two of what. They threw them on the aloe with a gun and offered when.

I'm sitting with an RPD. And all I had to know is where the barrel was, where the trigger was and the safety catcher. And I was thrall day. And I so badly wanted to kill somebody with us. And we went in, but I didn't have a chance to kill anybody. I was so peed off with this. I really wanted to kill somebody with us. Anyway, went back, took the RPD and so on and so forth.

And as this thing progressed, I was so bad. I was so excited with us, you know. I'm sure I could have fathered some of these guys, you know? Yeah. And the beautiful thing came up in 77, Operation Dingo. Probably the biggest operation ever in Rhodesia. I think it compares with Vietnam with the biggest operative ever there was. And I land up with Mike Rich, the 19-year-old guy.

Oh, what a gutsy guy that says. You can't believe it is. He's awesome, man. and MAG and off I go but I mean Alo is now we're going out as stop groups now and the three commander and the SAS we're going to jump in

sweep to the camps and we were put in a type of horseshoe around it I can't remember the whole story but I'm in the stop group and they jump in and they rip it and they come running towards you and I'm man what a dream that was for me I love it I I can't explain it to you I was

seventh heaven now that was beautiful we nailed these guys and I really mean we floored them like and we swept through and and and but anyway we cold stucks of these guys and I

but now I'm lying at night and I hear all the bangs and because there's fires and whatever and I'm listening I say to myself you know I saw the SAS wings and the brain and I saw these things around previously and I thought

hell man and I've heard so much about, look, there's nothing like the SES anywhere in the world. I'm telling you that. And I thought, hell, I want to be in the SES. So once you get back to, to Commander, I go to Mike Ritz and I say, I want to go to S. Application form, selection. Oh, man, did I regret that? How long had you been, between the Grey Scouts and the Rhodesian Light Infantry,

how long have you had you been in the service at that point in time? I can't remember offhand. I must have had about three, maybe six months. I don't know. I'm speaking under correction. You know, time goes so fast in the fire force because you're in so much combat. You know what I loved about the ROI. You don't jump in and you don't fight.

when you jump in, as soon as soon as cards have pinned the gooks, given the locks that where they are, the decks come, they drop off, gunships, pin them down, and we go and we cold. And it's absolutely amazing, you know? Yeah. So time goes, time flies.

The one day we deployed twice. The record is three times. I can't remember which command it was. But we deployed twice. And that day, I felt it because we got out about off to six that night. But it was a hell of a puncher. But it was so enjoyable, you know.

that smell of the gun oil and I don't know, I just crave this stuff. I just loved it. Maybe my child who dreams of seeing a second World War movie, I couldn't get enough of this. Anyway, this SAS appealed man, I thought, okay, I'm going for selection. Wow, man, well, let me tell you, all the instructors in the SES are qualified operators. They don't take shit. Man, did, I only realized when I was there, I heard.

story. And the stories you hear about SES election, believe it. I'm telling you believe it. That is at another level. That is torture. But I was determined to make it. Now, with the reputation that I arrived there, they didn't really favor me much. And they gave me

a hard time. But I was a tough cooking. You know, I wasn't going to give it because I wanted that beret and I wanted to be SES. I wanted the war that they had. I wanted this combat. And I stuck it out. Look, they gave it to me. But I was fortunate over there.

They, at one stage, they hammered me very, very hard. And the guy's name was Rob Johnson. It was a major, awesome operator. I operated with him afterwards. It was calm as hell under fire as well. A brilliant operator. And they decided they didn't I exactly like who I was and where I came from.

Because I was, look, I was a troublemaker. And if you, and I did a lot of social. smuggling, I told you, I drive cars, park cars, don't know what's in the cars, get paid, land up in fights. It was a bit of a hooligan. And he wanted to get him, and so they turned up the pressure on me, but to break me, you needed to have a hell of a lot more instructors. But I wanted to be there. I ended up wrestling in the mud with Brian Murphy, a revision rugby player. Man, I've got an otten guy.

Yeah, what a tough guy. Him and I were brawling in the mud. Anyway, eventually Rob Johnson went to Darrow Watt, because Darrow Watt got wounded in the leg, and he was on this election, he was out of combat. And he said, we can't break this puppy. And Darryl said, give him to me, man, you know, I'll take him. Because Darrell was my type of guy.

Daryl's a shitster, right? Listen, this is a tough puppy. This is not a type of guy that you find anywhere. It's a very unique human being. He loved trouble where he's out of the bush, and in town of night, he will fight. He'll cause trouble. If he's in the bush and he's bored,

he'll go and look for trouble. And I love this guy. But I'd only heard of Darrow what then. And I remember the one op, everybody spoke about Darrell, Tarrell, Tarrell, Tarot. All the years, Darrell, Darrell, and I wanted this guy because I just, some men knew this is where the fight was, you know.

I landed up in a lot of punchups with different officers. but I remember going on this up with him now and we went to an area called Cavala Manja. Now, we were a four-man team. Now, I was the RPD gunner. I loved machine guns because, you know, I could kill with this thing now. I loved that. Just something appealed to me.

I was a bit of another. We had a signal, a medic, and Darrow-Wattamos, and four guys. We got into an LUP area, which is a high ground, and we were sitting up on the year, and we're scouting, looking with binoculars. You know, you look for shine. You know, your normal shape, size, spacing, silhouette, shadow, shine, movement.

And we look for this. And as a day got near last light, Darrell came over. He said, listen, I picked up a glint. It was to the west. He said, I picked up quite away from there. Probably about five, seven kilos. I can't remember. He said, we're going to go in there, said.

Mike, you're going with me. So we leave all our heavy kit behind. I've got my just my normal belt webbing on and my RPD. I loved my RPD. I loved it. I could have married our RPD and I just loved the weapon. Anyway, we went down, got into the night, walked, and eventually found vehicle tracks.

Remember, I come out of fire force now. I've got a lot of combat. I'm not scared of fighting. And I'm used to combat now. And Darrell, man, I wish you guys can meet this guy. This guy's as wide as what he's tall. And man, I called him the god of war. Nothing like Darrell was on this planet, man.

Anyway, we're walking and we get to a makeshift boom. And the vehicle tracks are going in. And Darrell's walking. I'm following Darrell. And we walk right into a turf camp. but I think most people who would realize it had turned around

and scamp it in another direction but not Darrell what he just keeps walking now I don't know if we were in the middle of the camp on the side of the camp but we were between the tours I could hear the night sounds

but I had this RPD and I was ready and yeah Darrell is walking beautiful moonlight but a lot of trees in the camp and we walked I don't know maybe 100 meters to get through this camp other side we got to

a cacti bush. Now we're standing in bright moonlight. It feels like I'm standing, you know, under a light, so bright. And he's just listening, and I'm standing and I'm waiting, and I don't know what's going on. And he just does this, and yeah, he goes back on the same way, walking, and all these nights out, and I think, wow. But I didn't, at that stage of the game, I realized we're right in amongst the puppies. But I wasn't actually perturbed because it was Darrell, you know, Darrell, I heard so much about him. I didn't care, you know. A punch up with him wouldn't worry me.

Anyway, we get right through the camp, we moved a long distance on the camp, and we moved up into a high ground. Now, we're sitting on this high ground, and suddenly we hear these rifle shots, these gunshots going off now. I don't know what's going on. I mean, I'm a fire force man, you know? A taxi driver, they're not a Grey Scout, blown up with a bloody landmine. Now I'm sitting in this.

said, it's good, nice combat. And I said, what's that? Daryl says, hunters. I said, hunters. He says, oh, they're going to shoot me, then that. So, I see, would you like to go and take his guys out? I said, oh, fuck, and I'd love it, you know. I'd love it. And he says, okay, let's go. Listen, this sounds like a,

you don't, you won't even see this in a bloody movie, but it doesn't register to me. To me, it's normal, you know? What, I'm just doing what I'm told. And Daryl walks, gets down, he finds, some jumbo spore, elephant's ball, but there's a lot of bush. It's thick, it's Zambia. And he points in that direction.

He says that way. He says, off you go. And I thought, what the hell? Now, I'm walking with the RPD. And I'm walking, I look at my periphery, is about five meters behind me. You know, might as well be walking in town window shopping, man. And I'm walking and in the bush round, and all of a sudden, here come these three chapies.

The one's got some game over his shoulder and that, and yeah, they are. but too late. The advantage was I knew they were there. And Darrell told me, you know, you're going to go kill them. They did not have there. And they went with the guns, but sorry for you, you know, too late. And I got rid of them.

I disposed them very, very effectively. Anyway, we had caused quite a commotion with this machine gun of mine. So we moved to another high ground, and Darrell is sitting up there, wants to see what reaction comes if the camp picked it up because we found the camp now. we got to attack this place. While I'm sitting up there listening

and I look at him, I see him smiling at me. You know? And I say, well, I called him sir. I said, what's it, sir? He says, hey, Wes, did you shit yourself? I said, hold him, you know how close it was? And he gives a little chuckle of his. He just loved it.

Oh, he loved. He just loved it. I mean, it was bloody close, you know. I mean, say there was seven or eight groups, you know, I could have been in quite a fight. But I would have got them. I have gone from, I had a lot of them. Anyway, we moved back to the LUP with the other two guys

with a hop-up with our single-thirty, a TR-48 big radio, mate comes with Salisbury, gives them the whole picture, and we moved about 25 kilos to the south. And then they came and dropped a lot of guys in so we could attack this gap. So it's a lot of slugging, minimum sleep and a lot of walking. But you're not operating. You're an operator.

You're an S-A-S operator. When you pass a S-A-S selection, let me tell you, you are something else. That that is, if you've got five out of a hundred, you've got a hell of a lot of people to get in over there. Because I remember the day when we went to Llewell and Dulloch, a lot of these wannabe puppies around, everybody goes in to get a day off.

Probably about 600 people coming to participate in it. In the end, when it was all over, I think we were seven that made the bloody selection. It's a hell of a story. It's torture. I really do not recommend this to my worst enemy to go and try SAS election. It's not fun. Anyway, we got the lads and we slog all the way back and we attacked the camp and it was absolutely amazing. I mean, I was now in the skirmish line with Darrell and man, we molt these guys. It was absolutely amazing. them. And we did quite a lot of these things, quite a lot of these camp attacks. One of the, I did a lot of camp. Every single camp attack, Dave and Jack, every single camp attack I did in Rhodesia.

I was on every single one. You can read from Mike Rich, he was in the RLI with me, he was in the SES and he was in the RECD with me. And then Daryl Watt, the god of war, is probably the most renowned soldier you can read. You go look what they're right about me. Modern day, you see. No people, no guy's ever been as much combatants. Now, I'm proud of that. You must remember why I'm proud of it.

I'm a bloody, it was a taxi driver. I don't go and do a military training. I mean, this is standard. Yeah. He has this man that was absolutely crazy. You know, you mentioned selection a bit. Can you tell us, We're familiar with like United States selections and even a bit with the British SAS selection.

But can you tell us what it was like in Rhodesian SAS selection? It's happening during a time of war, kind of in a nearer war zone. How did that work? How long was it? Well, we went to an area called the metopus, very mountainous area, a lot of scorpions and gommels, you know, eels. It's sheer torture. Then you've got RV points you've got to make in certain times. You go through what they call a 36-hour rev.

Now, listen, this is really not. This is where most of the people fall out. You know, they got a galvanized bathtub with ice in it and Coca-Cola's and everything in it. And then they ride next year and they run you in the heat of the sun with sandbags and they really give it to you. And they tell you, come on, jump on, man. to the club at night. There was a club called the electric circus in Bulaway. Go and go with the dollies, man, and you see other guys jump on and take the coach. And that's where they lure you on. But it's just hell. You go through a 36-hour red,

no sleep, no food, no water, no shit. You've got bricks. And all you've got to shout the whole time is, I love my instructor, I love selection, I love my brick, and you've got to carry on with us, and they nail you. And they nail you. It's never, it just, doesn't stop. I can't explain it to you. And then at one stage, they line you up in a line, and they come with a salt tablet, I can't remember what they call it, with quinini also for malaria. And you open your mouth, they chuck it in your mouth, and you've got to chew it. Then they got a dirty old bloody kettle, which they get dish from the scullery, they rub these dirty water, and they walk past in the air, just pouring it. And if you get some in your mouth, you're lucky,

and that you're watering. But, man, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is torture. Listen, it's torture. Then they pull another trick on you. When there's 36 hour rev is over, we get a massive log. It must weigh about 300 kilograms. And it's called daffodle. Now daffodil is our supposedly mortitude now.

And we've got to go about 30 kilometers over uneven ground to get to a high point to mortar certain, town on a tourist map and you have to be there at a certain time yeah now this is where the now whilst you're doing this thing this is where you see where the guys start fading then when we get to the end of this

they give every guy a piece of paper and a pencil and you must write down who do you think must go because that's where you see where the guys don't pull their weight there you lose a lot of guys over there there you lose a lot of guys Yeah.

And listen, man, I tell you, I wouldn't, well, I couldn't do it today anymore. I'm 76 years old now. I wouldn't chance it again in my life. I wouldn't even think of it. Listen, it's not meant for everybody. It's a very, very tough game. And then what is beautiful. It prepares you that really, look, let's be honest.

It doesn't matter how tough you and how many selections you pass. if you haven't got it in you to go out there and face people with guns if it's not in you don't do it because that's a different bloody ballgame I mean those people are killing trying to kill you man yeah we landed up in a skirmish line with another guy I had another office and it wasn't Darrell

and I killed my first albino I was so proud of myself he was a machine gunner and I was a machine gunner and I got rid of this guy Allah was chuffed. I hit him fat out from the front, hit his drum, I shot him to be, oh man, you know. Allah felt good. I read a book where, some revision book where they killed an albino. And this, I just felt like a hero.

I killed my first albino. Allah was proud of myself, man. But we went on quite a few of these camp-a-takes, but a very nice one that I call nice. People probably say, I'm stupid, but I don't know. It was nice. It was the Makushy one. Now they were female and males. And what happens is the aircraft go in,

the Canberra's bomb the place, the hunters come in and strike, and then the gunships are up, nailing it with the 20 miles and then us guys coming with the Dakotas and we jump out. But we jump very low. You haven't got much time. If you're shoot malfunctioned, you're dead

because we're jumping too low. But we can't jump high because these puppies. shoot at us. My shoot actually got hit already. You know, with rounds going through it, but it doesn't worry you. Now, with your weapon being stripped, you've got a nine more behind your reserve, which as you come down, you must,

if I'm shooting at you, fight back, but when we jump that low, you're on the ground very quick. I remember heating the deck in Makushi, and I'm on the ground. We scattered all over, and I tell you, and I look up, and I just see this whole lot running towards me, and I got this I powered browning and I'm just going and I actually dropped them with this bloody thing.

But a thing I remember, you know what Dave and Jack, I swear to you, I can see the guy's eyes still today. He had a brownie stripe, looked like an overall, nearly like a SADF, South African defense will type overall. This guy in mid-air turned. He came running at me, saw him and he turned in mid-air, but I double-tapped him and I put him away. So with a nine more, while we're on the gun, some guys are stuck in trees. You don't know where the hell you have. It's a very dangerous game.

And it can break your, one guy even broke a neck once, Keith Clitty. So it's a hell of a dangerous game. So you get your machine gun off or whatever weapon you got. Once you've got that in your hand, man, and you form that line. Now the K-Car, which is your commander,

the ops commander, guides the skirm, lines now from the K-car and then we move through the camp and we nail these guys. And listen, there's out. We're always outnumbered, man. 10,000 to 200 of us or we've hopelessly outnumbered, but we're S-S. We are men. These are men. And it's a different caliber of man that you've got to people, I see so much and hear so much.

But you've got to experience. being with the RLI and the SEL. I've never seen fighting force. I don't even believe anything like it exists on the planet. It is unbelievable the amount of people we take on, the trenches we take on, the mountain fire we take it, how we beat them at their own game. It's unbelievable, but you know how you do it,

if you've got the right teacher. I'm so glad I had Darrell Watt around me most of the time. Because Darrell Watt, I don't know, that guy just didn't stop him. He was, oh, man, I wish people could meet this guy. This is the type of guy I'd like to have up on a world stage and tell people about this guy. Oh, man, what our operator.

Anyway, we sweep through these camps. It was quite a good outfit. And the one officer, Colin, was there next to me. And we very staggered the line because the ground and everything. And he walked past a massive branch, which obviously got blown up with the explosion with one of the planes with a bomb strike. and I was behind him about five meters. As I was coming on, I see this movement, and I yank his branch away,

he has one of these gooks with the SKS at his back, and I yanked the SKS out, and I double-tap it in the head. Well, he said, thank you, but he was a goner, eh? He was as dead as can be. But that was fun. But anyway, some guys have a lot of actions, some don't. You know, you know what I love about this guy. You can be three meters from another guy.

You don't know what war is fighting. Right. You can be taking more, and bring a duet. It's just an unbelievable experience. Yeah. And that kind of smell of cordite and the napalm and, oh, man, it's another game. And we sweep through this camp and we, I mean, we really floor this lot. And we get to the other side.

Are we standing over there while we go to the other side? we see a hell of a lot of these Zambian troops coming with steel helmets and all that. And we watch him coming and we wait, we wait, let him come. But there's a riverbed down at the bottom with reeds and everything out because that's where their water was. And as they got closer, we opened up and we slotted a lot of these guys. So they take cover there and they're opening up from the lower ground at us now.

And I'm just going to say, Graham told us, calling us, listen, guys, go around and hit them from the flank, you know. And so we go around and we come up on the side of these guys. Man, you can actually see the white in their eyes. We mowed these puppies to pieces. We took them apart, man. We really, really took. But they had a doctor with him with white hair, which I think was, could have been a German.

I don't know what, but we couldn't find this puppy. He died into the river somewhere. We were lobbing him to grenades into the water to try and, you know, to get him out, we couldn't find the guy. But that was a, oh, it was an awesome bloody operation. As with all the others, you know, there were many of them. And there were absolutely, if anybody once experienced, of war going to a camp-a-day, man, wow, what an experience.

And I've done so many of them, mate. It was absolutely beautiful. Let's talk about a little bit about how, like, the latter part of your SAS career and how like the war wound down for you personally and went into the next thing? The SAS career over there,

Jack, you know what happened? While I was in the SES, you know, I was always I was action hungry. We were going to do bounty hunting. So the Redidia Tobacco Association would hire us and give us a thousand round to kill

if you kill a cook, which you don't get from. the army so i put a four-man team together and we go to the merrimand area to hunt these turds now you must remember this is ridiculous this area is liberated with turs the farming areas and we haven't got enough troops on the ground so we go we do bounty hunting for money but now we fall chapies and you're taking on unbelievable odds anyway we went into this area we stayed at the farm the night we deployed four o'clock the morning i got onto the the Mavradona mountain to his eye

and I was watching a keep. And I saw somebody come out, shake the guard force guy, but the guard force were friends with the tears, man. Because, obviously, because they would kill their family. Yeah. And the guy came down, down, and he disappeared in the valley down beneath the mountain.

And I said, we got them. So I leave the guys up there with four guys in the LUP, the lying up place on the hill. And I take Mark with me, and we go down to go and see where the hell let this guy go. Anyway, we work our way down, and we got into an area that looked like a holiday resort, man. But the way the rock formations were, it was absolutely amazing.

But there were no tours there, but we can see it was a holding come. And so Mark puts up four claymores, puts up a banker claymores over there, well-concealed, you know? And we move back now to go back up the thing down, but halfway up, yeah, we hear this. Listen, that valley, the mountains, that's a hell of a puppy game off over there. So I get on the small men and I call the other John Barry and the Gill guy,

I said, hey, guys, come down. We've got the groups. You mustn't let them get away. You know, we want the money. So they come down, but now it's getting dark and it's starting to rain. It's really raining. And we're moving down. You've never seen such rocky area in your life.

And trees, it's unbelievable. Down this saddle, like we call it, going down. and we're moving down, moving down, and a hell of a long distance up through a gap, I see two guys carrying a guy on the stretcher, and I'm pointing, and I'm showing we must go, and all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose, and a firefight breaks out.

So I've got the LMG with me, the LMG, I love my machine gun, and I'm pumping lead, and I hear on my left flank, I'm hit, I'm hit, I'm hit, and I recognize John's voice. A very good friend of mine. He was the godfather of my daughter. Very good friend of mine. Under 19 Redisian rugby player, a brilliant guy.

Anyway, I get over to him. Yeah, he's lying. Now, you can't drag him. He's through the midriff now. And we're in the ship, though. There's a big shift. And it's dark. It's raining, coming down.

And he's now wounded. So what happened is I caught him. So I kneel behind his body and I fire over his body, which is the only thing I could do. But he's screaming. because he's in pain. So I take my face veil of my neck and I stick it in his mouth.

And John was the medic, and he left the MA3 pack behind in the LUP when I called them down because he rushed down. So we had no morphine. We had nothing. We only had sossagon. And each operator carries

of soseagon and a bomb bandage. So all I could do, I hit John both sosagons, couldn't patch him up. It was too much blood. Those bomb bandages could nothing. So I'd fought over his body and I stayed there for the whole night.

but it's raining now and it's cold and it's miserable and slowly but surely life was running out all I could do the best thing you can do for any guy in combat is give him hope now we knew there's no support when you go and down town thing nobody supports you on your own and I just kept telling the choppers on the way chopper which was alive because I knew John was dying anyway he died anyway the next day we mowed the trees down with the lmg the choppers came the loafers came they low the John's body and we had to go back to the joint operations command at Metopus, gave them the whole story what happened. They ferry us back to Salisbury. And remember I conducted, now, you know what I didn't mention there? I conducted the illegal operation as a troopie,

no rank, and I took guys into war and I lost a qualified operator. Now when I get back, I can't explain to it. It's dead quiet. I see. other SAS guys standing, but everybody's dead quiet, and I've got to go over to the main block to the head office, and they tell me to stand out, and the RSM comes over, says, wait, yeah. And then he comes and he doubles me in now. I just walk. I thought the hell with you, man.

You guys unbuck me. And they take me in front of a, it was like an L formation in front of me, with these officers. Remember, these guys are all qualified operators, right? Yeah. Qualified operator. But the worst thing what I did, while John was dying

he was suffering he asked me to get him out of pain and I was teaching John to fight because I liked the old fist and I was eating downward and I damaged his whole jaw and this was on the report as well now I land up in front of these guys man did they give it to me

I was the biggest load of crap under the sun they gave it to me they chased me out the RSM screaming I just walked they got the hell with you man I wait outside, they called me back. And then they said to me, what happened to his jaw? And I told him what happened.

Then they said, oh, why did you hide behind his body and take cover behind his body? I said, no, I did what I had to do. I mean, it was on the downslope. I was fighting over his body. I wasn't lying. I said I was kneeling and fighting. What am I supposed to do? It was a hell of a debate.

They chased me out there. And I thought they were going to get rid of me. Because, I mean, I lost a qualified operator conducted illegal operation. Nothing happened. When I looked again, I became a Lance Corporal in the SAS. Oh, it was tough. Then I was a corporal.

When I looked again, I went on the sergeant's card at RLI. I became a sergeant. You know what it used to be a sergeant in the SS? Probably the same as a general in the other bloody army, man. It's a hell of a achievement. But anyway, I mean, big shit with that. So Darrell comes to me wondering, and he says, you want to go bounty hunting? I said,

yeah. He says, okay, this guy, you know, it's unbelievable. It was a mission over there in the Merrimount area. Now, we were in the Mount Darwin with that previous one with my crap I had. Now we're going to the Merrimand, which is also a liberated area. We've got a whole lot of guys

and off we go to combat again. No backup. Darrow what taking us this time. Yeah, what a bummer. And anyway, we moved into that. But there's a lot of tears there. hell of a lot of tears. And we moved on to this high ground. We could physically watch the BASAP guys chatting to the turst from

the high ground. Obviously their families, you know, so they feed them and they don't trouble them. I don't report them. Anyway, when we look again, that comes a little black guy. We call them Mujibas. They walk with the goats and that, and then they look for spore.

Now, they must have picked up something on this high ground because they sent this Mujiba up against the high ground. And as he got to a certain point, the guys grabbed him and held him. Now we know we got shit. Because, I mean, the tours are waiting for the Mijiba, and he doesn't come back. Right. When we looked again, along comes a skirmish line.

I don't know how many was a hell of a lot, coming up with yield to attack us. So Darrell simply says, hold on. This shows, wait, right, right, right, wait. He initiate. Darrell always initiates. And we wait and we wait. And these groups, I reckon about 50 meters or whatever. and Darrell double taps and takes the one guy out

and we open up and we take this lot out. But there was a lot of them. So Darrell Watten says, attack. So, of course, we jump up and we run at these guys now. This crazy stuff, but, you know, we do it. And I'd never forget the, I had the chopper pilot's name. He was flying, then Darrell got a chopper to come at, which we'd not like they had.

But the Allo came out, a gun ship with a G-car with Brownings on. And they're flying head now got a small mean. and I got the op-ed and I'm running them, I'm firing. And that's where I got the name of Audi Murphy. I felt proud of myself. But anyway, was this punch-up, that punch-up, we went through, we didn't get the groups, a lot of civvies were shot there. It was a hell of a thing.

We are not totally blown, but we want to still take them on. So we've got to get out because we don't know where they've scattered to. So that all says we're getting guard force to come and take us out with a vehicle. So God Force came there with a kudu. It's a funny-looking vehicle and a crocodile. And the whole lot of us bailed on the crocodile, down on the kudu in front, and we're driving out. Now, these groups were, hey, man, they're aggressive.

So they set up an area with a gorynob. That's that machine gun who shoots a 760 by 54 round, same as a sniper rifle, a big weapon, but on fixed firing line. And they set this weapon up, and RPG7's waiting for us, and unbeknown to us, yeah, we're going. And as we got to a certain point, they said, how's it, lady? and I'm sitting with my back against the cat, my head lying back, you know, relaxing. And this RPG 7, 30-centimeter, it enters and blows the driver to smother rings.

And of course, eardrums gone again, but the shrapnel hits me, hits my weapon. You may see how my RPD look. Doesn't hit me again, much the same as a landmine. Throws me to the ground, we come up, and they're pumping us with the Gordinoff. Fortunately, it was set on wheels and it hit just below the lip. otherwise none of us who have survived it. Anyway, we opened up fire, we jumped off Daryl Dobb Mortars, and we managed to repel them.

And then that's when they abducted all those nuns and that from the Merrimand Nation and all that. Once again, all over, we get back to Soulsbury. I won't even use the language that offers looked at me and he said, you are such a, don't you ever bloody learn? I didn't learn, you know. It's just the way I was. I just liked it.

Look, I know it's stupid, but I enjoyed it. I don't say you don't shift yourself at times. Look, it gets difficult out there. Have you ever had rounds coming? You guys got to experiment out closer. It sounds like popcorn, man. Yeah. Now, I could never describe it.

My friend, Blackie from 3Dipatillion said, oh, like popcorn. I said exactly that. I've been under that on numerous times. But anyway, this whole thing went, and everything came then, oh, to end it, what Jack, you were asking, how to tape it down. Look at it was a hell of a lot.

I can carry on all night. I can talk a whole week to you guys. And I don't need book and I don't need to make notes. Dates, yes, but not heirs. I know my thing. This is my game. I loved it. We got to a stage over there when they decided that we must pop McGarby.

And who do they select? elect for the job, Darrow-Watan Mike West. Off we go. We had a team that helped us and we had this culvert under the road, this pipe, and we packed us with T and T and all because he was coming back from a rally and we packed all this and we're going to take his puppy out. Must remember, had we taken this

democratically elected first black guy of a country take him, we would have been strung up, we'd have been given away, I can promise you now. Yeah. But something went wrong. I don't know what went wrong. I've read a lot of things afterwards. Our detonation went off in front of the vehicle, and we missed him.

Now, we couldn't miss. I can tell you now we couldn't miss, but we didn't, we ever set it off. There was an aircraft flying, a tell star. We know something went wrong there. All the books I've read, you know, they talk about this, how there's this contingency plan to kill Mugabe after the election. But they all say that that operation never went forward. So, like, I'm hearing this for the first time

that something didn't go forward. Oh, no, it did. No, that was a very serious thing. Wow. We really had it. And now, Darrell and I, after that, we're running for our lives. And guess what happens? A bloody Kekaw with a 20 million air right above us.

What the hell is this? You know? So we, well, obviously, we're old soldiers, you know. So we're ducking and diving in this K car circling us with a 20 more. Now, we read an article a little while lately when the guy said, Mike and that all my guns were cold. I don't know. I have to accept it.

But we had to escape and evade out of there. And we managed to get to the point that we arranged with. Vehicle picked it up. We washed us, changed our clothes, and we ride into a BSAP roadblock. But we've thrown everything out the window between. We've got a dolly driving Joe and a dog. driving the car with a cover story. They stop and they ask questions.

They look around the car. And I see this guy look in the car and he looks at the back and he looks at Daryl. And you could see he knew Daryl was. He just went like that and said you can go. And off we went. And we got away with that one, mate. Oh, man. But I'm telling you, had we succeeded and we killed Mugabe, they don't know this.

Because afterwards it came out, he was behind it. Then we had another temp. I think it was Borod. When we went by his house, we're going to kill him. and then General Walls called we had him in the house he was dead I'm telling he was dead

I could have run fixed baynets and we killed him they stopped us and he survived that one as well that was an was an unbelievable war but there was so much combating

yeah yeah it's interesting too I mean that was pretty early on from Ugabit before a lot of the heinous stuff right

well I mean I mean well I mean well It was Zipra and some of the other groups were pretty bad from what they did to the villagers. Oh, yeah. When he came to power, obviously, he brings a dictatorship and things go south. Yeah.

Yeah, it was another story that. So tell us about how you left Rhodesia and how you entered the South African Defense Force. Okay, but being my quest now, I got up to some other bullshit again. I got arrested by murder and robbery squad. Dave Anderson, and I got locked up. Well, anyway, I appeared in court there, and the money that I was going to commute was taken away and blah, blah, and all that. And I had to go back to the cop station of it.

Now, I missed out on the last photos of the SAS and everything, and I missed out on the last thing. When I got back here, Dave, look, he knew I was, and knew the S. He said to me, listen, giving you 24 hours, get out of this bloody country because I'm going to lock you up. So I gapped it. Now, I took a, by the time I got to the border, I was scared they're going to rest if I go through customs.

So I took a, got a dugout. Now that's not a, man, what an uncomfortable thing to row across. And they're crocodiles, hey? And anyway, I got in this dugout and I rode across. Got across the Lumpopo, got to the other side, jumped out, and I must have fell this deep into the bloody water, man, with my bag, because I, hitched. I got out the other side, stripped down and had to dry my clothes off, you know, because I'm a mess now.

Eventually, I got this all done and I headed for Pretoria. Now, the whole S-A-S had now come down to South Africa because June 1980, everybody had to get out. Mike West left behind again with all his nonsense, you know. Anyway, I get to this Space Corps, Special Forces, Head Office. They know the Redisians come down at a port over there. I go and see them, I tell them who I am, and I asked him if they can help me with a lift to get me to Durban.

They tell me now I must sort my own shit out, you know? Then I said, can you offer me some accommodation for the night? Because I look like I over there. They said, no, you must go. So I left and I went and slept in a lot of blue gum trees for the night, and the next time I'm on the road, and I hitched and I got to Durban. Now, that same Rob Johnson, who was in this election with me, who didn't want me there.

When I arrived, they called me over, and he said to me, if it was in my powers, Mike West, he said, I'd get rid of you right now, down now, right now, get rid of you. Because I've had enough of your shit. But he couldn't, because now I belong to the SADF. Well, then I saw my family. It drove me down with a bus to a man some totey,

saw my family again after a very, very long time. Next day, I've got uniform. Now I've got browns on. I didn't like browns. Not a uniform that appealed to me. Didn't look for the part. You know, I mean, we wear camouflage. You know, camouflage is all over the world.

It's a beautiful, it's warm, man. Anyway, we've got our group photos taken. Now we've become six recies. The Philistines they call us. Can I take a minute break? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Mike. Yeah, one minute. Yeah, go ahead.

And I'll be right there. Guys, I just want to tell folks out there about this book I have coming out December 9th. We Defy. It is the lost chapters of special. forces history so it's not a huge tome it's going to be about 220 pages five chapters that cover detachment a in berlin detachment k in k in korea green light the guys that jumped in with backpack nukes blue light the first counterterrorism team and the commanders in extremist force or the five chapters of the book it's up for pre-order right now you can find a link down in the description

um it's just the kindle version for pre-order the paperback uh amazon won't let me set up pre-orders, unfortunately. But the paperback will be released the same date as the Kindle version of it December 9th. So appreciate it if you guys check it out. And check out Mike's book. Mike West, Special Forces Super Soldier. It's a fantastic, like the stories he's telling, they're all in here and more. They go deep. There's some great photos in here. It's quite an adventure. Yeah. I mean, you've heard the interview so far. It's an insane story. But great and fascinating.

And then on, what's that, Dan? I was going to say, also our Patreon. Yeah, check out our Patreon. There's a link down in the description to that. If you subscribe, it's $5 a month. You support the channel, and we really appreciate it. You also get access to all of these episodes ad-free, both the podcasts, our sister podcast, Eyes On, also on there.

You'll get all that stuff ad-free. And on Monday, we're going to have John Daley, who was one of the guys who helped stand up Marsok, I believe. I know he was in Detachment One, because I'm reading the book now. So we'll have him on Monday. And then on Friday, I believe it's Joe Musia, who wrote Cry Havoc about the Rangers that jumped into Grenada in 83. So that's kind of what's coming at you guys next week. Mike, all good? Yeah, sorry about that.

Yeah, no worry. It's not a long stretch. Yeah, it's a long show. I took a bit of coffee tonight to keep me awake, you know. It's all good. So you landed in six reckey, and tell us a little bit more about, like, the integration, because there's a culture clash happening here, too, between Rhodesia and South Africa. Like, they were different countries, different military communities, right?

Yeah, what happened? was in the late 60s, Colonel Jan Breitenberg came down to Redizien, came to see what the SAS was about. And then he came back to South Africa, and they started this Rekkees story. Then they sent a lot of guys up with 10 of the selection. And then they came back and they formed the reconnaissance, the Rekis. Now, the Rekis, remember Redis was 22 SAS, C squadron. So when the Rekis were finished with the selection,

they sent them up to Redis. and they came to us as D squadron, and we took them into war, and that's how they learned. And it was a fantastic relationship between us and these guys. He got on famously. However, when we came down in June 1980,

and we got here, it's a total different ballgame, they wanted nothing. It just turned out to be absolute animosity, and it's no nonsense. This is fact. You can hear it all over, from any goal to anywhere, how bad it was.

It was a very bad story. But we hung around and we stayed one side. We didn't attend their parades. Because every morning they have church parades. They pray. Their boots are polished. They meet you know, we're ruffians. We come out of a, you must remember we come out of a full-scale war.

This is like a part-time war, man. You know, they didn't have the war we had. That's why they came to us for war. Anyway, so it carried on, carried on. And we were very fortunate. operation came up in Mozambique called Matola. There was ANC nests, houses out there that were causing problems from. There was quite big puppies from the ANC.

I'm not going to mention names that's in the books, but they were at these targets. And there was three different targets we have to hit. So they decided that six Rekhi, which is the Redisians, are going to hit two targets, and the Rekis are going to hit one target. And so we all traveled, did a lot of rehearsals in empty buildings and the normal old crap preparation. Excuse me. Then we went down to Gomartipur, just outside the border fence.

We sat in the bush, and we got all our things ready over there. The unfortunate part was just we had timings. Remember everything goes about timings yet. And as we were about to go, the old Dwarmanie or past the pictures up, And he wants to deliver a sermon, which was the wrong time for this type of stuff. And this guy sort of got carried away or felt important, and he just elaborated on this.

And man, this was annoying. By the time he decided to wrap up this loaded stuff he was busy with, we had to rush off now, we're late now. Cut the fences, we're going through, and we got lost on the way. Oh, this is beautiful, man. Now, we dress exactly like Frulimo in their uniforms, weapons, vehicles, and we're driving on their roads and driving, and we get lost.

So we drive right into a Frulimo base camp on the boom. He has a guy on the boom. Yeah, we stop. Now, we got a guy with the name of Quiroz. It was a Malta for Mozambique. I think it was Mozambique or Angola. But he was a Malate. And he could speak the lingo.

And he's in a BRDM, that armed personnel can. He's standing up and he's crapses his go. guy out on the boom and the guy jumps to attention, salute him, and he gives him hell over there. You untidy and I don't know what all. And they're carrying on. And he asks him directions. And this guy's telling him where and what and what. And the whole convoy follows.

And we all turn right in front of the boom. The enemy, man. You know how big these bases are? There's brigades over there, man. And we drive right past and we go to our respective targets. Now I'm going to start with our target. this youngster Mike Rich from the RLI, who was in the SAS with me as well.

What I love about Mike Rich, you can read it in my book. Even when he was in the SES, now he knew me in the RLI, when he was in the SAS and he had to go in operation, he'd say, I want Mike West. You know, it was just a beautiful thing.

And Darrell Watt wanted me, and he wanted me, so I was in combat. And I loved that, and I felt actually important that these people wanted me. Anyway, we with Mike Ritchin, we're head for our target. We've got a 20-mill east Pano, old, the thing is he had them on aircraft, 20-mill, and we drive to our target,

and we had by like 30 metres of a pathway down towards the house, and we're in the gas, and it stops, and our gunner opens up with this 20-mill at the house now. We killed a lot of guys with that insight. We read afterwards. So myself, Dave, very Frank, telling me myself, we run at this house now, because, I mean, the puppies are going to shoot at us, you know?

Everybody tries to kill everybody there. Anyway, we get to the doorway and we've got to get this door open. Now, the guy on the 20-mole has got a borderline. He couldn't overshoot, but he obviously overshot with a 20-mall. And whatever is shrap, either from the round or whatever, I'm right against the wall. We've got to get close to the wall because, I mean, there's left-flight. And this thing goes right through me, man.

It just skinned me. And Dave is sitting in it hits him. the leg, takes him out in the middle, and Franks on the other side. So Dave's a big puppy now, he's a heavy guy. And I grab Dave and I run for the vehicle. And while I'm running with Dave to the vehicle, I'm telling you,

that piece of shit, you know, and you're telling him, ah, West, and we, you know, a lot of humour, man. It doesn't matter. We had humour because we're from S-A-S, you know. Dumped him on the vehicle, run back. Frank and I, bridge the house, we get inside. While we're in setting up

a massive crate of plastic explosion, with safety fuse, I hear something coming, and I loved it. Whatever that was is history, you understand? He went to the happy hunting grounds. They tried to get out. A set of the explosives, and then we all drove back and went to Comariti Purt. But what happened was on the other target, just briefly, I wasn't there. Three SAs guys died.

They landed up in a hell of a battle. They had a bigger target than us. They were more guys, a bigger team, and they had the bigger house. I wouldn't mind if I was on that one, because it was more firing over there. But three guys died. And the one guy landed up. He had a can of fuel with him, which was a reason for burning and had to destroy. And a white fos went off.

And he set the light. He got heat as well. Got shot. Fell down next to a car. The fuel ignited by this car. And he was a ball of flame. So after all this punch up and everything, now you can't hang around. long on the target because remember now Frilema is coming right you know when all these

weapons got the troops come so they get an order to withdraw after a certain amount of the destruction and they drive away and he stayed behind in the fire they couldn't do anything about it that was quite a quite a bad so they found helmets and it was in newspapers and all that but after that operation when we got back one Rekie apparently blew there's away with a 106 The Royal Coilus blew it away, we hit ours and they hit it. There was a lot of slonger about us again. And it caused so much crap and arguments.

You can't believe these were our friends. They came to Rhodesia. We trained these guys, not me. But I went into war with them. I mean, they are as a result of us. That's where they come from. but they had no time for us. And our guys had enough of these guys

and their parades and they're praying and their flag raising ceremonies and listen, this is not our cup of tea. We're bloody soldiers, but... And the guys cadetal and they go in all directions. They had a very good idea. They had a good chance to go to other places now.

I could have gone to Paris, like I said, I could have gone to Lebanon. I had a lot of chance, choices, places I could go. But I decided I just loved war. I just loved Golda. I don't know what it did. I just love. out that I decided to stay on.

Fortunately me I stayed on because for some reason or the other they, these we went on a lot of it. Look, one wrecky where we were at this stage, there's a special forces outfit.

They are not cannon for it. Their job is to penetrate deep behind enemy lines via strike craft submarine and destroy enemy installations and so bug up the economy. That was their task. Now, Frank Dunny from Australia, oh, what a brilliant guy, what a soldier, well, was a boxer as well.

Him and I sort of landed in favour and we seemed to get this job, and we would go out on these things, and we loved it, man. It was bloody awesome. It hasn't got the action and the shooting and that, but you sneak into refining, his place explosives, blow it up, sneak out. It's all right, but it's not that exciting like being in combat, you know. You got to do some submarine submarines?

Sorry? You got to do some submarine instructions? Yes, one. One. But what happens with these things? You must remember us guys in Rhodesia. Fact of the matter. From everything we went through,

our eardrums were gone, perforated. We don't have, our ears on a very bad way. So when we get on this, we call them Kochpuckets. These Slycroft were from Israel, brilliant combat fight gun ships, these little combat ships. Beautiful stuff, but they pop around like a cork on the ocean. Anyway, when we're going up, it becomes a coach bucket, because whatever you've got goes out, goes out.

You can't keep it in. But we landed on numerous, some very nice ones, you know. And I want to recall two of them for you guys. Please. Quite interesting one. The one was called Operation. candlelight. Kerstlach, candlelight. And

the whole group we had to go in and blow this and finally up. But the small teams had gone in, photographed the place. It was about a hundred meters clearance all around, spotlights up, guard towers, fences around the thing. We had to get to this and go

and blow it. So we got to the area and we were crawling hands and knees over this open area, got to the fence, cut and we went in. Now Frank and I were left on the fence because of the patrols. If anybody come where to kill them. And these other guys had these explosive devices

to go put on the tanks. Now, something went seriously wrong. Yeah. While they were in there, they were placing these devices on the tanks, which I've got a delay switch. When you pull the pin, we get out, we get back to the strikecroft, we're out in the ocean, and kabum, you know, everything goes.

but the one team when the guy pulled the pin vaporized and the two other guys with him were about five meters away from him all around the fence they made it and he was gone there was absolutely bugger all left of him logically

but anyway while we're on the fence we see this one guy running screaming like a he didn't know his ass from his elbow you never stayed but he didn't know where he's going but they screamed and got him and said, what's going, he said,

the other guy is lying over there. So two guys went with him, and they went and picked him up, and they brought him out to the fence. Now, I want to tell you guys, I mentioned it in my book, and I mentioned on the podcast of Fighting Men of Rhodesia. I've got to mention this.

It's very important to him. There's a lot of these things, and I feel quite offended by it. when we now got the wounded guy to the fence, we are now stranded in a refinery, guard tower was up in spotlights. Behind enemy lines. Getting given guys out of that thing without dying.

So the commander said, what the hell now? And I said, bugger you? Now I had a 40mm M79 grenade launch. You know the old grenade launch, the M79. And I thought, bugger this. And I walked out into the light,

knelt at the guard tower with the M7.9. I thought, look, I would have called him. Now, the tank had gone up. Now, don't have he had fallen down or where this puppy was, but he didn't shoot, and the team ran out, and I showed him going. Now sat with this M-SEN line, walked backwards, and we got away.

And then we got help the wounded guys, got them, got back to the strike-croft, got on the strike-croft. Whilst we're on the strike-crop, this candlelight happens. That's massive eruption goes up. the refinery goes, beautiful sightieste.

I wish I had a camera to take a photo there. The one guy comes over to me, he says to me, why did you do that? You could have died. I said, how were you supposed to get out of the refinery? You know,

I didn't do it because I thought it's a bloody year. I did it because that's what you do, you know? Get back. Medal parades, all the guys go for medals, everybody gets medals, the guys who went and picked up the wounded guy got these high numerous crooks medals, high decorations.

When the refinery goes off, there's fire. Nobody runs in a refinery. Nobody will go and refine the very dangerous area. There was no danger. You could have sent your mother-in-law there to pick up the guy. There's no danger. I'm telling you now,

I don't give a damn what people say when a refinery goes up, nobody runs around inside its death. Anyway, all decorated. Frank, who's with me, gets decorated, but nothing happens to me. I get nothing. I thought, what's going on here? Six months later, they decorate me for just the same medal as the other guy. But nothing of bravery. I took the liberty. There's a book written Einfuss from the Siege

about this operation. We have it right over there. You read it? Yeah. And I spoke to the, you see the author's names on the thing. go. Last book right there on the corner. That's a black one. Yep, that's it. Take it down? Yeah.

Yeah, by, and I apologize for not being very good at pronouncing the South African names. No, that's not the Einfuss from the sea, the one that I've got. Yeah, from Dow Sten and Arne Soderland. Yeah, those are the same guys, but it's different than my book. My book's got a different cover. I'm on the front cover of the other book. This might be a UK edition,

which is why it looks a little different. The one we got is I'm on the front cover with the team. Oh, really? And I phoned this guy and I say, Tim, listen then, why didn't you mention, I asked him outright because I felt quite offended because afterwards, you know, why didn't you mention that I put my life on the team? He said, well, they had to write the book.

out of the archives and he just forgot to mention it. I said, okay, no problem. Clean forgot that a person went and put your life on the line to save a team and they just gone green yet to forget it. They didn't like me. Not him, but the big guy at the base camp didn't like me. I just didn't like me

being the Englishman from Rhodes. I said, listen, I wasn't fallen on my mouth. I wasn't the most disciplined soldier or whatever. I could be able. bit of a problem. You understand? I was a bit different than most people because I was really different. I grew up in a very violent life and I was just different.

And they had a little bit of animosity towards me. But we land up on a, I've got to tell you this one, we land up on a it was called Operation Keg. This was in Angola Mossamedes Harbor. Now there's

two bridges that have to be blown. This is a massive operation. So whilst we preparing for this operation at the place at Longabon in the Cape with the four-recky guys because they were going to take us in. We went to the pub over there called the

Tropicana but and I don't drink, you know, but I had a, I don't know, I must have had a bit of beer in it, but anyway we my friend pulled, pulled the one civvy down, thumbed him a bit and then we went over some skirmish and some guy came out and made a comment

and I decked him and but when I hit him his teeth went into my fist, you know, in his teeth. That wasn't that. Anyway, he landed up in the garden. I planted him. We finished the operation, but my hand started to get stiff because the tooth went into the bloody bone. And I had to

get tetanus injection, but I can't close my hand. But I wasn't going to miss out on this bloody operation, you know. Anyway, we had rope ladders. We were carrying a hell of a lot of explosives. We were very, very laden down. And we had to go over very rocky ground. We had to use rope

ladders to climb over things. It was difficult. And I was winging it with one end, much like Rambo, you know, to do it. But I wanted to be on the office. It was a very difficult op, but it was enjoyable. We got to the bridge and everything on the ground, when you get orders, nothing on the ground is the same as what you do in the office. That doesn't work at way. And when we got the small teams that had been there, they'd photographed the target,

but the main guy with the explosives, we all got advanced demolitions, and you name it, all this stuff, but this guy set up to do the explosives on the bridges. This target was a totally different ballgame, and it took longer to set up the explosives. So by the time, we had to be back on the Strycroft, out on the sea, and then the bridges had to go. What happens?

We're late, and we make our way back, and the sun is coming up. Now, we're on the beach, and the Kevlar boats are coming in to pick us up now. Now it's not low-tied anymore, because we're late. Now it's high-tight. And it's rough. And the one of the boats tip over when the guys were getting on, they lose their weapons of weather. Look, we're in big crap here.

And right in the harbor, Mossamedi's harbor, is this, what did they call it, a Russian gunboat. Man, you must see this thing. It's in the book. I talk about it. A caveo. I don't know what, but it's a big puppy. Where a hell of a lot of troops are like that.

But yeah, we are. Okay, so now we are. We on the bay the main command of the beach standing on the beach we are all in the ocean swimming trying to get on

some guys are half drowning I grabbed the one guy with my damage hand and I pulled him up you got him on the boat and while we're battling all this there the bridges go daylight he dies in he swims

you get him out but now we're overloaded and the back the transit sinks into the water and the engine cuts up and then we stuck on the ocean and what happens? Here's the enemy right by us. We did, man, all captured. You know what our luck was that you found it afterwards? The night

before, the commander or whatever of the battle cruiser gave the toothed off to go and have fun with the ladies and get tanked up and everybody went on surely and they were out. And when the bridges went and the alarms went off

these guys were still caught to their pens down. and we are a chance to get away. So the strikecroft came in, came and got us and got us out. Yes, we were all goneers over there. But that was our operation to talk about. I'll tell you, that was, you know, see now the guys were sinking,

the guys, it was a dangerous story. High tide, heavily laden guys in the water, sinking, pulling guys over. Man, it was like a mad magazine, was something else. But that's something to remember. It was really, yeah, something beautiful to remember.

You have gone through that. It was absolutely amazing. Was that sort of the tail end of your SADF career? I mean, how did you kind of finish out your military service? No, yes. My military career slid, you still went absolutely crazy, man. Really? I spent up to nine months here.

I was a very busy guy. And these guys specialized in these deep penetrations, which I was part of, but other little operations would come up in southwest Africa, we had a base cap of the name of Fort Reb where they kept captured Swap, which you would turn and would go to, and they would send me up to do ops over there.

I was busy. And I spent a lot of time away, and whilst I was away, things went wrong at home. All right. And when I got back, I heard about it, and I lost five. Look, the normal procedures,

everything's got to follow military rules, not me. I had a pair of hands, you understand? I used myself. And I landed up. And what happened was, there was a ruckus in town where the Strycroft had problems at a pub.

And the guys left and said, we're going to bring the guys and we're going to flatten this pub. So when he left, they got all these bounces together with patterns and everything waiting for this lot to come. And who arrived?

Mike West and his two buddies, he arrived there. And one of our guys, real asshole has trouble with the city in a fight, breaks and we go out and what happens there's a lot of people come out of there with patterns. I get

pumbled, I've got a crack skull, broken lip, broken nose lying in Addington hospital like, and a car hit me and I was in the hell of a state but you couldn't get me down. I still got out. They decided then I was very angry so I started to hunt these guys down and somebody

went and chirped by the commander what I was busy with and they decided listen this king is a nutcase So they sent me to the psychiatrist in Pretoria. The guy's name was Phil Meyer, was ahead of this. And they questioned, they got these little flip charts, and what do you see and what do you see, and all this type of crap. Anyway, I go through all this nonsense.

I get locked up in the Unita Ward where the wounded guy was. I go for runs. I threatened the military police. I was a bit of a problem. And they declare me a Jekyll and Hyde, a nutcase. And they send me back. And when I go back to the MP, the military police get on the

bloody train with me, which is the biggest mistake. They've never done that. I walked in their compartment. If you ever saw a mummy, you should have seen those guys. I would have flattened them. But not one move. I was very angry with these vases. You know, I hate being tailed like this. Anyway, I get back. I picked in the station. He says to me,

Andre is waiting for you. That's the command. I'm not going to mention. He's not a commander. I'm not going to mention. A commander's waiting. and he wants to see you. Get back there, walking his office, he says, Mike, we've got a lot of trouble up and dang. We want you to go out there tomorrow. We're taking you down to Watercliff, flying in those guns,

sorted out fast. I said, no problem, man, because, you know, I like it. Get to my house, my house is empty. Curtains in the room, everything is gone. And my clothes in the cupboard. Wife and kids, everybody gone. I said, yeah, what's it going on? Yeah.

I realize that's big shit. Anyway, next day they fly me down to water, Watercliff, they fly me to Andangba. Swap a base now. Get over there, walk in this guy, salute this puppy. It just tells me, you're not going back to South Africa.

You're stationed there permanently. I said, but what about my family? I couldn't understand what's going on? Says, no my problem. Get ready. We deploy you. Just arrived there with my war trunk and everything. No orders.

Get my gear on everything. They load me up in a cast for one of these armoured view. when it's dark and they drive me out into the bush. I don't know what's going on. Nobody says nothing. They're obviously very chees off with me. The gates, the doors open the back gate. I've got to jump out, off goes the vehicle.

I'm standing in the dark. I have four of these captured swap will come, Sacramento and I know the guys. And they come and they show me, we go to the LUP, the lying-up place, and we sleep there for the night. Now I'm lying there. I am so confessed.

I mean, I went to all this, crap at the military hospitals and I was declared in a nut case. Then I get sent over here. Then I'm told them not going back to South Africa. They don't care about my family. I'm thrown in the bush with no orders. You mean you're something seriously wrong. Fort to the next day about half, seven, eight o'clock, we hit a punch up, we kill seven guys. And that lifted me up, but I needed action. And that helped me. Anyway, we got back to the base camp, and I only realized then how unpopular was. This guy, in this base camp

didn't like me. I get back today, next day deploy again, and so it carried on. But then I started to take my own teams out. And if I take a team out to that right, I get, I'm quite creative. You know, I enjoy the game.

And one specific one, very specific one, they had these guys, engineers that used to come up, they blow all the pylons and things on the communication line, but they ride around on bicycle. and they put their weapons on the bicycles

and they tell me I actually slotted a couple of them at night anyway I would go out and shoot them with this KKV night scope with the R1 and they tell me they want me to try and block this line to cut these guys coming up so it's quite a dangerous area to go up there I mean there's there's Fopla up there

armate big forces up that way anywhere I get up there I go and I kill quite a few like that I killed a hell of a lot of these guys on the time there. But there's one specific day. As we lay up for the whole day, nothing happened, slept in night. I walked about 50 meters of road going further north. And as we're going up, three of these guys come racing paths on the bicycle.

They're too far away. We're fire. We run. They get away. I realize that we've been firing. It's a hell of a noise. I've got to get out of the area. So I head east, about three kilometers.

It takes about 45 minutes. Am I going to lie up in the area? Because it's, can I take another break quickly? Yeah. Can I take another break quickly? Absolutely. All right. Coffee to stay away.

Apologize. No, we understand. And we appreciate Mike and also his crew that's helping him out here because it's pretty late in South Africa right now. It's probably like 2.30 in the morning in South Africa at the moment. Yeah, super late. We appreciate those guys going the extra mile for us. I was just looking up our.

upcoming, our next upcoming guest. I know you went over Monday and next Friday. Let me get, you probably need a better organization's this in here. Let's see here. So yeah, so John daily on Monday, Joe, Musia, Musia, Eric O'Neill, FBI counterintelligence and cybersecurity on 9-9. on 913 Damon Brown with the great book Black people can't swim

Yeah Combat diver Yeah And then on 920 You're a Uriap A medic from a special missions unit

And 927 Is it's still 927 Right Our 300th episode It'll be early October October 3rd October 3rd Okay so October 3rd

Okay so October 3rd be a 300th episode where we are going to play some Dungeons of Dragons, which we know the watchers and listeners of this podcast are dying for. Dying for. The content you've been dying for. Yes.

Yeah, it's going to be our biggest show ever. It's the crossover event of the century. Yeah. Yeah. So, Mike, as you're telling this story, I got to think, and you must have picked up on at this point,

it sounds an awful lot like your commander sent you out to this firebase to die. Like, he doesn't think you're coming back. Well, I'll be perfectly honestly. If you read in my book, the book's been edited. But I know for a fact that as I go on, you'll see why I tell you they tried, but they didn't succeed. And listen, this is blatantly. I'll sit with a polygraph anywhere in the world, and I'll take this story on to show you what they did to me.

But they didn't scare me. I'm not worried about these people. But this specific incident, I headed three kilometers east, and I get down in the position, and lying low, you don't move in the daytime. Look, it doesn't matter where you are there. The groups know where you are. It's daytime.

They know where you are. You can't move around in Earth and tears. They don't know where you are. That's infested. And I see to my north. and I see extended line coming, but the bush is thick, and I could see about seven of them, but they're coming towards it. So I realized those guys that escaped to the bicycles, you know, it's coming.

Anyway, we open up on these guys, you pop a couple of them, wasn't a hell of a punch-up, and all of a sudden this piece of bark flies out down next to my head, and all the hell breaks loose from the right flank. And they knew exactly where it, so they launched a flanking attack on me, which was a big mistake. As they came at me, I got that 60-round magazine. I'm the only guy in Space Forces that they had it. But this one worked. A lot of guys tried it.

But once you fuse those springs, the thing gets stoppage of. Mine never stopped. Believe me, it never stopped. They can tell you it never stopped. Anyway, I turned me, we opened up, and the only way I could beat these guys is what Darrell Watt taught me. I run at the bastards. And that's exactly what I did.

Now, I get two white guys with me, Wizzy and Johnny, and these guys. and I take over the speed with the 60 round opening up with them. And we called a lot of them there. And Johnny and was, and then the rest of them came. They're not going to run with us, but when I ran, they came. And I captured eight of them over there. We must have killed, I don't know. Maybe 9, 10, I don't know, we killed a lot.

It wasn't a big deal. We were too fast. And the most beautiful thing, I've never seen it in war. These guys were on their knees with their hands in the air, man. I felt so proud of myself. It took this whole lot, wounded, guys, everything, we grabbed them. Look, we're in big trouble now

because there's been a hell of a lot of shooting. We know there's going to be trouble. So I grabbed these guys, we start moving south. I had to convince them, you know, to walk. And we stopped at a point to treat them because they're bleeding profusely. You'll see in my book this. We've made homemade stretches,

and we put drips in them. And I made these guys carry each other wounded on their own shoulders to get them out because alive captures money, not for me, but for these turn guys, you know, the Swapper guys that are fighting with me. And they preferred it

if we left them alive because they don't want to kill their own guys. So we were taken and what happens was this a Fopla comes down, I don't know how many vehicles are after us now because of all the shooting and I'm in big trouble, man.

I've got tours that are captured and we're heading south out the way and they're on us. And I took on these guys that were with us I didn't play games with them they realized you better run with my quiz because yeah you're going to die and they went with us

so I got hold of the commander and I said please we need backup and they sent two impalas in and these impalas came in now to strike at that speed and to see their enemy with that push is difficult but I threw a white

force and gave them an indication there the impalas were striking and I moved and we got pumas and we got out. Now, the funny part that never, never, and I'm telling you, I'm looking, I'm telling you, never before, in combat. In that, anybody captured so many guys

and bugged up so many guys like I did. We got it, got back to the base camp, you know what happened? Nothing. The commander got invited who's called sector 1-0. Step out to go for dinner for the great success it was. Not me. Get ready. You're going to the book.

that's why he didn't like me he didn't like me one but because him and the guy back in Durban were big chinas you know big buddies and when he sent me up they said listen let's make a plan with this guy now any operation

Dave you guys must hear what I'm saying and Jack after an operation when you get out and you've been in combat you've got a break not my quest I'm not though Screw boy. I get back whatever time leaving you tomorrow night, you're going out again.

But that's where you see where Darrell Watt writes. Darrell, what the God of War says, even challenge the SS. Nobody says as much combat as Mike West. And Mike Rich says as well, in modern-day warfare, nobody's seen as much combat as Mike and lived to tell us all. Now, I'm not boasting about this. I'm telling you, these puppies threw me into this action continuously. But so what? I did it.

I did it. And I was creative. And I pulled a stint over there which a lot of... Listen, I've got a lot of experience in IEDs, you know? Yeah.

Improvising, so I'm very good in stuff like us. And I went and I took a T and 57 Russian landmine, metal case. And I took car, body, pat in the guy's name was Willem at the trans, Park. And I packed his body patty and I made a claymore out of this landmine. And I took it to

Muramba, which is a big open area, but far from the base camp. So the commander doesn't hear it because they're going to get a nappy rash with what I'm doing. And I use this as a claymore on targets. I was so impressed. I went back and I made another one. And anyway, I'd contact and the one group I'd capture it. I let him wrap this thing. He must have weighed 25, 30 kilos, man, you must see the size of this thing, but all this exploiting. Put it in those head in the camouflage, took the team, and he went to a place called Pugh-Pew, which was right

up there in the western area. A lot of tears over there, and he came from there, and what happens, why I enjoy taking his tours out with me, they take it to where the gooks are, because they know where they are. So you know you're going to have a punch up, and that's what I liked about it. When you

go out to them, you're going to have a fight. You know, you're not going to sit and be bored over there. You know, you're going to fight. And I may be, you're going to fight. And I may this guy carried this thing. But now the strangest thing without me knowing it, while I was heading up at way, Fopla had a company coming my way. Now, I don't know, some Bush telegraph went off and they were coming towards me and I was heading towards

them. And the guy from 101 Battalion, Lucas Loebtshire, came up on the small means and said, hey, you guys are heading into big pawpour, yeah, they're coming directly at your massive lot of guys. Now, had I been with S-A-S and that or what, we would have continued and taken these puppies on, but I know these guys aren't going to stand and fight, not the force like that. So we made a U-turn and I headed back east. So I stopped and John and I decide we're going to,

I call this landmine of mine Frankie, Frankenstein. Let's set up Frankie over here on our tracks. So I put Frankie against the tree and John walked this long tripwire out. We found a beautiful area. It was an old marsh dry area. You could hide the drip wire. And we lay this out. And I told John, get out the way.

the scariest things that put a debt in a thing like that because you know when this goes off there's nothing left. Anyway, got the debt well camouflage and we gap it. We didn't walk hell of a far and Yacom's Lucas charging

with a casper through. We all jump on because we're in big trouble. There's a hell of lot of tears coming away. And the casper's turn and as we go in we suddenly feel this you know and we look and you see this plume going up and we know these puppies

walked into Frankie. Now the beauty was we don't know who it wiped out, but we never ever heard of that patrol again. Now, it couldn't have killed them all. Obviously, killed the radio operator and whatever, but I tell you, I put a serious dent in that bloody lot. I was my cranky.

I was proud of myself. But the base commander, he would get a nuclear rush with my experiments by telling me I'm reckless and that. Because what I did, I would pull tits off where I run, like, you know, when these guys come out to the bicycle, the weapons are tied on the handlebars.

What dangers he got? there's no danger. And I would run and dive them off and catch him alive. You know what trouble I got in first? I said, I'm putting people's lives at risk. I said, but there's no danger. They said, you don't do things like that. I said, why not?

What's it going to do? Hell, I enjoyed it, man. It was, if you read the book Born to Storm by Aramon Fennik, you see, he tells you about his operation. He was a commandant. It tells you about Mike West and his bicycle diving, your little accident. It's quite fun.

I enjoyed it, man. was fun to me. Do we have any questions for Mike? Yeah. We might have some viewer questions for you, Mike. Oh, sorry, it popped off. Do we have any on Patreon D?

What is it? Got him? Did anything from M. Corbin, thank you. Did anything from your taxi career translate over to your military career? Just ask a question again. I couldn't make Kelly. Did anything from your taxi

driving career translate over to your military career? Well, I couldn't get any fares out there with a horse. If I could have been saying, come on give a lift. I'll charge you ten bucks or something, you know what I mean? Now, listen, I don't know how it worked out. I call it rags to riches from zero. And being rejected and tell, listen, go fly a kite. You're not worth your, you're not worth anything.

off. I came back and I took them to war. And another thing I want to tell you, I just want to tell that you're here, in space forces, as a team leader, you have to be an officer. Remember my words, you have to be an officer. I came

back. I was so experienced and I was so in the thing. I was the first guy in the history of special forces as the NCO to become a team leader. And I was proud of it. And when they announced it, nobody said anything. That's awesome. And and I'm the only guy

in the issue of warfare to bring down a MI8 chopper with a Sam 7 which is an extinct dinosaur heat-seeking missile because a chopper's blade takes the hit away we pulled it down Was that in Angola?

Killed shot 19 Cubans down with it once survived Was that in Angola? Say again? Angola. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, between Bysha Longwood and quit the granival.

Yeah. That's hardcore. That's amazing. Yeah, we pulled up the most craziest things. It was, it's just amazing how it went. It was just unbelievable. There's so many. I can carry on all day.

I can entertain you for hours on the end with this. And I'm not, I shit you not, you can put me, I love to go on the polygraph, I sat on the wall stage. I love it. Do we have any other questions for Mike? No, that was it. Okay. Oh, wait, one more just came in.

How many, do you know how many combat parachute jumps you have? How many combat? Parachute jumps. Parachute jumps. Yeah. Okay. It's a bit difficult, but if I, combat ones and not the training one, just combat. Just combat.

Okay, all the camper takes, all my fire force, maybe 30, 40, I don't know, just quite a bit. I don't know. I'm speaking under-correcting. I don't want to say things. It's confusing with all the training jumps we had. Yeah. But I've got a lot. Mike, let me...

I just want to ask you, because you did do so many combat jumps, and that's not something that Americans, you know, that we've done much operationally since, like, World War II, you know, there have been a few. But how high would you guys be when you were flying? Did you have a reserve? How long, like, your show? shoot would open and then how long before you hit the ground?

Okay, Dave, this is a very good thing. When we came to South Africa and I came and did a dispatcher's course in Blumphant, and there was a guy with him, there was a sergeant major, Johnny became our officer. He presented, of course, his name of Johnny Kisser. He criticized us because you're supposed to jump nothing less than 600, 800 to 600. But remember, we're jumping into war. These poppies jump, fun jumps. Right.

So the lowest that was ever jumped was 400. Wow. Now, 4005, if you jump out and you've got a twist in your ring, when you get a twist, the first thing you do as you get out, you look up, kick out of your twist, get out of your seatbelt, and then get in landing. My man, when you're out there, you hit the deck. Yeah. If you have a malfunction, bye-bye.

Yeah. You're dead. Yeah. You're dead. Especially on camp attacks, and they're shooting at you, right? Yeah. That's another ball game, man. I mean, so basically, when you guys are going out at that, your shoot opens, and then you're

pretty much, you're on the ground very shortly after that. Very, very shortly, yes. Yeah. And you're not always in the ground. Sometimes you're in a tree. Right, right. We had a guy that got stuck in a white bit. The Afrikaans call the Bach, thorns in all directions.

When you fall in that, you hang right there. You're stuck. You hang up there. Got to be cut out with side cuts. They get stuck in a thing. That's wild. It's another ball game that way. Mike, tell us a little bit about, like, how you retired

out of the SADF and what you'd like to tell us, if anything, about your post-service life, what you've been up to since then? What happened was, I landed up after that story, I landed up in two, three massive attacks, Coliseum, Firewood, and Hooper. And I nearly died in all of them. I really had some, really, that was a shit show of night. I was in big trouble. You can read it in my book.

after I'd gone through all of that, the war was basically over. And then a certain organization was formed underground, and they needed Space Force operators. And it took very high-level people to get permission. And this guy knew me. He was at Mossamedes with me, this officer. And he went and he said, I wanted Mike West. And they had to go to very top level, and they managed the war was over anyway.

And they got me out, and then I went underground. and I started to operate like that. And then I got up to... Was that the Civil Cooperation Bureau? Say again? Was that CCB? I'm not going to talk about that at all. Yes, I want to steer completely clear of that, please.

The guy over there, if I got to tell you what all happened there, I'm going to get into trouble. I want to stay totally out of it. I was involved, yes, but that's it. That's all I can say. Fair enough, Mike. And that went on for a few more years. years I take it from the way you're describing. Yeah, I really, what happened,

I've got a habit when I start something, I go deeper and deeper and I infiltrated organizations and became members of organizations. I actually sat in the minister's office with voice-activated recorders, planning operations against the SADF. Holy shit, wow. Meantam, I'm working. Man, they were shit scared of me.

They actually came and got rid of me. The military actually came and saw me and tell me they're going to get rid of me because they were worried about the TRC, the truth and reconciliation. I just said we've got to get rid of this puppy, and they got rid of them. Tell me, get the hell out of you, Mike. They got rid of me. I got up there. I mean, that organization, from what I've read,

I mean, was disbanded rather abruptly and everyone just sort of scattered. I mean, what was it like for you when the unit was disbanded? banded and you kind of had to find your way in life. Well, that organization, you talk about that, Dave spoke about that. The big guy over there didn't like me. But one of the main guys in the operator used me because I worked for one task force underground. Then they came and got me to work underground and the security police wanted me because

I was a busy boy and I knew what I was doing. when all of this got disbanded, I'd already been up to so much trouble. I then decided, then I went and I thought, okay, I became a bouncer and you can realize. I used to pummel people. I enjoy fighting, you know? And then when I enjoyed the fighting,

then I got into VIP protection. And then if you got to see what I went to over there, how I got followed, how people tried to, I got arrested. You must look at it. I've had a fun full life. I've had a really, I've had a very, the day I lay my head down, I can tell you I've had a ride of my life. So, I mean, you live this incredible life doing some things that, you know, most people know really just know nothing about.

How did the idea of this book come about? I didn't want to do the book at all. I wouldn't do it. But Darrell what said to me, Mike, because Darrell wrote a handful of hard men. It's a brilliant book. Yeah, yeah. And Darrell said, Mike, do the book. do the book. Then I did the book. My daughter was, I got my daughter's, the ghost

right. She wrote the book and it lay for three years. And then on the day, the son of my or say, Dad, get this book. This is going to be a movie man. This is, this is big because of what's coming back. And I didn't want it. And the day I released this book, this thing went absolutely. I can't believe that this book took off. Was it, was it controversial when it came out in South Africa? I mean, what was the response like? Well, first of all, you'll see I'll talk about the wreck is over there. Very good operators. Listen, they're good soldiers. But there were elements here that didn't like me. And I had, and they don't support me at all. Nobody can condemn me.

What I put in the book, I haven't to date, not one negative comment because I've told no lies. Tell the guys, those that I said of that and that, they are that. I mention it. but there's a lot of things that the author and I looked at and were to remove because if I'm going to put it in the book, it's going to let me tell you that book can be 120 pages more. I wish I can tell the whole story and tell you everything and what's all in. And I wish I can tell it. It is unbelievable. I would like to read that book someday, Mike.

Sorry? I'd like to read that expanded edition at some point, Mike. Yeah. I don't think that's a good idea. I just stay away from that. I'm going to be stepping on a lot of people's tone. I actually had a guy that when I initially started, said, Mike West better make sure he's dead when he publishes that book.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I should you not. Where can people go to pick up a copy? I mean, is it available on, like, Amazon? What's the right place to go to find it? Well, I don't know. I believe Amazon is doing the sales of my book all over. In South Africa, I sell my book all over.

I sell my own books because they give me books to sell. And then the authors, you know, Ex-Montibus media sells it. There's a lot of outlets selling the book over here. But in America, I don't know. I think it's just Amazon. If people want to buy like an autographed copy directly from you, is there a place they can reach out? I don't know.

I suppose they'll have to, what happened? I don't know how I sign all the books. You know, people have asked me, a certain organization asked me, please don't sign books. You know, the policy is if you sign the book, I said, listen, I'm not Rambo. I sign my bloody books. I sign all my books. So I go to bookstores and I sign the books.

In the store, I just going to sign and I leave it there. You know, they can charge more for it. I don't give it down. But I don't know how to get a signed copy. I've sent signed copies. People have picked up, had gone to Italy, gone to France. They've gone all over the world. But people from Yale left that way.

And I've sent to Zambia. I've sent to many places. but how to get it to pay that cost to get my book to America I mean how you're going to pay your your backside or it's not worth true how to get a signed copy I don't know I don't mind signing it at all you want to hold that up for the folks one more time so it's Mike Wes Special Forces Super Soldier great read highly recommend it link is down in the description

you can find it on Amazon Mike, thank you so much for joining us, and I appreciate you and the crew there putting in the extra effort so late at night for us to come on and do the show. Anything that we failed to ask that you wanted to mention before we get going tonight? I just wish I could have covered camper tax in South Africa. That is still a hell of a long. Look, we're not even close to the end of the journey. But if I could have just brought you good, because this is a lot, a lot of people died.

I'm talking about horrible action, carrying people out under fire, getting shot at. Coliseum, trench clearing, hit with B-10s, 12-7,

anti-aircraft weapon. I would like to share that and show you what happened to vehicles out there. Would you like to come on the show and talk about it? Walking into ambushes. I can open a book.

written by a author called Jonathan Pitterway. And I can read this story and I can tell you exactly what the guy says. Now they captured the terrorist on Operation Coliseum and they told them there's an ambush up ahead. And what happens? They drove to point. They stopped. I said, call Mike West.

Came over. I said, Mike, we want you to go and clear the roads to see if there are any ambushes. So they give me another team and I take that team because I don't know there's an ambush I make a T formation. I take the extended line in front and I got the T formation behind me. But had they told me the ambush is there, which they didn't,

I would have been better prepared. And that's the one when they hit me with that rifle grenade. Now, luckily it was an anti-de-gekel. I was so fortunate in my life. Otherwise, it had been Marmai. This thing exploded right in front of me, threw me on my back.

I jumped up. John Broko, my nickname was Zakanucci, which means as good as honey at the swappler. And he said, Zuckinich, I jumped up, I said yes, and I shouted my war cry, Pemberna Hondo, forwarded the war, and I ran at these bastards, and they ran. I cleared that whole ambush out.

And all the rounds that were coming at us and sue us were hitting the guys in the vehicle there to lie down. But what annoys me, why didn't they tell me there was a bloody ambush? Yeah. That's what annoys. What the hell did they have in mind by sending me in without telling me it's there? But in the book, you can read it. I promise you, I can photograph it. There he says, catch it to tell them there's an ambush.

They don't tell me that. They just send me. We're only kind of touching the surface here. So, yeah, people can definitely and should check out the book and hear the rest of the story. But, Mike, I'd be happy to have you back on the show if there's more. I mean, it sounds like there's certainly more you'd like to talk about.

I'd be happy to do that in the future. If I could delve into the Coliseum, the firewood, which was horrific, a really horrific operation. A lot of guys died. We looked at guys dying over there. That's where I tried to shoot my own officer over there. You can read it in the book. I had enough of him. Well, luckily, well, fortunately for him, the troops were looking, also, he would have been long gone.

But there's a lot to cover there. Then Operation Hooper with those mortars, when I was caught in those beaten zone, you must see this shit, my friend. Hey, man, it was look. It was a romance of note. Well, we'll have to do it again sometime. I could, you said you could talk for another like 10 hours about this, and I could honestly listen to it. Yeah, me too.

Because there's some fascinating stories, but I don't know, we're also like pushing your limits time-wise, and probably some of the people watching this late at night as well. But we should do a second episode at some point if you're up for it. You're more than welcome. Because I'm going to do a fighting men of Rhodesia with the author now on Coliseum Firewood Net. Oh, perfect. Okay. There's a lot of details to cover in this thing.

There's a lot of stuff over here. There's a lot of action. Mike, thank you again for joining us tonight. We'll see all you guys out there on Monday with John Daly and then on Friday with Joe Musia. So have a nice weekend, everyone.