The Team House - Shane Willard on the "Takies" of the South African Police Special Task Force, Ep. 49

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

Shane Willard served in the South African Police Special Task Force and details the unit, its mission, their selection and training, as well as key operations and some that he participated in. These are some of the most dangerous, and most professionally run, hostage rescues and criminal apprehensions that you've never heard about before. His book is called The South African Police Special Task Force: An Operator's Perspective and can be found at: https://www.warbooks.co.za/products/t... Find out more about the Task Force at https://www.sapstf.org/ Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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

Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Okay, guys, we are live. Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with co-host Dave Park. And we have a special guest here tonight. This is Shane Wade, Hillard, Shane previously served in the South African Police Special Task Force.

It's one of the lesser known units. We don't talk about it so much over here in the States, unfortunately. And I hope that we can change that because this afternoon, I finished reading Shane's book. As you can see here, it is the South African Police Special Task Force in Operators' Perspective, one of the world's most elite special force units. And, you know, I think there's a lot of units out there. including police units that on paper, they claim that they can do it all, that they can do any sort of mission set.

But I think the South African Special Task Force is one of those units that you guys can make a legitimate claim that you kind of did do it all. It's pretty amazing the variety of operations that the Special Task Force participated in. And Shane's book talks about the history of the unit, how the operators are selected and trained, talks about the equipment, the weapons, the vehicles that they use. And then there's a good 100 pages in the book that are especially interesting where Shane has selected some of the more interesting operations that the unit participated in to highlight

and to talk about the operational history of this unit. So it was illuminating to read, to say the least. And Shane, I know that in your neck of the woods, it is quite early in the morning. It's something like 2 a.m. So we especially appreciate you making the added effort to be here with us tonight. It's just my pleasure to have me on a show, and I would do my best to represent all the good operators, the Special Task Force, has produced since the inception in 1976.

Well, maybe we could start there, Shane. And you could tell us a little bit about the origins of the Special Task Force. course and how they came about, I thought it was especially funny in a sense to hear about how it sort of started off informally with a group called the Di Blixoms. And if I'm not mistaken, in translated into English, that means something like the shit stirers, right? The Cocker-Mocker. Okay, listen. Before I get into that, I just want to read my dedication of my book. Sure. Sure. It's very short. And it goes like this.

To all my brothers, we've worked together in many countries. We've completed together many missions. We've celebrated together many victories. We speak many different languages. We are from many different forces. Stay the course, brother. Right. South African Police Special Task Force, they started somewhere in the 70s.

They wanted to, if you look into my book, the four words, there's three four words, two generals and one colonel, where they write a little bit about the unit, how we started, how the unit started. It started out of the security branch. They saw that there was a need for a counter-insurgency unit inside the SAP police force. And there was a small nucleus, a small unit of, a couple of people which the main person was that time a captain in rank called J.J. de Swart, his nickname Blackjack. And they were nicknamed D. Blachms, which is directly translated as a lightning ball.

But if you translated more directly, it's the sheds furters. And the reason being they trained after hours. They participated in, on the range in shooting exercises. They participated in karate. They participated in skydust exercises. And they obtained injuries of duty. And then they came obviously to work and they couldn't work. And so the generals at force at that time nicknamed them the Bluxham.

But it was an informal unit in the sense that it was just these guys after hours recognizing that South Africa needed a police hostage rescue counterinsurgency type unit and they just did it all on their own initially. Yes, initially, but basically they trained for a couple of years, something like four years. And what happened firstly in the history with the Munich massacre in the 19th, let me just refresh my memory. The Munich Massacre and the GSG-9 takedown of the aircraft in Mangadishu. Yeah, 5 September 72. And then when Israel came to South Africa with the SA game, then I asked in 1973, I asked for the protection of the Olympic teeth. And then Captain JJ de Swart, Blackjack the Swart,

was chosen with these nucleus of de Blixemes. to protect the group and they did it with perfection. So they were vested by the Israeli government and they did it excellent. Then what happened later on in 29 April, 1975, operation that was called the Fox Street Seed. The Israeli embassy in Johannesburg was overrun by a guy by the name of David Prater with his brother.

And he had loads of weapons and ammunition, and he just wanted to prove to the Israeli embassy that their security was not of the standard. He killed one of their majors, and he shot blindly at the people in the streets. And then after that, the negotiations were successful later on, and he gave himself up, and he got something like 50-something years in jail. and then they realized we need a counter-insurgency special forces unit inside the police. Was that the operation, did one Reki respond to that siege? They did. Recognissance unit did respond to that siege, but it was then negotiated. The police negotiated.

Some general, I can't remember his name. he basically negotiated with David Prater and David Prater gave himself up. And so at that point they realized we needed a police capability to deal with these situations. Absolutely. Then it was placing into motion and officially started the 1st of February in 1976. But they already took selection from there on. So they already started in 1975 unofficially. And there was basically five iron guys.

You know, I would call them iron guys. But I take my hat off to that. Also, a guy of statute that we need to place his name on the record is for sure. Colonel deployed. He became, later on, he went to the reconnaissance regiment. He was also one of the founder members of the task force. He went to the reconnaissance regiment. So I did the special task.

selection as well as he did the reconnaissance regiment selection and when he retired he retired as the chief of staff of the RETI so he was second in charge of the reconnaissance unit that year when he left two other guys left with him that also since regiment selection call the year after that another person left the task force and he also passed reconnaissance regimen selection and that were four people there's another person left but we can get to his name later on if we dig into the book a little bit more so I'm always go along with the book so that was that that was the core of the the formation of the unit and and then how did it start to come together I mean I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the

the selection and the training process which I thought was fairly unique and I don't want to say parts of it were pretty brutal from what I read about in your book. Jack, I basically said as it is. What you have to note, the selection courses as strong grass. It changed a lot through the years to adapt to the circumstances and obviously to supply to the need. What we needed to fight terrorism, hostage, rescue and the rest of the stuff that we did. All that being said, at the beginning, the main core of guys, they were the instructors as well as they were students. They had to instruct and they had to partake in all the exercises.

Then we had, for instance, we had civilian self-defense instructors like if I remember his name could a degree. So he passed away since God rest himself. As a good karate instructor, I think eight done or something when he was finished with his career. And Magnuson, there was another guy. He was actually on my book launch on the 31st of January this year. I was very honored to meet him. He was our skydive instructor. As well as that day with the book launch, I met many legend. Some of the guys that took part in the selection to obviously make the unit in what it was. The earliest documentation, you're going to ask, where did the task force come from? The earliest documentation we got was 1972, G89 formation documentation.

And I mean, I'll still have a copy of that. It is very historical, actually, I want to say. The formation structure of the unit is very basic. You know, if you look at the units today and you look back to then. But that was one of the units that was used for the Special Task Force. The Special Task Force also went in the early years. They went to Israel and the train with the Israelis to get the different hostage release and other techniques.

I am not that fully up to date with what information they received from the Israelis, but I know they did go for cross. So they got some help from the German and the Israeli counterterrorism units in forming up the special task force. And then maybe you could tell us a little bit about your personal experience, which correct me if I'm wrong, I think you got to the unit in 1993 and your experience going through selection in the various phases of selection because it's nothing like, you know, a traditional SWAT team. It really is more like a special forces selection that you guys had

went through. Yeah, my personal experience, I mean, I was a dog handler. I came from a correctional service. I was a dog handler. I love animals. I love dogs as well. And then it was a not for me. It was too boring. I took an inter-department transfer to the police force. It was forced then. It's now serviced. And then a year later, I heard about the selection course and I immediately enrolled. And I was flown up to Pretoria. My story on my selection doesn't go exactly like my book. You know, that is a perfect story. My prep on was one day where they say it's two or three weeks, you know. So I've flew up to Pretoria

and I did my fitness test. I had one day to rest and then we started with the fastback. So I was the only one not the only one, there was another one from my police unit that went up. His name was Hermann.

I can still remember he was as fit as you can, you know, as a wind down. He was ready for this guy. So everybody thought he was going to make it. But obviously as you know, selection process is a lot about not only physical strength, it is about your mind power, your wealth, what do you want to accomplish. So I never saw Herman after that. And the, yeah, when the fast-page started, it was something I didn't fully expect.

I just kept going, you know, it was either either death or I'll make it, something like that. the psychologist that evaluated me after the second day or so on a third day asked me but why I want to complete it. He kept on asking, I can remember the same question. He actually started irritating me, but I just said, you know, this is what I want to do. And I mean, after we've experienced fast weight, one thing that I can also say about fastbub, Here at a third night, you know, you start to hallucinate, you see stuff that's not there. Right.

It's absolutely so. You just keep on going. It's pure, I writing it in my book about it pure grit. So the guy that's got grit, it's also been research in American universities. The guy that's got grit can keep on going. You don't have grit, you fall off. the guys that want to be in the task force, they will keep on going.

So either if they get an injury, they'll fall off. And some guys tried the second time and they made it. And some guys decided that's not for them. They're going to go over something else, you know, which is there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that. So then, you know, after this grueling fast paid off, approximately 86 hours, which I say it's about three nights and four days, more or less.

Some food, and they tell you you can go sleep, and you think it's a joke. But as you see, as soon as you see, all the other guys have fallen asleep, you know, then you also go to do that. And so that is the initial, you know,

to weed out the people who don't really want to be there. While you're in that vispit, Vospat, phase of truth, training. What do they use to stress you out? I mean, is it like the normal kind of things we associate with selection that you're carrying around logs, that you're doing long ruck marches, things like that? Actually, before you get to fast fight, they'll come to the normal. The norm is they come to your province or from Cape Province. They do fitness test there. Psychological test there. They read out about 50% sometimes more. After that,

you go up to where I went to the north of Pretoria. Mine was different. They sent me straight. I heard it, bowed it on short notice, and they needed guys, I believe. So they send me up. So when you get to obviously fast pace, continuously you have continuous exercises.

You like root marchers. They will tell you carry your gear, then I'll tell you load your gear onto the truck, then I'll give you a rucksack. or they give you 10 R1 rifles to carry. Then they tell you, load that back on a truck. Then I'll give you a chocolate box to carry. You know, it's a piece of, it is an ammunition box.

You know, it's quite big and it's sold with cement. It's uncomfortable. Then you have to carry one. Then sometimes they give you two. Put that back and you just have to walk, you know. And then they see the guy's fitness level. Then I'll tell you, okay, take the beer. What's a beerky?

What's a beerkey? It's a piece of railway track. You know about a meter long. Then he's got a chain another meter long, a chain or a piece of steel wire with a ball this, this big. There's no comfortable way to carry it. There's none. When you pick it up and you put it on your back, it hurts like hell. You keep it.

You don't move it. You walk until they tell you, drop it. So it's just some masochist in the South African police designed this thing. It's a real road tie with a chain connected to like a cannonball essentially, if I understand. Yes, like a cannonball. It's actually a steel wire. It makes it more uncomfortable. The chain would have been more comfortable, you know.

So, you know, you can't control this cannonball in the way. Are any of the events team-oriented or partner-oriented? Are they all just individual events? Yes, that's a good question. There are some of the events that team-orientated. During the day, then we'll go to the, the call it the time, the garden, the thinking garden. It's a think garden.

Where you go and they've got certain exercises. this. Then it'll, for instance, be a chimney and you have to take up a piece up the chimney, you have to take up a piece of tyre. And then you have to do it in a team formation. Especially as the selection courses advanced, they had more of this, of this thinking tracks, if you want to call it as such. Then, before you go, usually before the sunset.

they'll give you they'll give the team 300 cages each or probably just a little bit over 300 cages each and the names of those are okay I put it in is lick my ass

in English and the other one is go shit but it's a direct translation okay and then in a team formation obviously to the left you have to lift it and then you have to walk up what we call

Skull Bo, Shield Hill, if you directly translate it. Then you have to walk up to Shield Hill. When you get up there, you drop it, and you can rest all. If it's instructed the site, you just walk down with it again. And if you don't work in team format, then instructs it the site, you send you back up again. So it's a three nights, four days, just absolute smoke session.

And then after that, there are all these other phases of training that, you know, the actual training portion of it. And maybe you want to go, if you could go in order, maybe that's the best way to explain it, the various phases of training. Okay. Obviously, first fast bike, because I want to root out all the guys that's not tough enough, mentally tough enough, more and physical tough enough. after fast bait you get about two days to rest. Once you finish with fast bait, then they will start with weapons handling phase. That's between, if I remember, between four and six weeks.

Once you finish with weapons handing phase, they'll teach you how to shoot especially with a pistol, how to be a crack shot with a pistol, because the unit does hostage rescue. you want to be able to place your round on a target at the specific spot to incapacitate the hostage taker. Now, I won't say where the round should be shot because it's a specific spot on a person's body that will render him incapacitated. In other words, if you hold a hand grenade, he won't be able to open his hand. If he's fingers on a trigger, he won't be able to squeeze it if it's against our STJ.

They train you with all the different weapons. A handgun, Uzi, MP5, I don't think they use Uzi's anymore. R1 rifle and hand grenades and all the rest of it. That's about. After the four weeks, we go to usually then that's about six weeks. You get taught how to survive in the bush. You get taught tracking, anti-tracking, you get taught evade, and then one of the most difficult, you get taught how to plot. I think let's first go to the urban phase.

Urban phase, you get taught how to do our stitch rescue. On the farm at waterfall, where we do our training, there is a double, triple story later on they build it. We usually went to the bluff in the urban where the reconnaissance unit were because they had a lot of buildings. And we could do abshaling then we could do we could use grenades we could use live rounds and we could put our targets on to train to be able to do our movements correct on stairs upstairs downstairs into different two guys in different groups we You did climbing techniques, ladder techniques, you know, lots of different techniques. That's about six weeks that you do hostage rescue, the urban phase.

Then the phase is usually last, all the pending. Then you get kept because you not only need to be able to rescue the hostages out of a building. The most difficult is... And the trains, can be buses, and I believe probably aeroplanes as well. So you get taught, you will be taken to a specific area where there's a bus, you'll practice on the bus. You'll get taken to an area where there's trains, you'll practice on trains. You'll get taken to the real deal where the planes are, and then you will train on the different planes. You will see the various special forces in the world, they have different methods to deal with plain hostage release.

I mean, you see if you go on Wikipedia, you'll see, you know, they've got a truck with this ladder structure and so on. The task has got their own way to deal with it. Of minutely, minutely, I've elaborated on it minutely, but I would not go into it any further because I will not disclose. any information that can jeopardize any situation. Then after the trains, planes and bosses phase, I don't want to miss a phase, yeah. I mean, it's been a while since I've been there. Then when we get to the dark phase, you know,

then I think everybody's going to love that. You get trained into foreign weapons, a lot of foreign weapons, they train you. So you get to fire Aka. You get to fire different other ways. weapons, RPD, and you get trained into recognize, recognize them. And you always get trained. It's important that you can train in a foreign weapon because if you're in a foreign country

and you're out of ammunition or weapons, you can use that weapon. And that's an interesting point there, Shane, just a small sidebar, is that your unit did external operations outside of South Africa. Yes, one in a bus. You also mentioned in the book about the unit doing, destroying weapons caches in Mozambique in the late 90s. Yes, with the selection. Yeah, please. Okay, then when you're finished with all this urban training, you go to your rural train.

And you go to, obviously, they teach you all the arts in Bushwarf. All right. Tracking and all of that, that I said, you stay in a bush, you learn how to set up camp, you learn how to attack. And then when I was on selection in 1993, and I joined the unit in 92, not 93, as you said, previous. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support service. to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents

and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. When I went on selection 92, we had a phase that they called the dark phase. Before the dark face, they would have a operation isolation phase. So in Opsichan, it's called operasi ence. And that is after they've withered you down for a couple of weeks without decent water and food. And most of the guys would have lost a lot of water.

Then they take you to a tree, one guy. They point you to that tree and I tell you, you will not move more than 50 meters from that. They give you a tin of mixed vegetables, I think a liquor of water and two broken matches, small piece of flim. They tell you

survive in the middle of the winter. So, the water in your water bottle, which is freezing point. You don't have any shoes on your feet, they take in your shoes, short pan, and short sleeve. Then you have to survive there for two nights.

and if you love the outdoors, that is peace to your soul, you know. If you find the fire is going and you put logs on and you make, if there's wind and you make a nice shelter, you actually enjoy it. I enjoyed it. And you take your egg, you put it in your dig a hole, you make your fire, there's some calls, you put your egg in the sand, you cover it, you urinate on it, you put coals on it, and then a couple of minutes later it's boring.

You don't want to use the drinking water. And then you've got some water and you've got some vegetables. And then two days later, they'll two days later, they'll come fetch you. They'll blind fold you, they cough you. And then your dark face starts. Then they'll take you to, they'll place you inside, or they first interrogate you, all the penny, or they place you inside this case. When they place inside us cage, it's a small hole that goes in, it's a thorn cage.

You've just got a small enough space to cramp off on like this. And then they bring us courage out. Curris is an old European soldiers from Africa and South, and they speak in their mother tongue. Then they will obviously take you out of the cage. They will cuff you to a tree, and then they will interrogate you. you know, then you don't know, is this a real thing or not? I mean, you look at the pictures in my book, you see how dirty I am. I mean, I used my own pictures and luckily Jim Hooper took them.

Otherwise, you know, that piece of history, I want to call it as such, would have been lost forever. I can give permission that my own pictures may be placed on the in the book. And the pictures are of a bloke handcuffed to a tree and they're pouring boiling water on him, which is like, oh my God. This is serious. Yes. Some of the guys still have scars still today.

Because the water was a little bit too hot, but they poured on there. And, I mean, you can see in those four pictures that displayed of me, you can see the pain. I'm experiencing. And then that last thought for two nights. you're too nice in the cages. We escaped, obviously. Me and four other guys escaped.

And after the cages, but the guys can read all about my escape, our escape in my book. It's pretty good. It's pretty epic. No, thank you. Then you have, after that, you've got the scape invasion.

Then I let you free. They give you your boots back. I think I give you some water. I was not there to partake in the X. because I was still in the bush, you know, on my own. And then you have to get back to the camp. And then some of the best trackers and our scurries, then try and catch you. And if they catch you, you know, they put you back in a cage or they interrogate you further.

And that usually concluded survival phase. And then after that, after that, you will, there would be one more thing. you'll go to the Kalahari. That's usually the last one. We'll go to the Kalahari and then you'll have 150 kilometers route march. Usually I have to carry your own water.

You can work in a group there. So if one guy falls behind a little bit, you can encourage him to finish. We, on my selection, we only did 100 kilometers. I think it's because the other selections is 150. I think it's because

they with it are down a little bit too much on dog face and survival face. And so that's a 100 kilometer trek through the desert for, and again, this is a police unit. And police units usually don't do this type of training and this type of selection. So maybe it would be helpful to, because I think you've already mentioned it, this unit does hostage rescues, but also many other things. I mean, you did reconnaissance missions and things like that. Maybe you want to explain what the task force's mission is so that people can understand why you did all this type of training. Yes, the task force mission is vast. It's also, I mean, we've got a reconnaissance unit that's connected to the army, you know, South African National Defense Force. They do urban, rural

warfare. They do reconnaissance missions. And the task. force also be the same I don't think we were also that well funded as they were and they were much better funded I believe and we were but there were many missions that we were sent out to go on people that smogged with weapons had had illegal weapons if you for instance look in my book the last picture I put in it's a picture of four guys there story I did not tell and like we went out in in Babanango, in a Durban, in the Quasilunatelle Mountain. And they told us you'll be there for one night.

You must, Recki, the illegal weapon smugglers, the guys, and then pinpoint them and then radio it three. We spent three nights there. We didn't have enough food, not enough water, but we spent three nights there. That is the story to be told. And yes, that picture. One of those guys are me. You can guess which one.

I honestly can't tell with all the camo. Is this you on the far right? No, it's not me. No. Damn it. Dave, you have a guess? No. No.

That's one of the investigation officers that luckily took this photo. Otherwise, this would have all. To the left, he's greaves, the tall guy. then next team is back. Well, then it's me. He's now, but he's I think he's maybe in the States now, so I'm in the States.

But this was, is there anything you can tell us about this operation, Shane, about the reconnaissance you guys did that night? Yes. The guy that sent us out, warrant officer,

Ted, like here, we didn't know that and he told us there's lots of cover there. He said, okay. We had to walk, in the night you see on my rifle and on Henry's rifle it's got an H8 light so if we put night vision on and you shine that the enemy can't see it but it's like a torch for you there so we walked through the shang i would guess it was four kilometers or five that we had to sit on a hill

when we got there and wasn't he correct that we received so the cover was very little so we had to make sure that we came out ourselves well so that the enemy couldn't see us or you know not the enemy but the illegal legal firearms trade list yeah and then from there we radioed through listen they here come you know send the choppers that we can arrest there and uh yeah three nights later for the fourth day then we tracked out of me we had to walk out again as not to be noticed you will see on my left hand shoulder you'll see the butt sticking out of a m79 40 millimeter grenade launcher i always took that with if the situation was a little bit Never.

Sounds like a good question. No, it's a good one to tell. Yeah. Should I tell that story, I need to get over at least two of those guys, because I don't tell a story just out of my own mouth. Sure, sure. I need to put flavor to us. I need what they felt, what they saw.

So maybe, so after you finish the Kalahari Desert March, you become, correct me if I'm wrong, a probationary, member of the unit. And now you have opportunities for all these advanced training to learn, you know, skydiving, scuba diving, sniper school, rock climbing, demolitions, medic, tracker school. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about some of the advanced courses that were offered to you after graduation. The thing, skydiving actually is part of the selection course. It's usually the last course you do. do. So when you finish with the Kalaari walk, you'll get a couple of those rest and you'll go do

your skydiving course. Again with us on my selection, they did it. They first did our skydiving and then they took us to for the survival phase. So there was a little bit of a mess up. However, the correct way to do your skydiving loss because that is a cherry on the cake at you. Yeah. For some people, some people hate it. Okay. It's three weeks, if I'm not mistaken, at Nailstrom, South Africa in northern France, Val. Then, yeah, they start with, you know, ordinary static line. You do a static lines. And then from that, they start you on hop and pop.

So first start you with a dime rift cord, and then hop and pop, you jump out and you pull your record. It's got first a spring-loaded pilot tree that jumps out, and then you go from there like normal. thing and you do about about 40 jumps on your jump school. You also get taught to jump with kit. So you take about 40 kits between your legs.

Get taught to jump, tactical parachute jumping. 3-4, you jump with your rifle and you do night jumps, you do water jumps. Yeah, when you're finished with that after three weeks, you go to the

unit and then they call you join the unit so now you can start part taking in on it's n t-j-o-t-t-E-R they call you a notary if you just come in a unit so you're an inexperienced operator not what is it means does it mean young young dog or something like that the young dog is still coming the the notary is before the young dog oh really okay okay You know, you still now get you've got a Wara Wara group, we've got some WhatsApp groups. You still get, you know, some of the guys,

if he's angry at you and he was a senior guy, he'll tell you, he'll get, you know, you'll let's use the F word. He says if he's looking down at you. We're not in a unit anymore. Anyway, when you're on the unit, the next two courses, they try and get you on, all the guys. It's scuba diving.

It's a commercial, it's a rescue diver. Where you dive to 50 meters, you dive up to 50 meters. Air diving for bottom time should not exceed 20 minutes. And then the other course is explosives, where they call you inspector of explosives. So you learn quite a lot. You have to study. Otherwise, you flung that course.

Yeah. You know what P-E-T-N, for instance, I can still remember it, Peta-E-T-T-Tor-N-T-Tra-N-T-TRA, T-N-T, T-N-T, I can still remember some of this stuff. And then when you pass the academic version, the exams, they take you to the field. And like I write in my book,

your instructor usually is half-death, you know, because of all the explosion, but, he reaps of experience with explosives, out of this world. And then you learn how to mainly how to deactivate explosives as well, because that is your main goal. You know, it's not really to say booby traps. You have to learn of booby traps to be able to deactivate there.

You learn how to, what I can remember is a platter, how to put a platter, so you put the shape, charge. to go through a much thicker piece of metal or whatever, whatever the circumstances. That is your main causes. After that, you're expected. You guys are going to argue with me there, but, you know, that is their progress. You expect it to do at least two other courses, to specialize in there. Right. For instance, medical course.

You do with seven medical battalion is more or less a level six medic intermediate life support, although you carry much more serious drugs. Rock climbing and rescue course. Four by four driving, high speed driving, snipers, there are countless, countless causes. You can go further with your diving and can become a diving supervisor. we do class four down when you can do class three class two up to class two supervisor

they tracker especially an extremely good course for the guys to do as a lot of guys did is tracking you go to up and come down something like that

the farmer's called I never did tracking you do basic tracking it's a tough course it's a tough course It's a tough course. And then you do advanced tracking. All the task force guys that went for that course, they passed it. And that is how we're obviously able to track down with the Ascarry, the bamboo trackers as well. We also work closely with them.

That's how we're able to track a lot of that. You also mentioned in the book, and Shane, please forgive me for butchering your native language. there is an exchange between the special task force and I believe it's called Kufut, the tracking unit. Yes, Kufut. That's also where the task was gained a lot of experience for Bush warfare unit. That was Kufu started in 79. And operators from a task force was sent from 80 to 83, General Vandrov started. stopped it in 83 because the guys

love the action so much they left they left to give them. And they gained lots of experience there and then some of the guys were sent back again closer to the end when I stopped Kufu. Kuf, the little bit, the chapter

I wrote about Kufu, I kept respectfully small. I was never served in a unit. I just wanted to portray what the guys did as part of the experience that was brought back to the unit. And anyway, I'm Jim Hooper.

I wrote the whole book about Kufu then. There was other guys as well. Zugu Zubu Foxtrot, I think, is one of the books about the unit. Yeah, I actually have that book. I haven't read it yet. I read it a few years ago. I enjoyed it, but I can't judge the veracity

the way that you guys can. You're obviously much closer to it. Well, you mentioned Kufu, like, unit train there. these other specialties, all these other training courses, were most of these done by military units, were they were some of them done in-house? Did you go to civilian instructor? Like, that's a lot of different specialties. Where did they all come from or how did you guys, you know, train? At the beginning, a lot of them, lots of them came from like a private

private Skyriff instructor. In my time, for instance, we dealt with martial arts training, self-defense, martial law self-defense, actually I want to call it, with Robert Reardonbach.

He was sent to us, and we did, you call it contact training, but you don't spell it with a C, you spell it with a cave. I write a bearing in my book is extremely good, what he does,

extreme. So that's one of the private courses we've done. Also, when it comes in my time, it comes to rescue. I was the guy that took the rock climbing and the rescue course. I took it more based on the rescue course. The guy that taught me was extremely well, Colonel Saki from the range. It was extremely good. It's extremely good in what he did. I and myself and my fellow 13 guys I want to say we got a guy from Cape Town that was extremely good in

rescue techniques and we did some courses with him and then we went to a rock climbing and rescue course I can remember I mean I write in a book where I saved we saved as a team but I mean I was obviously the main brain with my medical experience, Johnny, brass buckles and skull

by going in the cliff, fell off the cliffs, about an 18 meter force. And if we didn't intervene, he would have died. It's good memories. It sounded like rock climbing was something you really enjoyed, though. Yes, I was, you know, a little bit lighter than now, you know, but I'm stronger now. It was something I really enjoyed. You know, it's adrenaline.

It's like, I think you can get addicted to the adrenaline, that's for sure. Yeah. Like I say it must be something like, I don't know what drug does your body. I don't believe in it, but it must be, maybe worse than that. Yeah. What was your relationship with like the military since you were a police force? And I assume you fell underneath a different chain of command. Is that correct?

I mean, did you have a good relationship with these different military units that you trained with and that were trained by you? Was there like this sort of inner branch rivalry going on? The military units that we've been trained by, for instance, seven medical battalion. We had a great relationship with it. You know, we were trained as ophthalics because if we go out and then we could carry the staff with. are bads and we had to know-how how to save our own as well as the enemy is needed or the criminal in our circumstances. But a lot of the time we would take a seven medical battalion medic with us. Okay.

And for instance, if we did skydiving, he would bring the ambulance with. So we take care of all the medical needs. and that was the most perfect opportunity for me and other medics to stock our back for the times that we didn't have their support. I mean, I'm still friends with some of them. I still have very good friends up to this day. Yeah, for sure.

Later years, there were some of our guys that went to America as well that trained there. By then I was already on my way out, out of the unit. They went to count insurgency and hostage units. Although sometimes some of them would come back and I would question what they were trying to teach us. If a guy tells me, you know, you shoot a guy two in the chest and one in the head, and our question is motive. We must shoot the hostage taker, one around, maybe two, it must count.

you must what is available you have to focus on and shoot I'm not elaborate on that some of the next technique that was brought over from let's say the US was good and I believe some of it was not that not good now when you say you would punish your bags from I think seventh medical was that with their help or behind their back to take them yeah No, they helped us.

You know, we were part of their unit as well. No, no, they always helped us, especially if you had, you know, you went to their canteen on Friday, Fridays, and you, you know, you had a relationship with them. I mean, in my book, I speak about some of the small operations I did in the barracks, you know, just to, I explicitly wrote that just to, just to, I specifically wrote that, just to, you know, to make a book a little bit fun, you know, a little bit more fun. And some of the operations that some of those medics told me about was unreal. It was unreal, you know. Yeah. Now, what about with like units like the recid unit and the more elite military units,

did you have a good relationship with them also? or did anybody in the military you think that they should be doing the job that you guys were doing and was there a rivalry at all? Last training. We've got lots of respect for each other. They know we do the RISD ratio.

We basically specialize. They specialize more in the bush. They've got the backing. They've got expensive equipment and a task. But we could work together. as one unit which we did a couple of times. We still have friends, all of us, lots of us, still have friends in the Rekkes.

And I write respect. I'd also to elaborate in my book, that's why I've got the one chapter. What is the special forces operator? I wanted to, I mean, it is from my point of view. So I wrote it because I don't say I'm going to get any lip from the reconnae, the reconnaissance unit which i believe i won't but there might be somebody else that's going to tell me shame how can a special forces unit reside inside the police that's why as well i covered all

time tried to cover all the angles inside a book normal wording is 90 000 um words and mine is about 87 88 so i could have put in loads more of information but there was uh the end chapter the The Rekkes did some incredible operations externally. That's going to be a whole other episode, I think. But there was one interesting episode you write about in your book. And again, please forgive me for mispronouncing this. In 1988, there was a attempted coup in Bafathaaswana. Oputatatuana.

Okay, maybe I'm in the ballpark. Yes. And you wrote in the book about how the Ministry of Defense asks the Rekkes, how long will it take you to mobilize? Oh, yeah. Like, it's going to take us a couple days. And then they look at the special task force. When can you guys get on the ground? And they're like, within the hour.

Two hours, yeah. The reason, apparently, most probably why the Rekis couldn't mobilize within the same day was. same day was they were busy with fighting another war. Yeah, they're in the field. The task force is on the operators' badge, on our operator's bat, you've got a a Peregrine falcon because that is for the quickness that we can strike. Peregrine falcon is the fastest animal of the animal kingdom. It's a faster animal.

It speeds up to 200 miles per hour, 32 kilometers per hour. faster speed record is 3809 kilometers per hour. So then General Vandrach, I think it was, he said, with two hours, my men, he called us, mobilized, and then we reached Swart-Corp Air Force Base in less than two hours. Could you tell us a little bit about what that coup attempt was, why it happened, and how the task force responded to it? Refresh my memory. That was the Pope. No, no, that was where they held the president, Moncope, I believe, is named as captive,

and the head of the Bopattswana military. And there was two prof with in the snipers and the heavy weaponry. Went to the errant, where they regroup, and the third one went back to the office to get more explosive. officer in charge was Warlord Leroux and I'm pretty sure he wanted to have enough explosion was the explosive expert and then they went the two choppers went from Zeris

they actually they almost crashed when they took off from Zeris because of the day of it was the heat of the day and because of the weight of the choppers they left for the stadium in Boputatswana and the only information they had

was that the rebel army was a company strong. So they fought about three or four hundred. When a third chopper reached zero, they couldn't establish cons with the first two choppers. So the third chopper was a nine people with the snipers, which I definitely needed with every weaponry. They basically they waited at zero. So it was 20 task force soldiers.

that were up against more or less 400. Bob soldiers trained by the South African military, heavily armed. And when they landed at the stadium, and they wanted to determine where the president was, Mongols, I believe, his name was. And then they saw a pair of Long John's hanging out the window with a red cross on it. when they found it, it was macchure and painted on the long joints.

But anyway, then they were dropped there. The choppers had to go back because they didn't have any heel. They stormed, the 20 guys, stormed the stadium. And they managed, obviously, to free the general, and they freed the president. The general, I think, was shot in the ankle, and the president was the, covered in all South African flag. He was beaten right through the night. One guy was specifically, to be noted,

is one of the guy was the name of Boris. He got separated from his friend, from his body, Watson, through all the confusion. He ended up in the center of the stadium. And he, top soldiers heavily armed. The weaponry was one up.

And he shouted the other loud voice. He shouted at them, if we don't drop their weapons or kill you all I'll drop their weapon I think the only shot that was fired was one 80 somewhere but no shots

were fired like the whole the whole mission was like what like seven or eight minutes I think he said yeah a couple of after they hit the ground yes

if I can remember correctly seven or eight minutes it's again it's just not the typical type of police operation that you expect. That's why the task was a paramilitary organization. So as well, some of the guys left for the army. Yeah.

They didn't want to be under the country's law, I believe. They wanted to experience something else. Yeah. What, how was your chain? It's very interesting that you were a police force and yet you did these external. operations, what was the chain of command for you? Was it under, I don't know if you have like a department of, I mean, I'm sure you have whatever. Ministry of Defense or not Minister of Defense, but Ministry of Justice, right? Or do, did the police and the military share a common chain

of command or how did that work for you? Like who would assign you your missions? And then how would you get your assets, like your air assets? Would the military just pony up? whenever the police said we want you guys to do this. So our commander in chief, if we needed a C1 city or military choppers, then probably not the commander, but from head office. First we used to fall under the security branch. Then the command was given over to, she's now public order policing,

And then you know the general like General Vandrach? So for instance our commander at Pretoria, if he needed military helicopters, he will call General Vandrach. Or you will call General Blackjack. And General Blackjack will make contact with the military counterparts. And they will have military chopper as far as they'll pick us up. Where the unit was, there was rugby field. and we'll pick us up right there at the active field. We'll drive with our vehicles to Swart Corps Air Force Base, which was closed,

and then we'll just drive into the C-130, for instance, three Aski buses, and then we've got all our equipment. And would all of your orders, like your operations and missions, would they all come from the Ministry of Justice side, or could the military task you with operations? So he has to go through the Ministry of the Justice always. It's interesting. He has to.

Obviously, we fall under the country's law. So we still have to, if you do operations, we have to still do it as, but it means the normal policing has failed. the normal policing has failed so they will give you the go-ahead for the sniper to pull the trigger so they'll give you a go-ahe to end somebody's life

or if you can, you will just maim the person so that his life can still be safe but with hostage rescue there's not really something like that you have to somebody with a loaded weapon you have to incapacitizing immediately. When you get it away. There were some really interesting missions you detail in the book, Shane,

where the task force went in actually unarmed. And a few other cases where they were armed. And some operators put themselves a great risk to, you'll physically take down the hostage taker without firing a shot, which I thought was maybe the most impressive. That was folks. present. Yes.

I believe that the operation was boxers prison where they didn't allow us to take in weaponry. You know, it's actually not the correct way to do it because

if somebody approaches you with a knife you know, he can kill you quickly. But on that mission, I was not, but the guy said it was lots of fun.

they absolutely use their anti-hand skills to be able to rescue the hostages. Yeah, I can't now remember a lot about that. Yes, what happened there is

Officer Derek D'Arksen, he got the idea to take a key to the hostages, which Pora, the Taki, he took the key and then he told them to lock himself inside the cell. And he gave them a tonne for.

So if somebody comes close to the cell, it's with a key that you must. And you don't open it until you see the guys in camera. But then the guys fall their way through to the cell until they got to the wardens and then they freed them. So that's what I remember of that operation. Just throwing fester cups all the way to the hostage. One of my basements is saying, this is you must have an

great job. I think a lot of people know a lot of people know about your unit from the documentary. I think it was a British documentary that is on YouTube today. And just watching it, and certainly from reading your book, again, people should check it out the South African Police Special Task Force by our guest, Shane Willard. Yeah, can you hold that up? Can you hold that? It's just how unconventional and the unconventional methods that the task force often used.

And perhaps it's because you just had some very smart people in the unit. Perhaps it was also because you didn't have the most expensive high-tech gear to use. You really had to engage your brains and think outside the box to resolve some of these situations. And that really comes through in the book and also that documentary. I think it's just really amazing to even as a case study. for in special operations missions. That was from Jeff Chaghan. Jeff Chaghan, he was from a UK television program.

I'm not correct, it was BBC. I'm not sure, but he took some documentaries. It is also on, if you go on YouTube, you can find it, but if you go on, I have a website. If you look at the back, it's my website, but it's our website as well. If you look at the back of the book, we'll see in the last page, the website will be there, where you can see also a lot.

We can also see it. If you go on www. www.sapstf.org. I'll post a link to it down in the description. Hey, Jack, you want to put it in the chat right now. Just so. Yeah, yeah. Then you can, all the videos, or most of the videos are there in the video section.

So if you're interested in that, then you can follow that. also to note this book unfortunately my goal was to have it by tonight but there was a little bit of delay which is understandable

the people that's going to be interested to buy the book to buy the book the cover would change okay it looked a little bit different because my design

looks a little bit different I'm old school so this is it will go to my original design. And yes, Jeff is a great guy. He did extremely good videos, video footage. And you'll see my name on the skydive video when it's finished. I took the skydust photography.

You'll see my name is there at the bottom. Photographer, Skydha photographer, Schenguela. There is, there's an operation that they capture in that documentary that you described. in your book, maybe you could give us a little background on where they're going out, the task force is going after a transit heist gang in 1998 in Medrana. And they get into a huge shootout and the pickup truck comes flying at the task force members, like goes over a bump and the Molotov cocktails explode. It's like something like straight out of a Hollywood movie.

It is indeed, right? Yeah. Yeah, Jeff was lucky to get that shot as well, right? was lucky, but he pushed a lot for good footage. Yeah, that begins with. He was photographing, videographing, Ashley Krutz, Warrant of his hair, Ashley Kruppes. Actually, like to speak about him, you know. He's a good guy, Ashley.

So, Ashley recited a verse out of a song, you know, Lord is My Strength and so on. It's actually good to watch. And then he said, you know, everybody wore orange coveralls or brown coveralls to obviously covered the cameras and then the information was accurate somewhere in Johannesburg and as the truck with the CIT caching transit you know guys came rushing toward the one taskful guys that stood in the road you know he shot at it and the driver lost control of the vehicle they drove into into the bushes and the mullet of cocktail that was in the truck of the three or four cash and trance and the ice guys it exploded and you know the vehicle burst into flames and they you know there was some

of the guys were shot and one or two was arrested but it's a good way the video says it better you know than i'm writing in the book i was wondering if we could talk then a little bit about some of the operations you had participated in shame um there's this really um interesting one you described in your book, Operation Shobachonabin, 1996? Shobah Shobah Shobani. Shobah Shobah Shobani. Shobah Shabane. Shobah Shabane.

Yeah, that was a good operation. You know, we went in, there were a couple of guys that participated in that. Myself, Loki Orrin, Stocky's haystip. He's passed away, captain, in operation. Guard, the rest of his soul. And another guy can't remember his name. We looked after... Loki is quite prominent in your book also.

He sounds like a Loki. He sounds like he's a pretty badass guy. Yeah, yeah. Some guys that if I speak about him, they'll know he is, but I once elaborate on the movie. Sure, sure. He was with me on selection. We did many operations together.

It's also, yeah, it's interesting. you know to play something like that in your book and then when we went to this district in you know kuzulu natal in a mountainous hills it was a massacre people that that murdered lots of other innocent people he's in called waney massacres if i remember the name correct and bushe engelbracht moodly i think two other investigating officers um and then obviously then informants, we protected, and then later on we were given a reporter as well, lady reporter. With a lady reporter, they sent their own bodyguard with, you know, Loppies, the tall guy. She has their own bodyguard because we're focusing on the job.

We also had the seven medical guy because he would obviously patch up anybody and he frees us. myself and Loki trained as medic but we didn't need to focus on that so each night certain time will go where the informant shows us and it's in this mountainous area

you know it's a one footpath and he'll lead us to go where we should go we will knock on the doors we'll arrest somebody if needed we'll first clean the area and then the investigation officers can go with

So there's one specific morning. Logie specifically, I can still remember, he told Stocky, Captain Stocky's haste. He said, Captain, he's becoming early in the morning. The sun's going to come up. They're taking the time, the investigation office. We have to get out of here. I can still remember that, you know. And, okay, Stockies pushed them, and then we left later than we should.

As we were leaving, the sun was starting to rise. and you should be out by the sun shooting there up it should be dark stop and then we jumped into our gnarla and they jumped into the ordinary vehicles and we were supposed to be in front and they were in front we went up this hill and as I looked out of the window I could see the ladies of the tribe they came out of the hills and I thought what are they doing now you know and then then all of a sudden on the top of the hill we stood stop we couldn't go to the left or the right, was too steep, and there were some gunshots at the front. So then Captain Stocky's hasteck told us, skirmish to the front. So now we had Lappies. We gave Lappies that was the bodyguard of the Lady Reporter. He was a driver of the Nala. So he frees us up. So we can do the protection. He's driving. The medic is safe. the reporter is safe, okay? Okay, we get out of the Nala, we skirmish up.

I mean, the listeners lower skirmish is correct. Like an assault line, yeah. Yeah, I like the assault line. So we skirmish forward to go, and at the top, there was a roadblock. So they put in, they put stones and stuff in front of the top of the hill, and then the men started approaching from the front and the woman of the tribe started approaching from the rear and as I was commencing up I saw

Loki to the right there the MP5 in his and I think and I think the M79 40mm rocket launcher called the Martini Henry's nickname it's not near his left hand and I thought what is he going to shoot with that you know and I just chuckle for a while And then behind him I saw Lappi, the bodyguard of the reporter, running with his MP5. And I look at him, I told him, I told him, you're going over.

I say, get back in the, get back in the yard. He tells me, no, he's not going back. And but now at this, at this point, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, these are Zulu warriors that are coming down and surrounding the task force members and also this reporter and medic that are along with you. Legendary Zulu warriors. They know exactly what they're doing. Yeah, yeah.

So now I look, I look back at the Njala. The Njala doors are still open. So he's got two doors that opens up with pressure and then he puts one button, it closes with pressure. So Lopis gave his side arm to the medic. Medic is

an arm because it's not a military operation. And he gave him quick instructions, you know. I don't know how much of the information the medic got but not enough. So the Zulu woman, they started approaching the Nala. They started moving towards the reporter and the medic. And I wanted to join this comish,

and I thought, Loppish is not hearing me. He's drawn like a mouth to a flame. I need to protect. I need to protect the lady reporter. Okay, and what I did is they believe in San Gormas in which doctors. So my is loaded with shot one round

right in the center when a pirate techniques came out of where the round landed they thought you know I made a fire they didn't know where it was it was something new

I had to think on my feet I had to think quickly I shouted that her medic to close the doors the women's creeds they ran everywhere and I knew I could join the skirmish line

because I knew and as I look back he got the right button to push for the Nala for the doors to close. Okay, joint in a skirmish line. We calm the situation at the front. We cleared the road and then we skirmished back

to the Nala again. We entered the Nala. Nobody was hurt. The lady reporter said you got the two rows of seat. You got a drive on a commander. The two rows of seats for the soldiers or the police

and then the one at the back. And there where your feet are, there's a small space. She was sitting inside there. He was holding herself. She was inside that small space. That is how she was afraid she was. Yeah. I looked straight in the eyes.

And, yeah. So we exchanged some non-verbal communication, and then, yeah, we went back to the base. What was the, was there, What was the reason for the Zulu tribe to surround you at that point? Was it just because you were outsiders in their area? Or was it because of the nature of your operations at the time? Absolutely, we're in the area.

We shouldn't be there. As well as, you know, they might have a valid reason why that massacre happened. If I remember, it corrected, easing or when in massacre, they might have a valid reason. in their tribe. But lawfully, it's not valid. And we were in the district. You know, they don't want us to say. Right.

Was that often a problem for you and other police force where you're dealing with, like you say, for them in tribal related matters or the way they operate as tribes, it's a valid, it's valid and legal for them in their minds, but it is not legal according to like South Africa law. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, Zulu warriors, a well-known warriors in a history way, but tradition. You know, South Africa, you get a Zulus and, of course, we've got 11 different languages, so you get many different nations. Yeah. I mean, we've got mutual respect for each other as well,

if you're a cop, and they tell you, you go arrest this person, you do it. It doesn't matter, which government, the government of today, we did what we were asked to do. Right. Yeah, we saw a lot of similar stuff in Afghanistan and whatnot because the tribes are so old there, like the postumes and whatnot. They have their own moral code. They have their own ethics code that, you know, if he proceeds anything that the government is going to tell them is right or wrong. So we have some questions real quick that I don't want to go too long without getting to if you don't mind, Shane. Alex, thank you very much. having served in such an elite law enforcement unit, what lessons reforms can U.S. law enforcement

undertake to improve and become a more effective entity? See below. You didn't type anything else. But are there ways that, whether it was you or the regular police force in South Africa, learn to deal with people that you think that the U.S. is lacking, or do you have to be? have any criticisms of how policing is done in the US from what you've seen lately? Well, it's been an experience. They're very professional and the public's got a lot of respect for them. I mean, I was in the U.S. in 94 for three months, 97 for six months, and the policemen

I made were very nice. It is quite a complex question with what happened in the world currently. Understanding of I'm a medic. Understanding the human body better. You will know a person can survive without oxidar. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that makes sense.

Yeah. I'm sure in South Africa you guys ran up against that a lot too in the sense of there are laws that are in place that you're required to enforce. And, well, I mean, I'm not talking about Shogun because I think that everybody agrees that what he did was, but just in general policing, there are laws that are in place that you guys have to enforce, but it's not always the popular thing to enforce them

or that the laws themselves sometimes put you at odds with, you know, with the population. And how, like, were you, were the South African police trained a lot in, like, de-escalation and, you know, dealing with people outside of just arresting them? Of the South African police, we're trained in that. Now what we see in the news, there's a minority of the South African police that would handle a situation in a more, stable professional manner. So you will sum up the psychology of the situation and you will calm it. Because if you approach a person, you can see the person is upset.

You don't want to go in and just finish the guy. You want to diffuse the situation. You want a warning. This is your right. I know you're upset. That's the best way to approach a person. You get different officers, unfortunately. You get some of them.

They just rust in. I mean, we've seen. now this COVID-19, you know, two cops will drag a small lady to put her in the back of the vanage. You know, he said right away, probably not, you know, we don't know what he said or done before. Right. We've seen a traffic cop, a transit police officer, which is, as it's known in America. We've seen it trying to arrest a small child for walking on the beach. the father has become protected.

So something is wrong day in the psychological training of the cause. Right. I believe. So in South Africa, there's also a lack of training for sure. Yeah. Yeah. JK, thank you very much. He says, Sheen, are there any jihadist operating in South,

South Africa at the moment. Most probably they are undercover, but not to my knowledge. Does South Africa have a predominant religion? When you look at the different tribes and whatnot, do they have their own sort of religion and spiritual traditions? What does that look like in South Africa? Tribes, a lot of them believe in the San Gomez. So a lot of them believe in the forefathers.

A lot of them are Muslims, all religions in South Africa. All of vast, what you can think of, we have, a promise. It is, religion are kind of still free, although it's been taken out of schools a little bit, religion. It's basically you're free to practice any religion. And there's how many different tribes are there indigenous to South Africa? Official languages is 11. it's a lot.

If I say 53, there's probably more than that. And then there's also Dutch South African, English, South African, Portuguese, and Indians, if I'm not mistaken? Yes, yes, Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Americans. That's why my name is Shane Wallach. You know, that's why I've got an English name. they sent me to African school, you know. That's why they sent my sister to English school. So English is much better than mine.

They sent me to African school. They wanted me to be a boer. I don't know. General Craig, thank you very much. A sticky question. You don't have to answer, and this is from him. Any opinion on what has been. happening to white farmers, et cetera, in South Africa, and do you think it's indicative of a larger

growing problem with national security implications? To the white farmers, South African, they should protect themselves better. I know a lot of them, and it is very heartbreaking. If they protect themselves better, they would be able to, the farm attacks, they will be able to lessen it, and they would be able to curb it at such a state. that they will not be protected, that they will be protected, that they will not be attacked. For myself, I think, our government and other governments can focus more attention on the farm killing,

because it's not the right, you know. It is every human being is precious. It doesn't matter, you know, I don't believe in different races. You're a good person, you're bad person. It's good or it's ripe or right. Yeah. DJ, thank you very much. He's just a damn good episode guys.

And Alex, so you guys can, oh, he gave us a donation. Thank you, Alex. So we can get some, is it betong? Is there the beef turkey, right? Bitton, bitton. The beef turkey in South Africa? It's bulton. Bulton.

Yeah. Yeah. That's much. I send him some. And so, Shane, the other operation that you detail in the book that you were a part of was in Albar's prison in 1997. And you got to use some of your exceiling rock climbing skills during that operation, if I were right? Yeah, that was a right. Yeah, first of all, what, I think it was 97.

and there was about 40 operators that arrived at St Albans' presence. This was the second hostage situation. First, the Cape Town branch arrived. Then we from Pretoria arrived, but most of the guys were on other operations because the unity is so small. And when we arrived, everybody was tired. And so the first opportunity we got to take a break, we rest.

There was five hostages. One lady, one, I think a doctor or medic, I remember correctly. And they had the ankenades. Because of the lady that was also taken hostage, I believe, they approved a quick hostage release. First attempt was a little bit fragile and unplanned. So we pulled out of that very discreetly.

So as not to have any of our hostages injured. So then what we did is we went to another prison close to St. Albans. And we made moulds for the fast ropes. And we had a plan after for that specific operation, warrant officer lion will be a very strong individual. He took charge of the office. That was a non-commissioned and officer of a successful operation with the officers, the sergeants, all of them, all of them worked together.

Certain guys speed out a little bit more. And then I was tasked because I was the rock climbing and the ropework experts. With my team, to clamber over, we had Team Alpha, Team Bravo, Team Charlie. I was Team Alpha, me and Eni, his nickname, he's nice name, he's big. drill but were by til in Africa. We were the rock climbing experts. We fixed our ropes on the roof. We knew where the heartages would be more or less.

And then we measured our rope to jump off the roof and then to hang with our weapons in front of the shell and then dominate them. Team Bravo clambered over the roof at another area and they had these specially made iron U-form hooks that I placed over certain areas that they can

fast climb up and down with the rope. They placed Dane Rader was in charge there. Dane Rader and Fryer. They placed some explosives on the cell doll to make sure we open it very quickly. They placed some a little bit too much.

Doni told me when a countdown came, the explosives actually fell you know. And then he ran back and it was three, two, make sure it stuck again. And then when an explosive blast, you know, we got it, it spun him a bit. That cell door was blown, I don't know how many meters,

50 meters down, down the hallway. And then we had team Charlie. That was also a backup. They went in at another door. But we were basically team alpha us. When the countdown came, very discreetly, I signaled to my guys, they said they were ready. We jumped.

I jumped. And the Robert was still busy with his rope. He told me he was ready, but when we jumped, I was the lone guy there. So in front of the window, the window was unfortunately covered with a blanket, so I couldn't see in at all. But I made us if I could see in. And I wasn't quite stable because my feet were not against the wall.

So I just dominated with my voice. And then the two other guys in my team, they threw Velte's and Chris, they threw stun grenades into the square that we had. So to create this special effect. So we basically bought time for Team Bravo. They blew down a cell door. with explosive, they ran down the hole and then they liberated the hostages.

That was out of a prison to do a hostage rescue is not easy. If I may say it takes nerves of steel and it takes good leadership and it takes... That's because the prison is obviously designed to keep people inside. So the fortifications and the doors and everything, the windows, everything is like super difficult for you guys to get through and breach inside to rescue the hostage. Absolutely. I mean, the windows are about this wide. They block this. You can't always enter with the key.

They take soap and they put it inside where the key goes. And it hardens, you can't get your key. They put pieces of glass in. in the floor, in the hallway. So if you walk, they will hear you. And then they watch you from all the different areas, the cells. I mean, the present is in different squares, it's both. So even if the prisoners is not part of the autistic taking,

they will still warn with their metal cups and soda lit on the bars. And they will warn the hostage takers of us approach. Yeah, and we've done our teachers out of a couple of presents, successful, successful. Shane, this has been awesome. There are, like, on my notes here, I have, like, you know, probably 30 different operations from your book that I thought were interesting. Obviously, we don't have time to get into all of it. I'll ask if you'd stick around to do a bonus segment, and maybe we can talk about a few of the interesting ones. But I also wanted to ask you about, you know, where the special task force is today, where you're at today.

You talk about a lot of operators from the unit going off and doing private security contracting in Iraq. I just want to kind of bring things up to speed to where we are now. Where the task force are today, the task force today, I'm not in contact with them at all anymore. So the task force today, what I can say is they have adapted to their circumstances to the modern day. And they're obviously doing their work. I'm not quite following them. So they're doing their work professionally, I believe, according to what is expected of them in this era. what I know is task force Durban.

Every now and then we see some operations they've done. And they, that's quite a strong unit, I must say. The few operations that are seen where they've arrested some murderers and robbers and stuff, they really took care of them. So I know task force Durbin, what I see they do. And for the operators that left the task force, they all over the world. Some guys, I can't say they're still chasing their dream, but they will be still training other units in the world.

So they'll train them in whatever military fashion or discipline that they get paid for. A lot of the guys, most of them are still in the security field. So they will do, they will look to do VA. protection or they will train guards or they will do some overseas contracts. Myself is, for myself, I've been looking after people since I've been school basically. So I make sure the people I look after, they don't get taken hostage. And in my 30 years, I've not lost, I can proudly say I've not lost anybody. I also do myself, I also do other stuff.

We, we, I'm in contact with another colleague of mine that's with the Ministry of Interior of Israel. We blast proof can blast with anything for you. Buildings, the most modern technology, buildings, double stories, containers, as vehicles, we're planning to blast-proof ATMs with the best technology that you have. Sometimes I look after people, sometimes I do more clever stuff if you want to say. There's guys that one guy got his own weapon shop, so he makes weapons. He's an armorer. One guy is in, I think he's watching now, Yohan.

He went into the music industry. He's in America. So he chased his dream. He was an operator. And now he's, you know, a badass musician. And I take my hat off for people like that, you know. They chase their dreams and they made it possible. Yeah.

Absolutely. That's what I can think of quickly. Yeah, some guys got their own company. Some guys work for individuals. And a lot of guys ended up in Iraq. you mentioned in the book. Yes. I've worked there for eight years.

A lot of guys decimated a little bit. I don't know if the guys went back. I know the lot. Air Force Base. There was a lot of guys. That was where my last conference. But, you know,

I wanted to move out of that sphere a little bit. So I did help and safety as well. What we did is interesting, quite interesting way back in 2004. We looked after the tier one principles of Iraq. So we were chosen.

The person they basically approached, not the first person, the other people didn't want to accept the contract. To look after the tier one principles of Iraq, so the newly appointed by the coalition government. So you would only be two operators

at the beginning. So you look after your client and you train his security. So when they approached me. It was ex-Novie Hill guys. Duke. One guy's named Dennis.

The other guys name a country member. Now he's a email address was Go Seal at Gmail.com, I think. And then he he asked me, listen, he called me into his office and he said, Shane, you know, and he explained the contract.

I'll take it. I'll get you the offer. They said, no, no. He said, wait. go think about it see me in the morning I said my answer is going to be the same and then

next morning I saw him again I got his eight guys and then we in 2004 in 2004 about 40 or 60 guys we pulled from the task force to come join our range

because the job was quite lucrative and later on they send the Navy fields over because they saw this was a political driven agenda and they couldn't afford that any of these tier one principles of Iraq, you know, get taken out. So then we worked with the teams, the Navy Field teams, good guys. We really had some good fun together. And then what was it that set off the idea in your head to write this book?

I'll hold it up again for in, you know, if you can tell people where they can find it, you said it might be on Amazon before too much longer. When did this idea occur to you that you wanted to write a book about your previous unit? Okay, it's now currently only available on South Africa warbooks.com. It's expensive to send it to the States, but it can be sent anywhere, but soon it's going to be available on Amazon.com. After that, I want to translate it into whatever language, if necessary. Then, after that, I'm actually looking to make a movie about it.

So I've already started the adjutant. I believe it can make a blockbuster. So where did I get this idea? When I left the task force, you know, I wanted to be a civilian. So I said, to me, the task force was a lifestyle. It wasn't a career. It was a lifestyle. I loved it. I loved everything I did about it. I decided, because of certain reasons, I decided to deal and become a civilian.

So then I basically left the task force and I said, okay, I've got my few friends and I'm going to be, I'm going to chase my dreams. and then I was busy actually writing a book about my own experience in Iraq. I would have called this book the South Africa. Got some nice pictures. That's how I can remember so much about some of the operations because I've detailed them way back. That's smart.

And then one night I visited one of my friends in Pretoria. His name is Carl von de Walt. You know, was a very good instructor in a task force. A lot of guys didn't like him, but he was very good instruct. His nickname Rambo. He actually started my website, the website that I own. And then he gave it to me and I adapted. And then he, Shane, you must write a book about it.

I said, no, you created the website. You do it. No, but this is my second book, by the way. My first book is titled, The Truth About Self-Defense, A Guidelines for Women. 19 ages around the world to obtain the best knowledge about self-defense available. So I wrote a book. You have to contribute to society, correct? So I wrote this book to contribute to society.

And then he saw, obviously, I've got some experience writing. And then he kept on and on, you know, and after the fifth or six, double red heart and coke, you know, rum and coat. Then I told him, okay, give me everything you have and I will start. then if I make a promise, I keep to it. And then I started drafting a book and many drafts later. I changed it and I change it

again. I send it to one publisher. They almost accepted it. It was thrown out by a chief director and then I changed it again and I look for more info and then I taught myself how to get information out of the guys. The guys that gave me their stories

is because they trusted me. You'll see some of the stories and I knew I would write, they knew I would write their stories nicely, you know. You see some of the stories are very short. It's a good operation, but the guy didn't want to speak. Other stories are very long. The long stories had to get four, five or six guys to speak to, to build the story. And I would ask a guy if he willing, he say yes.

I will prepare him two days. I will tell him the operation. I will remind him again about it. It will build up in his mind, and then a second day I'll go to him. And then I'll say, he'll tell me his story. And then I'll give him some flashes

of what I collected already, and then, yes, you will tell me, yes, now I remember, you know. Then I'll come up with more information. This, I could detail some of it. This book, Shane, it's not just, you know, Shane's opinion about things. You interviewed like probably 40 other members of the unit that contributed to the book.

Absolutely. Absolutely. The book is not about, it's not about me. It's about the special task. I think put a little bit of me in it because I was on some of the operations, of course. And that book is like a CV, like I said to the guy. This is a series for each guy that was operating in a special shop. The guys can see what you've been through, what you've done.

Some guys were better than others. Some guys were good snipers. Some guys were good snipers. Some guys were good in a couple of disciplines. And, yeah, let's take it further. I don't want to just leave it there. And, you know, the guys have already asked me for a second. all the story that's great that's great is this the first book about the task force that's been

written the one they David this is the one and only the one and only there's no other book about a special task it's not even in a South African police history album yeah history album there's one or two sentences about that the South African police these special passwords. This is the first one that's got information about the unit. That's great. And I hope now that this book is out that you're able to follow up on it and record more of this history. And perhaps some of your teammates will also contribute their accounts as well. And once you get this up on Amazon, will you let us know so that we can put it out there and plug it? We'll let our people know that it's up.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm following up with Pete from Warbooks. He actually told me, you know, there was some changes. So, so it's a delay. Amazon is obviously very thorough with what they do. It would be out there a couple of days, I believe. Yeah, fantastic. So, guys, one more time. The book is the South African Police Special Task Force and Operators Perspective by Shane Wade Willard. Here's the book. Hopefully it'll be available for all of you on Amazon fairly soon. Otherwise, everyone watching, thank you for joining us live. We really appreciate it. We really appreciate Shane joining us because it's like probably three in the morning where he is right now. You know, please make sure that you like the video or dislike it. I don't care. Tell us something.

Write some comments down there. Tell us we suck. Tell us we're great. Whatever it is. You know, show the video with your friends. And there's a link down in the description to our Patreon if you want to financially support the stream and have access to the bonus segments we do with our guests. And I think that's about it.

Coming up next week, our next guest is going to be a friend of mine, Bob Charest. Bob served on Special Forces Detachment A in Berlin. They had to stay behind urban unconventional warfare mission during the Cold War. So that's going to be a super cool episode. Bob's a very, very interesting guy. served in Vietnam also. Maybe some other stuff we'll get him talk about. So I think

that's it. Thank you, Shane. Thank you, Dave. We appreciate it. And thanks everybody for supporting us for watching. Thanks, Shane. My pleasure. And I just finally say to everybody, just a final word, we always greeting the task force. We always grieve each other. We say, do not let the autistic speaker play rumble,

tumble with you all. Do not they the artist's like a Donny Brooker, which means you must always win, no matter what the cost are. And Shane, one final thing. People who served in the task force, the operators, they were actually known as what, Takis? T-A-K-I-E-S. Where does that word come from? What does it mean? It is an acronym.

It is short for task force. Okay. Okay. I should have asked that. Yeah, Reckis is short for a Connison's regiment. Talk is absolutely short for task force member. I should have asked that question at the very beginning, but I'm glad I remembered at the end. All right. Thank you, guys.