#214 Jay Cal - SAS Operator Charged with Murder

Jay Cal is a former British special forces operator who served in the elite 22 Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment following a distinguished career as a Royal Marine Commando. After passing the grueling SAS selection process—known for its 90% dropout rate—Jay went on to serve in high-stakes operations including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and covert reconnaissance. A seasoned operator, he embedded with Delta Force and later served as a trainer for Navy Special Warfare Development Group’s Green Team. Since retiring from the military, Jay has worked in private security and consulting, applying his deep expertise in tactical operations and risk management. He now brings that experience to his current role with GBRS Group. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org https://tryarmra.com/srs https://betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://shawnlikesgold.com https://hillsdale.edu/srs https://masachips.com/srs https://paladinpower.com/srs – USE CODE SRS https://patriotmobile.com/srs https://rocketmoney.com/srs https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS https://trueclassic.com/srs https://USCCA.com/srs https://blackbuffalo.com Jay Cal Links: IG - https://www.instagram.com/jay_cal87 Patreon - https://patreon.com/GBRSGroupEveryday Patriot - https://everydaypatriot.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Shawn Ryan?

  J Cal, welcome to the show.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Thank you Sean, absolute pleasure to be here, honestly. Before you say anything else, it's humbling, truly humbling. I know you don't leave, you know, the United States to do these kind of things. So the luxury to be here and your presence doing this sort of stuff is fucking, it's a big deal to me. And I'm super grateful for, for all the guys, the team, your time. Yeah, it means a great deal to me. It's kind of surreal as well.

• 0:34Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I only leave the country for stuff that I feel is extremely important. And so we got connected through my friend, our mutual friend, DJ Shipley, who's a good friend of mine. And it was interesting, he called me right before a flight.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:51Shawn Ryan?

  I was almost late to the flight because I was talking to him about you and he was telling me about the situation that you're going through in the UK.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:58Shawn Ryan?

  And the investigation and how it is, for lack of a better term, ruining your life and your teammates' life and demoralizing current and future SAS operators. And you know, it was interesting, I talked to DJ, I probably talked to him for about 20 minutes about this.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18Shawn Ryan?

  And I was very hesitant to do it. And then I get on the flight and I'm sitting next to, this is, this is five minutes after my conversation with DJ.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30Shawn Ryan?

  I get on the flight and I'm sitting next to another mutual friend of ours, Christian Craighead.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37Shawn Ryan?

  Who DJ had told me, he's really good friends with Christian. You know Christian, you know, he's a good dude. So, sitting next to him on the flight, five minutes after I just had the conversation with DJ. So I asked Christian, I said, hey, do you know this guy? And he said, oh man, he's very good friend of mine and told me a little more, in a little more detail about what you were going through because we had two or three hours on the flight, I was going to Austin. And right before we took off, as I'm talking to Christian about you, my producer Jeremy texts me. He sends me your Instagram profile.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16Shawn Ryan?

  And he says, hey, I think we should look into this guy. Looks really interesting. And so it's three things.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Three strikes.

• 2:22Shawn Ryan?

  Bam bam bam. And I'm big on signals from God. And to me, I was hesitant when I talked to DJ. Then Christian was on the flight. Then Jeremy texted me, this is all within fifteen minutes, all about you. And so I texted Jeremy and I said, hey, we, I have to do it. I feel like, I feel like this is something that, that is beyond me that I need to do. So it's an honor to be here. DJ had amazing things to say about you. Christian had amazing things to say about you. And so it is, it's truly an honor to have you here and I'm glad we can make this work. And we did this, we're doing this in Dubai.

• 3:05Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, because, because of what you're going through in the UK.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Shawn Ryan?

  I thought it would be better to do it outside of the UK. And uh, so here we are in Dubai.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16Shawn Ryan?

  Back in the Middle East.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Back in the Middle East, yeah. I was quite, you know, I was like, don't I want to go back to, back to the Middle East so soon? I was like, you know.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Initially, no, but then when this situation happened, it's like, I, I don't believe in coincidence like you. And I think I, I don't like the word universe. I think it gets banded around quite often, but like, there are times in life when I look at things and I'm like, there, there's, there's too many of these things to have lined up in certain timeframes or in certain situations for it to be. There has to be something involved in that. There ha, there has to be like, because it doesn't go that way. And then all of a sudden it goes completely the opposite side. So, yeah, it's, it's quite, like I said before, it's quite a surreal moment to be here sat with you because I've been watching you for years, even when I was still serving and a lot of, you know,

• 4:04Speaker 01

  you know, deeply personal things that good friends of mine have come on the show and talked about, you know, I've seen it. I've seen it from both sides. I've seen how they come across on, on, on this. But I've also seen it sat having a beer and had those conversations or on the range, having those conversations. So for me to take my turn and to be sat here is, it's really important to me. Um, and it's something that I don't take lightly. You know, this is a big, big deal for me. You know, I've been quite nervous, I think.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Not because of what I'm gonna say, but just because it's like, I just wanna do, do it right, you know, so, yeah, humbling. Slightly nerve wracking, but now I'm sat here, it doesn't feel like that. Now, now it just feels like two team guys having a conversation, like you're just a dude from the squadron, so. You know, that, that's cool. And you, you've made me feel nothing but welcome. And from the minute Jeremy reached out, I was like, yes, this is a good thing to do. I don't do podcasts. I've never done a podcast. It's the first time anyone's seen my face. Um, and I'm completely comfortable with it because I trust you, because I know that you're trying to do good things. And the fact that you have traveled halfway across the world and taken the time to do this makes me feel

• 5:16Speaker 01

  that the, the conversation and the topic I'm gonna have i- is, is worth having. And it makes me feel that it's in safe hands. And, you know, I've got complete trust with you. So. Again, I'll say it, I'll say it now and I'll say it again. I'm thankful and I'm grateful and I just wanna make sure that we take this opportunity to, to voice some things. Because there's a lot of people out there that don't get that opportunity. They don't have a platform. They don't have the luxury of sitting this position in this chair. So what I say, I wanna make sure I get it right. Um. And we, we, we try and change a couple of things because there's some stuff going on that I don't think's right.

• 5:49Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's what we do. And so in this interview, my goals are, one, to tell your life story.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 5:56Shawn Ryan?

  And on top of that, UK is going through a lot right now.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:01Shawn Ryan?

  We see it all over the news. I have friends over there, our mutual friends have told me about what's going on, especially within the unit, the investigations that are going on. And so when we get through your life story, I want to expose as much as possible about what's happening over there, why it's happening, who's doing it and all that stuff. So, so sit back, relax. I get nervous before all of these things too.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:27Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  And again, I think, I mean, we talked about it before, but it's like.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  People are very quick to hold soldiers and operators to account. And we get based on judgment this and judgment that or, you know, split second decisions. But we're always, we're always looked at in a negative light. And nobody, nobody gets to hold other people account. Like, the people that are making these choices and these decisions and pushing these things through and, you know, causing the trauma and the, the, the pain to all of us as individuals and our families. Nobody holds them to account. And that's not right. You know, if you, if you want, they want transparency, let's have transparency, you know? So I feel like this is a good thing to do.

• 7:05Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing a good thing for yourself and for all of your comrades and everybody who's serving over in UK right now. And, you know, just before the interview, I had mentioned a quote. You perfected the quote, but it's something goes something, you know, evil will prevail when good men do nothing.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 7:22Shawn Ryan?

  And you're doing something.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  I'm trying, I'm trying.

• 7:24Shawn Ryan?

  And that means something. So, everybody starts off with an introduction. So here we go. J. Cal, a decorated Royal Marine and Special Forces veteran with nearly eighteen years of service. Eleven combat deployments in the Queen's accommodation for valuable service. Mastering roles as jump master, tandem master and lead jumper with three operational jumps. Earned your place in SAS in two thousand twelve. You deployed to hotspots like Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa. Where you participated in numerous major offensives and covert actions, including work alongside Delta Force.

• 8:04Shawn Ryan?

  You're also the only SAS operator to ever become a green team instructor over a dev group. Now you are the lead instructor for GBRS Group to train the next generation of operators. And so, before we get into your life story. If you could give me just a brief snapshot of what these investigations are about.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Twenty twenty two, my last operational deployment, we deployed on the ground. I was assault team leader with my guys, a fire team essentially. We've been targeting

• 8:38Speaker 01

  known jihadis that had been responsible for multiple assassinations. They were top of the partner forces list in terms of people that they wanted to detain. So we launched a detention operation on those. I was ordered to go and do that detention operation. We planned it meticulously. We executed it professionally. And during that that operation, once we got off the vehicles, we were engaged from multiple firing points in the middle in the middle of enemy territory. I was with my teammates. I made the decision to return fire to protect my life and the life of my teammates. We were effective. We neutralized two enemy fighters. And then subsequently after that, they launched an investigation accusing me of murder, which is

• 9:23Speaker 01

  a very damaging thing. Murder. Murder. Murder. It wasn't anything. It was just straight up murder. You know, I've seen this before with the Eddie Gallagher case. Yeah. Yeah, I spoke to Eddie about this a lot. He's helped me a lot through this and you know, Eddie's a good dude. And he's coached me a little bit in terms of, you know, it's rough. It's rough. You feel betrayed. You feel let down. You know, and I'll say it before I say it again, Sean, there isn't a thing that happened that night that I wouldn't do again. And I could look you in the eye and tell you that I didn't, I did what I was supposed to do that night in the most professional manner that I could, culminating in years of experience, years of

• 10:03Speaker 01

  judgment, multiple deployments. I know what it's like to be in dangerous situations, and that was a hyper dangerous situation. And we dealt with it. My teammates dealt with it in the most effective professional manner. I was so proud of them, those young guys next to me. Some of them have never been in a gunfight before. And they did what they had to do. And they did it with exceptional professionalism. And then to get back off the ground and be treated the way that we did is just heartbreaking. There's no other word to say. It's heartbreaking, man. Yeah, it's it's a difficult situation.

• 10:34Shawn Ryan?

  And you got a you got a write up, a combination for that exact operation.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the whole, yeah. Yeah, for that whole deployment, yeah. My my sergeant major and my troop sergeant major told me that I'd been given a citation for it, never came. They pulled it for whatever reason. Maybe it's because I left the army. Maybe it's because I have an Instagram account, who knows? But whatever it is, you know, that kind of hurt. I don't care about medals. I don't even wear my medals. I don't even know where my medals are, Sean. Um, I'll never put that belt and bury on until this has been effectively resolved. I'm still extremely proud of who I am and what I've done. And I love my regiment to death. That's why I'm here, because there's things that need to change. But, you know, on that night, I couldn't be prouder. I couldn't be prouder of the guys around me. Like, it was it was well

• 11:21Speaker 01

  well within rules of engagement, well within what had to be done. And quite frankly, anyone that saw the drone footage and the fifty other people on the ground that all testified to say exactly what I saw and felt all all feel the same way, you know, it's it's it's as black and white as it gets.

• 11:39Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you should be proud. You should be proud of what you did. And you should be proud of what you're doing right now, because I know this takes a lot of courage, especially with everything that you're going through. So. But before we get into the life story, everybody gets a gift.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  There we go. Thank you, Sean.

• 11:56Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance lead gummy bears.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:58Shawn Ryan?

  Made in the USA.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:59Shawn Ryan?

  Legal in all fifty states and they're legal in the UK, so.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 12:08Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Awesome. I've got something for you as well. We can talk about it later, but it's a everyday patriot hat. Because I believe you are a patriot and I believe you stand for the same values that I do. Um, so a a small token of my appreciation.

• 12:20Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  And these won't get put on the shelf. They will get enjoyed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Me and my daughter will, yeah, we'll get into these for sure. Thank you, Sean.

• 12:29Shawn Ryan?

  What does this e- what does this mean?

• 12:31Speaker 01

  So it's everyday patriot. So I've had a bit of a hiatus in the last eighteen months or, you know, since I've not been allowed to go to the United States. Uh, and in that time, I've started a company. It's about patriotism. To me, patriotism is a super important. Subject, something I feel very, very deeply about, and I think that the small things that we can do to represent who we are, the culture that we come from, our belief system, our values, I think, needs to be done. I think there's too much. Especially it feels like in, in the UK, but I've travelled all across to Scandinavia, to the United States. It feels like the word patriot has been kidnapped, held hostage by either the far right or the far left.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Being a patriot is not about racism, it's not about nationalism or fascism or creating a con- common enemy. Those are all the things that we fought against. The, I don't stand for any of that stuff. It's little things with patriotism. We're very good in the UK if it's like a football tournament, the World Cup, European Championships, or something happens with the royal family, everyone puts a flag up and everyone's proud to be, you know, proud to be British. But then the minute that stops, it goes away and it all comes quiet and then all you can hear is the far right or the far left and all they wanna do is make noise. They're not doing it. I'm not having it. Like, you don't have to be in the army for twenty years or an Olympic athlete to be a patriot. It's for the builders, it's for the people that work in coffee shops, the mothers, the children, the women, all of us, we're all patriots.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  If you love your country, you should never, ever be scared to be proud of where you're from. And I don't care if you're from Afghanistan, Argentina, Iraq, Syria, if you love your country and have good values, I'm all for it. This is not about creating division, this is not about segregation, it's about being proud of who you are, where you come from, what you stand for. Um, and I think people are scared to do it. I think they're only scared because people keep telling them that every time they put a flag up or every time they are proud of where they come from, people wanna jump on it and say it's this or that and they wanna weaponise it. And it's, it's, it's bullshit. And I'm not fucking having it. I don't think it's right, you know? I've served my country, I was willing to die for my country. I've got fourteen poppies on one arm from one deployment, just one deployment.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  I know what it's like to pay the sacrifice. I've seen it, I've watched it, I've carried those caskets, I've carried those letters, I've seen it. And I'm very proud of my country, very, very proud. And I'm not gonna be told or made to feel ashamed by anybody. That we don't come from a good place and try and do good things. And that's not to say that our history is perfect, no country's is. That's not to say that we don't make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We're not perfect, far from it. I acknowledge that, but it's still resonates with me to be proud of my country and I am deeply proud of it. So Everyday Patriot is kind of a nod to that, you know, it's it's not merchandise.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  It's something that I stand by. It's not just a clothing brand. When it says Everyday Patriot, I mean it. And that everyday bit of it is we like a grand gesture, a football tournament, a coronation, you know, whatever it might be. But it's the everyday small things that we can all do, wherever you're from, that really make the difference. Because if we don't pay into that culture and we don't remember who we are, then it's not going to be long, a couple of generations, it's gone. Thousands of years of history and pride and sacrifice and service and, you know, all the stuff that we've done as nations, regardless of what flag that is, it doesn't matter what colour it is, but every country's got their history. And if we start to whitewash that history or change the narrative or, you know,

• 16:07Speaker 01

  make it more palatable for certain demographics, then all we do is we lose our identity. And the minute you lose your identity, you lose your purpose. And before you know it, we're in a bad, bad spot. So in a nutshell, long story long, that's kind of what what I believe about patriotism. So, yeah, no, it's it's going well and, you know. Shaun, what do I know about making baseball caps and black t-shirts? Not a great deal, but it's been an adventure for me. Yeah, I've enjoyed the process. Good people around me, a great team, couldn't do it myself. Um, I might have had the idea, but the execution is definitely a team effort and it seems to seems to land with people, you know, most people, when I explain it to people, they're like, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like that, you know?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  And it's all different demographics. Doesn't matter where you come from, I'm selling, you know. T-shirts to people all over the world, the United States, South Korea, all over Europe, Australia, like it resonates around the thing and I think it's a good thing. I think it's positive, you know, I'm not money oriented. I'm not trying to make a million bucks out of selling baseball caps. So I just want to put something out there that people can put on, throw it on. Be proud of. Be proud of it, you know? Good for you. That's what I'm trying. I love that. You do? Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. It's a, it's a fun project, you know, it's, it keeps, keeps me busy. How did you, how did you get connected with DJ? So around twenty twenty, I was given, in my opinion, the best job in the British Army.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I was given the job of being the lead instructor, chief instructor of the CQB cell.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I'd never been an instructor before in that, that situation. I'd been a JTAC instructor before and I know how to teach and connect with people and I love that human connection. Um, but when they offered me that, to me, that's the pinnacle, teaching regiment guys or helping regiment guys improve their shooting, making sure the doctrine of CQB is good, making sure that we're not drifting off course, making sure that we're not, you know, adopting fads from YouTube and the internet and making sure that we're maintaining, um, the standard that's been set by the guys that went before us and the hard lessons learned through combat. I mean, we lost a lot of guys, you know, there's that, that G, that G what generation learnt a lot of fucking hard lessons. And I think it's only right if you become an instructor in one of those roles that you're the custodian of that information. So I took

• 18:23Speaker 01

  that job extremely seriously. But like I said before, I'd never been, you don't go to CQB instructor school. They just picked me out of the squadron because I, you know, fairly high standard, personal standard and was apparently quite competent and could engage with people and had enough experience to be able to give that information to people. So I was kind of looking around on like, where else do you find information, open source? So I was looking at YouTube. I was watching all kinds of stuff, trying to find drills, equipment, just little, you know, the one percent, the, the one percent that you can try and make incremental improvement. And I like kit, dude. I, I love my kit. It's, to me, it's, it's important. Like you, I judge a guy on, on how his kit is, you, you know?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Um, so I'm trying all these different types of belts. I'm like buying this belt and that belt. And I tried all of them, you know, and some of them are good, some of that. And I stumbled across. Um, GBRS, it was actually DJ setting up a weapon. And it was like, damn. That's how I set my weapon up, how he explained it. I was like, yep, that works. That's exactly how I would do that. So I became interested in them. Anyway, I I ordered something and. You know, I messed up. I got the wrong size or whatever. And I sent an email back saying, is it possible before you ship it to the UK? Can you just change the size or whatever? Cole ripped me back straight away, within minutes. So we had a bit of correspondence there, um, and I just reached out to him and I said, listen, mate, like, it's so cool.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And, you know, it gases me up to see guys from the squadron that have left the squadron that are doing something different. That aren't just going to work in the Middle Eastern security or this or that or the the usual part, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not I'm not trying to degrade that. But I didn't want to do that, to see other people out there doing something different, doing something unique. So I just hit him up and said, thank you. And I told him, I said, there's guys in in our squadron that are running your equipment. Both domestically and overseas, and he's, you know, he's told me a bunch of times, but that's the why. That's why they do that. That's why we do what we do. It's because we want to try and help guys that are still in the fight. We're not in the fight anymore. I'm not in the fight, probably never being in a gunfight ever again in my life, but it doesn't mean I'm going to turn my back on it. I still want to give back.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  So that's kind of where they were at, uh, and I just recognized it and I acknowledged it. I sent them a squadron plaque. I didn't put a name on it or anything, um, and we just carried on talking. Then I deployed, badi badi badi, a couple of years later, um. After my last deployment, I was kind of in this weird situation, weird headspace. I don't really know. What I wanted to do, I didn't really feel like I wanted to stay. I didn't really know if I was gonna leave. Like, I don't have many transferable skills, Sean. People will talk about all this, you know, oh, yeah, it sets you up for this and that. It's like. There's not many peo- there's not many jobs in in civilian street that require a good breacher or a good lead jumper or somebody that can do a good bill drill. Do you understand what I mean? Like. I know exactly what you mean. So I felt. Reinvent.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Reinvent the wheel, you know, but it was like, the only thing I've got. Is the shirt on my back and the skill in my hands. That's all I've got, and that's all I've ever had, you know? I don't come from a, you know, I don't come from a lot and I've worked very hard to build my skill set and, you know, try and improve my own personal ability. And it felt like a good idea. Or the only idea for, for, you know, for want of a better word, to try and use those skills in the civilian market. Or in this, you know, to try and train people, basically, that's what I wanted to do, but I didn't really know how to go about it. It's a very confusing period for me. I was like, yeah, head was all over the place. And then through a mutual friend, um, Chris Crakehead, the boys, DJ and Cole, um, were in Hereford,

• 21:56Speaker 01

  visiting one of their distributors. And they'd already met a bunch of times anyway, so they were already familiar with each other and. At first I was like, I don't wanna just go and meet these guys and turn up like some sort of fanboy and be like, hi, thanks for the, the T-shirt. So I was like, at first I said no. And then he was like, come on, just come and meet them. And I treat them and that exactly how I'm treating this. Just meeting two guys in the squadron. And as soon as we sat down in Hereford, we went for a, a cheeseburger or whatever it was. Um, me, Christian Craig, DJ Cole, uh, and a guy called Baz, we sat down and straight away we connect, we, we connected. It was just like that. It was like we were already on that sort of, that wavelength, so to speak. And me and DJ got into it about CQB.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Me and Cole were talking about this and talking about that. And, you know, it was just, it just felt good. And we sort of wandered around the town for a bit, had a coffee. And, uh, I think it was DJ actually said to me, he's like, so what's your plans now? And I was like, well,

• 22:54Speaker 01

  I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I've invested everything. This is all I've got. I don't have anything else. Like, this is it. But I'm at a point now where I'm having to walk away from it or, you know, considering walking away from it. He's like, well, what are you gonna do? And I was like, I don't know. I really don't know. I wanna teach people. I wanna continue instruction. I wanna continue passing on the knowledge, the hard fought lessons that I've had personally and watched other people do. So he was like, well, if you ever wanna come over to Virginia Beach and hang out with us, then, you know, here's my number. Let's make it happen. And I kinda sat on it for a little while, you know, this, you know, I didn't have an Instagram account. I didn't have a social presence, like, all that was a big no-no to me. So this is a, this is a massive departure from, from my normality, you know, I'd lived in Hereford for 12 years.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Same house. I don't know anything other than that, the squadron, the life. So to, to break from that needs to be something pretty solid. I've got courage and I'm, you know, I like to think I'm pretty bold when it comes to making decisions. But this was a different ballgame. This was not like an operational thing. This wasn't like a a tactical problem that needed to be solved. I don't know the solution for this. It's not like problem, solution. It's like, this is a departure from my normality. But I did feel a level of connection and trust straight away.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  So fast forward a few months, I like hit him up. I was like, okay DJ, um, I feel like coming over to Virginia Beach. Is that still cool? And he's like, absolutely. He's like, whenever you want, here's some dates, come over. So I booked a plane ticket.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Booked a hotel, hired a car, turned up in Virginia Beach with some clothes and a set of ear defenders and a range belt, basically. And um,

• 24:35Speaker 01

  got to the hotel late in the evening, messaged DJ. He was like, cool, do you want to do fitness in the morning? I was like, yes, sir. He goes, cool. I'm in from five. We'll train at seven. I was like, cool. Turned up at half five, pitch black, Virginia Beach.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  You know, I'm a long way from home at this point. See DJ comes walking down the stairs, gives me a big hug. He's like, welcome to the building. Show's been around. We sit upstairs, we have coffee. We go work out for a little bit and uh, yeah, they were like, let's go to the range. And I think like, as far as an interview goes, I think it was done at the, you know, seven meter point on a flat range. I think that was pretty much. You know, it's easy to to talk the talk, but you need to be able to walk the walk. And as soon as they could see that I could, you know, shoot to a fairly high mark. A standard. They're like, yeah, this, this, this could be a thing for you. And they offered me, um, they offered me everything that I could ever ask for. Basically, it was the perfect transition, you know. Still shoot guns. Still teach.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Still mess with parachuting. Still be around team guys. Like when I walk in that building, it feels no different. You know, from walking into the, the, the ready room. It's the same conversations, the same bullshit jokes, the same. Shit talking, the same, you know, the same feeling, you know. Camaraderie. Camaraderie. That was my biggest fear when I left the military. It's like when you leave the military, you don't just leave the. The job and the role, you leave your physical and emotional infrastructure, physical infrastructure being like. You need a dentist appointment, you go and see the dentist, you need to go and see the doctor, you go to the doctor, the gym's over there, I need a new jacket, stores is over there. All that goes away when you leave the military and all of a sudden you're like, fuck. Like, uh, how do I get a fucking doctor's appointment? Like, all, like, normal problems that normal people deal with, I've never had to do any of it.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  So I'm like, what, thirty five, thirty six at the time, and I feel like a, I feel like a teenager again, trying to work out how to do basic stuff, you know? Let alone making a living. Let alone trying to, yeah, let alone make a living and, you know, provide a future for, you know. A young daughter, you know, I wanna, you know, I wanna give her more than I got, you know? So it's a lot of pressure, it's a lot of stress. You loo- you, you lose the, um.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  When you walk out of that building, you don't just lose the job, you lose your emotional. Infrastructure. My teammates, like, that train moves so fucking fast, dude, you know what it's like, like. You're out the WhatsApp group, you're out there, you know, this, there's no information coming on, no one's telling me where I have to be or what I have to do or what's coming on next, I'm on my own now. And, uh, yeah, it's scary as fuck. It's, it's, it's the most scariest thing I've ever done. DJ said to me, he goes. Transitioning out of the military is the hardest thing you'll ever do. And I was like, nah, it's all right. I've dealt with, dealt with way worse than that. Legit, but no shit, it's the hardest fucking thing I've ever done, like emotionally, um.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  So when they came along, it was kind of the perfect thing, right? It was like, all of the stuff I'd been worried about losing. My purpose and my identity, which I think is the biggest problem for veterans, um, had gone away. It was all still there, it was, it was just the, the perfect, the perfect job. I felt like I was valued, I felt like I could give something back to our community. Um, I'm around equipment, I'm around guns, more guns I've ever seen in my life.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Better kit than I've ever seen in my life, you know, I've got enough money to keep a roof over my head, like, I'm landed. And I'm blessed, you know, I felt, I felt so grateful and so blessed to be in that position. And people go, oh, you're lucky you got a job with G B R S, and I'll say.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yes and no. It it offends me when people say you're lucky. It's it's not luck. It's the fucking years of hard work I put on in a fa- flat range or in the CQB house or, you know, whatever it might be, perfecting my craft. Like, you can ask anybody about me. They might say a whole bunch of stuff, but one thing they won't say is that I didn't pay into the to the to the job. That that that skill set, those hard skills were the most important thing in my life for the best part of a decade. And I worked fucking hard to to get as good as I could. So to have somebody recognize that and go, yeah, that's not luck. Like, and that's not to sound arrogant, but it's like, you ask Christian, we spent days, weeks, months of our lives in the freezing cold rain,

• 28:59Speaker 01

  shitty ranges, just banging away, trying to get better at our job, you know, just perfecting the basics, the skills, the fundamental aspects of marksmanship. And then teaching each other, showing each other new tricks or not tricks, but you know, like, you know, I've seen this. What do you think about that? You know, just cross cross referencing information and just trying to just to improve ourselves, you know, I want to be the best version, the best operator that I could be. Um, and I spent years trying to do that. And then somebody recognized it and was like, this is the spot for you. So I felt very, very, you know, blessed. But it's not luck, Sean. It does. It kind of winds me up when people are like, oh, yeah, it's all right for you. You got a job with GBRS. It's like, I fucking earned that job. You you understand?

• 29:37Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I know DJ very well and he is only interested in working with the best.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:44Shawn Ryan?

  The best in the world. And uh, I'm very similar. I have, I have no respect for anybody that's not trying to be the best, the absolute best

• 29:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:54Shawn Ryan?

  at what they do. And so they saw something in you and um, you've surrounded yourself with some great people. So.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I really have. And I'd I'd like to just take this opportunity now to just just to say a thank you to the call and to DJ for that that trust. After that first couple of days, we went and had breakfast just before I flew out. And they said, listen, we'd like, we think you're the guy. And this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna pay for your legal fees. We're gonna provide you with a home. We're gonna give you a job. We're gonna give you a 401k or whatever it's called, a pension system, dental, like the whole thing. Like the full package. You can't like the gold standard, I'd like to say. And we trust you and we believe in you. And to have that. Changed my life. It changed my life and without that, and I've said this before and I deeply mean it, so I'll look you in the eye. If it wasn't for those guys there. I'd either wouldn't be here.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Or I'd be in a ditch in the Ukraine somewhere. That's where I'd be. Because I didn't know anything else. I didn't have any other options. They gave me a lifeline. And I'll never. Ever forget that. As long as I live and I'm deeply, deeply grateful, not only to them. Individually, but the whole GBRS family and how they've treated me, everyone. There's too many to name, but all of them, Davis, Manny, Jared, you know.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  They've given me so much. Patsy. They welcomed me into their home. Can you imagine how that feels? Standing, you know, Patsy, indeed, Patsy's a fucking rock star, man. She's. One of the most incredible. Strong. Women. Woman I've ever met in my life, like, she's a fucking idol to me, you know, she's a superstar in my eyes. And to be welcomed into their home and sleep in his bedroom, spare bedroom, you know. Eat dinner with their children, same with Renee. And Cole, they did exactly the same thing. The last few times I've been over to the States, I've been living with them. They welcomed me into their home. That, that, I'll never forget that. They've shown me more, they've shown me more love. And more. Hospitality than people I've been in gunfights with and known for ten, fifteen years. Like.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Let that sink in. Great people. Good people. Good fucking people, man, and I'm deeply, deeply grateful for them and. You know. When I put this shirt on. It means the world to me. That's my uniform. I don't have a callsign patch anymore. I don't. I gave that up. But I didn't give up being me. So when I do that, I represent it with pride. You know, and when I deliver training. Or. Whatever it might be. I do it with.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  A full heart and knowing that I'm trying to represent something good and that means a lot to me. You know, and I'll die on that hill because it's important to me. So, yeah, and I digress slightly, but I just want to get that out there and said a massive thank you. Um, and if they, you know, if they watch this and see it, then they know it already.

• 32:45Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm sure they'll.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  I want everyone else to know that.

• 32:47Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side, but Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 33:19Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into your life story.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, here we go.

• 33:22Shawn Ryan?

  Ready?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 33:24Shawn Ryan?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  So I was born, I was born in Oxford. Um.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  My mom was quite young when I was born, so when my mom and dad met, my dad, uh.

• 33:35Shawn Ryan?

  How young?

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Just over sixteen, sixteen and nine months.

• 33:39Shawn Ryan?

  Sixteen years old.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, sixteen and nine months when I was born. So she was a, she was a child herself.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  And that's not without its, um, difficulties. My mom's a fucking rock star dude, like she didn't have, she come from a, she had five sisters. Um, there wasn't really a, a strong sort of father role model in that, in that, in that situation. So they grew up. It was hard for those girls, you know? They didn't have much, they had nothing, they didn't have much, they had nothing. Um.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  And she was super young, super young when I was born. They met, they actually, it's quite a nice story. Um, my dad and that side of my family, they were publicans, so they owned pubs and restaurants and all that type of stuff in, in, in, in my hometown. And, uh, she just asked for a job one day, you know, in the kitchen, washing up dishes and that sort of thing. They kind of met and one thing led to another and I was born.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  They weren't together, so I've never, I don't come from a typical or what we call normal family background. My dad and my mum were never a thing, so I don't know what that looks like. Um, but yeah, she, she is an incredible, incredible woman, su- super young. They were never together? They were, they were never in a sort of. Relationship. In a, in a structured relationship. I mean, they were in a relationship, but by the time I was born, they'd kind of drifted away and all the rest of it, but you know. Yeah, so I don't, I don't know what, you know, I didn't grow up in a situation where it was like. Mum, dad, dog, all that type of stuff, that, that, that's not me, dude. I didn't, I didn't come from that. Um. My mum brought me up. She raised me. Um, I remember very early on.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  She wanted to become a carpenter of all things. So she did. She went and got her degree. Obviously, she missed out on all the school and education because she was being a mum. Um, but then she started to do like part-time bits and pieces and she started to learn her trade. Incredible, incredible carpenter. Um, then she started building boats. Um, she's a bit of a, my mum's a bit of a hippie, bit of a free spirit, right? So, you know, my early childhood up in Oxford was, you know, up until about four, five, six. Was fairly regular. I wouldn't say it was traditional or, you know. Conventional, but it was stable. It was safe. You know, I had good people around me. For the most part, and yeah, it was. It was a nice place to grow up. For the most part.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  How was your relationship with your father?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  My relationship with my father is probably one of the most important things in my life to date. I would not be here if it wasn't for him. I lost him. He died. Um.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he had a, he had a difficult relationship with alcohol. Uh, and ultimately that, that kind of, um, that killed him. That's what it did. It killed him. Sorry to hear that. No, me too, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. I can't. Kind of get my head around it. What, what, twenty years later? Kind of, twenty-five years later? Um. But he was a kind man. He was a nice man. He wasn't a bad drunk. He just had a fucking, he had an illness, man. He just fucking couldn't fight it.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  We were close, we fought, I grew up a little bit older. The last time I ever saw my dad, or the last conversation that we ever had was actually in Spain. What do you mean you fought? Uh, we fought, um, physically on a couple of occasions. Physically? Yeah, and that was down to me, you know, I'm a young guy, full of ego and testosterone, wanting a bit more and, you know, all that type of stuff. You know, just normal, regular father-son stuff, um, but it did get out of hand a couple of times, and it's probably my fault. Um, he never hit me or anything, it was more, you know, just, just bullshit, you know. Um, but the last time I saw my father was actually on a, a, a beach in, in Spain.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  And I'd started to look at being a Royal Marine, that was where it started to come, I was around fifteen or sixteen at this time. My grandfather was a Royal Marine Commando in the Second World War, through all the way up through Sicily and Italy, so it was always something that was in my mind. I'd always loved guns, I'd always loved the military, it had always been very close to my heart, you know, I'd always wanted to, to do that. And my dad used to work for a company called, um, Brown and Root, which then later turned into Kellogg's Brown and Root, I believe, K B R. So, anyone that's ever fucking deployed anywhere on the planet knows what K B R facilities is, all the dining facilities and all the logistical stuff, so he did that.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  He was actually involved in, um, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, so he worked for the US government, um, as a, as a foreign contractor, essentially, setting up the, the chow halls and the logistics and all that. That was, coming from a catering background, it was, that was what he did. I remember very early on, watching my dad come back from Brisnaun, um, during the First Gulf War. And in my mind, as a young child, I thought he was a soldier, it made no difference to me, that, you know, I didn't understand what was going on. He gave me this cool, uh, like, desert D P M hat, it said Sergeant Jamie on it, and I've still got it, and it says Desert Storm, Mission Accomplished, and all this sort of stuff. And I used to wear it, and it was cool, like a boonie hat type thing, you know. Um, so in my mind, my dad was a soldier, he wasn't, he was just in and around it, he went on to do, um,

• 38:52Speaker 01

  K four and I four, which is Kosovo, did some stuff down there, Implementation Force, Kosovo Force, all that sort of stuff. And then later on, he started to work for, um, civilian companies, Exxon Mobil, oil companies, and onshore rigs, basically, but he was going all over the place, like Tajikistan, you know, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, all of these places, mines, oil, all that type of stuff, um.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  So I'd kind of grown up with him thinking he was that kind of guy. And so when I decided that I wanted to join the military, he was like, he he he said to me, I'll never forget it. And it's the best, the best thing that he's ever given me. And I look back on it now with nothing but love. And I, you know, I don't wanna get too sentiment sentimental about it, but. I I choose, I choose to believe that he said what he said to me that day because he knew what he would do. And he said to me, he goes. I was getting bitten by mosquitoes. I'm one of those dudes that just fucking no matter where he goes, I'm the one that gets bitten. Everyone else in the room doesn't get bitten. I get bitten over. And I was complaining. I was like, I fucking I keep getting bitten by mosquitoes. He's like, you wanna be a Royal Marine Commander? You'll never make it as a Royal Marine Commander if you can't take being bitten by mosquitoes. He goes, you haven't got it in you. That's what causes big argument on the beach, you know. So, yeah.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Probably the most powerful sentence anyone's ever told me.

• 40:04Shawn Ryan?

  And that drove you?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Fuck, yeah, it did. Fuck, yeah, it did.

• 40:07Shawn Ryan?

  Let's backtrack a little bit.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 40:10Shawn Ryan?

  What were you into as a kid?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Guns.

• 40:12Shawn Ryan?

  Guns?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Guns.

• 40:13Shawn Ryan?

  In the UK?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:15Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you get into guns?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  I don't really know where it come from. You'd have to ask my mum. I remember.

• 40:20Shawn Ryan?

  Real guns or toy guns?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Toy guns. Toy guns. Never shot a real gun until I joined the military, but I was obsessed with it, you know. Just. Plastic guns, water pistols, just guns. I was always playing with guns. And I went to Disneyland once and. I bought this like metal fucking, well, for PPK it was. Metal, like James Bond, right? You know, the old school one?

• 40:39Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I put it in my like, in my bag, basically. My dad was like, don't take that to the airport. I went with my grandma. Do not take that to the airport. I was like, okay. I did take it there. I put it in the thing. We're going through the scanner. The alarms are going off. Everyone's going there. It was like, yeah, the whole, the whole thing, but. I used to, you know, it'd be cool if my my my mum will back this up, but I used to come home from school and she was a carpenter, right? So I used to draw out these guns on wood. On bits of plywood and I'd draw them out like to the minutest detail, like, you know, front sights, magazine wells, stocks, trigger guards, the whole thing. I'd get a picture from somewhere and I'd draw these guns out on, you know, with a with a pen. And she'd cut it out with a jigsaw. And I'd go out and I'd take these guns and all my mates were running around in the woods playing with these things. I was obsessed with with with guns.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  For the most part of my childhood. And then kind of football came in. I started playing football a bit more and I sort of got a bit older and, yeah, but but football and guns was was was all I ever really wanted to do.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Which is ironic when you look at where I ended up, you know, there's, there's, there's a few things that you can look back on and be like, nah. You could kind of see that coming and my obsession and. Love and passion of firearms and, you know, weapons manipulation is still there, you know, but I was doing it. I was, I was practicing high readies when I was six and I'm not joking, I'm not high readies, but you know, I was running around with guns from a very, very early age. And they've always felt natural to me, you know, and it wasn't I want to kill people, it was just like, I just liked it, I just wanted to, wanted to play with it and maybe it was a. Maybe it was a sort of. Something to do with my old man and him being in that career and, you know, going out to these places like. It was always something that I knew I wanted to do.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I always wanted to be in the military, I always wanted to be a soldier, that's all, that's all I ever wanted since an early age and I kind of got distracted for a few years and life happened and all the rest of it. Then when I lost my dad, it was like, right, boom, now's the fucking time, you know, let's, let's, let's double down on this, but. Going back to that conversation, you know, I, when I lost my dad, it fucking broke my heart. It, it fucking broke me, mate, it did. And it's, it's, it still does now, you know. More to the fact that I just wish that he could have seen what I did. You know what I mean? Though he would have been the proudest person on the planet to see me get a green beret.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  To get into the regiment. More importantly than all of that bullshit. He never got to saw my daughter play football, not once. Never got to see, she put on an England shirt last year. She represented her country.

• 43:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Three lions on her chest.

• 43:11Shawn Ryan?

  How old is she?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Fifteen.

• 43:13Shawn Ryan?

  Fifteen years old.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  She's fifteen, she's a fucking rock star dude. She's gonna be a pro, pro, professional footballer, hundred percent, I've never been more confident or more sure on anything.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Then she will be a professional footballer and she will represent her country, she'll be a lioness one day. She's phenomenal.

• 43:29Shawn Ryan?

  You're a proud dad.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  I could, yeah, it's. Take everything I've ever done in my career in military and swap it for, for that. If, if I could watch. Him watch her for five minutes. I'd swap it all.

• 43:47Shawn Ryan?

  If your dad was here today.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Here.

• 43:50Shawn Ryan?

  Here alive.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:53Shawn Ryan?

  If you could say. Anything to him.

• 43:58Shawn Ryan?

  And you had thirty seconds. What would you say to him?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  You were wrong.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Look at your granddaughter. Look at her.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  I tell him I love him. I miss him. Um.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  And I hope he'd be proud. I think he is. I know he would be, but like. Yeah.

• 44:28Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like you were a bit of a hellion as a kid.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  A bit of a.

• 44:32Shawn Ryan?

  A hellion.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Hellion.

• 44:33Shawn Ryan?

  Got into some trouble.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 44:35Shawn Ryan?

  When did that start?

• 44:38Speaker 01

  So I moved around a whole bunch. So in order to answer that question, you have to kind of go back to the beginning.

• 44:45Shawn Ryan?

  You lived in India for six months.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we traveled around India. So my mom's, this is my mom's, she's the bravest woman I've ever met. And, uh. Yeah, and about ninety nine four, ninety nine five, I was about six. She must have been, well. Early twenties, took me out of school for six months, like, right, we're going to India. I'm like, cool. So six months, we traveled around India, but you have to bear in mind.

• 45:06Shawn Ryan?

  She just picked up and said, we're going to India.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Done.

• 45:09Shawn Ryan?

  Why India?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  She just wanted to go traveling. Free spirit, right? She's a hippie. Um. Which is ironic, because I'm not, but, uh, yeah. She, mate, she flew out to India. No iPhone. No internet. No, no, nothing. A Lonely Planet guide. Two backpacks. I had one, she had one. And we just went traveling around India, and I'll, I'll never forget that experience. The first, first couple of days we got there, there's, speaking before, is, there's a place in Delhi, I think it's called the Red Fort. And it's this big picture. I've never. Ever had an experience of extreme poverty and desperation, as I've seen there. And she took me out of a fairly.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Regular, comfortable city in the UK and parachuted me, not parach, you know what I mean? Into that situation. She did that for a fucking reason. She wanted me to see what it was like, what the world is like outside of our.

• 46:05Shawn Ryan?

  Bubble.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Bubble. Which was the best thing she could have done. And she, she hit me hard with it straight away. She was like, it will never get, well, you will never, like, we had a lovely time in India. We saw all kinds of beautiful things and. All kinds of, you know, incredible experiences, but straight off the bat, she was like, this is, this is what it's like. And I'll, I'll always, you know, I'll love her for that because that was, that was an eye opener. Imagine being a six year old child, walking around, seeing. Children with no arms, children with no legs, poor people that are begging for their lives, like literally, you're watching people sit on the side of the road, like. Circling the drain, hungry as fuck, you know, like, that was like, oh, okay, cool. The, the world isn't a nice place. The world isn't all fucking. You know, roses.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  And that was good because she did it straight off the bat. So everything that I saw after that was easy, you know, but we traveled around the whole place. We spent, you know, most of it in. Went up to the Himalayas, we went out to Taj Mahal, we spent Christmas in Goa, I was playing with G I, G I Joe figures. That's what I got for Christmas, little G I Joe figures, you know, G I Joe. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was like building little sand forts and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. So that was cool. So it's still, the obsession was still there. And um. In terms of education, I wrote a diary every single day. I've still got them, like, maybe it's a paragraph, maybe it's a bit more, maybe put a picture in there, but. My reading age went through the roof. I was reading, uh, Michael Crichton books, so Jurassic Park, um, Sphere. Uh, what else was there? The, you know, all, all those types of books.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  From a very, very early age. So when I got back to the UK and went to school again, my reading age was like a fourteen year old at the age of six. I was always a reader. Um, and I could write, you know, I was writing my diary every single day. So I didn't come back academically in any worse place than any of the kids of my age. When did you start di- your diary? Every day when I was in India. And at six years old? Six years old, yeah. You still have that? Yeah, we still got them, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, they're cool. I mean, like, some of it's illegible, some of it's complete bullshit, but it's like, it's all pictures and it's like we stick something in or, you know, you can see, when you open up the book, you can smell it. You, you can smell it, you know, it's cool. You know, like incense sticks and all sorts in that, it's crazy. I look, I, I, I've not seen them for a few years. I spoke to my mom before I came, I was like, have you still got them diary? She's like.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  We don't have a lot and I have a lot of stuff from my childhood. We moved around a lot and a lot of it got lost in the fire, so to speak, but, um, we've still got them. They're still out there and hopefully I'll show them to my daughter one day and, you know, but it was, it was a life changing experience. It, it really was. Uh, and I think it's set me up for. My future career, I think it set me up as a person. I think it gave me a broader, more wider perspective on life. To see that at such an early age, um. It was a lot of difficult things, the first time ever.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Was in proximity to somebody that got killed. I remember that happening pretty, pretty vividly. We were getting off a train and transit into another train, but there are no bridges. Where is this? In India. In India? Yeah, we had to cross the platform, platform to platform and they just used to go. The trains were there and they just literally just walk across the platform when there wasn't a train and cross depth to the, to the next one. And she lifted me up, she jumped up and about two people behind us, crossing the, the, the, the, the train track. The train that we were crossing shunted like that and dragged the woman underneath it, killed her outright. And I remember sitting there thinking, fucking hell. Like, that's quite a surreal moment as a, as a six, seven year old, six year old kid at this time. My mom was great. She just took me away and was like. It's hard lessons, you know, it's like life lessons, it's like life's short.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And never ever take for granted what you've got. And even when I'm in the UK and it feels like I've got no money or this or that or whatever, like. It's a lot better than being outside that fucking fort with no arms. Like, you get me? So that kind of gave me a, a, a good education. And I would love to do the same thing with, with my kids. Or with my daughter, um. At some point, you know, if I have children in the future, fucking damn straight, we're taking them traveling. I want them to go and see the world, see what it is. You know, not to say that if you don't do that, you become insulated, but I think it just gives you a broader, a broader perspective on.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  On the world and how it is, the reality of it. But yeah, it was, it was a crazy experience. Fucking really cool. I was speaking to her last night about it and, um. I think again, there's a lot of what happened on that sort of, it's almost like a deployment. It's almost like a sixth month deployment. It's like my first deployment, you know? Um, that's kind of how I feel about it now, but I had my own rucksack. Nobody carried my kit. My mom would carry my kit. I had a sleeping bag in there. All my books, everything was in there. That was it. And I carried it. And we used to trek around the Himalayas like. In Thailand trekking with elephants and all kinds of mad shit. And I was like, I carried my own fucking pack. From the age of six years old and no one fucking helped me. And my mum gave that to me. And that's something I've carried on.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Like, I can do that, you know, I know what it's like when your back hurts, when your feet hurt, you know. When you're cold, hungry, tired, hot, you know, I was experiencing that from a very young age. And as I look forward into my life, you know. I think it gave me a strength. It gave me a strength that allowed me to have a certain level of self-confidence. That I could do that type of stuff, if that makes sense.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  So yeah, su- super grateful for that experience. When we kind of got back from India.

• 51:12Shawn Ryan?

  That's hold on, a sleeping bag?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:15Shawn Ryan?

  So were you guys sleeping out in the bush for six months?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  No, we were staying in hostels or hotels or beach huts or whatever, but like we we brought my own sleeping bag, my own mosquito net, all all that stuff. We were self-sufficient, you know, it was a little, it was a snug pack. Little purple snug pack, like a softy seven or whatever it was, a super lightweight one. I remember she lost her mind once, we uh. I can't remember why, but we got out on a bus and the sleep, I don't want to tell you this, but it just comes to my mind, the sleeping bag comes in like a little compression sack, right? And for some reason, we'd taken a sleeping bag out of the compression sack and it'd fallen on the floor. And. When we got off the bus, she was like, where's the sack? It'd been stolen. That's what happened. Somebody had just found it because it was foreign and new, so they took it. And she was so upset because it was like, we've had that sleeping bag sack for years, you know, well, not years, but.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Months at this point, it's been every part of our journey and now it's gone. And I remember she was like, kit, kit and equipment. Kit, kit awareness. I was like, yeah, so I, you know.

• 52:08Shawn Ryan?

  Serious?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not joking, mate. Yeah, yeah. Sean, if you ever meet my mum, and I hope you do one day, like she'll, she'll, she'll tell you all about this. And she, she knows more detail than I do because I'm, I was a child. So she's got like an incredible. Level of, you know. Insight into the whole thing, but that, that whole experience was, was, was great for me. Like, and you know, it was such a cool thing to do. We came back from India, then she moved to Wales. We were sort of um in the middle of um mid Wales. So rough, a little town called Ryder, which is near Biltwells, which is in between sort of the Brecon Beacons and the Elan Valley. Now, the Elan Valley is a particularly disgusting place, which I'd find out on selection a few years later, but I remember clearly

• 52:47Speaker 01

  all the trucks coming in and out, the four tonners, we call them four tonners, but you know, like the the troop vehicles, there's there's a lot of military presence around there. It was in the woods and, you know, from about six to about nine, ten years old, it was all guns and football, guns and football, guns and football, guns and football. Um but that that period there was probably the most stable, happiest part of my childhood for sure. Um. And I look back on it with nothing but fond memories. I love Wales, it's very dear to my heart. We.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  At some point during that period, my mother decided that she wanted to go back and get education because she didn't get the chance when she was a child, a young woman, because she was being a mum. So she went back to her hometown Oxford uh and did further education. So she got, she ended up getting a first degree um in international development and politics uh in third world countries. So basically, she went on to work for Oxfam and Save the Children and other kind of charities, like her passport had more stamps of dodgy places than the mine did at one point. She's like, you know, she's all all over the place. She's a cool woman. Um but this is where I sort of started to rebel a little bit because, Sean, you have to, you have to, you have to realise from my perspective that I never really had a consistency. Mm hmm.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  And I don't blame her for this because that was just the situation, but I never had consistency. I didn't have a mum and dad at home. I never really stayed in the same place for more than a few years. I was constantly making new friends, constantly putting down roots, constantly having to rip them up and build again. And it got to about, you know, ten years old, we moved back to Oxford. I was like, okay, cool. Like, we've had this whole experience in Wales, we've been travelling, we're back to my hometown, like, I don't know anyone, like, this is my hometown, but I'm going to a new school. I've got like a couple of people that I used to know when I was like four or whatever, but I don't have any friends there. So I built a new network of friends and I'm there, I'm happy. I was like, football was my thing now, football, football, football, football.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  And then she's like, right, we're gonna move, we're gonna move again, we're gonna go down to the south coast, cause that's where the university that she was studying. Offered the course or the next phase of her course. And I was like, fuck dude, I don't wanna fucking move again, you know. So we did this whole thing back and forth, I stayed with my dad for a little bit while she went down there, he was in the pub, he was working in the pub. People that drink a lot of alcohol and working in pubs is not a good combination, it wasn't really the right environment for a small child to be in. I was kind of, not fending for myself, cause that's not fair, and that's not true, but I was, I had a lot of time where I was just like. My dad was busy and I was doing my own thing, so eventually she was like, nah, you're coming. So I was like, what, twelve, thirteen maybe at this point, and I did not wanna move again, and that's when I started to really.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Rebel a little bit, you know, I stopped going to school.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Started, I was still playing football, but not as, not as much as I should, and hanging around with the wrong people, girls became a thing, you know, it was like, you know. Sitting in the park drinking cider. Was more appealing than going and playing football, because I didn't have.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I didn't really have anyone to tell me no, which was my biggest problem, I didn't really have a dad to be able to be like, I didn't have a dad, that sounds terrible. But he didn't grip me for it. He wasn't around much. He wasn't around much, and he was doing his own thing, you know, he's abroad working, or he was doing this or whatever. Um, and my mum was consumed in a. Pursuit of her degree, like, she's like me, she gets, same as my daughter, exactly the same. We, one thing that our bloodline has is the ability to become obsessed. When we become obsessed on something, unlocking on something, it, there's nothing on the planet that will stop them. Um, so she was doing that, you know, she's, she's still young at this point, like.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  So I kinda didn't go off the rails completely, but I was definitely drifting, I was definitely drifting, and I was definitely not gonna join the military, it wasn't something I'd. Thinking about, I was too busy trying to be cool, I was too busy. Trying to be that guy, if that makes sense, and it was never me, do you know what I mean, I was hanging around with kids that were like. Fucking from rough estates, like, we were going out, and you know, it was a bit fighting here and there, and all that sort of stuff, but I was never that kid, I thought I was. But like, I was a little, but I'm not a tough guy, fucking, like, some of these kids come from fucking nothing. And they, you know, violent backgrounds, violent places, and you know, there was a lot of violence around, especially in, well, that time in my life. And, um. I kinda thought it was for me. But it wasn't, and it wasn't till I got to about fifteen years old.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Where.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  I was offered a job. Again, talk about pivotal moments, things that changed the trajectory of your life. Uh, a friend of my mom was a tree surgeon. You have a different, it's like an arborist. Arborist, there you go. You know what I mean? He gave me ten pounds. He came, I was, you know, he goes, I'm gonna give you ten quid. And that's for a train ticket tomorrow. You're gonna turn up here and I'm gonna give you a job. So I left school at fifteen. You should leave at sixteen, but I left at fifteen. I didn't turn up. You dropped out of school at fifteen years. Yeah, fifteen. I didn't get a qualification, not even a basic qualification until I was like mid thirties and the army was like, you're a sergeant now. You, you, you, you gotta fucking do the thing. And I was like, fuck.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  I can't, you know, like, I write a bit now, you know, sometimes I write a little bit and um, people are, you're good at writing. I'm like, fuck knows where that came from. Because it didn't come from school. Like, I'm not educated. I'm not stupid and I'm not unintelligent, but I'm not educated. Um.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Hey, seems to do alright so far, but yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  He offered me that money to go and do that job and I didn't spend it on whatever, cigarettes probably. And he fucking turned up the next day. He was like, hey, I gave you ten quid yesterday, come and work. You're not gonna go to school. You need to get out there and work. And I was like. Okay, and I'm grateful for this guy for doing that because he could have just been like, you know. Fired you. Yeah, just fired me or give up on me, but he didn't. He goes, I'm gonna give you another ten pound and you're gonna be there tomorrow. And I did. I got up, went on, got on the train, travelled to wherever the place I needed to be was, got off the train, walked to his thing and. From that moment on, I've always earned my own money. I've always provided a roof over my own head.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  And it was hard work, man. Those I learnt hard lessons there. It was like I was dragging. So, you know, when they cut the branches down, I wasn't able to climb with a chainsaw. I didn't even use a chainsaw for the first sort of few months. It was just literally just dragging, putting it in the wood chipper, splitting logs, putting the logs on the truck, just hard graft, you know, just manual labour from a very early age. Did that for a few months with him and then somebody else took me on and was like, I'm gonna give you a full-time apprenticeship, basically. So by the time I was sixteen, I was a fully qualified tree surgeon, MPTC, which is all the qualifications that you need. So I had medium felling, large felling, small felling, aerial rescue, um, use of chainsaw from rope and harness, all that bullshit, maintenance of a chainsaw. I'd learnt it all. I got all the qualifications, paid for them all myself.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  I had all my own equipment. I had two chainsaws, rope harness, silky saw, secateurs, the full thing. I was pretty much self-employed tree surgeon at the age of sixteen. I did my qualifications on my sixteenth birthday, which by, unless that's the earliest you can do it. So at one point, I was probably, unless somebody had done it a few minutes before me, it's probably the youngest qualified tree surgeon in the country. And that was good. Dude, I was happy. I was living in a caravan on my mate's driveway. I moved out of home. I was living closer to work, so I had to get the train and all that other bullshit I just explained. So I bought a caravan for like five hundred pounds. Tiny, you know a caravan, yeah? You like a Like an RV? Like an RV. Yeah, yeah. You seen the movie Snatch? Yes. Yeah, like that, on a caravan with no wheels. Okay. No one had wheels. You know what I'm talking about? So I bought this tiny little caravan, put it on my mate's driveway.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  And I was living in there. I was working every single day, getting up, going out, hard days, coming back. I look at it now, it's like fucking I was surviving on like noodles and chicken nuggets, like, you know what I mean? But it was cold, it was wet. My boss would pick me up every morning and it didn't matter what. And I learnt a valuable lesson there. It was like, two things. Number one, you don't go to work, you don't get paid. You don't get paid, you don't eat. I was like, cool, I can live with that. And the second one was the ability to crack on in terms of It did not matter to this guy that I was, he was one of three brothers, their dad was been in the forest. For their entire lives, his hands were like shovels, you know, he was a tree surgeon in and out, you know, that's all he'd ever known.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Three boys, they're all tree surgeons now, so he was like, he was top tier at that, but he was a hard fucking man. But a lovely man, and he took me under his wing, cause he, I guess he kinda knew that I needed it. But it didn't matter if it was snowing, didn't matter if it was raining, like, we're talking about getting picked up in the, um, five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning. Sideways rain, dark, I'm coming out of my caravan, van's there, in the caravan, sorry, into the truck, drive. Tree surgery work all day, come back five, six o'clock, go back, eat, sleep, repeat. Did that for a couple of years.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  In my free time.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Probably spending it doing, you know, chasing girls and drinking beer, like, what the fuck else am I supposed to be doing, I'm seventeen, eighteen year old, I'm just happy I'm earning money. I'm earning fifty pound a day, which doesn't sound a lot now, but back then, that was a fucking, you know, two hundred and fifty pounds a week. Dude, I'm only paying like twenty five quid for rent on this caravan, like, the rest of it's mine. All my own equipment's mine, so like, I'm living the dream to a point. But it was almost like.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  I don't know if I wanna do this forever, but right now it's good. I was seeing my dad. Fairly infrequently, sometimes more than others, but one thing that me and my dad always hadn't always, always, always shared, and the one thing that for the most part he always showed up for. Was taking me to see football. We'd always go, I'm a West Ham supporter, he's a West Ham supporter. So we'd always go for football, you know, but as I started to get older. My tolerance of bullshit or. What I would consider, you know, think, when you're a five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten year old kid, going to watch a football match and spending half the day in the pub. Is not a problem. But when you're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and you, you kinda need a little bit more, like.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  You start to understand these things, you start to recognize it a little bit and be like, you know, fucking hell, like, give me some more, I need more attention, I need more, you know? And that's kind of where that that friction started that I was talking about before.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:03:06Shawn Ryan?

  So, did your mom move? While you were, when you became, when you, when you, when you left at fifteen, did your mom continue her school?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  So she stayed in, she stayed where she was working and doing her degree. It's probably about half an hour away, so not far, but yeah, she she stayed there doing her thing. She she knows me. She was like, I can't control this anymore, not control it, but she's a free spirit, like. She raised me from sixteen years old. So when I'm rebelling at that age, there or thereabouts, she's like, okay, as long as you're safe, you're working, you're, you know, you're providing for yourself, I'm here if you need me, go and do your thing, go and get it out of your system. And to be honest, if she hadn't have done that, it wouldn't have worked. Because you you ain't controlling me, you know, not not, you know, when I met, do you understand what I mean by that, like? I was away for it, you know?

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  But yeah, yeah, then

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  then the whole thing with my dad happened and, yeah, that kind of changed my life. That was that was the point where I was like, I ain't cutting trees no more.

• 1:04:08Shawn Ryan?

  So your dad passed before you joined the military?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep, about a year before.

• 1:04:14Shawn Ryan?

  What was it that triggered, what what was it that triggered you to join?

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  That.

• 1:04:20Shawn Ryan?

  His passing?

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Yep. That conversation that we had on that beach, when he told me that I couldn't, was like, I didn't do it to prove him wrong, I did it to prove him right, if that makes sense, and it sounded a bit of a contradiction, but I just wanted to show him. I loved my dad. I fucking adored him, worshipped him, he's a fucking superhero to me, you know? So I just wanted to give him something, you know? Like, there you go. The proudest moment of my life, mate, was when I got my green beret. Fuck the regiment, fuck all that stuff, not fuck them, but you know, that green beret, when I earned that from becoming a civilian, after all the shit I've been through in my childhood, not shit, but like all the stuff I've been through, to get to that point, just to get to the start point in Royal Marine Training, let alone finish the commando course and get that green beret on my head for the first time was, yeah.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  I gave that green beret to my grandma. She's still got it. Well, she's passed away now, but that green beret's there. And same as my regimental beret, the same one, they're both side by side. And I remember next to my dad's ashes, there was my green beret, my sandy beret, and they were both there. And I remember thinking, yeah, job fucking done, you know. But um, that was the truth, that's why I did it. I joined the Marines for my dad, I joined a regiment for my daughter.

• 1:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  But yeah, that's kind of where, where, where it all started.

• 1:05:36Shawn Ryan?

  And how old were you when you joined?

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Nineteen, I think, yeah, nineteen.

• 1:05:40Shawn Ryan?

  Nineteen years old.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah, and that was um. Again, I talk a lot about setbacks, that interim period of losing my dad and joining the Marines, so it was like a, a year or so gap. And I inherited a very small amount of money. It wasn't an inheritance, it was actually uh, an insurance payout. My dad died in Africa, in Chad, um, from a heart attack. And yeah, yeah, we can talk about that if you want, but like.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, a few thousand pounds, I spent that all on football, clothes, beer. And whatever the fuck I want, I didn't do anything useful with it at all. But I really went into football at that point. I was going every single game, home, away, religiously. Because maybe on some level it made me feel closer to him a little bit. I think that was the one thing that we always had, you know. Um. It's a fucking funny coincidence, if we believe in coincidence, I know we don't, but my football team is awful, Sean. We never win fuck all, we never win fuck all. But that year, two thousand and six, we reached the cup final.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  We're never gonna win the league, it's never gonna happen, but we might win the cup, it's one thing we might win. And it was, yeah, it was that year, we fucking got there that year.

• 1:06:59Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  Hmm, two thousand and six, went to Cardiff, watched us play Liverpool, we lost the game, but it was like.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  That was the one thing that we always wanted to do together, if that made sense.

• 1:07:10Shawn Ryan?

  It does.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  And I got it, I got to see it. And, you know, I don't know why or how or where, but. It felt like, yeah, do you know what I mean? It felt, it felt like he was there and he saw it, but yeah. All we ever wanted to do was go to the cup final, dude. Fucking, I got there, we got there, you know, so. Yeah, I'll never forget that.

• 1:07:29Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Jay, let's take a quick break.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:33Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, we'll get into your military career.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:07:36Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 1:07:52Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Jay, we're back from the break. You're getting ready to join the Royal Marines. But you... One thing we didn't cover is you had a setback. You hadn't rested.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was at a football match. In Norwich of all places. Now Norwich, you've probably never heard of Norwich, have you Sean?

• 1:08:08Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  For good reason. Not a lot happened there. But yeah, it wasn't anything crazy. There was no, you know, it was just a little bit of a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Eventually, the police were like, "Yeah, you're drunk, you're being obnoxious", whatever. Just football stuff. I was a kid, man. I'd just lost my dad, I'm not making excuses for it. It wasn't the best behaviour, but it wasn't serious, it wasn't, you know, wasn't doing anything that bad. But they did arrest me and they released me very shortly afterwards. For like breach of the peace or some, you know, can't remember what the charges, some bullshit like that. Just football stuff, basically.

• 1:08:41Shawn Ryan?

  What, was it a fight?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Uh, there was a bit of a fight before and then we'd gone to another pub and they were like, "Yeah, those guys", and I was one of the ones that didn't manage to get away, basically. It was, you know, handbags. We call it handbags in the UK. It wasn't nothing serious, but um...

• 1:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  You hadn't perfected your A and E strategy yet, huh?

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  No, I had not. No, no, no, definitely not, yeah. So, lessons identified. But the consequence for that was that you have to run out a year, basically. It was a conditional discharge. There was no charges brought other than the fact that it had happened. But no further charges, so to speak. So it was like, "Cool, happened on this date", one year later, it's all gone off your record completely. It was a minor thing, you know, trivial, minor stuff. So, my dad's died. I've gone back out to Spain because my dad was living in Spain with my grandma and I didn't want my grandma going back out to Spain on her own, so I went out there and I started to...

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Started to think about the Marines, that kind of was a thing. I was training quite a lot. I was starting to run, starting to get on the pull-up bar, starting to lift a few weights, you know, just trying to, you know, just gradually doing it. Still trying to process the loss of my dad is, this is, it rocked my world, I'll be honest with you. Um, and then I came back to the UK and then the worst thing possible could have happened is I got a little bit of money and was like, okay, I'm back to being distracted again with football and all the rest of it.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  So that kind of ran. And then it wasn't until basically the money ran out and the season finished at the end of that cup final, like I told you about, when the cup final finished, I was like, okay, cool. You've had a good run now. You've had like six, seven months of, you know, getting it out of your system. What's next? Do I want to go back to trees? Not really. Now it's time to join the Marines. So I went back to Spain and started training for the Marines, um. Training hard, started to really focus in on it. Um, my mom was completely supportive of it. I'm her only child, like, I don't know how many brothers or sisters, like, so for her, and this was like. I think what's important to note is that when I joined the Marines, Sean, I joined the Marines to go to Afghanistan. I wasn't looking for a career. I wanted to go to war. What year was this? Two thousand and six. Two thousand and six.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, two thousand and six. So the war was happening. The war was, was busy. I remember watching pictures of like, it was a parachute regiment. They were in Sangin, um, a place where I'd go and you could see them. They're all like. I thought it was the coolest fucking shit ever. They're all that body armour, no T-shirts, all skinny because there's, all they're doing is scrapping every day, you know, eating rations. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's, that's where I want to be. I want to be that guy, you know? So. I go, career's office, everything's good. Go through the first phases. A guy called Corporal Darling was his name. I'll never forget. It's a nice name. He then came, came up to me and he was like, have you got a criminal record? I was like, uh, no. He's like, what have you got? And I was, I've got a conditional discharge. He's like. When from? And I gave him the dates. He's like, dude, you're gonna have to wait six months before you can come back.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  So that was the first setback really, in terms of, I was locked in, remember I told you about that obsession thing that I've got this weird thing where if I'm obsessed on something, I'll achieve it. And I was obsessed and I'm I'm proud of myself and I am, I don't give myself enough credit for this, you know, I don't want to sound like a prick, but. I am proud of myself for this, Sean, because I stopped to my guns and I was ending up like picking up random jobs. I was working in like this little tiny place selling like ice creams to people and making coffee, anything just to afford a gym membership and. Stay on track and I did and I stayed on track and then I finally got the opportunity to to turn up at Limpson and.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  The Commando Training Centre at Limpson is a hell of a place. It's a hell of a facility and I remember turning up on the train in a suit, I'd I'd worn that suit three times. I'd worn it to my dad's funeral, I'd worn it to a court appearance and now I was turning up to the Royal Marines in it.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  So it felt connected to me, you know. The whole thing and I remember turning up with my ironing board, shaved head. And I was ready to go, I was a true believer, you know, when you when you talk about there were kids, probably sixty or seventy of us joined that intake. And you can tell the ones that aren't going to last a week, you can tell the ones that are hmm, on the fence, off the fence. I'd been fairly independent from a very early age, I'm used to hard work, I know what it's like to be cold, I know what it's like to be wet. I know what it's like to have a pack on, I've travelled, you know, so I think all of those things put me in good s- good position, in good stead. And I was doing it because I wanted to do it for my dad, that was my superpower, like. When discipline goes, when motivation motivation goes, when you're cold, wet, tired, hungry.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  That tho- those those things are real, but obsession. Obsession never left me and it was that obsession to. Do that, to get that Green Beret. That drove me and I never once ever. Felt like, this is not for me or I'm gonna quit. I got another setback during training, probably mid to halfway through, it's a thirty two week course, I think it was about seventeen or eighteen weeks in. Um, I jumped off a wall on the assault course, the O course. And I basically broke my foot, well not basically, I broke my foot, um. Carried on for another week or so, I went on an exercise and basically broke one and fractured the other one.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  So that's what you you get back troop then essentially, so you don't stay with that intake, they don't kick you out, but they just. Put you in a holding place, rehabilitate you and then you have to go again. That was fucking hard, dude. Start all over? No, start where you left off, yeah, start where you left off, but that was hard because it was like. That was my dream gone. I wanted to be an original, I wanted to, it doesn't mean anything, but to me it meant I wanted to pass thirty two weeks in one go. And then I'm in this indefinite period of rehabilitation, until you're better, you can't go back in, so I remember watching my troop go, they were like. Six, seven weeks ahead of me, they passed out, you know, all those guys, and I remember I broke down in front of my troop sergeant, a guy called, um. Baz Weston, he was killed um in Afghanistan a few years later on, um.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  But he was a, he was like a superhero to me, he was everything that you'd imagine a Royal Marine sergeant should be. Short guy from Reading, he liked football too, he was a Chelsea fan, a big scar on his face, he was a mortarman, but he was hard on us. We got wet every single time we were in the field, we got smashed to bits, everyone on that camp knew that our troop nine three nine was. He was making monsters, he was turning us into commandos, fucking in quick order. And I look back on it, at the time I was like, this dude is just fucking smashing us for no reason, but when I look back on it. I respect him and love him so much for what he did. Because he fucking knew full well, like you take ownership of training people, these are kids off the street from all different backgrounds. And he knew full well we were going to Afghanistan. Had he been there before?

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yep, he'd done his tours, yeah, he'd done a bunch of tours, he was a senior guy. And he knew he was, he's not creating camp commandos, he's he's, these guys are gonna go to war. And he knew that a lot of us would would see it. And some of us weren't coming back, and we knew that, we got that feeling from the very fucking minute we stepped into that building, that this is no joke, like. When you leave this facility, you are going to go to war, so we were like, cool. Unfortunately, he did get killed in Afghanistan, um.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Which was a fucking massive shame and it hit us all really hard, but he provided, what he did was produce good commandos, good warfighting commandos, young men that were ready to go out there and, and fight and

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  do the business. And I look at some of the guys that I passed out of training through and they're fucking phenomenal, like, you know, so much respect for the Royal Marines.

• 1:16:09Shawn Ryan?

  What was his name?

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Baz Weston was his name, Sergeant Baz Weston, uh, he got hit by an I D. Uh, directional one, you know, so I can stand a chance. Um, I remember actually going to digress slightly, but where they used to fly the bodies in back from Afghanistan, they used to land in a place called Pricenorton, which is about ten minutes from where I lived and they used to take the bodies straight to Oxford, up the hill to the John Radcliffe Hospital. And that's where they used to do the, um, uh, examinations of the bodies and do, do all the, the necessary medical stuff before they release them to the families.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  So for, for years, I remember every time somebody got killed, I would go and stand on that hill because everyone would come out and they'd watch the coffins come up. And I'd watch that. I remember on R and R watching that. And I remember the mother of my child watching that. I remember my mum watching that. And, you know, we, we lost four hundred and fifty odd people during that conflict. Which doesn't sound a lot if you talk about, you know, other conflicts, but every single one of those people had a family, every single one of those matters. Um, and it just felt like we couldn't escape it for a long time. It was everywhere. It was, it was consumed, everything that we did. Um, as a group and as a family, it was, it was a very, it was such an intense period of my life. It was, it was mental. Um.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  But Baz was a good guy. Baz gave skills to us that no doubt saved my life for sure. And made us combat effective, combat ready Marines.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  That went out and did the business and people talk about, you know, this generation's doubt, that generation. I'll always put it like this, my old sergeant, he just said it in the squadron, he was like, experience is a luxury, it's not a necessity. I think people are, oh, these guys have got no experience, they haven't done this, they haven't done the GWOP, so what? Nobody had any experience when we went to Afghanistan. Nobody had any experience when we went to the Falklands or wherever we've been, like, it's okay, the training works, believe in the process, trust the system. And if you've got good instructors, and this is again what I'm trying to carry forward. If you've got good instructors that have been there, that have got the right reasons about them, they will give you the information that you need to survive. You might get unlucky, but you know, if you stick to the process, you don't have to have done twenty tours or, you know,

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  that mission or this hostage rescue or whatever it is to be a good soldier or a good operator or good anything, like trust the process, trust, trust the training. It annoys me slightly when people look down at this next generation of guys and go, oh yeah, they've got no experience. So what? You know, instead of, instead of saying that to them, why don't we gas them up? Because it tells you what's going to happen in a few years' time, when we're old men sat on our sofas and couches at homes with our families, these, these young men that we're quick to criticize and go, oh, they're not as tough as we are, they're going to be the ones out there losing their lives, they're going to be the ones out there sacrificing. So the next generation is super important to me, but he was the one, the first one that really sort of made me think about that.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  I got back into training, so I finally got back into my troop and I passed out and uh.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  It was the fucking proudest moment of my life, mate. It really was. I remember you do, the last test you do is a thirty miler across Dartmoor. And it's like the culmination of thirty-two weeks, you do the commando test and the last thing is you stop and then you go over this bridge. And when you go over this bridge, you get given your green beret and it's the first time you can put it on your head. And it's, you know, it's what you, it's the whole thing. It's like, this isn't just thirty-two weeks or, you know, forty weeks of training for me. This is nineteen years. This is nine, this is going back, playing with guns when I was a kid, everything I ever did for my dad, it was all in this one moment, you know? And there was a lad in my troop, in my section, called Luke, and uh, he'd lost his brother. And we stopped and I saw him and he had a tear coming down his face. I said, what's wrong?

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  And he goes, oh, I wish my brother was here to see this. And I said, dude, I wish my fucking dad was here to see this. And I remember that, I'll never ever forget it. And we sorted ourselves out, wiped our faces down, fucking tucked our pouches in, you know. Let's go. We crossed the bridge. And again, I was like, I'm quite emotional at this point. I start, there's a, there's a corp- uh, corporal called Luke Carey. He was particularly professional, diligent corporal. Um, but he was hard as fucking nails, hard as woodpecker's lips, you know? And uh, he's like, why are you crying? I said, I'm just proud. He goes, boot necks, don't cry. And he was like, ah, and then give me a wink and that was it. You know what I mean? I was like, there you go. So uh, that was a really, really big moment for me. It was something I'll always look back on as probably one of the proudest, by the birth of my daughter.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Probably the best moment of my life, by none. Um, so there I was, Green Beret, training's done. And there's no pomp or ceremony about it when they tell you where you're going. There's, there's a bunch of different commando units, okay? So there's four, five commando, forty commando and four, two commando. Those were the fighting commando units at the time. Four, two and four, five were deploying shortly afterwards. Real quick, what did your mom think? She knew exactly what it meant to me. And she was fully supportive of it. She knew, she knew that I was chasing a dream. That's all I ever wanted to be. Since I was a small kid, I always wanted to be a soldier. And now I was, you know, and she was proud of it and.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  She's done eleven deployments. My daughter's done ten deployments. I don't, I, I, I count my deployments as their deployment. They've done the same thing. They've been through every single piece of that. Never once. Has my mom ever done anything other than support me and back me and gas me up and, and have me, you know, have my back, like. Never did she say, don't do it. Never did she say, you sure? You know, she always, always, always supported it because she knew deep down that's what I wanted to do. That's love, you know, and it's unconditional love and support. And that's, you know, that's what she gave me. And again, she's such an incredible woman. I was like, you know, if you're telling me I can do it, I can do it. I'm gonna, my dad's not gonna tell me to do it. In fact, he told me I couldn't do it. She went the other way. So.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  It must be hard for her. It must have been, especially in that sort of timeframe between two thousand eight to two thousand and twelve. It was like every week. We were losing people. Man. Every week. And they were coming right up the house, right up the road, right up the street. Like, my hometown was where they took the bodies. And I remember, like, it was on my.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  We'll get into the second deployment, because that's the most important one for me. But the second deployment, I remember coming back on R and R. I had a ten day period in the UK, and for five of those days, I would go and stand on that hill and watch people come up. Man. With a brand new baby in my hand, you know? She was two weeks old when I deployed, so like. She was two weeks old? Yeah, on the second deployment, yeah. But we can, you know, I I've got to cover some stuff on the first one before I get to the second one, but the second one I really do want to get into because I think that's. To me, that was the most life-changing deployment I've done, and and nothing I've ever done in Special Forces comes anything close to the carnage and the war that that two thousand ten Sangin deployment had.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Because that was fucking total war. That was, that was real, that was raw, and it was every fucking day. And we lost a lot of people. My company suffered a one in three casualty rate, one in three, imagine that. That's dead or very seriously injured. Like limbs, eyes, testicles, fucking you name it. We lost a lot in that deployment.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  And nothing I've ever done comes anywhere near that. But that first deployment was.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  It was different. It was a slightly slower tempo because it was a winter deployment. Where was it? Sangin. So I went to Sangin in Helmand Province. And we got called on to the landing before, and we just finished training. Everyone's gasped, you know, where are we going, where are we going, who's going to four five, who's going to four two? And it's just like.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Said my name, he's like, yeah, four or five commando. And I was like, ah, yes, fucking yes. We're going finally, you know, I'm not here to be a camp commander. I want to go to war. And they told me.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  So I go up to four or five commando, which is right at the top of Scotland, in the middle of nowhere. Solid unit. It's like, it's a warfighting unit, great pedigree, loads of stuff from the fork learns. You name it, four or five commando has been there and it's got a reputation for being a hard unit. A warfighting unit. So I was gassed. I was so excited to go there and we did the whole pre-deployment training and it was. We're in that kind of crossover now, Sean, and you'll understand this where it went from like early sort of Afghan days, sort of two thousand five, six up. It was a lot of firefights and gunfights and then it kind of pivoted to IEDs and it went real quick. Um, not to say that the gunfights weren't still happening, but the IEDs went through the roof. So we were very aware that that was, that was what was, what was coming. That was what was waiting for us.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  And um, my company got split up. Some guys went down to um, Fob Gibraltar, down in Helmand province and we went to Sangin district. Now Sangin, for those, you're probably aware of it. Sangin was the epicentre of the Helmand conflict. We lost more troops in Sangin than anywhere else by a fucking disproportionate amount. It was like, it was. Urban, it was rural, it was everything in between and it was dangerous. Really, really dangerous place to be, especially during that timeframe. But for young Marines, it was like, yes, that's where I want to go, you know? Because I was naive and I was stupid and I'd never felt the blast of an IED. I'd never seen someone get. Shot or bled out. I'd never seen it. I didn't know, but I wanted it, you know?

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  That naivety was a superpower, but it was also foolish. But you grow and you learn. But yeah, that was where I really cut my teeth. The soldiering was hard there, Sean. We lived in a patrol base, mate. There was no, there was no electric for six months. People talk about, you know, there's no electric in there.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  There was no shower in there. The toilets was a metal, a metal, you know, oil can with a, with a seat over it. That's what we had. We lived on rations for six months, like legit. When it rained, the compound that we had occupied, because we'd fortified the roof so much with sandbags and guns and all kinds of other shit, would start to collapse. Like, we walked around, we did sangar patrols, so like, you know, there's four or five static positions for security. So if you weren't manning those for twenty four hours, you were on patrol for twenty four hours, for six months. So you would do four and a half hours of, you know, staggering on sentry. And then you would have three hours rest, you'd do that for twenty four hours, and then you would go on patrol. And we'd got in multiples of like twelve guys, maybe.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  And the amount of kit that we had to carry, electric, you know, um, countermeasures, like the ECMs, they're fucking heavy, the batteries, the link, I was a mini me gunner, the metal detectors, spare metal detectors, spare batteries, brak- back breaking pain, mate, this like hard, hard soldiering. And then you come back and

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  live in a, in a, in a mud hut, essentially. That's wha- what it was for, for six months. All the while, you're working in a minefield. Every single time you step out of that gate, you're effectively in a minefield. And the enemy was never anywhere to be seen. But they'd smash you from anywhere. And then we'd smash them back, and then we'd go back, and that was what it was. It was just that for six months. It was the first time I ever engaged anybody was on that deployment. It was the first time I got boned up by suicide bombers on that deployment, dealt with casualties on that deployment. It all happened, but it was quite steady tempo, if that makes sense. Unlike the next deployment where it was just straight off the bat, fucking full send. But I did learn a lot. What was your first engagement?

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  Um, it's actually quite a funny story. I mean, I shouldn't say it, it's quite funny. So we were given a warning, basically, that there was a suicide bomber. Um, on a motorbike, dressed in black, shaved head, and there was two of them. And we were told to stop anyone that looked or fitted that description. Now, you've been to Afghanistan. That's not uncommon. The shaved heads are a little bit rare, but apart from that, you see that shit all the time. So it's very difficult. But I remember I was on a sentry position overlooking this big dust bowl. It's probably about six, seven hundred metres. Open, open area and we had a patrol, satellite patrol that had gone off and this motorbike blew through an Afghan checkpoint

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  across this open ground and someone fired a, a pen flare, you know, the little pen flares. That was the escal- we had an escalation process. So it was like pen flare, warning shot, lethal force, et cetera. So the guy on the bottom sangar had done that whole thing. He fired the pen flare, fired a warning shot and this dude was driving across and it was the right people. So I'm up there with a mini me, so it's like a saw, right? So I'm like, fuck it, like. A belt fed machine. It was a fucking belt fed machine gun, yeah. And I was good with it. That was my weapon system, like. I'm pretty good at dishing out the shit with a belt fed weapon system and that was my gun and I knew what to do with it. So I'm at bubba, bubba bum. And I see it's like something out of a film, like you just see the rounds coming up, all this dust, dust bowl coming up.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  All this dust would go and then the bike would keep going. I'm like, fuck dude, I'm not even hitting this dude. I'm like, so I, I unloaded the belt. It was a fifty, fifty round belt. And you can just see it was like something out of a cartoon. It was like every time the rounds would hit the ground and the dust would come up, the bike would come out the end of it. And I'm like, I must, I'm, I'm there. So I'm not leading it. I'm trying, I can't be missing. That, that's, there's, there's no chance I'm not hit this.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  And it drives off, goes through the thing and I'm like, fuck. Like, this is my moment. Like, I've been waiting for this. Not waiting for it, but like, this is, this is what I've been preparing for. I'm training for this, you know? And I fucking missed the dudes. I didn't fucking get them. So I'm like, I'm fucking embarrassed. My patrol or the other half of the patrol comes in and they're all laughing. They're like, fucking hell, what, what the fuck were you doing on that sangar with that machine gun? And I'm like, fucking hell dude, I'm trying to hit. This is like four hundred metres, a moving target. It's not an easy shot, but I have got a belt fed weapon that I do not to use. And I'm like, fuck dude, I don't know. I was like, I was leading it, I had it on my side, it was on iron side, I was like, I had it. I just can't believe that, I'm sorry. He goes, no, we did see some blood when they came through this little gate, this little entrance where the bike came, he's like, yeah, there's, there's, there's blood there.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Like, you, you might have got something. It wasn't until that night, we went out and did a patrol. Um, Overwatch patrol for these convoys that used to come in. And we just have to basically pick it the line. It was a pain in the ass, but we had to go and do it like six hours, just sat on a roof sometime. And the, uh, the ANA commander came up and he was like, yeah, you, you, you killed two, two Taliban commanders. He's like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, they, we, they turned up at the local mosque and they'd been fucking riddled all up the side and on the legs. Fair play to the dude on the bike, he kept going, but like, yeah, we got him, I got him. And, uh, it felt like a bit of a weird one for me, cause I was like, you expect to see the results of, of that? Does that make sense?

• 1:30:43Shawn Ryan?

  I know exactly.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean by that?

• 1:30:45Shawn Ryan?

  I know exactly what you mean.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  It's a weird one, isn't it?

• 1:30:47Shawn Ryan?

  What caliber was it? I'm just curious.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Five five six.

• 1:30:49Shawn Ryan?

  See, that's something we learned when in, what, I think it was two thousand six is. We would be hitting guys. And we wouldn't realize that we were hitting them because, you know, the velocity and the round, the green tip rounds, the arm reversing rounds would just fly like through them. And then you would see them and they have the little, little bitty pinholes.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Yep. It's not what you think.

• 1:31:10Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and then, and then we, we started stacking our magazines and doing. Two green tip, one seventy seven grain, two green tip, one seventy seven grain. And once we switched to seventy seven grain. A whole nother ballgame.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:31:24Shawn Ryan?

  But, you know, it's, it's interesting that.

• 1:31:30Shawn Ryan?

  It took so long for.

• 1:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  Those lessons learned to, to, to kind of percolate throughout all of the military.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 1:31:40Shawn Ryan?

  All of it.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:31:41Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like nobody was communicating that.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:31:47Shawn Ryan?

  We shouldn't have been using green tip.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:31:48Shawn Ryan?

  We weren't fighting guys with body armor.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:31:51Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, so, yeah, actually I think we were doing two seventy sevens and one green tip, that way we could punch through a car easier. But.

• 1:32:01Shawn Ryan?

  So how long was it till you found out that you had killed him?

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  That night, it was that night, yeah, yeah. Which for me, it was more a sense of relief. I'll be honest, like, I don't, I don't attach much, um, certainly no empathy for them. Um, but it was kind of a bit, it was anticlimactic in a, in a weird way, but it was more relief that the guys in the rest of my platoon didn't think I was no good with that machine gun. It was like, I fucking told you, I knew I did. And they're like, no, good effort. Um, but yeah, it was a bit of a surreal moment. They're like, yeah, they, they, they, they went to the mosque and they bled out. And I was like, okay, cool, I'll take it, you know? But it didn't feel real, cause I didn't, I didn't. Later on in my career.

• 1:32:44Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't see it.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Didn't see it, didn't feel it. I've been as close as you and me are, multiple times with live engagements. That's a different fucking feeling. You can fucking see the rounds rip through a human being that way. But like, in this case, it was distance. I don't know if you've ever read that book on killing, if you've ever read it? It's about proximity, a lot of it, isn't it? In the different natures and types, it's like artillery guys and mortar guys don't, don't bat an eyelid. But if you're this close, it's slightly different. That came later. There was a couple of other engagements I had on that deployment. I dropped a couple of people that were engaging us or maneuvering around us. Um, but again, the, the, the rules of engagement were, were very strict and professional. It was like we had an escalation process.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Now, I don't wanna talk about this too much, but what I will say is that coin theory shit about winning the population to win the war and courageous restraint.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  It cost people's lives because it was not understood and it was not employed. And you're fighting an enemy that does not give a fuck. So whoever came up with that. Well done, because I think they've got blood on their hands, in my opinion, because what you did was you restricted a bunch of young Marines, paratroopers, infantrymen from all over the coalition, and you put that this stuff in their head, which caused them to have doubt, which then caused them to lose their lives, and I'll stand by that. It slows the decision making. Slows the decision making process, and we'll talk about this later on, but you cannot put doubt doubt in people's minds, you've got to trust people to make the right decision. Like, the Commando Training Centre is exemplary as a centre of excellence for producing professional soldiers.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Do not, do not start to limit them or put their hands behind their backs and send them into these situations with that doubt in the back of their head, that if they do something wrong, they're going to go to prison. This is some, some real stuff, and we'll talk about it later, but this is some real bullshit that needs to be addressed because it's, it costs people's lives, you know?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  It was a hard tour, um, it was a long tour. It was the first time I got blown up with a suicide bomber on that one, it was right towards the end of it, we were coming down, I don't, do you ever go to Fob Jackson in Sangha, did you ever make it up there? No. So, there's this bridge, basically, I won't bore you with the details, but we were on a long patrol, we were coming back, and it was towards the end. Usually we're very good at keeping distances between people, but this kid walked out, he must have been thirteen, fourteen. I walked past him, I walked right past him, and he looked like, um, he, he looked like he was, uh, some sort of disability. He didn't, he didn't look full ticket, if you know what I mean. And I kind of like watched him walk past, and I remember it going bang behind me, and I'm gonna be honest with you, the first thing I thought was fucking hell, I'm glad that, whatever it is, I'm glad it, it wasn't me.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  That's my first thought, and I don't care what anyone says, and I've suffered with this for a long time, like, I've been in a bunch of IED blasts now. I've been blown up with suicide bombers on three occasions, four or five IED blasts in close proximity, and it took me a long time to get over the fact that the first thing I ever thought was fucking hell, I'm glad it's not me, and I hate that, I hate that about me, I hate that I felt like that, you know, like. But it was, I'll be honest, that's what I felt. Um, luckily we were all right, these, the suicide vest was of shit quality, it was, it did more damage to him than it did to anyone else. Um, but we took some fragmentation and some, some injuries. Um, but nothing catastrophic, um, everyone walking wounded for the most part.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, a lot of times they would use, they would, they would, they would use people with disabilities for that. Oh, yeah.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Of the three times I've been blown up with suicide bombers, I think they're all under the edge of fifteen.

• 1:36:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I remember in two thousand and five, they would line bicycle tires with explosives. And have a kid ride up and try to blow it.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  When you're dealing with an enemy that's got that mentality, it's so, so difficult.

• 1:36:39Shawn Ryan?

  Especially when your hands are tied.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  Especially when your hands are tied, you know, like. As my career progressed, the proximity between me and enemy forces is a fucking hard line for me, like. You'll get a warning if there's time and it's appropriate, but if you come within proximity of me in those situations. Then you can stand by because I know what's coming. I don't need to be blown up again to to learn those lessons. This is what I'm talking about. You have to transfer. Experience, hard earned experience into learning, you know, and sometimes that that takes a little bit of. Adjustment in the the mindset and the mentality that you had um or have. But yeah, I certainly learned a lot. That was a good deployment for me and a good deployment in terms of.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Learning my trade, cutting my teeth, so to speak. Um, and I got back from that. And I just wanted more. I wanted more. I wanted more of it. I loved it. I was like, that's exactly where I'm supposed to be.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Right at the end of the deployment, a guy called Steph Moran, who was our SART major at the time, um, put out a thing for recce troop. Recce troop in the Marines, especially four, five recce. Um, it's considered to be like. The top level, you know, of Marines. There was a course, normally you have to go and do some horrific two week, like, pre course to get on it, but because we were deployed, he was like. Do you want to go to recce troop? And I was like, yes, sir. And he was like, okay, cool. He goes, I'm gonna put your name forward. I'd had a good deployment. I'd worked hard. I was a good Marine, all the rest of it. So I was like, okay, cool. I'm gonna just put you on the course. So I came home from that deployment. I had about six weeks off leave. Post operational tour leave and I spent all of that training. I did not.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  I didn't go to Thailand. I didn't do any of the other stuff that everyone else was doing. I just trained and trained and trained because I wanted to be a recce operator. And I just ran and I ran and I lifted and I ran and I lifted and I just kept doing that until it got to the point where. I was ready to go on on the recce course and it was. Probably about midway through, I came back one weekend, I disappeared.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  Um, and I got, my mom, I came back and staying with my mom at the time, and she's like, have you spoke to your girl, my girlfriend at the time, I was like, no, I've not spoke to her, she goes, you need to speak to her, I said, why, she's not pregnant, is she? She just looked at me and she went, speak to her. And I was like, so I speak to her and she's like, I'm pregnant. So I was like, well, that fucking changes things a little bit, you know, but it didn't.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  And, and again, I regret this about myself because I just absorbed it and dealt with it.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  If I was as good a father as I was a marine, I'd be perfect, but I wasn't. I was a better marine than I was a father. And quite frankly, it came as a fucking shock.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  We did the whole thing, we were like, okay, cool, let's, let's make this work, let's build a family, all the rest of it. My whole time, I'm like, I, I need to get to recce troop, I need to deploy, I need to deploy, the war's still going, the bodies are still coming up the hill, I need to be back out there. And then right towards the end of the course, they were like, ah, right, who, we need volunteers. And you know what it's like, Sean, nobody volunteers for anything in the military, nothing good happens for it. Like, what's it for? Who wants to go to forty commando and deploy? Boom. I do. Cool. There you go. Forty commando, you're gonna go and deploy.

• 1:40:01Shawn Ryan?

  Let's backtrack for a minute. What's the recce platoon?

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  So the recce platoon, yes, yes and no. It's not primarily snipers, it's well, not exclusively snipers, it's half snipers, half recce operators. So the recce operator course covers all kinds of things from um, OP, so observation post, subsurface, you know, not so much technical stuff as it is probably these days, it was very sort of rural, digging in like green army, field soldiering, high levels of physical fitness, small team tactics. Um, operating in front of the main commando units to set up lines of departure. We did a lot of work with ropes and aerial access to, to, to, to, you know, cliff faces, et cetera. Commando stuff, basically, like, they are the epitome of, and it's all run by um, raw marine mountain leaders. And I don't know if you've ever come

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Crossroll Marine Mountain Leaders, but it's a nine month course and I would argue that it's probably the fucking hardest course in the British military, even more so than selection. Wow. It's ridiculously hard. Um. They spend months in Norway, they spend months climbing, they go to Scotland, they do mountain training. Bergens are OP Bergens, so they've got, they're heavy. Um. But unlike selection, so on my selection course, two hundred and twenty people started and we roughly finished with twenty. Fifteen people might start that MLs course and probably thirteen people will pass because it's a course, they want you to pass, if that makes sense. Whereas selection, they don't give a shit if you pass or not until the end. So although it's harder and longer.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  In aspects, it's easier to pass because they want you to be there, if that makes sense. Does that kind of? Forgiving. Yeah, it's more forgiving. It is more forgiving. Yeah. Whereas selection isn't. It's very kind and dry. Um. But you're talking about the best. Field Green Army soldiers that I've ever seen or worked with, from any country, bar none, like, these guys are impressive. So they're like the corporals and the sergeants. Then underneath that, you've got all the recce guys, uh, sorry, the sniper guys. And then you've got the recce operators. So recce operators' natural progression is to be a mountain leader. So that was my next step. But I never went that way. I went on the selection route itself. So it's a small platoon, maybe thirty guys, there or thereabouts.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  But they are the top one percent in that, in that, that unit. They're the fittest, they've got the best skill set, you know. We'd spend a lot of time doing map reading, navigation, military knowledge, you name it, we were all over it. But these are your, like, your true believers, if you will. Like, everybody in that platoon or that troop really wants to be there and have had to have gone through some selection courses. Inside of the Marines to get there. So for me, I thought I was like, I thought I was like, it's like SEAL Team Six, you know what I mean? It's like we're recce operators, like, you can slightly different kit. Whenever we walked around camp, everyone was, oh, they're the recce guys, like, it felt good, you know, it felt like.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  It felt like we we we were in a good spot and what was good about that troop is that every single individual there was all pulling in the same direction. Like you know what it's like in a company, you might be in a company with a hundred people, like some people it's like a nine to five for them, for these guys, every single guy in that troop was, you know, dialed in. So when we were about to receive orders for the second deployment, it was like, we're gonna be doing some cool shit. We're a recce troop, right? We must be doing like driving around in the desert and advanced to ambushes and all this cool stuff. Negative. They were like, you're going back to Sangin, you're going back to a patrol base and it's just regular stuff. So I was like, dude, why the fuck have I just put myself through all this bullshit to get here, to do a different job and now I'm just doing the same fucking job that I was doing a year ago?

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  And literally you could see from the patrol base that I was in, you could see my old patrol base, which was a good thing for me because I had ground knowledge, I had experience of the terrain, but things had taken a shift. Two thousand eight, two thousand and nine, I think we lost nine guys on that deployment. Nine, nine Royal Marine Commandos died on that deployment. Um, which is nine too many and it fucking affected all of us. But what happened in the sec- the second deployment was this.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, eh, no joke. It was a fucking no joke summer tour. So when we got into that that patrol base, the the guys that we'd taken from over were were the rifles infantry unit. When they'd got there, they'd written all of the names of the guys in the sections, one section, two section, you know, HQ. And when we got there, half of those names had aligned through them. They'd all been, they'd fucking got smashed to bits in those patrol bases. They were getting killed regularly.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  When we got there, you could just see in their eyes the relief that this is done and they were going home. And we were going out on familiarization patrols where like they would take us and show us the thing and you could just see that there was just a nervousness that they were not broken because they're infantry and they're fucking, but they were hurt and they were suffering. So I already knew, okay, cool. This is not gonna be like the last one. Um, and sure as hell, within a few days of being there, we started to take casualties and it pretty much ramped up from there. The first one we took. Was a guy called Jace, we were building, fortifying or rebuilding a position on the roof in the day. Questionable, but we had to. I was behind the G M G, you know, the, um.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Automatic grenade launcher thing. So I'm behind that forty mic mic. We're just sighting in, building the sandbags, just about to come off. And go back down, it's sort of last light, and I just hear one round.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  And I hear a scream. And then I hear a man down. And I'm like, fuck. And then it was like medic. So what happened, again, this is. Super fortunate, it basically what had happened is the only, and people say it couldn't have been the only, he was the only guy in that. Troop that wore side plates, the only fucking dude. It hit the top of his side plate and then ricocheted up underneath his tricep and blew him off the roof. He survived, he came back. He went back to Camp Bastion for a few weeks and then got back in the fight. And I look back at that now and I'm like. That's fucking hardcore. I didn't get shot like that off a roof by a sniper. And then two, three weeks later, you're back on patrol, like.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  That's commando. That's what being a commando is about. But unfortunately for the guys that had engaged my mate, they didn't realise I was still up there. Because there was a cam net and I was underneath the cam net. So I'm just like, ah, cool. Rack it and fucking start sending it with this forty mic mic. And I fucking, every firing point, every position that could have been there, I was just sending it. One, two shot, boom, boom, boom, boom, good mate. And after about a box and a half, the troop commander came up and he's like. Remember courageous restraint, courageous restraint. I'm at, yeah, Roger, a P I D at the firing point, which they are, they're likely firing points, suppression of enemy likely firing points, it's doctrinal, it's what you're supposed to do.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  So we did, and then there was a whole gunfight that went on. They started to attack the, uh, our patrol base from multiple firing points to second patrol base down the road. They started getting smashed. This whole thing went on for about an hour. And uh, we'd only been there a few days. This was like within the first week and uh, I'm up on the roof getting it. Like, I'm just fucking sending it, you know, and uh, everyone else is, like, the patrol base has become a porcupine, barrels everywhere, you know, just sending it. And uh, eventually, this is funny, eventually the Kazovac came in, right? So the Kazovacs come in. Everyone's new in theatre, so we're all still trying to figure it out and, you know, all the rest of it. So they drive these vehicles down, cause you couldn't put, you couldn't put a helicopter where we were. It was, there was no place safe to land it, so you'd have to do it by, by road, then get in the helicopter.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  So the Sart major and everyone else comes back in these vehicles. We called them jackals and they come driving downhill and, you know, into the patrol base. And as soon as they get in the patrol base, you know, on the, the, the, the, the, the dispensers of flares, you know, for the foss smoke, so they can smoke the. Somehow he pressed the wrong button. He disarmed it or armed it, whatever he'd done, but he fired out foss all over the patrol base. So you've got this scene, right? I'm on the roof in just a pair of shorts and body armour. Everyone's shooting everything everywhere. There's a dude down there who's a casualty. The cavalry comes and then fosses the entire patrol base, like. The, the, this is a small patrol base, okay? And I'm in the, the cabinet's on fire, like, everything's going on. And my mate who ended up being in the squadron, a different squadron to me, but he went on selection as well.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  He, this is his first deployment. He's like belly crawling up to with another box of ammunition. And I looked at him and I was like, I told you it was gonna be like this. He looked at me, goes, I don't fucking like it. And I was like, I know. And we carried on sending it, but I'll ne- I'll never forget that, like, the whole, everyone's just fucking, it was good. It was good because it was like, bang. Alright fellas, reality check, this is what it's gonna be like. And it, it didn't slow down. It, it really didn't. And um. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't that long after that the, um, our troop sergeant. Guy called Lee, he got hit. Again, this is quite another funny story. They went out to patrol a place called Cemetery Hill. They went out, um, got caught out on a forward facing slope and got ambushed. Um, and he was pinned down. He got shot through the face, shot through the arm, shot through the leg.

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  Um, and was basically in the open and couldn't move. Um, and the guys were trying to get to him. It wasn't my half's patrol day. I was back in the patrol base on Century. Um, but I was the dead, dead, you know, designated quad driver. So it was my responsibility to go and pick up this casualty. So I go tearing out the gate on this quad. Troop commander's like screaming at me to stop that, you know, slow down and do the metal detector thing. And I'm like, fuck that. Let's go. Do you know what I mean? And eventually I did stop and we got there and we had a litter on the back of the quad trailer. And I drove, I drove up to the, the collection point and they put, they put him on a stretcher. And then they put that stretcher on the back of the trailer on top of another stretcher. Does that make sense?

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  So it's not what you should be doing. And obviously they're like, Jake, go. So I'm at copy. So I'm now fucking driving this quad as fast as I can. I remember going over this bump like that and thinking, oh shit, I forgot there's, there's a casualty on the back. It's my troop sergeant. And he's like a gnarly old dude, do you know what I mean? And I stopped, slammed the brakes on, I looked around and he stood vertically at this point. He's fallen off, he's bumped off the thing. He stood vertically, still strapped to the litter, like ankles, like thighs and chest. He's just stood there looking at me going, you dickhead, slow down. And I was like, fuck yeah, I'm so, I was so, I was embarrassed. I was sorry. I was like, fuck, I'm so sorry, mate. Like, please, like, and the medic's on the floor and it's just a whole fucking shit show. And, uh, he was like, you did more damage to me throwing me off the back of that quad than that geezer with the PKM did.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  And I was, I never left, I felt, we've, we've addressed this afterwards because I did feel really bad for a long time, but, um. Yeah, funny. And, um.

• 1:50:33Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, this deployment you did, you experienced a hundred and sixty gunfights in three months. Am I correct?

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  No, a hundred and sixty gunfights in one day on election day. That was in one twenty-four hour period. Our company group and satellite and call signs, a hundred and sixty contacts recorded in one day, the elections.

• 1:50:50Shawn Ryan?

  One day?

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  One day. Which sounds impossible, but it wasn't. And we were handed, so when. Holy shit. The back end of that tour, Sean, we handed over to the US Marine Corps. And when that three, seven. Combat team, combat team three, seven or three, five, I can't remember which one it was, but when the US Marine Corps came in. Those boys were not fucking playing games and it was good to see because they were like, we ain't doing courageous restraint. We're doing fucking extreme violence. And we were like, fuck yeah. Um. But yeah, that. A hundred and sixty. Recorded contacts within a twenty four hour period on election day. So the right of the back is literally the last thing that we did on deployment. It was, they were having local elections and it was the first time that they had local elections in Sangin for.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  Since the Taliban took over, I imagine, um. How do you even have enough ammo for that? It was everywhere, all day, just. All different. There was probably about five or six platoons on the ground, plus the patrol base itself, plus the, the main FOB. And it was just all day, just sporadic, all day. Were you getting resupplied? So we were out in a field. So check this out, right? So they put recu platoon. Out as a blocking force. So we were like four hundred meters away from the actual main patrol base itself and. Again, when people talk about what it means to serve and what it means to serve the United States of America. Um, and the, the, the bond that I've got.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  We fucking told them, dude, we said, do not go in that compound. We went out together. There's a US Marine Corps. Patrol and our patrol. Our job was to literally go out and provide a blocking service or a blocking screening service. And we fucking told them, do not fucking go, badger ten, don't go in that compound. It's a known firing point. It's fucking rigged. Do not go there. And they were like, we got orders, brother. And I was like.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  Do you think? And they went out there and sure as fuck, they fucking got blown up, dude. There was like fucking two dead, I think, and three or four lost limbs and. Initially, we were just helping out on the Kazakh. I'll never forget. It was just like an endless supply of just fucking people. Just coming back on stretches and we were just taking, just doing what we could, like. I fucking carried Marines off the battlefield and they fucking come and got me when I really needed it. On multiple occasions, like that US flag, when I had the fucking privilege of wearing that to war means the world to me, Sean. And I'd fucking die for that as soon as I'd die for my flag, you know. But those young lads, mate, they were fucking, those young lads, I was one two. And that was a fucking hard day. That was just the morning. That was before the whole thing fucking got going. I'll never forget it as well. We're in these cornfields, in these blocking positions.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  And it was like, you'd just see like twos and threes. The whole platoon had just been fucking decimated. It was like an IED went off. Killed a bunch of dudes. Then the fucking Kazakov, the guys that went in to get them, they got fucking blown up. Then all hell broke loose and it was just like. Once we'd started to ferry the stretches back, we went back to man our positions and it was like something out of Jurassic Park. And you see these fucking cornfields and it was just like, you could see the fucking. The fucking, the leaves moving, you know, and we're on the guns like. I need to fucking like, something's getting fucking shot in a minute. I'm fucking scared, do you know what I mean? And a fucking squad would come out or two or three guys and just be like, have you seen like, you know, this guy or that platoon and we're like. Where the fuck have you been, bro? And he's like, your guys are back there. And I was like, okay, cool. And they'd just run out.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  Ten minutes later, there'd be like a lone Marine just coming out of the fucking cornfield. You're like. I don't know what the fuck's going on over there, but this is not a good spot for them to be in. And yeah, we just fucking hunkered down. That was the first time I got properly mortared as well. Like people talk about, oh, you know, I watched. I think you'll find a generational difference between GWOT guys that didn't do conventional tours and guys that did do conventional tours, like. I know the difference between being mortared and properly being mortared, like. In front of you like fifty meters, sixty meters, which is fucking close for an eighty-one or whatever they're using.

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  Then one comes behind you, you're like, okay, cool. We're being bracketed. The next one's fucking coming into our position and sure as fuck, we're in this field getting mortared. And it's like, that's no joke. Like we're in a fucking field, there is no cover and troop, troop sergeants are like fucking digging. And we're like, what? What is this? The fucking, you know what I mean? This Iwo Jima, like I didn't think war fucking fighting was like this, do you know what I mean? This was not what we were fucking used to doing. So sure as fuck, we dug shell scrapes and I've got some great pictures of it, all the boys in shell scrapes and we fucking dug shell scrapes. And then we started getting more. What do you mean shell scrapes? Like a. Like a, a small hole in the ground to lie into, basically, just below subsurface. So that if it does detonate, it goes at ground level and you're just underneath it. The first ones we did were quite shallow, but when we started to get in, incoming accurate mortify, we were like,

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  oh shit, we need to fucking dig these in a bit deeper. And I'll never forget, like, me and this guy Gaz, we were sat in this shell scrape line and they're just laughing. Like, we're going home in two days. This, the, the election day, this whole day that I'm talking about, was literally the last thing that we did. And it was like, I cannot fucking believe after six months, we're in this fucking hole in this field, getting fucking mortared. It's like, come on, do you know what I mean? This is no joke. But I'll remember it, again, goes back to the thing of respecting the US military. We had a cowboy call sign, it was. It was a Cobra and a Huey pair. And they were fucking smashing the mortar point and uh, we're in this shell scrape in this cornfield, just fucking hunkered down, getting mortared. And this fucking helicopter comes over with its partner and they're just fucking strafing, just like, like rockets.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Twelve point seven millimeter, millimeter rockets or whatever they are, fucking thirty mic, mic, whatever they got on there. And the fucking shells are landing all around us. And we're just laughing at each other at this point. We're just like, fuck me, dude. This is fucking cool. But it's not cool if you know what I mean. It's like, but we, we liked it. We're Marines. This is what we're supposed to be doing, you know? But yeah, if it went for those dudes turning up that day, fuck knows what would have happened, but. That was the end of a really, really severe tour. And I'll tell you what, the worst thing, I don't want, you know, the worst thing for us, mate, was that every single time an ID went off,

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  it was a fucking good chance it was somebody you knew, you know, like. And that radio never fucking, in eighty days, I think it was like something like eighty-two days or whatever it was, we lost fourteen people. Um, and they were all the same guys. We knew everybody. We were recce troop, you know, we knew everyone. And it was like, you, you hear the fucking blast, man. They're so close, you feel it. You hear that fucking awful sound and you're just like, okay, cool. And then the radio, it's like, yeah, contact ID. And then it's like the state of the casualties, like what, what tier they are. You hear the miss reports coming on and it's like, you're just listening out for that zap number. You're like, I know a guy, I'm sex troop. And you're just like.

• 1:57:10Speaker 01

  You're just listening for that zap number, you're just listening for that fucking name and just being like, is it him? And it it might not affect you that day because it might not be somebody, but then you see a guy in the corner of the patrol base and he's just fucking in floods of tears because that was his best mate, you know? That was his fucking mate.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  So, yeah, we we were fucking, we were surrounded, man. We fucking, we were fucking in a bad spot and it was, it was heartbreaking to watch and feel and listen to it and that fucking radio never stopped, man. It never, never stopped.

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  And I just wanted to go home. I got, before I deployed, my door was two weeks old, two weeks old, I remember. Just as we got to Camp Bastion,

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  before we flew out to that patrol base, there were two guys that were from four, five commando that had done exactly what I did and they

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  they went to, um, they went to forty commando too. And I remember, I didn't even know these guys, man. And we were sat eating our fucking lunch, doing the like the pre-deployment training that you do in theatre, like zeroing weapons and fucking all this bullshit, getting briefs and all this fucking stuff, ROE briefs, whatever. And there was just three of us in this like, basically in this like fucking shell of a compound, having lunch. It was, oh, I was at four, five. I was, oh, fuck, I was at four, five. And there was three of us. I'm the only one that came home. They fucking both died, you know? It's like, fuck. Brownie, baby, two weeks old, like, the writing's on the wall. I'm like, I'm not coming back from this deployment. I'd given up. I knew it was coming, like. I'm not a super religious man, Sean, but every time I left that fucking patrol base, I prayed because it doesn't matter how good you are. We were getting fucking ripped apart.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  And it was fucking dangerous and it was scary and I was fucking scared. I was scared for six months. And then it's like,

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  one of the most significant things that's ever happened to me in my military career is I was about, from me to that wall away, when an IED blast went off, my troop, troop commander lost both his legs and an arm. I was the first guy to get to him. And there's a, there's a protocol for this. You're supposed to do the metal detector shit and go up to it and, you know, make sure there's no, I just fucking ran straight to him and just started putting tornikes on him and I was just like, I remember his eyes, I was, I was up at his head, Tom, the medic was working on him and I was, I was just, I was just holding him. I had a flashlight on, it was early on in the morning.

• 1:59:27Speaker 01

  We, it's a fucking four hundred meter patrol, Sean, we're at four hundred meters, do you know what we were doing? Do you know what they made us do? They made a fucking hand out a radio. He lost both his legs and an arm to hand out a fucking wind-up radio to a local that we thought was friendly. Hearts and minds, they said. So we go out at fucking five o'clock in the morning, near pitch back in a fucking minefield and he loses his arms and legs for a fucking radio, you know? I was so angry, mate. I was so fucking angry. And uh. I remember looking at him and I remember him trying to close his eyes and I was saying, John, just fucking look at me and I put this fucking. Flashlight on his face and I'm just like, do not fucking close your eyes, do not fucking close your eyes. And we, we got him out and he, he, he's still.

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  He's like fucking incredible. He's got kids, he's got a fucking life. He's a fucking incredible kayaker. He's represented his country in that. He's got this fucking incredible story. He goes around the country motivating people like. What a fucking hero, what a fucking rock star. But I'll, I'll never forgive them for putting us in those positions. Cause it's like, we know this is bullshit. Why the fuck are we going out there, you know? And yeah. That, that there made me fucking angry. I was like, nah, I'm not fu- I'm coming back. Like, a lot of people went the other way. Most people left the Marines after that deployment. I didn't.

• 2:00:50Speaker 01

  Maybe there's something fucking wrong with me, but I was like, nah, I'm fucking joining the special forces. I wanna be fucking part of that. And one of the main reasons for that was halfway through. Because we were getting smashed, the squadron, the regiment squadron, D squadron, sent a guy out to our position. To give us fire support, to bring the assets, the, you know, so he embedded himself with our troop. And this guy was like.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  An older guy, super wiry northern, you know. Not what you'd expect a regiment guy to look like, but fuck me, he was the most impressive fucking person I'd ever met. He was like a fucking superstar. You don't come across regiment guys, especially not if you're in the Marines. It's not something that you don't operate together.

• 2:01:33Speaker 01

  And he came into those patrol bases and he wore the same fucking kit that we wore with no airs and graces. You'd be like, ah, he's a sergeant in the, in the fucking regiment and I'm a, I'm a marine, two IC of a troop. And I'm doing like lists for who has to go on sentry and he's like, what time do you want me on? And I'm like, what? Like, you don't have to do this. He's like, no, put me on there, two to three, two, two o'clock in the morning. He's out there in the fucking sentry position doing it. Came on every patrol. He's like, give me some link, give me a battery. And I was like, fucking hell, he did not need to do that. He did not have to do that. But I was like, that's the gold standard. That's the fucking epitome of what I think a fucking regiment guy should be like. And he actually, it's quite a nice story. He gave me a, um, recruitment brief in the, the main patrol base, uh, back in Sangin.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  And it was for Hereford and typically Royal Marines don't go to Hereford, they go to Paul, the SBS. So they don't go to the SCS, they go to SBS typically, not always. But I always wanted to join a regiment. I'd always been fascinated by the regiment since I watched the VHS copy of the Iranian Embassy Siege from my dad, actually. When I was about 10 years old, that was the first time I'd ever reseen it. And I was like, what the fuck? The dude's on the balcony with a gas mask. So I was like, whatever that is, I want that. But it's the first time I've ever met one in the flesh and he's a fucking rock star, you know? And, uh, he gave me the recruitment brief and I remember I went back to my chew, my accommodation. I packed a Bergen with 55 pounds, which is test weight. And I did a CFT, which is an eight miler, basically just perimetered the thing. Just kept doing that and doing that. From that moment on, I was like, I'm going on selection.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  And I've heard somebody else say this and it must be a fairly common thing, but I remember sitting one night on one of those sentry positions and it was fucking super late and I hear two forty sevens go into the green zone. And you know what a forty seven sounds like? And I was like, well, that's not us and that's our fucking AO. So what the fuck is it? And then all hell breaks loose. You hear the fucking gunship going and all kinds of bullshit. And then two, three hours, fucking two forty sevens come in and they fly away. And I was like, got back off and what the fuck? I was like, yeah. That's just one of the squadrons gone and done a fucking, an offensive action on, on a target. Just for everybody listening, forty sevens are dual rotor helicopters. Yeah, the Chinooks, the CH forty sevens, you know, the big fat ones, you know, with the, with the, with the double thing. Sorry. Yeah. But yeah.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  So I was like, okay, these people are getting after it. Do you know what I felt in that deployment when they're fucking helpless? I felt helpless. I was like, just fucking wandering around in my fields, fucking watching people get blown up. It's like, I wanted to affect it. And the only place that I could affect it was, what it felt like was to, was to go on selection and, and join the squadron.

• 2:03:57Shawn Ryan?

  How did you adjust your mindset from the, from the beginning of that deployment to the end? To deal with all that?

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  I didn't deal with it.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  I just boxed it up. Just fucking compartmentalize it. That's all I could do.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  And it wasn't, mm-mm. Ten years down the line, it fucking blew up.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  I got blown up again, another suicide bomber in there. I was actually with, um.

• 2:04:25Speaker 01

  With C Squadron at the time. From the unit, yeah, from the unit, yeah. I was attached to them for a year. And I remember getting blown up one night, side of a building, watching my whole team basically just get fucking.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Whole building went on top of them. I was fucking for sure everyone was dead. Turns out that everyone survived. It was one of those fucking pulp fiction moments, you know? I mean, talk about that in a bit more detail later, but like, that, that blew the lid off the fucking box, basically. Like, that, after that, I just unraveled, slowly but surely unraveled to the point of.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:58Speaker 01

  To a fucking dark place.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  But for ten years, I just didn't look, forgot about it, just carried on. To keep going. One more deployment, one more deployment, one more deployment. Just keep putting it in the box, put it in the box, put it in the box. Box gets full. Box breaks. Eye broke.

• 2:05:18Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, to answer your question, I didn't deal with it. I just fucking carried on. What else gotta do? Like, I kept running. I kept running because I knew if I stopped and looked back, I wouldn't fucking, I would never stop, never start again, you know? I came back from that deployment and it's like.

• 2:05:39Speaker 01

  Even even coming back on R and R man, I went back to the the main patrol base. And a dear friend of mine who I was in training with, a recruit, we were recruits together. Guy called Ri- Rian, everyone calls him Twiggy, dead skinny guy, he was a machine gunner. He was a fucking, you know what I mean, he was a goo- a good machine gunner. I remember our patrol base, you had to go back to the big base because that's where the helicopters were. And that's how you flew back and went on R and R. So I was out of my patrol base and into the big base. Relieved as fuck, four months into the deployment.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Handed in all the fucking necessary equipment. I've just got basic ammunition, my rifle. About to fly and in twenty four hours I'm home in the UK with my brand new daughter that I've fucking spent two weeks with, right?

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  And they go out on patrol and we're sat in, um, the the sort of chow hall which was the tent and the first one goes off, boom. And you're like, yeah, that's a fucking IED. And then everyone's up, QRF are out, fucking whole place is going. And we're on R and R, so we've not really got a job to do at this point. And I was with a couple of other guys and we're like, fuck it, let's get our body armour on and get on the wall. Everyone's on the wall now. Everyone's shooting from the wall, we're trying to provide fire support. About a couple of minutes later, boom, second one goes off. This was a joint patrol, US Marine Corps, um, and guys from Charlie Company. Um, and they went out, first IED struck command, uh, command wire. They waited for the guys to come in and try and recover the casualties and then they fucking pulled the next one. So we lost two guys that day, a US Marine, uh, and a and a guy called Jonathan Crooks. And

• 2:07:07Speaker 01

  initially we started fighting from the wall, like, dude, I'm going home in fucking twenty four hours. I'm on the wall now, fighting. And then it was like, we need fucking people to help bring the casualties in. And I, again, I feel guilty for it. I was like, I hope it's not fucking Twiggy. And I knew it wasn't because I could hear his fucking machine gun going. I was like, yeah, he's all right. He's fucking sending it. So I'm like, fuck yeah. And, uh, then we go to the back gate and we're just carrying the bodies. We're just carrying these fucking dudes back into the, um, back into the med bay basically, where they're getting treated. And there's four or five different casualties, different categories of ca- categories. You've got like ones that are clearly

• 2:07:42Speaker 01

  no longer with us and then other guys that are all fucking fragged up and all the rest of it. And I remember clearly.

• 2:07:48Speaker 01

  And I I ne- I still can't get my fucking head around this. Like, we we we the, we put the guys in in, um, stretchers and in in the bags and.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  The fucking dude in the med centre, I don't know what his problem was, but he's like, they've got to go on head first. And I'm like, dude, it don't fucking matter. And he's like, they've got to go on head first. That's the way the helicopters are set up to deal with casualties. And I'm like, I fucking get it. I know, but it doesn't make a difference. Do you understand what I'm saying? And he's like, they've got, and I'm fucking, this fucking, I'm, I don't know what, what, I don't know what fucking, what ends the head and what's not the fucking head. You know what I mean? How the fuck am I supposed to do? You know what I mean? We're going to open the fucking, I have this fucking to and fro. And we, and we put the guys on, on, on the, we put the guys on the fucking helicopter, everyone goes away, go and sit back down. And they're like, R and R flights coming in in two hours. And they're like, now what the fuck do you do?

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  Twenty four hours later, I'm at fucking Bridesnorton with a brand new baby in my fucking, I'm like, I was not ready. I was not ready to be a fucking dad. I was not ready to deal with that. I just wasn't ready. And I fucking isolated myself because the only place I felt like I could have any control was being on operation. Which is a weird one because I was helpless there, if that makes sense. But it was a, it was a, it was a pain that I knew. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:09:09Shawn Ryan?

  Came home.

• 2:09:10Speaker 01

  Hmm?

• 2:09:10Shawn Ryan?

  It became home.

• 2:09:11Speaker 01

  It became home. It became what I knew. It was so intense for me that.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  I gravitated towards it. It was easier to be a fucking marine in that field than it was to try and learn how to be a dad. I've got no template on how to be a dad. How the fuck do I know how to do that? You know what I mean? You're talking to me about washing machines. Like, how the fuck do I care if the washing machine's not broken? We've got to go grocery shopping. The fuck? Like, that's where I'm at with it. I didn't fuck, I, I was un- uncapable or incapable of acting like a fucking normal human being because my brain was not there. It was in that fucking field. And

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  it took years to fucking, um, to, to sort that out, you know? And I'm not, I don't think I'm ever over it, but I'm at peace with it now, um, to a point. But that deployment there.

• 2:10:05Shawn Ryan?

  Was your mind, was your mind?

• 2:10:09Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, did you have any emotional connection to your daughter after, after experiencing that?

• 2:10:21Speaker 01

  Other than the fact I loved her. Not really.

• 2:10:27Speaker 01

  And I hate, I hate myself, fuck no. I do.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Um, it was really hard to build that bond, you know, I fucking. I was a shitty fucking dad for a long time, you know.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  I, I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't. If I was as fucking good a dad as I was an operator, I'd be fucking perfect. But I wasn't and I'm not. And, you know. That fucking young girl did ten deployments. Ten fucking deployments she did, you know. And I look at her now and I'm so fucking proud of her and so impressed. She's got such grace and kindness about her. I look at her. Yeah. And that's why when. You know, that's why when some of the stuff that's happened to me recently, I look at it and I'm like, you know what? Fuck you for putting me in this position for her, you know, she deserves better than that. She does. You know. There's still a piece of me in that field. There's a piece of my soul that will never come out of that fucking field.

• 2:11:19Speaker 01

  And I'm sorry for her that she had to miss that. But I hope, you know, she sees this and grows up. I did that for her. I put, I wanna protect her, you know? And she was fucking, she kept me going, dude, like.

• 2:11:34Shawn Ryan?

  Do you wanna mention her name?

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  No. For some reasons that we've talked about before.

• 2:11:39Shawn Ryan?

  I understand that.

• 2:11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:41Shawn Ryan?

  What changed?

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  Hmm?

• 2:11:42Shawn Ryan?

  When did you start your bond with your daughter?

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  It took a couple of years. Took a couple of years to start to build back up, but.

• 2:11:54Shawn Ryan?

  Did you feel guilt?

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, still do. A lot.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  You know, it's.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  For guys like us, there's a prescription, right? It's like, there's the problem, there's the solution. When it comes to emotional stuff and you know that, there's, I, I don't have. I don't have a template. I don't have a reference point. I don't know what being a good dad looks like. Not to say I didn't have a good dad, I just didn't really have that in my life, you know? I just hope, pray. That one day she'll grow up and go, okay, cool. That's what my dad was about. That's why he was there. That's why I missed the birthday. That's why I missed the football match, the Christmas, whatever it might be, you know?

• 2:12:39Speaker 01

  Because I felt like I was trying to do something good. I was trying to make sense of a fucking hopeless, chaotic situation. And the only thing I could do to stop myself from drowning was go back to war. Because the only thing I knew.

• 2:12:52Speaker 01

  And it's just, yeah, it's a shame that she's had to do that. But I just, and I think, you know, she's, her mother's fantastic with her, like, she's. I've never had any problems with my mother. My daughter's mother in terms of like, when I'm away, I always know that home's being taken care of. And I'll always be fucking grateful to those women for that, you know? My daughter's mother is a fucking exceptional mother, and she's had to deal with a shit ton. It can't be easy watching your daughter with her father on R and R. Staring at fucking bodies coming up the hill. Like, and I was there for every one of them when I was on R and R. Like, that's a fucking intense place to be, and she's fucking ridden that storm.

• 2:13:34Speaker 01

  And I wanna say this, and I want that, that hundreds, thousands of families have been through that from the British Army. So when people say we didn't fight this, or we do that, like, that fucking upsets me, Sean, because we fucking paid in blood in those fields. And we fought side by side with the US military, and we'll always continue to do that. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. And if it wasn't for, you know, the support and the coalition and

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  the brotherhood that British and US soldiers have, I wouldn't be here. And I fucking damn sure know a lot of other people wouldn't too, you know? But there's a lot of families, you know, the Afghan generation have fucking paid a heavy, heavy price. And they don't get enough credit. Everyone wants to see special forces dudes with night vision and panavision doing fucking fast roping and all the sexy stuff. I'm here for it. I fucking love that shit, trust me. But what about that fucking young Marine who got shot off a wall? What about him? They deserve more credit. Like, I'm gonna be honest with you right now, like, nothing I did in special forces was anything like as dangerous as that. Imagine going on a ten-hour patrol in the day with no assets.

• 2:14:44Speaker 01

  No fucking dedicated JTAC, no ISR, no Gucci weapon systems, no night, night vision, no tactical advantage. And fucking backbreaking fucking loads in forty-five degree heat for six months in a minefield

• 2:15:00Speaker 01

  with a shitty ROE and fucking no experience for the most part.

• 2:15:05Speaker 01

  That's harder. Those guys deserve more credit. Alright, it's not sexy. Everyone wants to know about the big fucking mesh and all the cool shit, but what about those fucking dudes, you know? So I try and talk to that more because it's like.

• 2:15:17Shawn Ryan?

  I think about that all the time.

• 2:15:19Speaker 01

  You do?

• 2:15:20Shawn Ryan?

  I do. And um, I I remember I interviewed this guy, a friend of mine, Cody Alfred.

• 2:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:26Shawn Ryan?

  He was a marine.

• 2:15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is he a dude with a tattoo on his neck? Is that him?

• 2:15:30Shawn Ryan?

  He's got tattoos everywhere.

• 2:15:31Speaker 01

  That's the dude. I do know the dude, yeah. I don't know him, but I know who he mean.

• 2:15:34Shawn Ryan?

  But um, when he described his experience in Fallujah.

• 2:15:43Shawn Ryan?

  Very, very similar. And uh, I think he would say the same thing that you just said about conventional guys. And they don't get enough credit.

• 2:15:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:15:53Shawn Ryan?

  And they don't get the recognition that they deserve.

• 2:15:57Shawn Ryan?

  And they have it harder than everybody.

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  Fuck, yeah, they do.

• 2:15:59Shawn Ryan?

  With less gear, with less training.

• 2:16:02Speaker 01

  Everything. Yeah, man. I see some of these guys now and I'm just like.

• 2:16:11Speaker 01

  I'm so fucking proud of them. I am. I'm so fucking proud of them.

• 2:16:17Speaker 01

  Such strength those guys had, you know? You know, you're looking at nineteen year old kids dealing with that shit. And that's, that deployment isn't the end of it. You've got to go and live thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years after that, you know?

• 2:16:31Speaker 01

  And n- nothing, nothing can take that away. And people will go, you were all Marines, you joined to go to war. Fuck, yeah, we did. And we did a fucking good job of doing it. And we were fucking impressive.

• 2:16:45Speaker 01

  But there is a price to it. There is a consequence to it, you know?

• 2:16:50Speaker 01

  Most guys left after that deployment. I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't. Because if I had, then I probably would have ended up taking my own life like my friend did and a bunch of other people, I know. Because that's what happens, Sean. They they stay in those fields and they don't, they don't ever deal with it. And then all of a sudden, they just put their uniforms on, put their medals on, and they fucking hang themselves.

• 2:17:14Shawn Ryan?

  Is that what your friend did?

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ash, he did that.

• 2:17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's too many of them, man. This fucking feels like one a week at some point. These fucking guys aren't getting no support, bro.

• 2:17:28Shawn Ryan?

  I know.

• 2:17:28Speaker 01

  They're just fucking not getting enough support. And it's.

• 2:17:34Shawn Ryan?

  Is that the first friend that you lost a suicide?

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  The first one, not allowed myself to feel any pain for, yeah, if that makes sense. I've lost a bunch.

• 2:17:47Speaker 01

  And again, it goes back to the same patrol base, like mentality. It's like, it might not be somebody that I know well, but I know somebody that does. And it echoes through our community, like it reverberates. And they're fucking still doing it, dude. They're fucking, they're still doing it. They're fucking killing themselves and it's like, fuck. I don't, I don't know how to get my head around that, you know, it's like.

• 2:18:11Speaker 01

  Me and my best friend, who were, my best friend was way closer to Ash than I was, but we were all recruits together. And it fucking nearly killed him. Because he felt guilty about it. He was phoning him that day. They were fine. Everything was all good. Checking up on him. Everything's good.

• 2:18:31Speaker 01

  He goes home, puts his uniform on, puts his medals on, puts his beret on. Hangs himself in the garage.

• 2:18:39Speaker 01

  That nearly fucking killed my friend. You know?

• 2:18:43Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sorry.

• 2:18:44Speaker 01

  Me too. I'm sorry. But it's, that's the reality of it, you know? And I, and I don't know what to say. I don't, I don't.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  We went to his grave, uh, not long ago, at Sunza.

• 2:19:01Speaker 01

  How the fuck do you explain that? How, how, have that conversation, you know?

• 2:19:06Speaker 01

  It's fucking difficult.

• 2:19:09Speaker 01

  Those young Marines deserve more credit, I think, you know? They deserve more. They deserve more support from our government, from our Veterans Minister.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  And all of it. That war's not done. Still going. They're just fighting it in their own heads now, you know?

• 2:19:27Speaker 01

  But it's across the board, isn't it? It's not just us. It's not just the Marines. It's not just the Brits or the Americans or Swedes or, you know, Norwegians or the Danish or the Estonians or everyone else that paid into that thing. I mean, obviously the Brits and the Americans, Canadians.

• 2:19:42Speaker 01

  It's everybody that had to experience that. It's everyone that experienced it, not just the fucking cool guys with Panavision and fucking Black Box, you know? I think we should do better and we should pay more credit to these guys because it's fucking real. That's my opinion on it. Thank you for saying that. No, don't thank me, Sean. It's fine. I thank them, you know?

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  And that that deployment galvanized me. It didn't break me at the time. It's not broken me now. It fucking set a foundation of solid concrete that I built a fucking mansion on. You understand? Like, I fucking wanted it. It didn't deter me. It motivated me. I was like, no, I'm never gonna fucking feel helpless again. Next time, it's on my terms. I'm coming to your house at night. I'm gonna be in your fucking bedroom and you're not gonna have a clue that I'm there. That's the kind of mentality that I took for him.

• 2:20:38Speaker 01

  And I don't know if that's a positive thing. The psychiatrist would probably go, yeah, we need a fucking chat, but it worked for me. That's what I did. I put all in a fucking box and was like, ah, cool. I'm gonna use that for fuel. I'm gonna use that for motivation. That's my reactor, you know? And that's why I decided to to to go on selection. I wanted to have an impact and effect and

• 2:20:58Speaker 01

  I think it's very important that this is said.

• 2:21:03Speaker 01

  UKSS's primary objective, as far as I read it, and we were briefed, in Afghanistan was to provide security and to fucking stop these people killing British troops. I've been in those fields. I know what it's like. So now I'm motivated for it. We were trying to protect the British Army. Every single one of those guys in those squadrons knew somebody in the Marines, knew somebody in the parachute regiment, was affected by it. They're watching their mates get killed, mutilated, you know? We fucking wanted to have an effect. That's what we did. We had an effect. And we were professional as fuck when we did it. And it was such a cool thing to be a part of because it really did feel like you were making a difference there, you know?

• 2:21:47Speaker 01

  So when I see all this bullshit, these fucking allegations unfounded about this and that question and professionalism, it fucking upsets me, Sean. I saw nothing but professionalism. I saw nothing but dedicated professionals doing the right thing for the right reasons. And it's disgusting how people are trying to turn that and make that look like it's something else, because it wasn't that, you know. But again, yeah, I mean, I digress slightly, but yeah, I think that does need to be said. And that was a massive motivator for me. There's a difference between revenge and retribution, isn't there? Revenge is

• 2:22:25Speaker 01

  revenge. Retribution is the rightful and lawful, you know, action towards something that's been done. It's not revenge, it's retribution. That's the difference. And we were out there in the squadrons, trying to do what we could to protect those fucking guys in the patrol bases. That nineteen year old, we're trying to fucking do whatever we can. And yes, we are going to bring all the fucking toys to the party. All our gunships, all our fucking sexy night vision, all of our fucking ISR assets, our jets, our dogs, our charges, our experience. Fuck, yeah, we are. And we're coming for you. We're coming to get you, you know. And that was the only thing that kept me sane. That's how I dealt

• 2:23:10Speaker 01

  with it. I doubled down. I didn't go the other way, you know. But, um, yeah. I talk a lot about that two thousand and ten tour on this because it fucking affected me more than anything else I've ever done. And it changed my life. And it still does. I told John, the guy with, who stepped on the ID, that I was coming on there. And I said, can I mention you? And he said, yeah. He said he's, he's fucking proud. He does speaking engagements. He goes on the country. My friend bumped into him randomly. He said he mentioned me by name. That's my, that's my proudest merchant. Playing a small part in saving that man's life that day. No one's ever taken that away from me, you know? How's he doing? He's fucking thriving.

• 2:23:57Speaker 01

  He's doing really, really well. Yeah. He's like a, I think he's representing Great Britain in the kayaking. He's a mad kayaker. I'll show you afterwards, mate. He's such an incredible fucking dude. Positive. He's got kids since that happened. Wow. Yeah. He's fucking living life to the full, man. I'm not, I'm not a fucking good person, man. Well, I could be better, but like, I made every mistake a guy my age can make. Probably more than once. And there's a lot of shit I've done in my life I'm not fucking proud of, but I'm proud of that. You know, I'm proud of that. There's a, there's a person out there that's living. There's a person out there that's a father.

• 2:24:39Speaker 01

  There's a person out there that's enjoying their life. And I had a very, very small part to play in that. And

• 2:24:48Speaker 01

  I like to remind myself of that sometimes when I feel a bit shit or, you know, whatever. Cause I think,

• 2:24:56Speaker 01

  you know, war's fucking ugly, but that was a good thing, right? Yeah. You know?

• 2:25:03Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 2:25:06Speaker 01

  After that tour, it was full steam ahead. Then it was just fucking deployment, deployment, selection, deployment, deployment, deployment, deployment, deployment. And that carried on for ten years. How was it getting into selection?

• 2:25:20Speaker 01

  For me, I came back off that deployment and most people would have been like, did you just chill out and bond with your daughter? I didn't. I picked up a fucking rock sack on and went to the Brecon Beacons and climbed up a mountain. That's what I did to get away from it. I didn't deal with it. And I ran away from trying to be a dad because I didn't understand it. But what I did know how to do was fucking move from A to B with weight on my back. Cause that's all I wanted. Again, I became obsessed with passing selection and I threw everything to the side.

• 2:25:47Speaker 01

  Because the only thing that mattered was getting back out there. The only thing that mattered to me was getting a seat on that helicopter. And I told you about that helicopter that went in. I wanted to be on that helicopter more than anything. And I don't.

• 2:26:00Speaker 01

  I'm not proud of that, but that's what I had to do. That's why I'm not fucking hanging up in a garage somewhere with mighty medals on. That's what I did.

• 2:26:10Speaker 01

  Um, but selection was.

• 2:26:14Speaker 01

  Anybody that sits there and goes, selection wasn't that bad. This is fucking bullshit. This line is hard. It's very, very hard. Um, but one thing I did have was the ability to know that I will never. Ever quit. That was, you know what I mean? I'm not quitting on this. So you're gonna have to pull me off or tell me I'm not good enough, but I'm not quitting. And I think that kind of mindset, that mentality, that burn the ship's mentality that we talk about, I was obsessed. There was no going back. I'm not going back into that patrol base. I'm not going back in that field. Mm hmm. This is what I need to do to get to where I need to be. And you have to understand, Sean, that during those deployment times, do you know how much money a marine makes? Do you know how much money a marine makes a month in those deployments? Have a guess.

• 2:26:55Shawn Ryan?

  A month?

• 2:26:58Speaker 01

  A month in Sangin, do you know how much they pay you for dealing with all that?

• 2:27:02Shawn Ryan?

  Four thousand.

• 2:27:03Speaker 01

  USD, less than that. One thousand six hundred pounds.

• 2:27:06Shawn Ryan?

  One thousand six hundred.

• 2:27:08Speaker 01

  Which is about two and a half, yeah, two thousand two hundred dollars a month. That's what we get paid. Now I come back and I'm trying to raise a family. Trying. I've got fucking washing machines to buy. You, you understand, like. I have to go on selection. I have to pass. My wage doubles. I can then, you, you understand, like, that's a motivator. Like. It didn't come from a lot. It's important to me that I'm trying to give my daughter a better life, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. More opportunity, you know, a better standard of living. That fucking motivated me for sure. I'm not gonna quit in the jungle because. I'm a little bit hot or a little bit tired. Mm hmm. There's too much at stake, you know? Way too much at stake.

• 2:27:54Shawn Ryan?

  What's, what was the sentiment of the. Citizens in UK? While this was all going on?

• 2:28:03Speaker 01

  At the time, Sean, the whole country was behind it. Help for Heroes was a big charity, people were behind it, everyone was pro-forces, supporting everyone and, you know, it felt like everyone was in the same situation together.

• 2:28:18Speaker 01

  But then the war stopped and everything went quiet. Which is when we need it, arguably we need it more now. We need more of it now than we did then, you know? And it's all good for people to wear their Help for Heroes band or, you know, go and do an expedition to Everest. Good, you should be doing shit like that, but at the same time you need to do more. And it needs to happen. You know, it needs to happen now, like. We need to do more as, as, as a, I'm a civilian. I'm a civilian now, do you understand? Like, I'm trying to do what I can to train the next generation. Like, I don't have a lot of money. If I, if I was a millionaire, Sean, I'd fucking give as much money as I could to charity, but I ain't. What I can do is I can train the next generation. That's what I'm trying to do. That's how I like to give back, you know?

• 2:29:00Speaker 01

  But again, it's not about money or anything like that, but we, we do need to do more. We need to recognize it. That war's not done. And it's not cool and trendy to be like pro-troops, pro-Afghanistan generation, you know, it's, oh, it's an old war. It's a very British mentality, isn't it? But I think, I think we need to do more. Cause everyone wanted to fucking jump on a bandwagon a few years ago. And now you never see anything about it. There are good people out there doing good things. There are plenty of good charities out there and, you know, there's a lot, there is a lot, but it's not enough. And it's, you know, it's generally the, the community, serving the community, if that makes sense.

• 2:29:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yes, it does.

• 2:29:33Speaker 01

  Do you understand what I mean, Butler?

• 2:29:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yes. Yeah. It's a shame. I mean, it sounds like the people

• 2:29:43Shawn Ryan?

  wanna help. But, you know, as we discussed at the beginning and we'll get into more detail, at the end, the government's doing the opposite. They're making it worse.

• 2:29:51Speaker 01

  They're making it harder for us.

• 2:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:56Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break.

• 2:29:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:30:12Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Jay, we're back from the break. We're getting into tier one operations.

• 2:30:17Speaker 01

  Yep. So yeah, I went on selection 2012.

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  As soon as I'd completed selection, it was like the perfect thing for me. Finished on like a Friday.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  Belt, beret, end of the process. Couldn't have been prouder. Like honestly, it was such a... It felt...

• 2:30:41Speaker 01

  Some kids wanted to grow up and be an astronaut. Some guys want to be soccer players or play in the NFL or be a quarterback, whatever it might be. I just wanted to be in a regiment from, you know, from a very early age I was aware of it and it was always seen as the pinnacle, in my opinion. And I think that there's something to be said for achieving a lifetime goal at the age of 24. It's great, but then when that wears off, you're like, oh, what do I do? You know, there was a little bit of that. But it wasn't an anticlimax at all. I finished, I then went out to the States. The first time I'd ever been to the States, flew into LA and then went down to El Centro and did a bunch of jumping out there because we couldn't finish the jumps course in the UK because of the weather's fucking shit. So

• 2:31:26Speaker 01

  we went out to...

• 2:31:28Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, you had to go to California?

• 2:31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do that quite often. I've probably done maybe, I don't know, 20, 20 or 30 odd trips to California.

• 2:31:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 2:31:36Speaker 01

  For jumping. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:31:41Shawn Ryan?

  Real quick, I actually do have a question.

• 2:31:43Speaker 01

  Go.

• 2:31:44Shawn Ryan?

  We don't have to go into SAS training and all of that, but I do want to ask, I mean, with that deployment that you just described, you know, 180 contacts in one day.

• 2:31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:59Shawn Ryan?

  Did they know you were a part of that?

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you make it's a very good question, Sean. It was interesting because when we turned up on selection, that sort of generation of guys. The the cadre that that we call them DS, the directing staff, who are obviously, you know, paid up members of the regiment, Hereford and Paul, um, that oversee the selection process. They've all got a wealth of knowledge and experience and they I look up to them like gods still do. All super impressive guys, um. And they're there to do a job. They're there to select people to get into the they're the gatekeepers of of this regiment and what it's about, you know. And they're looking at everything from, you know, skill set to character. But it was only a little bit further on.

• 2:32:47Speaker 01

  Couple of years actually down the line when I was speaking to one of them as a friend, they're no longer an instructor. Now they're friends, you know, the people in the same squadrons or whatever. And they said they were very wary of our generation because they knew that we'd been in the fucking mixer and they we'd done stuff that they hadn't done. You know, I think if you got to the I think if you missed that conventional period.

• 2:33:11Speaker 01

  Not to discredit anything that they'd have done, but we we we never we weren't kicking in doors in Baghdad in oh six. That wasn't our that wasn't our war, you know. But you're now dealing with a bunch of guys that have got serious decorations, guys that have done serious operational deployments that have been in gunfights, that have been blown up, that have dealt with all of that stuff. As Marines, paratroopers, infanteers, like, we're not green soldiers, we're we're we're we're not blooded, but we're professional and we're experienced. So although they still have to treat you a certain way on selection because it's selection, they were very um cautious that. The guys that they were training were.

• 2:33:53Speaker 01

  They're serious dudes and they've done some serious shit and they were they were respectful for that.

• 2:33:57Shawn Ryan?

  They were.

• 2:33:57Speaker 01

  They were. They were respectful for it, yeah.

• 2:33:59Shawn Ryan?

  What what do you what did you mean when you said they were weary?

• 2:34:03Speaker 01

  As in wary, as in like they didn't wanna. What often happens on courses is. And I've seen this myself.

• 2:34:12Speaker 01

  The people that are in that unit. Don't look down on people that are aren't in that unit, but it's like, well, we've done this, we've done that, but there wasn't too much of that, if that makes sense, they were like. You can't treat people like shit. Because these people are fucking done a lot, you know, and they've been around and. It just wouldn't, it wouldn't have been right. So they were they were cautious. That they didn't wanna be disrespectful. They've still got to be the way that they are and the line has to be towed and the standard is the standard, but they were still. You know. Aware that. You need to treat these guys with respect because some of them have. Given a shit on to their country. Some of them have been through a hell of a lot of stuff and. Just because that guy might not fit the mold or pass the standard, don't.

• 2:34:55Speaker 01

  Don't disrespect them to the point where it's like belittling them or under man, undervaluing their. Previous. You know, previous experiences and I think they navigated it quite well, if I'm honest, I think they did.

• 2:35:08Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's it's almost.

• 2:35:13Shawn Ryan?

  I mean. There are not many people on the planet. That have experienced war. And out of the people that have experienced war. There is a small, small fraction. Of those that have experienced what you just described. And so. I mean, even though the experience is is radically different.

• 2:35:42Shawn Ryan?

  They they they.

• 2:35:45Shawn Ryan?

  They could have treated you with a ton of respect or. It could have become. A jealousy issue.

• 2:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:57Shawn Ryan?

  An inferior complex.

• 2:35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, there there is, there is a little bit. There was, I wouldn't say a little bit of that creeping in, but there were certainly some people that just didn't acknowledge it, didn't want to acknowledge it, because that wasn't their situation, that wasn't their war.

• 2:36:11Shawn Ryan?

  Because you had done more.

• 2:36:13Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:36:14Shawn Ryan?

  Maybe.

• 2:36:15Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:36:16Shawn Ryan?

  That you being humble. This is me telling the fucking truth.

• 2:36:20Speaker 01

  I think I've done, I'd done quite a bit, you know, I'd done my part, I think, you know, I don't know. See, it's a weird one for me, Sean, and I know, I know it sounds like it.

• 2:36:30Speaker 01

  I still don't feel like I did anything, and I still don't. People will look at my career or, you know, you could do a bullet point on the, you know, my resume and the CV and all the rest of it, but it's still, I still, there's still like an emptiness to it, as in like it didn't feel like I actually did anything, if that makes sense. It was like I was there and it all happened, but it doesn't feel like that.

• 2:36:49Shawn Ryan?

  But it's experience, it's experience that carries you to the next level.

• 2:36:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:36:54Shawn Ryan?

  And having been in that experience.

• 2:36:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:36:57Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody's been in that fucking experience.

• 2:37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think it, to me, I think it helped me. It gave me confidence. There was, when I checked in, I felt like, and again, this might sound arrogant, but I felt like I could sit at the table with any one of them, depending on, I don't, you know. My squadron had just done a hostage rescue, that first four weeks of their deployment. They knocked out a hostage rescue and were cooking on gas. We're talking about guys that have done multiple, you know, Afghans, Iraq, so you're talking about some serious operators that have done some serious stuff and are highly professional. But I still felt like I could sit at the table with them, because.

• 2:37:47Speaker 01

  Ultimately, we're all serving, we're all trying to do the right thing, we're all part of our nation's military. And I feel like although I missed out on the big mish, maybe, or I hadn't, you know, I wasn't on that O six tour in Baghdad when, you know, this or that, or I didn't do the hospital, I felt like what I had done was enough, in my, in my opinion, I felt like it was, it validated me, and I think that was a good thing, and it's, it's a hard line to, to, to tread without coming across as, um, I know it all arrogant, but I did feel like, and I saw it later on in my career, I definitely did, when we started doing more conventional stuff on the flop, you know, um, you know, big offensives into like places

• 2:38:30Speaker 01

  like Sinjar in Iraq and all kinds of places like that, you know, we're, the guys that had done it, you could tell, were comfortable, operating at reach, you know, I've had people before, it's like, you know, being in a small team and in the day and no gun shit, that's not a big deal to me, I'm used to that shit, like, I'll walk around in a fucking field and sang in for eight hours with a fucking, you know, a hundred pounds on my back and a belt fed machine gun, I'm good, like, I, I've been, I've lived that, you know, so to me, I never really felt like that, and it was interesting to me to watch people that hadn't done that, although they were very senior now, and, you know, in big command positions, you look around and you're like, you're not comfortable with this, you're, you're not, you're not, this is new to you, isn't it, there's no, there's no night vision

• 2:39:15Speaker 01

  now, dude, there's no, there's no A C one thirty up there, there's no, you know, there's no Q R F, you know, there's all, all this stuff, it's, I think it, it helped me because I was used to not having it, um, so it was interesting to me, when you see those guys that are like, very specific skill set, extremely experienced, very, very professional, really good at what they did, but they hadn't done that, you know, they hadn't done that thing, and, you know, I know the difference between having morts fired at me and being morted, I know the difference between.

• 2:39:49Speaker 01

  You know, when rounds are close, or when you're under contact, like, there's a difference, you know. Firefights generally don't last that long in tier one operations, and they're not always, I care what I say, but. If you do it right, it should be one way for the most part, you know, or it should be very short-lived. You've got so much, so much to bring to bear and so much, you know. Skill and talent there that we generally get used to winning. All I'd ever known was losing. I'd, I'd, all I, all I ever did before we got to the regiment was. Be on the receiving end of stuff, you know, so I'm comfortable with that. I'm comfortable in that situation and I think that kind of um. Helped me. I think it definitely did. I think it was definitely a good thing. Um.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  But I do, I do think that, you know. That conventional side of life is important. I think like. It pays out when you do a very, if you do a generalist role, like.

• 2:40:46Speaker 01

  You know, crew serve weapons. I can operate a fifty cal. I can operate a G M G. I can be a J TAC. I can do this. I can do that, you know. I'm not saying I can do everything, but like, I'm comfortable doing things that aren't just assault and building at night with night vision on, you know. We didn't have night vision.

• 2:41:02Shawn Ryan?

  I'm, I'm asking because even, even, I mean, I only had six years of the SEAL teams, actually a little less than that. And, you know, even as a young guy, I mean, you, you, you know, before the, before nine eleven happened.

• 2:41:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:41:15Shawn Ryan?

  There, there was a, a, obviously a long stretch in between Vietnam and nine eleven where there was a very few things, or, you know, there was Colombia, there was Panama, Somalia.

• 2:41:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:24Shawn Ryan?

  There was very few people that participated in that. And. So, you know, what happened, and I'll probably get blasted for saying this, but I don't care because it's the fucking truth, is. My generation, you know, when I, when I joined the SEAL teams, I was. Eighteen, or, or went to BUDs, I was eighteen. I showed up at, I think, nineteen. And. You know, the war had kicked off already at the very beginning of it.

• 2:41:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:41:52Shawn Ryan?

  And so you got guys that are coming right out of BUDs, going straight to war, and it created this kind of. Like I said, inferior complex.

• 2:42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:03Shawn Ryan?

  And. Instead of embracing, you know, the, the, the younger generation that's, that's, that's getting that experience and that's able to pass it on, it.

• 2:42:17Shawn Ryan?

  It demoralized a lot of guys.

• 2:42:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:42:19Shawn Ryan?

  You know, because they would. They would not acknowledge what you've done.

• 2:42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:24Shawn Ryan?

  And then it became the the one up game and.

• 2:42:27Speaker 01

  I hate that.

• 2:42:28Shawn Ryan?

  And a lot of the good guys left because of that. And the guys that had no experience just kept rising through the ranks and it has created this fucking rot.

• 2:42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:39Shawn Ryan?

  Inside of the SEAL teams.

• 2:42:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:41Shawn Ryan?

  And now you have, and I'm not saying everybody.

• 2:42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:43Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not saying everybody, but you have. You have brass at the very top who have never done a fucking thing. Never been on an operation.

• 2:42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:52Shawn Ryan?

  They've commanded operations from the talk.

• 2:42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, sounds familiar, Sean.

• 2:42:59Shawn Ryan?

  And then, and then they judge you. And then they put you under investigation and they want to know about. How the op went down. It's almost, it's almost, it's not almost, it is. They are fucking working against you because they never had those experiences. And they feel inferior because they are.

• 2:43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, you're bang on, mate. You make a good point, and I think it's something that I've seen before. Like. I said to you before, then I said experiences, it's a luxury, it's not a necessity, necessity. But there's definitely an element of command that if they don't have it. They'll lean into it when they need something or when they want an opinion on something, but then they'll shy away from it a little bit. And it's almost like you become punished because you've got experience or you're over experienced or you're over qualified. Or, you know, these types of things. It's like. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but when it comes to a lot of what we do, experience is useful and it should be tapped into. And I do think that. You don't see it too much on the sort of non-commission level, but when you've got.

• 2:44:07Speaker 01

  You know, especially certain, certain elements of the officer type, you know, the officer. Um, class, if you will, like. I think they find that quite difficult, especially the, you know, in conventional. Conventional forms, it's not that noticeable, but when you get into a higher, higher levels like. I'm now putting forward a tat plan based off experience, based off having done this for over a decade at this point, you know, on my last deployment or, you know, I'm coming up with a course of action in order to effectively execute an operation. And yet the points that you're bringing back to me are nonsense. And you're just showing your inexperience there. Now, it's fine that you haven't done all the stuff that other guys have done. But I think it would be, you know,

• 2:44:54Speaker 01

  very naive sometimes to not tap into that and listen to it. You might outrank me. But you definitely haven't done this as much as I have, and it might pay for you to listen to what we're saying. Not just me, but the collective, because what we're saying is experience based. We're not making this shit up like. That's important. Like, if there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and we're trying to select the right way, then just because you haven't done it or seen it, doesn't mean it's not going to work. Does that make sense? And I think especially certain types of officers, depending on the personality, they want control of it, and it wants to be their idea and has to be done their way. And that's fine if it's the right way and it's the good option, or if it isn't, then you're going to get challenged on it. But then there's almost this like,

• 2:45:37Speaker 01

  well, I'm in charge type mentality. And it's like, it's quite frustrating. It's quite frustrating. Um.

• 2:45:42Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's detrimental to the country as well.

• 2:45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's detrimental to the output.

• 2:45:46Shawn Ryan?

  You have, you have for your country and for my country, but you have, you have this, this wealth of knowledge and all this experience and then, and then they become demoralized because of the inferior complex and they leave.

• 2:46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:01Shawn Ryan?

  And then, and when they leave, you lose all of that experience that could be passed on to the next generation.

• 2:46:09Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 2:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  Which lessens our capabilities, which, which

• 2:46:16Shawn Ryan?

  it's sad.

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  It's frustrating.

• 2:46:18Shawn Ryan?

  It's sad. It's a fucking bureaucracy.

• 2:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:20Shawn Ryan?

  Needs to change. And so anybody that's listening to this from UK government, American government, any gov- any government, anybody who wants to have an effective military, you know, you'd need that experience. I mean, I could, I could go on forever. I mean, we interviewed Captain Brad Geary.

• 2:46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:39Shawn Ryan?

  Who is an amazing human being.

• 2:46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:42Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, Dallas Alexander, you know, the Canadian. Um, the Canadian soft guy that that that was on the sniper team that took a two point one mile fucking shot. It was the world br- the world record shot.

• 2:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  And they kicked him out. They kicked him off the fucking team.

• 2:46:58Speaker 01

  Some bullshit.

• 2:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  World record sniper kill.

• 2:47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:02Shawn Ryan?

  And they just took that experience and brushed it off.

• 2:47:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:47:08Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody in the world is taking a shot like that.

• 2:47:11Speaker 01

  One of one. One of one.

• 2:47:13Shawn Ryan?

  And that experience is gone.

• 2:47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I felt that. I felt that towards the end.

• 2:47:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a few things that happened in my career that I got punished for that I was like, what the fuck are we talking about here? Like, this is bullshit. This is like minor things, right? Like, do you want me to be good at being an operator? Do you want me to be effective on the battlefield? Do you want me to have, you know, the ability to change something? Do you want me to provide solutions to problems? Do you want me to go and be effective and and do my job? But if you do, then you have to know that it comes with the whole package, you know? The the reason that I'm able to do that is because of these things. So if, you know, for example, I mean, slightly digress, but like, yeah, no shit, I'm fucking drinking too much. No shit, I'm probably spending too much time, you know, doing whatever.

• 2:48:05Speaker 01

  Or maybe I maybe I'm not, you know, maybe I should have had a bit more respect for somebody or shouldn't have said that. But like, if you want me to be, if you employed me to be this person, you've selected me because of the character traits that I've got and my ability to be effective on the battlefield. But you can't have it both ways. Like, do you want me to be a camp commando? Or do you want me to be a commander? Which one do you want? Because they very seldomly link up. The best operators that I know and have worked with and seen, like, none of those are those squeaky clean white knight types. And those types of characters very seldomly have the experience to to back it. I don't believe in white knights. I think everybody's got something going on at some point. Um, but those that try and take the moral high ground on stuff or, you know, give us a cultural review or this or that

• 2:48:50Speaker 01

  or try and pull like the moral high ground, it's like.

• 2:48:54Speaker 01

  We're out there trying to have an impact. We're out there trying to have an effect on the enemy. That's what the, that's what the British Army is for. That's what any army is for. Doesn't matter what unit you're at. It's about having an effect against the enemy. Like, and I think it's worse in peacetime. I think in peacetime, the army doesn't know what to do with itself, so it just creates bullshit, you know, so all this, or it's that, or it could be, you know, it's trivial stuff. Don't wear those shoes. You've got to wear that. Shave your face, like.

• 2:49:19Shawn Ryan?

  That's how they hide behind the inexperience.

• 2:49:21Speaker 01

  That's what they do.

• 2:49:22Shawn Ryan?

  A good leader, a good leader will take that experience from their subordinates. They'll embrace it. They'll utilize it. They'll acknowledge it.

• 2:49:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:49:32Shawn Ryan?

  And then become a phenomenal leader.

• 2:49:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:49:36Shawn Ryan?

  But the ego gets in the way.

• 2:49:39Speaker 01

  You took the word out of my mouth and it's something that I definitely have learnt to come to terms with and something I was fucking not aware of. Ego management. Ego management would be my number one thing that I would say to a new guy checking into a squadron. I'd say, you need to manage that shit because it will fucking take you down a path that you don't want to go down. And if you're not even aware of it, I've got an ego. Dude, we've all got egos. We've all got one. Male, female, doesn't make a difference. But if you're not aware of it and you don't keep it in check, then it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a problem, you know, and my ego management was non-existent for a long time and I wasn't arrogant.

• 2:50:19Speaker 01

  I wasn't, um, I tried not to be arrogant. I was very sure of myself, but it gets to a point where

• 2:50:28Speaker 01

  you realise that you are capable, you realise that you do have that experience, you realise that you are quite, you know,

• 2:50:36Speaker 01

  able to, you know, you're able to do a whole bunch of different skill sets. You, you, you get comfortable with it. And at that point there, that's when you really need to keep it in check because it can be quite easy to let that run away with you. And then you can come across as arrogant or, you know, overhyped or all, all these things. And I think, you know, ego management is something I've definitely learnt the hard way through and I'm still not perfect. Far from it. I'm just trying to manage it a little bit better these days. Um.

• 2:51:02Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think you're doing a damn good job. I mean, you know, at the beginning of this, you were hesitant to talk about these type of experiences.

• 2:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:10Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm the one that's pressing you.

• 2:51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:11Shawn Ryan?

  I'm the one that's pulling it out of you. I know you don't wanna talk about this shit.

• 2:51:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:51:15Shawn Ryan?

  But it's important.

• 2:51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It is important, you know. Like I said to you before, Sean, like, I'm no, people will look at it, I'm no fucking poster boy dude. I've fucked up so much stuff in my career. I fucked up loads of stuff professionally, emotionally, um, yeah.

• 2:51:31Shawn Ryan?

  What's the biggest fuck up you think you've done?

• 2:51:35Speaker 01

  That's a good question.

• 2:51:46Speaker 01

  That is a good question.

• 2:51:50Speaker 01

  I think I got carried away in the life and the status of being that guy for a little bit longer than I should have. I think I went for a period of being over the moon to have been in the squadron and the first six months, two years was the best start. I could have got lots of deployments, lots of gunfights, lots of everything, and it was all good. And then I think I kinda got a little bit comfortable with that and rested on my laurels a little bit. And I think I spent probably between two years to

• 2:52:32Speaker 01

  probably about four or five years not being as professional as I could be because I was, I was always at the standard that I needed to be and I wasn't trying to, you know, I wasn't trying to really get that one percent out, really trying to squeeze it. And it's not to say that I was lazy or complacent because I was fucking far from lazy and complacent, but I was probably a bit more interested in driving a nice car or having a nice watch or, you know, a pretty girlfriend than I probably was about making sure that my fucking CQB was the best it could be or my jumping was the best it could be. My CQB was good enough. My jumping was good enough. Like that kind of good enough mentality, I think I had that for too long. And then when I really did ramp it up, um,

• 2:53:14Speaker 01

  it was because I decided not to drink alcohol for a thousand days. I decided one day, that's it, I've had enough. You know, it makes me feel like shit. I don't wanna live that life anymore. I need to make some changes. I'm hurting people. Uh, it's having a detrimental effect on my career. I'm making bad decisions. Um.

• 2:53:31Speaker 01

  I was a fucking loose cannon for a while in the squadron for sure, um.

• 2:53:36Speaker 01

  And no matter how good you are,

• 2:53:40Speaker 01

  how effective you are, you've still got to be in harmony with the group. And I don't think I was necessarily. I think I was.

• 2:53:50Speaker 01

  I think I had a mentality of I'm fucking doing it my way. Because that's the only way I know. And I think I should have slowed down a little bit on that. Um, and, and just.

• 2:54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I got in fucking, I was uh reduced in rank once, I had a couple of three month warnings, like. I was a handful. And I got to the point, and this is not making excuses, but I just didn't want to fucking listen to people anymore. Listen to people that I knew to be less experienced or of a different mindset to me. And I should have been more accommodating to that, um. And I should have had more emotional intelligence to be able to navigate that better. Where it was like, if you didn't agree with my philosophy or my sort of, um, my ethics, I suppose, then it was, you know. It was a kind of a fuck you type mentality, you know, and it served me well. I don't, I don't regret anything I've ever done in the military. I don't, um.

• 2:54:50Speaker 01

  And when I look back retrospectively, yeah, I could have done some stuff differently. But I also know that's part of who I am and why I did it. And if I hadn't have done those things or behaved in certain ways or, you know. Been reckless maybe, um. Then I wouldn't be the person I am today. And I'm good with the person I am today, you know. We've talked a lot about stuff that's happened in the past, but you know, bottom line is I can look myself in a mirror. And I'm far from fucking perfect, dude, you know. If I practiced what I preached, I'd be perfect, but I don't. I'm human and I'm trying to relearn how to be an actual human being. I'm not an operator anymore. That's a difficult thing to do. So I'm more in touch with that, if that makes sense. I'm more connected to, to, to my own process and to my own sort of, um, emotions, if you will.

• 2:55:35Speaker 01

  But for a very long time, I was just trying to be that dude, you know, and it didn't really serve me.

• 2:55:42Shawn Ryan?

  Did you come to a realization that you needed to change?

• 2:55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:48Shawn Ryan?

  What triggered that?

• 2:55:51Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:55:53Speaker 01

  If you want me to be honest, I put a pistol in my mouth a couple of times and that fucking changed my life.

• 2:55:59Speaker 01

  Um, it got to a point after a bunch of deployments, a whole bunch of shit had happened. Uh, yeah, my grandma, I lost my grandma. Matt got killed, a close family friend got killed in a weird accident, I fucking watched a helicopter crash.

• 2:56:15Speaker 01

  Being fucking blown up, the whole box just, and I was just at the lowest point I'd ever been and it was almost like the one thing, the one thing that I had that kept me.

• 2:56:27Speaker 01

  Kept me going. I'd stopped working. The, the deployments, the combat, the, all that shit was what kept me alive and I started to become immune to it. And I just didn't fucking feel anything and I didn't look forward to anything and.

• 2:56:48Speaker 01

  I didn't really see a way out of it, if I'm honest, and it just seemed

• 2:56:57Speaker 01

  hopeless for a long time. And I fought it and I fought it and I fought it. And then one day I nearly gave up fighting it and I didn't, thank God. Um.

• 2:57:11Speaker 01

  But that sobered you up pretty fucking quickly.

• 2:57:16Speaker 01

  Because that was ready to go.

• 2:57:19Speaker 01

  I remember at Clear's Day, I was at the end of a range, I'd just been, I'd been punished for some bullshit at work, like fucking, doesn't even, doesn't even grant a conversation with you, it doesn't even warrant it. But I'd basically been told that, you know, promotion prospects were fucking zero. You know, I was probably looking to get out of the squadron. I didn't feel valued. I was made to feel like shit, basically. Um, and I was fucking heartbroken about it and

• 2:57:53Speaker 01

  I was like, well, if I can't do this, the one thing I dedicated my entire life to. The only thing, the only thing. Um, that I really truly loved at that point.

• 2:58:06Speaker 01

  It felt like it was all gone, it was all been thrown away, um.

• 2:58:16Speaker 01

  So I nearly fucking did it. I nearly went there on two occasions. Two times you had a pistol in your mouth? Yeah, what not, once it was in my, yeah, once was in my mouth and once was just sat there. Both loaded, made ready, one in the chamber. Both times in the same situation. Once, the first time I got a phone call.

• 2:58:37Speaker 01

  That was the closest time, I think. Which time was that? The first time. Was that in the mouth? Uh, yeah. You got a phone call while you had a gun in your mouth? Yeah, I played with it. Huh? Who called you? He was a good friend of mine at the time. He later went on to betray me. Um. There was a girl involved. Um, I'd come off the range.

• 2:59:06Speaker 01

  I was going back to my house. Just gonna drink like I did, a lot to feel something. I was like, you know what? I don't wanna keep fucking doing this. So I'm sat there, I'm in the car.

• 2:59:23Speaker 01

  Closed up the range, signed the book, about to go and hand the guns in. And I just did it. I just fucking made it ready.

• 2:59:32Speaker 01

  Put it underneath my chin, felt that.

• 2:59:36Speaker 01

  Put it down a little bit, thought about it.

• 2:59:42Speaker 01

  Put it in my mouth, thought about it. I didn't have the fucking balls to do it. I wanted to. I fucking wanted to, you know? And yeah, I got the phone call. What time we shooting tomorrow? You wanna come to the range?

• 3:00:01Speaker 01

  Cool, I'll see you in the morning.

• 3:00:05Speaker 01

  You have to fight another day, right? Stay in the fight.

• 3:00:09Speaker 01

  I don't know what would have happened if that phone call hadn't have come. I'd like to sit there and tell you that I would have talked myself down. I don't know if I would have or not, maybe.

• 3:00:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was dealing with a fucking lot of shit and I was dealing with it really, really badly. And I was throwing alcohol at the problem. And the one thing that made me feel good about myself was my job. And my job was not long, no longer making me feel good about myself. So at that point there, I'm like, fuck, what is the point? What is the fucking point in all of this? You know?

• 3:00:44Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's interesting, you had mentioned earlier that, that you don't have a

• 3:00:50Shawn Ryan?

  strong relationship with God.

• 3:00:55Speaker 01

  There's no atheist in a trench, I know that.

• 3:01:00Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think that was? I mean, the timing? You think that was a coincidence? Of that phone call?

• 3:01:06Speaker 01

  No. I don't think so.

• 3:01:09Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think it was?

• 3:01:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 3:01:16Speaker 01

  It's a very difficult one to... This is a conversation I've not even had with myself for a very long time. So if I'm stumbling through, I have to apologize. I don't know

• 3:01:27Speaker 01

  why that happened that day, the way it did. But it did. I don't believe in coincidences.

• 3:01:34Speaker 01

  And the more I look at it, the more there must have been, so there has to be, you know?

• 3:01:40Speaker 01

  Things happen for a reason, don't they? You don't always understand it or even acknowledge it or recognize it sometimes.

• 3:01:50Shawn Ryan?

  The timing of that is a miracle.

• 3:01:53Speaker 01

  It's a fucking nothing short of a miracle, mate.

• 3:02:00Shawn Ryan?

  That came from up there.

• 3:02:02Speaker 01

  Came from somewhere, brother.

• 3:02:04Shawn Ryan?

  It brought you here today.

• 3:02:06Speaker 01

  I would not be fucking sat here if that phone didn't ring. That's a fucking fact.

• 3:02:11Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, um,

• 3:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  what you're about to get into, you know, after we get through your SAS career. It brought you to this point. You're the one that's supposed to fucking do this. You're the one that has the courage, that have the voice to stand up for all of your teammates, all the people that passed, everything that's going on, all the investigations.

• 3:02:37Shawn Ryan?

  Brought you here.

• 3:02:39Speaker 01

  It feels like it's for something. It really does, um.

• 3:02:46Shawn Ryan?

  And who knows what else is to come?

• 3:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, who knows, brother. I said before, it feels. It feels like for the first time in a long time. There is no black cloud on the horizon. And I feel truly free. I'm a little hurt, as they say. But I'm a lot more free than I was, you know? And I think sometimes you have to fight through, you know, and I think to myself how lucky. And how fortunate I am to have good people around me, people that help me. And if I can in some small insignificant way help somebody else. Or do something that has a positive effect on our community or an individual, then.

• 3:03:31Speaker 01

  That's worth staying in the fight for. That's worth going up. That's a hill I will die on, you know, um.

• 3:03:38Shawn Ryan?

  What was the gentleman's name that called you?

• 3:03:40Speaker 01

  Ben.

• 3:03:41Shawn Ryan?

  Does he know?

• 3:03:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:03:47Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't.

• 3:03:51Shawn Ryan?

  He does now.

• 3:03:52Speaker 01

  Now he does, yeah.

• 3:03:54Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think you'll have a conversation with him?

• 3:03:56Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 3:03:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:04:04Speaker 01

  No, I don't think I will. I probably should, but. Ego management, right?

• 3:04:10Shawn Ryan?

  That's right.

• 3:04:10Speaker 01

  Fucking talked about it, didn't we?

• 3:04:14Speaker 01

  He fucking hurt me, dude.

• 3:04:17Shawn Ryan?

  He also saved you.

• 3:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 3:04:22Shawn Ryan?

  Indirectly.

• 3:04:23Speaker 01

  Indirectly for sure, yeah.

• 3:04:27Speaker 01

  It's funny, isn't it, how things go like that? Yeah, we were fucking super tight at the time and I was like, fuck, no.

• 3:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was just a, you know, I feel like I was. One thing away from, from fucking breaking, you know? At all times, I felt like that for a long period of time and then when they.

• 3:04:51Speaker 01

  Took, it felt like they took it away from me. They took the one thing that fucking gave me purpose. And I felt lonely and I felt fucking scared and I didn't know what to do and.

• 3:05:06Speaker 01

  I just didn't wanna fucking be there anymore. I didn't wanna be there.

• 3:05:11Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I don't know what happened between you and Ben and I don't wanna go into it, but.

• 3:05:18Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell you one thing that I've learned in life. You wanna be free, you have to learn forgiveness. Because it probably affects you a lot more than it affects him.

• 3:05:30Shawn Ryan?

  And when you let that shit go.

• 3:05:33Shawn Ryan?

  It's gone.

• 3:05:37Speaker 01

  I need to work on that. That's something that I'm, you know.

• 3:05:42Speaker 01

  I don't know what it is. I've got a very unique capability to be able to shot people out of my life that have been close to me in a fucking heartbeat.

• 3:05:53Shawn Ryan?

  We all have that.

• 3:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, I'm world class at it.

• 3:05:58Speaker 01

  I'm a pro at that. And I look back at relationships and friendships and people.

• 3:06:07Speaker 01

  I don't know whether it's because I moved around quite a bit. I did move around quite a lot. I don't know whether it's because fuck, is it because I'm an only child? Is it because I fucking went to a whole bunch of different schools? But my ability

• 3:06:19Speaker 01

  to detach emotionally from something, regardless of whether it's after five minutes, five years or whatever, I can do that very, very quickly and capable. And it's a fucking toxic trick that I've got and I hate it about myself because I can do it and it's, it's it's running away. It's fucking being a coward is what it is. I will sh- I won't deal with it. I'll just fucking block it, deal with it later, move on and it's fucking hurt. It hurts people, um.

• 3:06:49Speaker 01

  And I fucking don't like that about myself. It's necessary to be able to do that. I learnt to fucking do that really well because that was the only thing that I could do to cope, you know, like. I don't have time to deal with that.

• 3:07:06Speaker 01

  You know? It's like when John got hit, it goes back to that, doesn't it? I came back into the patrol base.

• 3:07:16Speaker 01

  I washed the blood out of the quad. And I went and sat on that sanger. Overwatching the exact position that it happened. And I remember.

• 3:07:30Speaker 01

  Feeling that I can't. I can't fucking, I can't stop. And I remember looking and watching. It's a very fucking dark thing when you can see a pack of wild fucking dogs up there and you know what they're doing. And you know why they're fucking there and you see people up there, you know, picking stuff up. Like, that's within fucking minutes of this happening. Certainly within an hour. Like, that was my reality. There ain't no fucking time for this. You ain't got time to sit there and cry. You ain't got to sit there and fucking mourn. Like, I don't give a fuck about people's feelings sometimes, because

• 3:08:12Speaker 01

  that was a coping mechanism. Emotion was not a fucking good thing. I'm a fucking, quite an emotional person. But I'm either one or the other. It's like, no emotion, completely indifferent. Or I'm all in. You, you know?

• 3:08:28Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:08:29Speaker 01

  And I fucking hate that about myself, I do. Um, but at the same time, it's been a fucking necessary tool, you know? Like,

• 3:08:38Speaker 01

  we're going out on patrol tomorrow. That's what we're doing, you know? And that's fine until you're not going out on patrol anymore. And now you've got to fucking deal with it, you know? And again, I'm just trying to, um, I'm trying to improve, man. That's all I'm trying to do. And I'm trying to be a fucking better person. I'm trying to learn how to be a human being. I've not been a fucking human being for the best part of twenty years. I've been a fucking warrior. That's what I've been doing. But that's not, that's, that's not an excuse. That's not an excuse to be a shitty dad. That's not an excuse to be a shitty boyfriend. It's not good enough. You have fucking, it's not good enough. I've got high standards, but when it comes to emotional stuff,

• 3:09:21Speaker 01

  or empathy or people's feelings, I need to be better. I know that, I recognise it. But it's fucking not easy, dude. It's, it's a hard, hard thing to do. But you are right, forgiveness is fucking important.

• 3:09:34Speaker 01

  I don't pay it too much mind, if I'm honest. I'm kind of dealt with it.

• 3:09:39Speaker 01

  Mentally, I think I've gotten over it and got past it.

• 3:09:44Speaker 01

  Um.

• 3:09:47Shawn Ryan?

  I hope you call them.

• 3:09:50Shawn Ryan?

  Or text them, or write them, or email them. Doesn't mean you got to be buddies with them.

• 3:09:58Shawn Ryan?

  Then you can put it behind you, truly put it behind you.

• 3:10:04Speaker 01

  It serves as a reminder to me. You're right, I should. Maybe, I will. I can't promise what I'll do, but what I can do for you is I promise that I'll think about that. And I'll let you know.

• 3:10:18Shawn Ryan?

  Please do.

• 3:10:19Speaker 01

  I will, I will.

• 3:10:22Shawn Ryan?

  So let's talk about checking into the unit.

• 3:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So two weeks after, I finish to get my beret, go to America, I start jumping. Everything's good. I check into the squadron, I turn up, arrive in the middle of the night, squadron's out. They're on, they're on a job. So I go.

• 3:10:44Speaker 01

  The storeman picks me up, there's

• 3:10:48Speaker 01

  four of us, four of us checked into my squadron for my course. All in different troops, I got air troop. Which I fucking didn't really want initially, I'll be honest with you, because I fucking had a horrific time on my basic jumps course. Um, and I was like, I don't really wanna start getting into this like fucking free fall stuff and all the rest of it, but they were like, you're going to air troops, I was like, cool. I fucking guess I better go free fall, you know?

• 3:11:13Speaker 01

  But I checked in, went into the building, we're in Kandahar at the time. And I was fucking blown away. From day one. I was in love with that job, that place, that, that, that fucking, it felt like I'd landed, it felt like finally that I was where I needed to be, you know?

• 3:11:29Speaker 01

  The guys came back in the next day, and it's, it's a weird fucking sensation because I wanna say nobody spoke to you because you're the new guy, or nobody did that, but that's not the case, everyone was so fucking good to me, like. And they were like that because they knew that they had to be. We were going on operations regularly, we're out most nights. Day VIs, night VIs, detention operations, raid, you name it, we were fucking going in all directions and new guys were on everything, you know, so I had a lot of time.

• 3:11:59Speaker 01

  To fucking gain respect and gain trust and that's exactly what I tried to do and yeah, I was just fucking impressed by the What was most impressive actually was the was the How slick that whole operation was, everybody knew What was going on, but nobody was asking any questions if that makes sense, everyone just knew. But I was always made to feel welcome, it was like, you know that old saying, there's no such thing as a stupid question, it genuinely did feel like that and I just had so many people to look around and learn from. It was just It was just an incredibly intense experience and I think you gain trust Quite quickly in an operational environment, once people knew that I was a professional and I was there for the right reasons, people like you, you know.

• 3:12:41Speaker 01

  You start to feel part of it and once I felt part of it and felt loved and felt part of the team, which happened pretty quickly. I felt head over heels in love with the whole thing, I didn't want to do anything for the rest of my life, it was just. There was a long period of my time, if you could have just left me in that That compound in Kandahar, just hitting targets every night, going to the gym. I would have been fucking, I would have done that for the rest of my life, you know, I was, I was actually happy for the first time in

• 3:13:11Speaker 01

  A long time. I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be, there was nowhere else that I needed to go and chase, I was exactly doing what I was supposed to be doing and I'm surrounded by people that all Felt and did exactly the same thing as me, one of the first Guys that I met the morning after the night that I arrived. We had a bunch of welcoming briefs basically. Um, Chris Craig had sat me down, he was running the partner force at the time and he told me everything about the partner force, how it works, what his job was, where I would fit in, you know, do's and don'ts, things that they, you know. Things that make them work well, things that don't make them work well and it was just so

• 3:13:48Speaker 01

  Impressive to me, you know, all of the team leaders were fucking rock stars to me, you know, I looked up at those guys, still do for the most part, for most of them like they were gods, you know, I was just like Wow, like there are levels to this stuff, I'd come from a fairly high level of soldiering, but when I got to this position and these guys. I was like, okay, there are levels here that I didn't even know fucking existed, you know, and it was just a pleasure to be around, it was, it was a happy time in my life, you know. Come back from that first deployment, we'd done a whole bunch of cool shit, you know. Loads of VIs, fucking loads of gunfights.

• 3:14:23Speaker 01

  It was good. It was so, so impressive to see the level of professionalism and efficiency being executed by so many people, not just the guys on the ground, but the special forces support group, the marines and paras on the cordon, the helicopter pilots, the targeteers, the signalers, fuck dude, even the cooks, even the chefs, man, the whole thing was just

• 3:14:47Speaker 01

  well oiled. And it was a strange feeling because you're now sat in a one man air conditioned room with wifi, hot showers, three square meals a day, good gym, secure location, no sentry, very little ID risk, like, I was like, fuck for that. This is exactly what I wanted. It was everything that I thought it would be and more.

• 3:15:13Speaker 01

  And I just wanted to be good. I just wanted to be as best as I could. And I think I did that for a little while and then I got comfortable after a couple of years and then I kind of didn't stop trying. I just stopped trying so hard, you know, and I just let it roll then.

• 3:15:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think it, do you think the fact that, I mean, there's nowhere else to go. There's no level up. You're at the pinnacle, correct?

• 3:15:35Speaker 01

  That's the problem. That was a problem that I suffered with because it was like, well, what the fuck else do I do now? I'm twenty four years old. I've fucking got my dream job. It's not a job. It's a fucking way of life.

• 3:15:50Speaker 01

  And I kind of not took my foot off the gas a little bit, but I kind of enjoyed it a little bit too much than I did, you know, I was drinking too much, going out, fucking, you know, chasing girls and trying to be that fucking dude, man. And it just, it just didn't really. I thought I had it. I thought I had everything that I could ever want, you know, I'm twenty five years old, twenty four years old, whatever, driving around in a fucking fancy BMW, got fucking multiple Rolexes, I look fucking in good shape.

• 3:16:18Speaker 01

  But all that, all that shit and all that stuff that I thought would make me happy didn't make me happy. It didn't. It was poison. It was fucking toxic, you know? And it took me a long time to fucking realize that. A long time.

• 3:16:33Speaker 01

  So, you know, if I was to look back on that career, I would just say, just have a bit more, I should have been more humble with it, I think, a bit more humility, um.

• 3:16:43Speaker 01

  And a bit more intelligence when it comes to diet, and I don't mean

• 3:16:50Speaker 01

  fucking carbs and fats, I mean, everything that you consume is diet, the music that you listen to, the people that you hang around with, the decisions you make, the drinks you have, the drinks you don't have, the clubs you go to, the ones you don't, the time you go to the range, the time you don't. My diet wasn't good.

• 3:17:06Speaker 01

  On the outside, it looked like I had it all. On the inside, I was fucking just hollow.

• 3:17:14Speaker 01

  And it was just about deployments. For a long time, it was just about how many, how many fucking bombs can I drop? How many fucking, how many fucking bad guys can I get? You know, how many fucking jumps can I do? How quick can I put a charge on a door? Like, that was it. That was, you know, that was the only thing that I fucking valued. It was, that was the only thing that mattered. And that's all good and well, but it does wear off. And when it does, you need to have something else, you know. I don't like the person I was back then. I don't. I feel like I was a fucking good soldier, a good operator, but I was a fucking shitty dad. I wasn't there.

• 3:17:56Speaker 01

  Not always, because I, there were times where I was too preoccupied

• 3:18:03Speaker 01

  in my own existence than I was. And I should have done more. I missed out on a lot of those years, I think, by

• 3:18:14Speaker 01

  being too consumed in my own fucking hype, man. That's what it was. I was too fucking, too consumed in it. And I drank in the Kool-Aid too much, you know?

• 3:18:24Speaker 01

  And I don't know if that's just part of growing up or what it is. And I see it now, I see it in, I see it in the young guys. Not young guys, but the guys that have come through. They do the first two years where they're like panicking that they're not at the standard, then they get comfortable. And then they take the foot off the gas and all of a sudden it becomes more about all that other bullshit than it does about being a fucking good dude and a good soldier. It's a weird one.

• 3:18:44Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's because.

• 3:18:48Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, people that are as driven as you are, or anybody that operates at that level. I mean, where does the drive go? Where does the drive go when there's no next step?

• 3:19:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19:00Shawn Ryan?

  There's nothing left to work for. Alls you can do is, and I'm not saying this lightly when I say all you can do, but is, is, is work on perfecting your craft more.

• 3:19:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:19:13Shawn Ryan?

  And so, you know, when you reach the pinnacle of whatever you're doing, I, I think there's an aspect to everybody that,

• 3:19:25Shawn Ryan?

  becomes boring.

• 3:19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19:29Shawn Ryan?

  And then you have to reinvent. Because the drive never goes away.

• 3:19:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:19:35Speaker 01

  It doesn't. I think for me, it was.

• 3:19:40Shawn Ryan?

  It becomes confusing.

• 3:19:41Speaker 01

  Confusing is exactly what I was about to say. It comes. It's, it's very difficult to,

• 3:19:50Speaker 01

  to see the wood from the trees, you know, I was, I didn't see it. Now, when I look back retrospectively, it's easy to go, oh, fucking hell. Of cour- of course, if your diet was shit, the out, if your input is shit, the output's gonna be shit, right? But when you're in it, it's very difficult. And I was, I was very confused about, you know, what priorities were. It was, it was like a boom or bust period of my life, like everything was disposable. Life was disposable. Relationships were disposable. I was living to go on deployments. I was coming back from deployment just to get ready to work up on the next cycle to go again, you know? And when that stopped working, and it stopped making me feel good about myself,

• 3:20:33Speaker 01

  it's like you become, you know, dependent on this drug, this fucking thing, this chemical reaction that you get to doing that job, you know? When that wears off.

• 3:20:46Speaker 01

  You channel it in other ways, you you you channel it in other ways. I used to drink a lot.

• 3:20:53Speaker 01

  To feel something, not to drown out the pain or to numb myself or any of that. It was just to feel something, you know, I'd just become indifferent. It was like.

• 3:21:05Speaker 01

  Nothing really fucking mad and it was depressing, man, it was fucking dark. And I didn't really care what people thought. If I didn't like someone's opinion, I'd tell them. You know, I wasn't a fucking decent person for a long time and I wasn't, I wasn't that bad, but.

• 3:21:24Speaker 01

  I was pretty fucking far from being the person that I wanna be.

• 3:21:30Speaker 01

  At that point, I think that's sort of middle period of my life or my military career.

• 3:21:36Speaker 01

  I was an exceptional soldier, but I was a fucking shitty dude. I think, and I might be being a bit harsh on myself, but.

• 3:21:45Speaker 01

  I definitely do things a little bit differently. So when you asked me what my biggest fuck up was, was not managing my ego and not channeling my um. Drive and.

• 3:21:56Speaker 01

  Taking things for granted and not prioritizing.

• 3:22:00Speaker 01

  The right things. I think that was what I did.

• 3:22:03Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like you've found it now.

• 3:22:05Speaker 01

  I'm trying, I I I'm trying, Sean, I'm fucking trying real hard, mate, to to to to be better. And I get dragged back there sometimes.

• 3:22:14Shawn Ryan?

  Well, just talking to you before the interview, I mean, it sounds like you're really trying to figure out. How to be a better father for your daughter.

• 3:22:21Speaker 01

  Trying, that's that's all leverage left to do now. There's, there's no selection courses, there's no more operations. There's no more, it's gone, it's not there.

• 3:22:33Speaker 01

  And I'm just trying to build and be better. And it's fucking hard, like, it's the one thing I don't know how to do.

• 3:22:40Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to navigate it the best I can and it's fucking hard.

• 3:22:47Speaker 01

  And it makes it even harder when I'm trying to shield her from all this fucking bullshit in the newspapers and all this sort. You know, all these types of things, these people that don't care about me, don't care about my family and I'm trying to rebuild that and I want her to see stuff like this. One of the reasons that I do this. Or I put stuff on my Instagram account is because I want her to know who I am and I want her to see all of it and I want her to know exactly what it is that I've been doing and why I've been doing it. You know, and she hopefully when she grows up as a young woman will see that and she'll go. I'm not perfect, but I fucking love her to death, you know, and I hope she sees that. I think she will. I hope she will. I pray. That's all I need to do now is just that, you know, that's that's the only thing left to achieve.

• 3:23:30Speaker 01

  Is there anything you would say to her right now? I love her. I'm sorry. Um.

• 3:23:37Speaker 01

  I'm sorry for the fucking birthdays and.

• 3:23:41Speaker 01

  Christmases.

• 3:23:45Speaker 01

  And I'm proud.

• 3:23:48Speaker 01

  I'm so fucking proud of her, man. She's she's gorgeous, smart.

• 3:23:54Speaker 01

  She's a fucking athlete, you know?

• 3:23:57Speaker 01

  And I just look at her and I just think.

• 3:24:02Speaker 01

  That's why I didn't press that trigger. That's why I didn't.

• 3:24:08Speaker 01

  And I'm ashamed of myself for almost being that fucking selfish. Because I was selfish for a long time and.

• 3:24:18Speaker 01

  It fucking breaks my heart. It does.

• 3:24:22Speaker 01

  But I'm still in the fight and I'm not fucking stopping. Okay, I'm gonna try and keep going and improve.

• 3:24:30Speaker 01

  And and be better. And I'm gonna fuck it up again. I know I am at some point. It's natural. I'm not perfect. I'm just wanna be better, you know?

• 3:24:41Speaker 01

  So I'd say that. I'm sorry and I'm proud.

• 3:24:45Shawn Ryan?

  You're off to a damn good start.

• 3:24:48Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about your first operation, kinetic operation in SAS in Afghanistan.

• 3:24:57Speaker 01

  I remember it very clearly. We was, uh, I was in assault three. Different assault teams, but my job was basically to run out if there were any, um,

• 3:25:08Speaker 01

  we call them squatters, but essentially that's people, for people that don't know, that's people that run away when the helicopters land, move to fighting positions or try and escape capture or whatever it might be. So we were runner, runner control, call it runner control, squatter control, whatever you want to call it. And I remember getting out of the back of the CH47 and running towards target. When those birds land, it's, we were on the X. And for those that don't understand what on the X means, it means we were landing on the target and running straight to where our assault positions were. And we were locking down the compound and, you know, whatever the enemy decided to do, then we were going to have our say.

• 3:25:42Speaker 01

  But I remember getting off in the first, I wasn't even out of the brownout and I can hear suppressed rounds being fired. And this was in seconds of me being boots on the ground for the first time. I walk out of the brownout, still a bit more of a gunfight going on just up above where my position was, probably about 50 meters in front of me. And I fan out like we do in the jungle. There's a very specific drill that you do in the jungle. And that's why I'm going back on my jungle training. And the guy behind me just like basically grabbed me and just like, stay in the line. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Don't fan out. Basically, I was like, oh, things are slightly different here. I moved to my position, a step over a dude, he's got a long barrel weapon system, face down,

• 3:26:24Speaker 01

  he'd been brassed up. There was another gunfight going on in another compound around the corner. And I basically just went to the position I was supposed to be in and awaited further fucking direction, basically. Um, there were no runners. That guy didn't get the chance to run. He was trying to fight. He'd fired some rounds. I didn't hear that as I landed because of the fucking brownout and the rotor wash. But he'd engaged the task force on infill, um, as they were coming out. And as he went down, the lead guy just dropped him in place.

• 3:26:53Speaker 01

  And that was the first real time, and I'm, I'm, I don't mind saying this, that was the first real time I was like up close to a dude. This is not Afghanistan two thousand and ten, where they're ghosts and you don't often get to see them. I mean, I'd seen plenty of dead bodies before, but not. Not guys that are armed and ready to fight there and then, do you know what I mean? That was the proximity of what it was was completely new to me in that, you know. I'd, I'd been in a lot of gunfights till then, and you know, I'd made a lot of engagements, I say a lot. Half a dozen or so live engagements with people that I know for a fact I've hit. But it was all at range, whereas this was fucking super close. I was like. That's kind of what I was looking for, you know, I was like, yeah, we've landed, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

• 3:27:36Speaker 01

  And again, everyone's just so calm about it. Everyone's just like, yeah. Like. He shot us, we shot him back. That's just the way it does business. And I know that sounds super basic, like, of course, that's what you're there to do, but it's. When you see it for the first time, you're like, ah, fuck. This is fucking, this is cool, this is cool. Like, this is, this is why I went through this whole process to get to this situation, to get that seat on that helicopter. And then you're into like SSE and I don't really want to do it. And I'm like, it was a strange one because I was like.

• 3:28:07Speaker 01

  We're doing SSE. So SSE, for those that don't know, is basically making sure that we get all of the right information, you know, whether it's in, you know. Documents, hard drives, USBs, anything that we can take off target that will then feed into the targeting cycle. So it's a super important job. And it's down to the new guys, basically, because it's hard work. And I look around and helmets off, dudes have got helmets off. Assault weapon, you know, rifles are just leant against the wall, dudes are smoking, talking, all the new guys are running around like crazy, trying to bag everything up and all the rest of it. And I'm like. How have we gone from being super hyper professional? To being like, standing around smoking with their helmets off. I was like, do you understand what I'm saying? It was like, it was a bit of a strange experience.

• 3:28:52Speaker 01

  But that was just what feeling out the squadron was like. And then you just, you, you get used to like. I'm like trying to pull sentry and pull guard and I'm like. You don't need to do that. Is that why? Is that gunship's up there? And I'm like. Oh.

• 3:29:05Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Do you understand? So it was a bit of a shift in that way?

• 3:29:10Speaker 01

  But yeah, that was the first that within, literally within seconds of stepping off the bird, shots were fired. Enemy engaged, gunned up. I was like, yeah, that's exactly what it's supposed to be. And it just carried on, it just carried on like that. Do you remember the fire, the first time that you killed somebody at for close range? Yeah, I do. Yeah, it was on a um nighttime vehicle interdiction. Uh we were hitting the narco. So the, basically they were taking hero- heroin, uh opium and all kinds of other shit from Helmand province down to the border in Pakistan. And then they were swapping it for guns and then bringing those guns back up to use against the British army. So we were just smashing those as best we could. We're doing them day and night. Uh it was a dog actually that that fucking saved me on this occasion. We got off, so there's there's

• 3:29:56Speaker 01

  multiple birds, but the bird that I was on was in charge of again, run and control basically. So we had to stop a bird and then a bird that would essentially, anyone that ran, we would then vector towards that. And then the forty sevens at the back would be the the the sort of assault force that would then go up and clear the vehicle. So I was like on, you know, what's the word? Reserve, basically. But these guys had ran out, they were gunned up, um and they'd gone off into the desert. Bird goes down, it was on a uh on the sixty, so the Blackhawks, American Cruise. Um and I get off, my team leader's just like that, and I'm like, cool. So you see this sparkle? So it's like this IR pulse in the in the desert, which the drones have cap- have captured this guy running and maneuvering away. So they're vectoring me towards this location, but it's not

• 3:30:40Speaker 01

  specific to the point where it's like, I know exactly where this dude is. It's a general area. Um and it was all sort of shrubs and bushes and I'm just sort of closing down. I've got a couple of guys behind me, the dog handler's there, and it's a bush about sort of this high. And I'm I'm I'm coming round and I'm starting to clear it, I'm starting to clear it and all of a sudden the dog comes from my position over to the right and goes right across my front and hits the bush on the left. And he fucking locks on to this dude and I could see him straight away that the this like, he's got, he's got the gun in one hand. And he's got a fucking dog on the other arm and I just swing round and it's it's almost as if we had that that it was like. I'm not gonna say it was super professional, I was like, holy fuck, like.

• 3:31:25Speaker 01

  I nearly just got lit up there, I need to slow down, it was, it was more shock and panic than it was anything else, but we're pretty much as close as we are now. And I don't remember a sight picture, I don't remember anything, I just put a late red laser on his chest and dumped four, five, six rounds into it and that was it.

• 3:31:41Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, fucking hell, like, thank god for that dog, y- you know? Mm hmm. Anything could have, those were, those were dicey, those V I's were dicey, especially when you're closing down with people in those situations. Cause they've got the drop on you for the most part, obviously we've got night vision or the dogs and all the tools to get it, but it only takes one burst, you know? But that is close, that is proximity, like. You can see the dude, like, from me to you.

• 3:32:06Speaker 01

  And it was like, yeah. Over and done with, no one bats an eyelid, no one's like, well done, or you're right, it's just like, yeah, one times E K I A. Weapons found, search him, take a picture, DNA, gone, that's it, on to the next operation, like. Yeah, surreal. But I'm not gonna say it didn't feel good, I was indifferent to it, there was no emotional attachment to it whatsoever, it was like, that's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, it was, it wasn't like. I didn't feel good about it, didn't feel bad about it, didn't feel anything about it really, if I'm honest with you, it was like. What if you're gonna smuggle drugs and kill British soldiers and then you're gonna run around the desert with a gun in your hand, then what the fuck do you expect, you know? You bought a ticket, you voted, that's the outcome.

• 3:32:50Speaker 01

  But it was. Feel a sense of accomplishment? Yeah, hundred percent. I felt like I was, I was proud of myself because I did what I was supposed to do. You know, and it wasn't an ego thing. It wasn't like, yeah, I'm, I've done this, I've done that. It was just like, oh, good. I reacted the way that I'm supposed to react and I didn't hesitate and I did exactly what was supposed to happen and the end result was right. This guy would have fucking killed me if I'd have given him the chance.

• 3:33:10Speaker 01

  I learned some lessons to it. Slow the fuck down. Like, be careful, be a bit more cautious. I did feel bulletproof for a long time. I did have that sense of, I've done two tours of sangin'. Like, that carried me on for a long time. I was like, I can't die. I'm bomb proof. I'm literally bomb proof. I've been blown up a bunch of times, shot a bunch of times, like, I thought I was fucking indestructible and that was a little bit of an early warning there just to be like, Jay, just fucking chill out a little bit. Hold your horses because it only takes one round, right? And they don't, they don't have to be surgical. The application of violence that we do in those squadrons is surgical application. And it's extremely,

• 3:33:49Speaker 01

  it's extremely detailed in terms of the, the level of proficiency and the application of it. It's, it's hyper professional. Whereas these guys don't need to be like that. They're just one round, two round here, there, and you don't, it, you know, I've learned that lesson before the hard way. It doesn't matter if you're the best operator in the world. Doesn't matter if you're the best Royal Marine in the world. If you step on something or you move two, two inches to the left or two inches to the right, you don't get the chance to be good. You're just gonna get, you're gonna get hurt. So that was a gentle reminder to myself there that you're not indestructible and always fucking clear your corner, right? So, yeah, it was, it was, strange one, bits surreal. I'm grateful for the dog.

• 3:34:30Speaker 01

  Grateful for the dog handler. Um, but yeah, I learned a lot, a lot of lessons on that.

• 3:34:37Speaker 01

  But yeah, I don't feel any empathy for it, no.

• 3:34:40Speaker 01

  What were you guys doing in North Africa? So I was in a, I was on a small team, six man team. We were operating at rich and people talk about our med timelines there was like twenty four hours. Like there was nobody else there, but I flew into the airport on a British Airways, British Airways flight.

• 3:34:57Speaker 01

  And we were gathering information. We were working out um which militias that we could potentially look to use partner forces for for further operations down the line. We were trying to find and recover potential chemical weapons that had been left after the fall of the regime. We were on a fact finding mission essentially. We were just, it was a low vis operation, no camouflage.

• 3:35:22Speaker 01

  Everything that we needed was already there. They'd taken it out there. So you didn't fly into country with guns. You didn't fly in with nods. You didn't, it was all there. Um, and when I flew in, it was on a British Airways flight and it was all good for about ten days. And then the country imploded. Two militias, one from the east, one from the west, um that just basically went to war with each other and everyone flee, everyone flew, uh fled the country. What year is this? Two thousand fourteen. Yeah, two thousand and fourteen. Um. I think, I think if I'm right, we are probably, if not the only team that's ever had to deny a safe house

• 3:36:02Speaker 01

  in time, like in situ, like real time. Um, we got rolled up by pure luck. Um, bad luck depending on how you look at it. Basically, our compound was situated in the middle of a long road, about a kilometer in length. And on one side of the road, you had one militia. On the other side of the road, you had another militia and they were just going at it. But they were going at it with everything from Grad rockets to ZSU two, three, fours. Fif- I'd never seen weapons like that, you know, that was, that was all out scrapping. And we just happened by pure bad luck to have a safe house in the middle of that location. It wasn't targeted at us. It wasn't something that they knew about. But half the team are in, you know, the other side of the country doing a meeting three hours away.

• 3:36:46Speaker 01

  And I'm in the safe house with one other guy, one other operator, a signaler, a pool, a pool boy called Ally. Who's a local national, uh, and another sort of ex pat guy. Who was probably late, late sixties, early seventies that we used to employ to like. Fucking paint stuff and you know, odd jobs, basically. He was a Brit, um. So we've got this mixed match of people inside of this, inside of this house. When all this is going off and it started off quite, quite gentle. That's, you know, just a bit of gunfire here and there. It wasn't. It wasn't normal, but it wasn't anything to be worried about. But then throughout the day, it just ramped up and up and up and uh.

• 3:37:27Speaker 01

  The guys were racing back as far as they can, as fast as they can to come and help us out, basically. It's a, it's a fucking funny story. Like we're, we're dressed as diplomats. Now these safe houses, you know what they're like. They're supposed to be low, low vis, but after each team comes in, they're like, oh, we need this, now we need that, and now we need this. So basically, before you know it, you've got. A room full of machine guns and suppressors, you've got Dems charges, you've got maps, you've got fucking secret equipment, you know, there's a whole bunch of shit in there that we cannot afford to.

• 3:37:58Speaker 01

  Let be stolen or give to the enemy, you know, so it wasn't that low vis at this point. And uh, I'll, I'll never forget this. There was a, like an armored personnel carrier that was like sat, there was an outer gate and an inner gate and it was sat at the outer gate. And we made the phone call back to um, HQ in Hereford and we were like, this is on top. There were rounds hitting the building at this point. It's like. What do you want us to do? And they're like, well, don't do the destruction plan yet. Just wait out and see if it goes away. And we were like. Thanks. That's great advice. Like, give me an asset. And they were like, oh, we haven't got any assets. So it's like, you just, just ride it out. The team's on the way back. And then they're like, is the, are, are the rounds in and around your position? And I'm like that, holding up the phone like. Yeah, you can hear them smashing the side of our building.

• 3:38:44Speaker 01

  So that, well, okay, cool. Speak with the guy who's the team leader and on your call, if you need to do the destruction plan, do the destruction plan.

• 3:38:53Speaker 01

  The destruction plan was a fucking chisel. A metal tin with some fuel and a lighter. That was it. Completely. We learnt so many lessons there. We, we got it completely wrong. But there was a whole bunch of equipment there, secret equipment, secret terminals, computers, never mind all the fucking machine guns. Like, I'm trying to be, we're trying to pretend we're diplomats, Sean, right? So I've got a fucking double-breasted jacket on, do you know what I mean? And a shirt, and I'm pretending I'm a diplomat. I'm covered in tattoos and there's a room full of machine guns. Like, you make that make sense, it's not a good look, is it? And we don't want them people coming into the house to find that, because they're gonna think we're up to no good. Um, so they breached, they breached the outer wall. And now it's like, okay, cool, we need to start, we need to start this destruction.

• 3:39:37Speaker 01

  Because there's, there's one more gate, basically. And if they get into that gate, they're into our compound. Worst case, they'll kill you. Then it's like a sliding scale back up, there's like, the best case is they'll steal everything in the house. They'll fucking probably capture you and hopefully give you across to, you know, some sort of friendly unit. Maybe they'll, maybe they'll fucking hurt you a bit, maybe they won't. Or they'll sell you to, you know, some extremist group. You don't even know who these dudes are, they're all high, they're all fucking full of adrenaline. They've got a bunch of dudes that are clearly military with a bunch of, you know, military equipment in a house. It's, yeah, it was a very dicey situation, there was, the team's driving back as quickly as, as they can.

• 3:40:24Speaker 01

  And then we were like, ah, we've got to do the destruction plan. So it's funny, you've got like the pool boy, Ali the pool boy with a chisel, doesn't speak a word of English. Smashing up like top secret hard drives and all this sort of stuff and. We're trying to like work out what's got a serial number on it, what can we leave, what can't we leave? The, the guy next to me, he's like on the loudspeaker now, he's broken, speaks broken, you know, Arabic. He's like, we're diplomats this, we're diplomats that, these guys are outside like that. And it really, it really hit home, we had like a ring doorbell, you know, like the camera?

• 3:40:56Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:40:56Speaker 01

  And uh, this guy turns up, and you, if you were to draw like a radical Islamist terrorist, you draw this guy. Like, British DPM trousers, chest rig, AK-47, big beard and a football shirt, like a, like a red and white football shirt. And he's ringing the doorbell, because he, our compound looks different from everyone else's compound. It's got high walls, it's got security on it, it's got barbed wire on it. He's now ringing the doorbell, ringing the doorbell, and you just see him look up. He sees the camera and he just shoots the camera, but it was it was about as close as that front door is over there. Like not only did the camera go black, I could hear the weapon report. And I'm like, we're in a fucking serious situation here, because if these guys come through that gate, we're gonna have to, we've got.

• 3:41:40Speaker 01

  We've got a couple of options. One of them is you fight to the death, which is my preferred course of action. I had a machine gun by the door and I was like, I'll fucking. I'll barricade myself here and if I have to, rather that than get captured. I'd made that decision in my head. I was like, no. I'm not fucking letting these dudes take me, no fucking way. I'll die on my sword. You know, they're not gonna expect the level of violence that I'm gonna give them when they come through that door. They just won't expect it. Um, and I might get away with it for a while and hopefully somebody will come and help me, but I was fully prepared to go the whole way there, you know. I resigned myself to that was gonna happen. Another course of action we contemplated was breaching a hole out of the back door, basically, and running across some open ground, which again was a.

• 3:42:20Speaker 01

  Not a great option, not a great, not a great option, um.

• 3:42:25Speaker 01

  Luckily for us, they kind of gave up on trying to get in that compound right then, but they got into the other compounds that had less fortification. So now we've got three houses, we're the middle one. Houses either side have now got guys on the roof. I remember looking out the window and there's a dude with a dragon off up there and I'm like, that's not good, because. At some point, the guys that he's shooting at are gonna realise he's on that roof and they're gonna start smashing all these buildings. So I was like, fuck mate, this is not ideal. Meanwhile, the guys are driving back as fast as they can, trying to navigate through all the the checkpoints and all the rest of it. But how they do it is they've just got lines, basically. The first line will come up, they'll expend all their ammunition, then the next line will come up and they just do that all day. And then they build the berm and then they get behind the berm, so on and so forth.

• 3:43:06Speaker 01

  So this is not going away. This is a very, very, this is the first time I felt helpless. I genuinely felt like there's there's no one coming to get you now. There's. This is it, you know, if they come through that door, this is, you're gonna fight or you're gonna die.

• 3:43:18Speaker 01

  So it was dicey and uh yeah, we're carrying on with the destruction plan. Then on the JTAC, it's on that, we're gonna throw you an asset, Africom. They're gonna send you an asset and I'm like, thank god for that something, you know? And uh, they sent me a P3 Orion, you know, P3 Orion is. A dog. It's like a surveillance bird, but it's not armed, Sean. So I'm like, fucking yeah, cool. Check this fucking dude in, at least I've got some hellfires or something, or do a show of force. And it's like, yeah, we have to stay at this altitude and we've got no munitions. I'm like, fuck, no good to man the beast to meet that, do you know what I mean? I need, I want jets, not coming.

• 3:43:50Speaker 01

  So anyway, long story short, the guys finally make it back through the turps. They, you know, uh, the fixers basically negotiate the, through the militias. The militias then give us a guide. They take the guys all the way to the front door and they, they, they pull in through the gate, basically. They spoke, they've spoken to the, the, the guys that are outside. They were fa- fairly friendly, um, they were a little bit pissed off. They had to stop their, their gunfight to get us Brits out of the situation. Um, but they sort of coming through the, coming through the gate and the team leader's like, we've got two minutes. So we have to fucking empty that house in two minutes. Anything with a serial number on it, Dems charges, fucking rockets, fucking belt fed weapons, rifles, NVGs, suppressors, comms kit, it's a lot, you know, this is a fucking established safe house.

• 3:44:35Speaker 01

  So we're just fucking throwing everything in the back of these land cruisers and then the, the fucking, the old guy, he's like fucking having a heart attack almost, he's not in a good way, he's panicking. Ali the pool boy's running around with the chisel still, you know, the signaler's losing his mind because he's the one that's signed for all this equipment. So we're all bundle it in and just as we're about to go, the, the, the two I see, a guy called George comes running back. We had this Alsatian, he bought this Alsatian from somewhere and had a bad leg, his name was Ricks. So he comes back and now he's got this fucking stupid dog in his hand, he's throwing the dog in the car and it was just, it was just such a weird surreal moment, but it was like, that was my first taste of like low vis operations.

• 3:45:15Speaker 01

  And they're not really my thing, if I'm honest, Sean. It wasn't really something that I was excited about. If I couldn't put a plate carrier on and run around at night, you know, salt and buildings, I wasn't really interested in. But it was definitely a good education for me. We conducted a NEO, which is like the evacuation of entitled personnel, so we had to do all of that. Interesting story on that one. Um, completely not our fault and random, but we, one of the people that we brought off and put onto a British warship that had docked up, uh, HMS Enterprise, it was called, um, he ended up being the bomber of the Manchester Arena. No shit. Yeah. He was, he was the guy. He was, he would, this was probably

• 3:45:57Speaker 01

  a few years before, but we, we fucking got him out. Yeah. And it's, I don't feel bad about it because I can't. So if I let my fucking head go down there, it'll fucking, but yeah, it's just mental, isn't it? That like,

• 3:46:08Speaker 01

  he escaped that country because he had a entitlement to do so. We put him on a fucking British warship, sailed him back to the UK and then a few years later, he fucking cracked himself off and killed a bunch of kids at a fucking Ariana Grande concert. That's the mentality of these fucking people, you know? But yeah, it was, it was a really, really interesting, um, deployment. A lot of, a lot of good lessons I learned from it. Um. I know exactly where this was at. Yeah. There was US personnel there as well, right? Yep, there was. They left. In fact, we secured the- This is when the CIA evacuated. Yeah. Yeah. Two friends had led that evacuation. Yeah. So, yeah, it was exactly around that same timeframe. We actually secured the embassy, the US embassy.

• 3:46:51Speaker 01

  Um, when, when they decided that the country's imploding, they, they withdrew from the embassy, basically. And the US Marine Corps led that and they took everyone out and they basically said, if you're, you're the only remaining team in country. We were the only guys. It was like, everybody had fucking gone at this point.

• 3:47:05Speaker 01

  Are you serious? Yeah. And they said to us, can you secure the embassy for us? And we were like, fucking hell, there's like five guys and a dog. Do you know what I mean? What, what do you want us to do? You know, like, you know, just, just go down there and speak to them through the, through the fixes. Cause every, there was thousands, hundreds of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but thousands of people like outside the embassy. As soon as the, the, the dudes had left, as soon as the staff had been evacuated, they were like this big building. There was, mate, there was ISO containers or Conexes. Conex is full of equipment, like everything from black, you know, not good equipment, but everything from black hawk kneepads to fucking head torches or flashlights to medical kit, like shitty plate carriers, but like, there was a lot of kit there. And they didn't want to just get in fucking, you know, uh, what's the word, looted, basically.

• 3:47:48Speaker 01

  So our team leader went down there and, you know, they were about to jump over the fence, basically. And he was like, who's in charge? And he spoke to this guy who was quite pissed off at being, you know, who's this fucking, you know, Westerner turning up in a blazer and a fucking pair of deck shoes, telling me not to raid this embassy. And, you know, fair play to him, he navigated the situation quite well. He was like,

• 3:48:08Speaker 01

  we're watching. If anyone crosses this thing, we're gonna kill you all. And it, it worked for a period of time. And, yeah, they, the guys actually did go in there. I've got a, um, US ambassador, um, to the city. I've got a coin that he left in his desk that one of the lads gave me, which is pretty cool. Um, but yeah, it was, it was a super interesting time. It was, it was, the country imploded. Shit. Yeah. And it's, it's, I talk about it cause it's different from a kinetic operation. Um, but as far as low vis operations go, that one was probably the most kinetic one for a while. And like I said before, it's the first time I think we've ever, well, first time in a long time that we've actively had to fucking deny a safe house, like, under fire in, in fucking quick order.

• 3:48:50Speaker 01

  Um, but I did, I learned a lot about, you know, moving around in those sort of situations, you know, I was always had a, always had a pistol on me, always, you know, covert carry, all of that type of stuff. We're under the guise of diplomats with diplomatic plates. We're not doing traditional operations, you know? Um, but I got back from that deployment. Well, hold on. How the fuck did you get out of there? Me personally, or that house? You pers- how did you get out of that country? Uh, I flew out about four months later when they opened up the airport in the city. I flew on an Africa. You were there for four months while that shit was going on? Yeah, four, four months. Five people and a dog? Five people and a fucking lame dog, yeah.

• 3:49:33Speaker 01

  It's cool.

• 3:49:35Shawn Ryan?

  It was cool.

• 3:49:36Speaker 01

  Cool, yeah.

• 3:49:36Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 3:49:37Speaker 01

  I flew out um via Malta. So I flew out on a on a they'd opened up the commercial airline. Fuck dude, that was probably the most diceiest thing I've ever done. An Afrika flight from the city to Malta landed. We'd actually um recovered a hostage. So there was a guy that had been captured, David Bowlin was his name um by militants. He was like an expat teacher. They told him to leave a bunch of times and eventually somebody captured him uh and was holding him ransom. They figured out that situation through a third party. They released him and organised us to go and pick this guy up. So the guys we picked him up from weren't the militants. They weren't the guys that had held him captive. They were somebody else, basically, like a third party and like a mediator type sketch, you know?

• 3:50:23Speaker 01

  So we drive up, we get this fucking dude in the back of the car and he's like, he's an older guy, you know, he's in shit state. His body's fucked. We've got a medic there, so one of the guys was a medic, so he's like looking after him. But they flew us, they flew us a jet from Malta and it was um it was a it was a government jet. It was one that the royal family had used. It's like a small private jet, basically, to recover this dude for for UK government. Um and the guys went back to Malta with him to escort him back. And the ambassador there was like, this is the best thing ever. We're so grateful and basically gave him keys to the city. But we used that jet a few more times to do um. We took a guy called Jonathan Powell, who brokered the Northern Ireland ceasefire.

• 3:51:04Speaker 01

  Um he was like a like a big political guy that was good at negotiating, you know, truces and ceasefires. So we were chaperoning him around whilst we were going to these meetings and all this this type of stuff. Um so the boys flew out on that, but I didn't. I flew out early, two weeks early before the rest of the guys did, because I had to go back for a course, the JTAC course. I needed to do a refresher or whatever it was. Um so, yeah, I flew back out. But when I landed in Malta, they they just they were like his, I think it's a Marriott down there by the by the sea. They were like, you know, down by the port. I don't know if you've ever been to Malta, but it was like pen, it was like it was like this, a room like this. It was like, there you go. Everything's on the house, complimentary. So it's surreal. One minute you're in, you know, North Africa dealing with all that stuff. The next minute you're in Malta, which is a holiday destination, this.

• 3:51:46Speaker 01

  And then five, six hours later, you're on a civilian flight, a civilian flight back into London Heathrow, like with a bag, like. Straight down to, you know, back to Hereford. In the pub with the boys for a few, you know, a few days and then onto it like no, no, no time to process or, you know, absorb what's just gone on. It's just constant, constant, constant. And then it's like, yeah, I was off to the um. Fire cell. So this is where I started to become a JTAC.

• 3:52:13Speaker 01

  Started, yeah, started doing back to back tours of JTAC and this is all two thousand fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. So like, the wall was popping in Iraq and, you know, Syria, those places there and we were just fucking smashing, smashing ISIS on the flop, basically. Um. This is where you worked with Delta. This was prior to that. So I did three deployments of those and there's, there's, we can talk about them, but it was just a lot of bombing. It was just a lot of, of kinect stuff. Um.

• 3:52:41Speaker 01

  One of them's quite interesting. We were the first guys to um, to cross the border from Iraq to another country and we drove all the way along the Turkish border. It was like we left on uh, Christmas. Christmas morning we left. We woke up, we had a champagne breakfast in Herbal and then we packed our vehicles up and we drove fucking for three days. Land move and we set up a fucking uh, patrol base, basically in a cement factory. But when we got there, there was nobody there. I went back a couple of years later and the whole thing was like the US military had got hold of it. There was fucking CB twenty twos, med bays, fucking marines, all kinds of shit. When we got there, there was our six man team. Bunch of unit guys, probably about twenty, thirty of those. Um.

• 3:53:27Speaker 01

  About ten of them were operators, the rest were support guys, um, CBs, building all the infrastructure up, the comms guys. A bunch of local militia that were our security force or partner force. And a bunch of random French dudes and these random French dudes were fucking nuts dude, like really cool guys, but like they were so industrious, they're building shit all the time, like. We turn up with like two land cruisers, one of which has got a gun on the top. So it's essentially, it's a fucking technicalism, let's call it what it is. Um. A bunch of javelin missiles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and a green box full of booze. That's what we had and the French were in there like building all kinds of stuff, you know. And uh, we wasn't laid back, but we were like comfortable with it.

• 3:54:11Speaker 01

  I remember on New Year's Eve, we were all sat around, we had like a little fire pit outside. Oh, we're whole team was in a room this big and uh, we were outside drinking rum and you know, shooting the shit and this guy comes up out of the, out of the dark like they were full body armour, you know, nods down and he's like, he walks up and he goes, is it safe? And we're like, it is now. If you're patrolling around like that, you, you crack on mate, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, yeah. New Year's Eve, have a drink. But um, yeah, no, it was, it was, it was a cool, cool experience to do that. I was JTAC in for them as well. So I was JTAC in for the unit prior to that. Was working in the Siflick, which is a big um, two star uh, strike cell basically. And you know, you're operating in a room with a hundred, hundred and fifty people, red card holders.

• 3:54:56Speaker 01

  You've got coalition jets from all over the world. Dismantling targets all over, you know, all over Iraq and you know, targets in Syria and you're just basically controlling all day. You do an eight hour shift and you might drop, you know, thousands of pounds worth of ordnance, not, yeah, like I dropped a shit ton of bombs in those deployments, a fucking shit ton. Like metric shit tons, you know, and that's not an exaggeration. I Winchester'd like B one bombers, like on a couple of occasions down at Sinjar. They just give me like a A four piece of paper with a bunch of grids on it. You, you send them to the plane and then as the plane's checking in, it will give you a system read back on the bomb to make sure that that, that coordinate's been put in the bomb. You get them read back of like twenty desired mean impact points, DNPRs, whatever you want to call them.

• 3:55:36Speaker 01

  And uh, yeah, they're just like, yeah, cool. That's eight away. Go back for a re-attack. Just doing that, F fifteens. Just laying waste to all these positions, like serious amounts of ordnance. It was a really good education for me. But then I started working for a strike cell um, for the unit, which I can't. Go into a lot of detail about, but it was a completely different ballgame. We were operating. We had all of Syria and it was just us and we were just hunting, basically. And we were getting a lot of information coming from the partner force and then we'd verify it with a drone and then we'd strike it. And it was all going back to, back to Bragg where the, where the, um, the sort of red card holder was. So every time we'd do a strike, we'd have to get it approved. We'd have to go through all the C D E and all the modeling and make sure the partner force was happy. Then we'd drop the ordinance and then we'd go on to the next one.

• 3:56:19Speaker 01

  And I was just shadowing, watching how they did business. These are like twenty four S T S J Tacs. So they're like dedicated professional. All they do is J Tacs. Whereas I'm an operator, but I can also J Tacs. So they're at a different level and I'm trying to learn. But I was just going in there and hanging out with this guy for a while and we were just learning. He was a, he was a, um, B Squadron guy. And, um, one day the J TAC was like, do you want to, do you want to get on the mic? And I was like, it was a quiet night, nothing going on. Everything was good legal permissions wise. I'd done all the spins and stuff. So I was, you know, there's, it was completely above board and they trusted me, you know? And I was like, yeah, cool. I'll jump on the net. And, uh, he was like, yeah, cool. Just have a look around this area. See if there's anything, you know? This is where the forward line of enemy troops is. This is where the forward line of own troops is or friendly forces. And like basically anything south of that line is bad. And I was like, ah, cool.

• 3:57:02Speaker 01

  So I'm just like scanning around with the drones and all of a sudden I see like this fucking minibus, basically, or it's a flatbed bongo truck. But it's got like thirty dudes on the back of it and it's just driving up the road, driving up the road, stops. And all these dudes get out and they start fanning out and I'm now checking now. I'm speaking to the strike director, speaking to him and I'm like, these aren't our guys, are we? Is that, no, is that right? Go for the partner force. Let's make sure these are not our guys because this is looking nefarious as fuck, right? So these dudes are now lining up and it's almost a textbook ambush. So they've got like a main killing group and they've got cut offs and then they've got like a rear element to it. It's all down the side of this one M S R that the, um, the, the, whatever they were called, were they Peschmerga? S D F or Peschmerga were going up and down this road, basically. And they were waiting for them to come up and they were going to light them up. So I'm there spinning up a strike. I've got, uh, what did I have?

• 3:57:47Speaker 01

  I had A tens, so I had a pair of A tens and as I'm about to start spinning the strike up, I'm starting to read them the nine line and get to, you know, all this, all this J tackery shit. Gunship checks in. So I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah. He's like, we want to do a coordinated attack. So what that means is like, basically the, the jets will come in or the A tens will come in and drop bombs. And then as soon as those bombs have hit the ground, they'll disappear in a different direction and the gunship just goes in and orbit and just cleans up basically. Um, so that's what we did. Like this is my first control I've ever done for these guys. This is like a unicorn control, right? You've got like thirty troops in the open. You've got an AC one thirty gunship and you've got two A tens and it doesn't get much better than that, you know? So I start to spin up this strike and I'm, I'm not, I'm just, I'm in the zone like I am now, you know, just talking away. And like before I look at, there's like a whole bunch of dudes behind me that from like

• 3:58:33Speaker 01

  that the command sergeant major's there and all kinds of people and they're just watching, they're just watching like the JTACs are like making sure that I'm doing it all properly. And I'm like, are we doing this? And then I'm like, yeah, fucking send it. So we did. We fucking smashed them all to bits, mate. Brilliant. Two bombs went in. Took the main body out and then it was just gunship after that. It was just like boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, send it. He's like, yeah, I've got runners away. Yeah, do it again. We ended up putting a two, a GB thirty one, which is two thousand pounder, straight through. They went like a culvert underneath the road. There's about six of them that like squirted away underneath there. So it was like, yeah, put a two thousand pounder in that. And I was like, boom, job done. And it's weird because you do that. Like, I don't know, twenty five EKA, thirty EKA, E K I A, whatever it was. And then you get back into a

• 3:59:15Speaker 01

  a land cruiser and you drive back through herbal to your accommodation. Cause it was, uh, we weren't co-located with them. It was a separate location. You know, past the coffee shops, downtown, back into the thing, go to bed. It's like, we talked about that book on killing. That's, that's extreme violence at distance and at reach. And I did that for fucking three deployments. Pretty much. And I, I've, I didn't pay enough attention to how much that affected my fucking headspace. Cause it was, dude, I've shot people from here to you away. I've been in all that stuff. Like we all have and. That was different because it was on an industrial scale, like.

• 3:59:57Speaker 01

  I got a Queen's recommendation for valuable service on one of those deployments, just for sheer, just for sheer volume of, of, of fucking people. That we were taking companies, battalions off the fucking battlefield. Uh, but you're doing it from reach, you know, you're doing it from a fucking telephone or a fucking computer or a radio in an ops room, like. Weird. How did that affect you? Um.

• 4:00:22Speaker 01

  I got fucking blasé about it, really. It, I didn't really.

• 4:00:27Speaker 01

  It didn't really, I think it didn't affect me, it didn't do me any good, I know that, you know, I kind of became immune to it. Which wasn't a good thing to do. It was, I never had a SIG-CIVC allegation once. I was. Super diligent, like I don't fuck about when it comes to making sure that those bombs are going on the right places and neither do the units that I was working for. It's extreme professionalism at all times. The pilots are on board, the targeters are on board, the CDE models are on board, the LEAGADs are on board, like red card holders. It's not, we're not just bombing shit for the sake of it. It's extremely precise, accurate fires. Um, so you get really good at it. You do, you get really fucking dialed into it and it just became a process, really. But then I look back on it as like, I've literally watched thousands of people die on fucking TV, like.

• 4:01:09Speaker 01

  And sometimes you'd get given a list of paper, like I mentioned before, bomb that and you're like, cool. Or you'd go out, like the other incident I took with a gunship, like you're hunting, like that doesn't happen unless you put the jets where they need to be. But I don't get any satisfaction from it because it's like, that doesn't count. It's like drone warfare now, like. Mm-hmm. All this drone warfare shit, I don't like it. Drones are IEDs and I fucking hate IEDs and I don't care what anyone says. It's a shitty fucking way to fight a war, like it's, there's no honour in that. And I kind of feel a bit like that with the JTAC and stuff. I don't take any. Satisfaction from it, other than the fact that we did a lot of good for, you know, partner forces and we did shape the battlefield, like. And ultimately it fucking got, got rid of a lot of bad people. But it is quite, um, it's quite an intense job.

• 4:01:54Speaker 01

  You'd be doing that for three, four months in tents and then you come back and you're back in Hereford. And you're in the pub, and you're drinking. And then all of a sudden you're back out, and then you're back in Ayrford, in the pub, drinking. Trying to manage being a dad, being a soldier. Doing that, you know, it's a fuck, I did that for a year pretty much, back to back to back. Um, it's a lot, mate. It was a very intense period of my life. And then right at the back end of that, they were like, ah, there's a posting coming up to the unit for one year. Do you wanna go? I was like, ah, of course I do.

• 4:02:27Speaker 01

  So I did. They sent me over to, um, to Bragg. And I lived in, uh, Pinehurst, uh, Southern Pine, sorry, not Pinehurst. Um, lived in a house there. Embedded myself with the squadron. I was, um, I was made to feel super welcome. Like.

• 4:02:43Speaker 01

  Those guys were fucking rock stars. Honestly, I have never been so impressed by a team. As I have with those guys there. As assaulters, and I say this with the utmost respect to everyone else. The best assault team, teams that I've ever worked with, just primarily on shooting and CQB and assaulting. There's nothing on earth that compares to those fucking guys in that unit. And in my team, I had like four first draft picks from O T C. So they were fucking rock stars. Shit. Yeah, it was super impressive. I remember being humbled the first day I got there. It was like, we went and shot Bianchi Cup pistol shoot. And, uh, I was okay with the pistol, with the long gun, I'm hold my own, one, hold my own. But, um, at the time, pistol shooting wasn't really something that we did that much. We didn't have red dots.

• 4:03:28Speaker 01

  Like, it was there if you needed it. It was very much a secondary mentality, whereas these guys are shooting pistol all the time. They shoot more pistol than they do rifle. So five metres, ten metres, fifteen, starts to fall off a little bit, and I'm back at twenty. And guys, it's, it's comedy. But they're like handing me magazines. I'm trying to knock these plate racks over, trigger discipline, shit, fucking all over the place. And I was like, fuck. Every day we'd have a shooting competition for the most part. Half the day would be CQB, half the day would be shooting, or we'd do some climbing or some fitness stuff in between. But for the most part, shooting in CQB was what we did every day. Which is why they're so good at assaulting. They're not fucking around training guys to be J Tacs or, you know, surveillance operators or any of that stuff. They're just thoroughbred assaulters. And they are, in my opinion, um, the best guys that I worked with, hands down.

• 4:04:09Speaker 01

  Um, so it was a fucking pleasure, because I love that. I love being an assaulter. When people ask you, well, I'm an assaulter, that's what I do. I'm a CQB instructor, you know, that was my bread and butter.

• 4:04:19Speaker 01

  So I realised very quickly that I had to up the game. So for the first four months, I used to turn up early at work. I used to go on the ranges on my own. I used to stay after work on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday. I'd take a thousand rounds and I'd go on the range and I'd just press that trigger, press that trigger and just learn how to press a trigger and hold the gun properly and just pistol, pistol, pistol. And I stopped finishing sixth and then I finished fifth. And after a while, I might finish fourth. Some days, fuck it, I might even come second or I might even win one, you know? And it was just that constant having to improve. Like, that's where I really started to dial into the craft. The, you know, that's where it really happened because my pistol shooting was not where I needed to be. And I felt a lot of responsibility coming over there, representing my regiment in front of the unit.

• 4:04:56Speaker 01

  In a team of all-stars, it's a lot of pressure. Um, so I threw myself at it and, you know, that I think that gained a lot of trust and respect in the squadron. Cause I knew that I sucked at pistol, but I was out there fucking working to get better. And none of them made me feel like a dick. None of them, there was no ego, no bullshit. They adopted me as a brother straight away. They treated me like one of their own, um, invited me to their homes, met their families. Like, I was part of their team and I am deeply grateful and deeply impressed by the organisation as a whole, but the individuals and the, the, the level of compassion that they showed me, um, was second to none. And I'm, I'm deeply, deeply proud of my time with, with the guys, uh, at the unit. And, you know,

• 4:05:41Speaker 01

  fast forward a few months, it's coming up to deployment time. And I'm like,

• 4:05:47Speaker 01

  I remember one of the guys came over to me and he gave me a US flag. He's like, you're gonna wear that? And I said, am I allowed to wear that? And he was like, ah, fuck, yeah, you are. So I put my fucking US flag on my chest and I wore that with fucking pride. Um. It goes back to my fucking association with the United States military. I've been in those fucking fields with those Marines. I've been in those positions where them helicopters. If they don't come, your casualties don't get out. They're putting in those Pedros. They're putting in those fucking call signs on a fucking, you know, tiny little hot landing zone. The RAF weren't coming to get us. U S pilots come and get us every single time. You know, the assets that they gave us, standing side by side with U S Marines.

• 4:06:31Speaker 01

  Fighting, watching each other bleed and die. Like, I fucking respect that flag to death and I'd die for it. Um, so to be asked if I would wear it was one of the proudest moments of my military career. And I fucking wore that with absolute pride. And I took that flag to war. And, yeah, I'm proud that I did that. I've got some fucking cool pictures from it as well.

• 4:06:56Speaker 01

  It, it really did mean a lot to me that I got to wear that flag. Um.

• 4:07:03Speaker 01

  And initially, my deployment was kind of strange because my team went to Syria. And I didn't have permissions to go to Syria, which was a weird situation to be in. But they were looking at a different target set than the one that the UK had permissions for. Bullshit, bureaucracy, all bad guys. What's the fucking difference? Kind of was how I looked at it. So I spent all of that time working up with that, that same team. Like for months, as tight as we could be. Those teams are way tighter than our troops for sure. We eat together, we train together, we shoot together, we lift together, like. Everything together, together, six man team, six man team. On Bravo six, right? So on Bravo six. And, uh.

• 4:07:44Speaker 01

  They all go and I don't get to go with them. I have to go somewhere else. So I go to Iraq. So I'm in Iraq now. My team's over there and I'm dislocated from them.

• 4:07:54Speaker 01

  So I'm out there doing a job down in Sulimanir. We're doing bits and pieces with a partner force down there. C T D, C T G, all those guys, great time. And then. Troops art major comes and he's like.

• 4:08:07Speaker 01

  Do you wanna go to the ETF, which is the task force? They're the ones doing the real sexy missions, right? The raids, the fucking high value targets. Not the stuff, this different from what the team in Syria was doing. This was a different, different troop, different task, different mission set. But it was really what I wanted to be doing. And he was like, I said to him, do I have permission? And he's like, there's helicopter coming in tonight. I suggest you get on the helicopter, get up there and we'll figure it out. I did. I got welcomed into the team, um, like a fucking brother. They put me in that chew and I became just one of them. And again, we ate together, trained together, watched fucking Netflix for hours together. And then we went on operations and we fucking tore it up together. It was a really, really,

• 4:08:52Speaker 01

  it was probably the best deployment I've ever done. We were flying around in fucking Blackhawks, smashing people up and it was fucking great. And it was everything that I wanted and thought that that unit would be about. The level of professionalism,

• 4:09:06Speaker 01

  not only from the operators, but from the one sixty if guys, all the way down to the target tiers. Those fucking aviation pilots are incredible. Like those night stalker dudes are fucking, it was so, so impressive, um.

• 4:09:19Speaker 01

  And it was felt really, really close. It did. I remember on one, it was no, it was the second, it was the second one. It was the second job that I did with them. The troops are, maybe we've been looking at this compound and the troops are, uh, the, sorry, the TL of the team. Um, was like, I need you to be off the Black Hawk and I need you to secure that window on the western side of this compound. And I'm at Roger that search. I've been in the regiment for about seven, eight years now. Like, you want me to run off a Black Hawk and just cover down on that one window? I can do that. You understand? I'm like, fuck yeah. So I do, I get out, we landed like, as we're going on in infill, the, uh, sorry, in infill, the daps are lighting up this guest house. They're like, literally as we're coming in, doors are open, like we're fucking on the ramp, oh, sorry, on, on the, uh,

• 4:10:03Speaker 01

  on the, the, the tailgate essentially. It wasn't a little bird, it was a Black Hawk. We're sat on the edge of the bird like this. The doors are open and you can just see the whole thing. Daps are coming in, shooting shit with rockets. I was like, this is fucking cool. If you can take a script, like a snapshot that you do with an iPhone and just have that picture in your head, it would be like, yeah, this is, this is cool. I come straight off the bird, straight to where I need to be. What we thought was a window was not a window. It would just look like that from the IR signature. It was actually a piece of like polystyrene and there was a heat source coming out of it. So my aperture is not a fucking aperture. It's it's a fucking, so I'm I'm now redundant, so I'm I need to get in the fight here. Soon as we're off, there's a gunfight happening. People are getting engaged on um two-way gunfight, unsurpressed weapons going back towards the assault force.

• 4:10:48Speaker 01

  And uh yeah, I sort of poked my muzzle through the through this piece of polystyrene styrofoam, right? You call it, you know, you know, the the, you know what I mean? They make cups out of it, you know what I'm talking about? So I like punched this through. It was the winter time, so they used it for insulation in the summer. I think they pop it out for for air, but I punched it through. And the guy that we're after pops up like this out of his bed from no different from me to your way. Three, four meters and it's our guy, clear as fucking day. He's got the same shitty haircut, same scraggly beard like and he's got this. You see his weapons right next to him. He's got a chest rig right next to him and he's kind of like this between helicopters landing and me being at that aperture seconds. It's that fast and I'm there and I see him and he comes up bolt up right like that and I can see him just about to do that.

• 4:11:31Speaker 01

  So I just dump three or four rounds into him straight away. Soon as I do that, somebody else in the room pops up and he's now trying to get to that weapon system. So I lit this dude up as well. So this is like within the first minute of basically being there. Then a fucking huge explosion goes off in the in the um the front of the building. This guy had brought his family into the room that he was in. He called his family out, so they ran across the the frontage of the building where all the guys were stacked up. Um a wife and two kids, he brought them in, called them into the room that he was in and then clacked himself off. So the guys are dealing with that on the front side of the building. I'm now maneuvering around the backside of the building where the rest of my teammates are locking down the backside. And then it happens, the fucking explosion that happens and I'm just like, fuck me.

• 4:12:15Speaker 01

  The whole wall just goes out and goes back in. It's like, you know, the them slow motion surreal moments. It was really like that. It was almost silent, but look, my whole team was stacked up on that. And I literally walk around the corner and it just goes and there's a fucking whole bunch of dust and smoke. I get hit on the head with this fucking big rock. My ears are ringing. This is a crazy fucking two minutes. So I've just jumped off the back of a helicopter, shot a couple of dudes. Now my team's been blown up, like this is fucking nuts. Yeah, it's crazy, mate and um. What had happened is somebody in that building had clacked themselves off. There was a whole bunch of S vests in this building. Um, but because of the thickness of the walls, it had absorbed most of the blast and instead of crushing on the guys or blowing the guys up.

• 4:12:58Speaker 01

  What happened is it actually just blown them out, if that makes sense. But I didn't know that. So the team leader's looking at me and I'm going, where's the fucking boys? And I'm like, I don't know where the fucking boys are. They've, they've got to be under there. So I'm now trying to. Fucking dig out this rubble. There's tons of rubble here now and I'm like, my, my fucking, the dudes are underneath there. My team is under there and I'm fucking. I'm like this trying to dig out and I just see one of them come wandering around out of the, out of the dust, completely the wrong way. No helmet on, no rifle, no fuck all. And I'm like. I grab him and I'm like, are you good? And he's like. I fucking think so. He's like, where's my gun? Where's my helmet? And I'm like, dude, don't fucking worry. I'll then send him over to the team leader. And then, then where's the other two guys, right? There's a five man team and.

• 4:13:38Speaker 01

  The team leader's accounted for, I'm accounted for, he's accounted for, two more guys I'm accounted for. And again, one of them's just like, when the dust settles, just lying there. He was, he didn't have anything blown off. He was all his, all his intact. He was just in shock. Pick him up, send him out, find the other dude. We recover all the equipment. It's just a fucking carnage for a couple of minutes, but it was like. Because of that evening and because of those events, what happened, the squadron. Or that troop in particular really respected me, I think. I think I earned their trust. Because they knew that I would do the right thing at the right time and I would fucking perform. When it really mattered, you know, um. We had a whole, we had a whole bunch of fucking gnarly fucking jobs like that. I remember one particular one where we were closing up on a compound.

• 4:14:23Speaker 01

  Again, lessons identified. This is where experience comes into play.

• 4:14:27Speaker 01

  Although I was in a, you know, a team of rock stars, most of those guys had only done three or four years or maybe five. I'd done eight and a whole bunch of more deployments. I was more experienced than, I was as experienced as the team leader, but. I was still Bravo six and I always was happy to be Bravo six, like. So um yeah, this one fucking job we did, same thing. It's like we try calling them out, we get engaged on infill. We're like, we're not committing assault force to the building because we keep getting blown up. This is like, well, every single time we go into these buildings, they crack themselves off without fail. You could almost, you could almost set your watch by it, it's that predictable. So we're gonna change our TTPs and tactics. We're just gonna stand off and just call these, call these fucking dudes out. We don't need to get close on the building. We learned our lesson the hard way. Luckily, no one got hurt the first time, so we backed off.

• 4:15:13Speaker 01

  But then it's like, come out, they're like, they start firing guns at us. It's like, cool, hit it with the daps. So the fucking daps will light it up. So same again, come out. No, they fire back. Cool, get the ranger platoon up here, they'll fire a cold gust off at it, boom. And you just do this cat and mouse game until either the building's destroyed or there's no more fight. Like, we need to get the SSE. We can't just kill these people, blow the building up and leave. Like, ultimately, the minute you fire a shot at us or you don't come up with your hands out, you bought a ticket, you voted. You ain't, it's only gonna end one way, like, these guys are not fucking around. You, you, you understand, but we don't wanna just destroy the building because otherwise, what's the point in us being there? We might as well have done that with a fucking five hundred pounder, you know? So we need to get this fucking information.

• 4:15:55Speaker 01

  So anyway, we're going up, we're closing, and we think we're clearing this building. It's like a row of, it's all burnt out at this point. Like, there's a row of um rooms, and we're working sequentially now. So it's my team, we're going from room to room to room, working up to this end one. And we're fragging every room now, so it's hand grenades are going into every single room. Then we're, then we put the dog in it, then we clear it, right? So this is, this is kinetic.

• 4:16:17Speaker 01

  And I can start to hear praying. I can start to hear it, and I'm like, am I fucking losing my mind here? And I've got these peltors, over the ear peltors, so I pop my little thing out, and sure as fuck, I can hear this dude praying. And that's never a good sign, because he's gonna fucking crack himself off in a minute. So I'm like, we need, and I tell him, I was like, dude, there's somebody in there. You know, peltor, and he's like, what? And I'm like, there's somebody in that room. And he's like, is there? And I'm like, I can hear, I can hear him, dude. Like, that's how close we are at this point. And he's like, fuck, alright, cool. So we put the dog in. In fact, we didn't put the dog in, the dog got wind of it and fucking was in there straight away. So now we're in a, we're in a bad situation because we've got a dude in there that's definitely gonna try and crack himself off. And he's a hundred percent armed. And we've got a dog, which is part of our team in there.

• 4:17:01Speaker 01

  So now we, we can't just put grenades in there. We can't just put a T-bomb or, you know, whatever it is that we wanna do to it. We can't fire up hellfire, eh? We don't wanna lose the dog, obviously. Luckily, because they don't normally come off the bite. We got, got the dog off the bite. Dog comes off the bite and then it's like, now it's posting grenades. You know, that's how, that's how intimate that is. Now to the point where it's like, we're fucking having grenades fucking thrown at this geezer to, to, to neutralize the threat, you know? But it was extremely violent, those deployments, like those, those raids, there was, it was all or nothing with those, with those raids and that target set. It was either, yeah, they come out with their hands up, they get detained, no shots fired, all good. Or it was like, they are fighting to the fucking bit of death and it is going to go on all night, you know, to the point where

• 4:17:46Speaker 01

  it almost becomes not worth going because we know that that's gonna happen. So it's like, let's just fucking cut the comedy and just smash it with a five hundred pounder and give up on this. Because how many operators do we need to risk to get that hard drive or whatever it might be, you know? But we always did it and we made it work. But the level of professionalism that those guys had, second to none. The, so, so impressive, that unit. And, um,

• 4:18:09Speaker 01

  I came back from that deployment. Well, there was some other stuff with, with, um.

• 4:18:18Speaker 01

  So, so.

• 4:18:21Speaker 01

  So Matt, Matt Tomrow is a good friend of mine. He was out in Syria, working his job for the regiment. He was a B Squadron guy. And, um, he was hanging around with my team and I told you, my team was over there, my six man team. So he used to phone me up and the TL used to phone me up and be like, you know, oh, I've got a new Bravo six. You're not Bravo six anymore. Matty's, Matty's taking your spot. And I'm like, fuck, you know, like, the fuck's going on? It's just shit talking, it's all good fun. But, um, when I got out there.

• 4:18:55Speaker 01

  He wasn't going on the ground. They were just, he was training them to do sniper shit, or whatever he was doing, and the partner force. And he didn't really have that connection with Matty until I turned up. And um, so there's two Matts, one's the team leader and one's Matt Tomro. So I kind of sat down with Matt Tomro and I was like, why the fuck aren't you not going on the ground? He was like, oh, I just haven't really asked, you know, I didn't really, you know, I didn't want to step on anyone's toes, you know, they're doing their own thing. I said, fuck that dude, you're an awesome operator, why the fuck would they not want to have an extra pair of eyes on the ground? So I speak to Matt and I'm like. Do you, do you mind if, if Matt goes on the ground with you, like, can, can you do that? He's like, yeah, fuck no, if you voucher him, and I'm like, yeah dude, I fucking trust, I'd go through the door with him, like.

• 4:19:37Speaker 01

  That's the biggest compliment an operator can tell anyone, I'd fucking go through the door with him any day of the week. So he's like, yeah, cool. So he starts going out on the ground and I was there for, you know, a little while and we did some, we did some jobs together, um.

• 4:19:55Speaker 01

  Then the deployment finishes for us. He stays, he's on a six month rotation and we've come halfway through his, so we do our four months and we go home. New squadron, A squadron come out. And it's only a couple of weeks of being back in Bragg, trying to fucking get your head around that mad deployment. And I get a phone call. And they're like, Matt's been killed. And I was like, what do you mean Matt's been killed? And I was like, Matt's been killed, there's uh, something's happened. And John Dunbar's been killed as well. I, I fucking couldn't shake it, man, for so long, I was, I felt so fucking, so guilty, so, so.

• 4:20:42Speaker 01

  If I hadn't introduced him, he wouldn't have been on that fucking job, you know? That's how I felt about it and it's taken me a long time to come to terms with that and I know it's not that and he wanted to be on that. He wanted to be on that fucking job. But, I don't know, it's fucking, that's a hard one for me, I, I fucking love that dude, you know? I'm fucking so sorry for him and John and their families and that fucking broke my heart, man, it really did, um.

• 4:21:13Speaker 01

  That caused me a lot of fucking problems for a long time. I started to to drink a lot. Um. I couldn't shake that feeling of guilt. I still feel it. Some days more than others. Um.

• 4:21:32Speaker 01

  And it was just so hard, man. We had funerals on both sides of the fucking, both sides of the Atlantic. The the guys from the unit flew over for Matt's. We had guys fly over for John's. It was like, it ripped our community in half, man. And I know, I know, you know.

• 4:21:47Speaker 01

  It's what we do, but it fuck, this, this was when I stopped running, Sean. That explosion and that, the explosion blew the lid off that box that I told you about before. That was real time for me. I thought all my teammates were dead that day. They weren't. I was lucky. But then when Matt died, I fucking, that was it. That was what fucking tipped me. And that was ten years of constant warfare at this time.

• 4:22:15Speaker 01

  And it all just fucking. Came out and I just fucking lost it. I lost my fucking mind, dude. I finished that deployment with those guys. We buried Matt.

• 4:22:31Speaker 01

  We buried John and then. About two weeks after that.

• 4:22:38Speaker 01

  I went back to the UK and then very shortly after that I deployed.

• 4:22:44Speaker 01

  Back out with um my own squadron. It was our squadron's time to go out. So I had no time to process that. And. I got to theatre and they were like, you're gonna go and be the L and O. With the unit. So I was back with the unit for another four months, which I was fucking happy about. A little bit with A Squadron and then with B Squadron, with Kyle Morgan, actually. We said, we shared a team, we were in the same team.

• 4:23:10Speaker 01

  And I was just straight back into the fight. And I was fucking drinking hard. I was fucking getting after it, like.

• 4:23:21Speaker 01

  I was taking testosterone, I was drinking whiskey, I was getting in gunfights, I was fucking all of it. And I was just fucking hurting. I was fucking dying inside, you know, and uh.

• 4:23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23:38Speaker 01

  I did.

• 4:23:40Speaker 01

  I did a lot of damage to myself during that period. I lost my grandma as well, and my grandma was as close to me as. You know, she's the one consistent factor in my life growing up. I lost her. I had to go back on R and R. Last time I ever saw her. Um, so I had to go back on my R and R to, to do that funeral.

• 4:24:00Speaker 01

  Matt, obviously, a very close family friend, lost their daughter who was exactly the same age as my, my daughter. A freak accident, a rock fell off a cliff and hit her in the head. Beautiful baby girl, you know, that might used to play with my daughter. So that hit home. And then.

• 4:24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a fucking bunch of other shit. With a helicopter crash, we lost one of the one sixtieth guys. I watched that. I watched that bird go down. I watched that team.

• 4:24:32Speaker 01

  Get fucking smashed to bits. I came off the back of the, we were four, four birds, landing and I was on three.

• 4:24:40Speaker 01

  Judge three, three, and they were on judge four, four, and I'm on the left side, port side doors were going in, they fire the IR rocket to the DZ, it's a really dark night. As I go off the bird, the last thing I do is I let look over and there's a load of like. What looks like sometimes when the, the dust and the, the sand from the helicopters, it's like a little white light, you can see it, it's like, you know what I mean, it's like it like glistens in, in, in like. So I see that and I'm like, okay, cool, judge four falls down. And as I get off the bird, iron clip, running towards target. And I just see this fucking debris field everywhere. I'm like, this is fucking weird. I'm like, what is that? And then I look over and I just see the, the rotor gear, the top gear. You know, the bit that sticks out the top of the helicopter where the, um, the blades are attached and it's just on the side, it's on the floor and I'm like, fuck.

• 4:25:22Speaker 01

  And I look over, I'm the, I'm like literally the closest guy to it at this point, and I look over. And the fucking bird is down and it's on its side and it's like fuck the fucking but that's not hard landing that's a fucking crash. And there's fucking dudes all over the place it fucking hit the deck basically. And it'd gone like that and as it went the guys were getting ready to jump out the bird so some of them are unclipped now so they're getting thrown out some of them are clipped there was guys clipped on to the bird. As it's like two or three feet across the the ground underneath it basically being dragged along anyway. We lost the pilot, the pilot was killed, um.

• 4:25:59Speaker 01

  All the boys were fucked up and it was just a fucking shit show. Fucking dudes wandering around like dudes do it's like where's my nods like fucking never mind your nods bro it's fucking bigger fish to fry here you know. And I remember running back to it and then being told no. Go and lock down your position and that professionalism then I know it don't sounds callous but that was fucking impressive. We've just had a helicopter crash, continue fucking Charlie Mike go to your position lock down the compound and we did we fucking dealt with that Moscow situation. And then we got right back to work. That fucking impressed me deeply. And we fucked those dudes up that night.

• 4:26:39Speaker 01

  And we got everything we needed and that was that was another cat and mouse game of going in and going back out throwing grenades alright cool we're not playing this fucking game anymore we ended up smashing it with a. GBU thirty nine which is a two hundred and fifty pound bomb coming off the gunship that's what that was the end of it we were like nah we're fucking done playing games with you dude we've given you fucking multiple chances we've got fucking. We've got fallen angels and we are not fucking around tonight so we smashed those dudes up pretty fucking good you know and uh. Damn. We got to the morning.

• 4:27:09Speaker 01

  And we were like, we all thought they were just gonna take us back and they were like, ah nah, you're staying on the ground. Was that why don't we deny the helicopters up nah we are not having another fucking mogadishu here we are not leaving that fucking bird here we've lost people here. And there's no fucking way on God's earth are we gonna stand by and watch people jump up and down on that helicopter we ain't doing that we're staying. And we're recovering every single fucking piece of it and that's what we did. We stayed on the ground all day, all night, thirty six hours we were on the ground. We caught them that helicopter the teams came in we recovered it they did a land convoy they drove in they low loaded that bird and they took it back to where it needed to be. And we did not leave a fucking single piece of US material on that fucking battlefield and rightly so you know like.

• 4:27:53Speaker 01

  Fuck those dudes, you don't get that from us. We don't give you nothing. They take everything and give you nothing, you know? And I was impressed by that too. You know, just the whole. Mindset and mentality of that. I've said this before and I'll say it again. British officers are built and bred to be politicians. U S officers are built to be warfighters. I fucking firmly believe that. Some of the command decisions that were being made on the ground that night by those, by those leaders. Is deeply fucking impressive and I can only say how proud I am to have been part of it. And that's why that flag means so much to me. That's why. Moments like that.

• 4:28:35Speaker 01

  But um, yeah, that was, that was a fucking bad time in my life, dude. There was a lot going on.

• 4:28:42Speaker 01

  After that, I went, I'm still deployed now. I'm still, I'm still in theatre. And I finished my four months with that squadron and I go back to finish off the remaining two months.

• 4:28:57Speaker 01

  With my own squadron and I am fucking drinking and I am not giving a fuck about anything. Life, I didn't care. I just didn't care. I was just trying to be. Anything. And it all came to a head one night and uh. I had to go home. They're like, Jay, you need to fucking go home, bro. You need to, you, you need to go home and you need to fucking rest and. I did. I was burnt the fuck out and I had nothing to give. I was, I was done, man. And for the first time ever, I had to take a knee. I drove so hard and so fast for so long. And never stopped that the wheels came off and that's exactly what happened. And I went back and took some time out of the squadron and.

• 4:29:44Speaker 01

  Tried to process it all. Tried to process ten, fifteen years of fucking. Continuous combat. Continuous fucking combat.

• 4:29:53Speaker 01

  And I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength. I didn't have the tools. And uh.

• 4:30:00Speaker 01

  All the fucking body armour and gunships in the world can't save you in those fights, you know. And I didn't do very well at it, really didn't. And I'm resentful for the fact that.

• 4:30:14Speaker 01

  When you put your hand up and say, I need a fucking break. You get labelled. There's a stigma that comes with that.

• 4:30:21Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:30:21Speaker 01

  I don't care what anyone says, you get downgraded, they take you off the AORBAP, you're not deploying, you're not allowed to even fucking play with guns. So the one thing that I had, my fucking safety net, they took that away from me. And they put me in some fucking shitty job. And they were just like, yeah. You go and do your thing. I said, I fucking help, I need help. And they fucking didn't give me enough. And when they did give it to me, they made me feel like shit for taking it and I fucking hate them for that.

• 4:30:53Speaker 01

  But um.

• 4:30:56Speaker 01

  I took some time out, I did. And I was like, right, I need a new hobby. And so I took up boxing. And I fought in a regimental boxing show. Which is thousands of people and. Normally operators don't do it, they're bringing the army team or the navy team and they'll box each other and it's a. It's a money spinning exercise, people come and donate celebrities and all this bullshit and Tom Hardy and all these kind of. People come to it, but I was like, no. If it's in our fucking building, then there should be operators fighting. So I took up boxing. And they're like, Jay, this fight's in three months. I was like, I know. Have you ever boxed before? And I'm like, no. So this is no joke, these are like legit, you're gonna end up with a legit boxer that's probably been doing this a long time. I was like, fuck it, can't be that hard, I'll learn.

• 4:31:36Speaker 01

  So I went and lived in London, took some time off work and just trained, trained, trained for for three months, lived, my friends are pro boxing coach, so. I lived like a fighter, I lived in a tiny little one bedroom flat. I trained three times a day. I didn't drink. I did everything I could to get my mind right. And eventually.

• 4:31:56Speaker 01

  Fight comes along. I feel like I'm finally back on track. I feel like I've regained some control and you know, had to have something to focus on, Sean, you know, that's why I took up boxing. I was like, well, these motherfuckers ain't gonna let me shoot anymore and I damn sure ain't gonna be able to go back to, to, to theatre. So I need something. So I'm training for this fight like a professional. I put my heart and soul into it, mate. And um, the night after, I go out for a couple of celebration drinks with my friends, you know. And I've got two black, I didn't win the fight. Um, unsurprisingly. Like, I've got two black eyes and some woman comes up to me. She starts talking to me like I'm a piece of shit. Oh, whatever you've been doing, what have you been doing? She's come up to me.

• 4:32:41Speaker 01

  And I'm like, sorry, what? She goes, oh, you've been boxing. I was like, yeah, I was in the, I was in the show yesterday. She goes, oh, it doesn't look like you won. She completely tried to humiliate me in front of my friends, basically. So I said, sorry, who the fuck are you? And she's like, oh, don't you know who I am? My, my husband's a art major. And I was like, I don't give a fuck who your husband is. Like, I'm sure he wouldn't be that impressed with you coming up to dudes on the fucking, you know, talking the way you're doing. She's like, I know the commanding officer. I'll get you fired. And at this point here, I'm like, you fucking don't talk to me like that. Never fucking come up to me. I don't care who you are at this point. Like, you're so disrespectful. And like, you are not your husband when it comes to rank. Do not try and pull that shit with me, you know?

• 4:33:19Speaker 01

  Anyway, she goes off and then writes up some bullshit story. I get pulled in. They give me a three month warning. I get punished. It's just like the fucking hypocrisy of it. It's just, I gave my heart and fucking soul to train for that fight and she comes up to me like that and I get punished after everything that I've just fucking done there. And like, that was the start of it, man. That was when I started to lose the fucking will to live, literally. I was like, I can't win. I can't win if I do. I can't win if I don't. I dedicate my life. I don't train. I don't, you know, I don't drink. I train. Pick up a sport. I represent my regiment in the boxing ring in front of a thousand people. It's quite, it's quite a scary thing to do. Get up in front of all of your peers, under them lights. And get in the ring with somebody and box. Especially if you don't know how to do it.

• 4:34:01Speaker 01

  So I was fucking angry about that dude, really fucking angry.

• 4:34:05Speaker 01

  And uh.

• 4:34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was that that was like, no, you you're not gonna be in the squadron any longer, you've got to go and do another job. So then I was given the job of being the CQB instructor. And that was great. That was fucking great, because I had something to fucking focus on again, and that's when I started coming up with, you know, looking, found GBRS and. Was looking across and I had people that looked up to me and had purpose and I became a subject matter expert in the thing that I love. Being a chief instructor of the CQB cell in the regiment is the best fucking job in the world, bar none, period, in my mind. I was winning again. But um.

• 4:34:47Speaker 01

  I just couldn't shake that fucking feeling. I just couldn't fucking shake it, I'm just hopeless. Damn. There's nothing I can do that's gonna make me feel any better, so I'm like, fuck.

• 4:34:59Speaker 01

  I can't win, I felt like that and I and I stopped going to see. The nurses, like the therapists, because every single time I walked into that office, she'd make me fill out a form that said PTSD on the top of it. And it's fucking degrading, like, don't talk to me like there's something wrong with me, look at my military history, look all this shit that I've been through. And put myself through, I'm not, no one's accountable for that but me, like. Stop asking me if I'm gonna kill myself, do you understand, like, do better.

• 4:35:30Speaker 01

  And she admitted it, you know, and again. I wanna bring this up because it was fucking woeful, the support that we got, and I know my friends have been through similar experiences and they'll say the same thing. And it might seem a little bit unfair me saying this on here, because they can't defend themselves, so I'm not gonna name people because I've got more class and dignity than that. But what I would say is if they are watching this, they need to do fucking better because these operators need it and they deserve it, and I felt that personally. And I felt let down, I did. And to be punished for some bullshit that didn't even happen, no one asked for my side of the story, you know.

• 4:36:02Speaker 01

  It just sent me spiraling, it just sent me spiraling and spiraling to the point where I just fucking ended up in a car with a fucking pistol. That's how I got there.

• 4:36:15Speaker 01

  I did too many deployments too quickly without processing it is my learning point from that.

• 4:36:22Speaker 01

  And I thought, my ego thought that I could handle it and that I would be alright. And I was until I wasn't.

• 4:36:33Speaker 01

  And then I really wasn't and it was too late and I couldn't stop it.

• 4:36:38Speaker 01

  And the only way I could stop it was to do that.

• 4:36:42Speaker 01

  That's what I thought. And yeah, I'm not fucking proud of it.

• 4:36:48Speaker 01

  But now I know what that looks like. I know what rock bottom is and I'm never fucking going there again. Never, never, never, never. And I'm grateful for that, you know? Now I've got a superpower. Now I know what the bottom really looks like and I'm nowhere near that, you know?

• 4:37:06Speaker 01

  But that was a fucking crazy, crazy period of my life. That was like 2018, basically from 2000. Well, if you really want to go back from my first deployment 2008 all the way up to

• 4:37:20Speaker 01

  2018, which at that point it was, that was 10 deployments, 10 years, fucking multiple different jobs. Selection, trying to be a fucking dad. Afghanistan four times, fucking god knows where else, North Africa, Iraq.

• 4:37:39Speaker 01

  Whole bunch of fucking, whole bunch of shit's happened in that time and I just

• 4:37:47Speaker 01

  just didn't deal with it. I couldn't, didn't know how. And I hope, you know, if fucking some person sees what I'm saying and goes, if that sounds, if you sound like me, you've got to fucking address it, boys, I'm telling you. There's too many fucking dudes putting their fucking uniforms on and hanging themselves in garages. We've got to stop it and the only way to do it is to face it and it's the scariest thing I ever fucking did. It terrifies me because I don't know the answer. I don't know how to solve it. It's not a CQB problem. There's no, there's no doctrine for it. You know, it's hard. It's fucking difficult. And I'm grateful and I truly, truly, truly am grateful for the support that I've been shown by people. And I mentioned it before.

• 4:38:30Speaker 01

  If it wasn't for DJ and Cole giving me that lifeline,

• 4:38:35Speaker 01

  I'd be fucking lying in a ditch in the Ukraine somewhere or I'd be fucking, wouldn't be sat here. I can say that with certainty.

• 4:38:42Speaker 01

  So, you know, again, truly grateful and truly thankful to have good people around me, you know. I'm blessed. And I am still in the fight. And I ain't ever going back there. And I'm only going one way now, and I'm getting stronger. And I'm getting wiser. And I'm getting more emotionally intelligent. I'm getting more in touch with myself. And I'm being kinder to myself. I don't, I give myself a bit more slack these days than I used to. But, um.

• 4:39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not fucking easy to do. That CQB job did, did help me though. It did.

• 4:39:19Speaker 01

  How are you doing now? I'm good. I am. Believe it or not, I look like a mess tonight, but. Um, I'm good. I'm really good. Um. I'm happy. There's no dark clouds on the horizon. My relationship with my daughter is, is not perfect. I, I can do more, but it's the best it's ever been. Um. We were on vacation recently together. She's so cool. We hang out. I'm happy. Does she know any of this stuff? Mm-mm.

• 4:39:48Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 4:39:51Speaker 01

  I can't. I'm not strong enough to tell her face to face. I can't.

• 4:39:56Speaker 01

  I'm weak when it comes to that, you know? Is she gonna watch this?

• 4:40:01Speaker 01

  She will. Maybe we'll watch it together.

• 4:40:08Speaker 01

  It's very difficult to have that conversation with a fifteen year old.

• 4:40:12Speaker 01

  You know?

• 4:40:16Speaker 01

  But in some way, on some level, I hope that when she does see this.

• 4:40:21Speaker 01

  Maybe me not showing up for that birthday party makes a bit more sense now. There were times out there I couldn't be a dad. I just couldn't. I didn't, I couldn't. I would have been, it would have been.

• 4:40:33Speaker 01

  It would have been a bad fucking idea, you know? So if I didn't turn up that day, it was because there was some stuff going on that I had to kind of figure out, you know? I don't want to see me like that. It's quite annoying.

• 4:40:47Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think she'll handle this?

• 4:40:49Speaker 01

  Well.

• 4:40:51Speaker 01

  She's level headed.

• 4:40:55Speaker 01

  She'll see it and it's important to me because I need her to know who I am. And I need her to know that I am never, ever going back to that place. I've already been there. It's not like I need to see it. I've already seen it. I know what it's like. And I hope she takes some strength from that because

• 4:41:15Speaker 01

  I am fully focused on trying to be better in every way I can and

• 4:41:21Speaker 01

  I've got to get this out of my system. This helps for sure.

• 4:41:26Speaker 01

  But I want, I don't want to have to lie to her anymore. I don't want to have to pretend that I'm okay or I've been all right, you know, I am now, I'm good, but like I just want her to know who I am. You know? That's all I want.

• 4:41:39Shawn Ryan?

  I'm really happy you're doing this.

• 4:41:41Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 4:41:42Shawn Ryan?

  I'm really happy you're doing this.

• 4:41:43Speaker 01

  I am. I'm trying, man.

• 4:41:46Shawn Ryan?

  I think she will be too.

• 4:41:48Speaker 01

  I hope so. She's a level headed girl, man. She'll, she'll get it, right?

• 4:41:54Speaker 01

  But that's why when people put pressure on my family or they start to do things that hurt my family, especially if it's my own people, my tolerance for it is fucking less than zero. My empathy for you is zero. I'll be ruthless in my pursuit of, of getting what's right and what's right for not only for my family, but for the other families, because there's a million stories just like mine. I'm not alone. I know I'm not. There's a million other guys out there. There's a squadron full of them on both sides of the Atlantic. Doesn't matter what color that flag is, what shape that patch is. SWAT team guys, law enforcement guys, firefighters.

• 4:42:34Speaker 01

  You know, it's not even just military guys, young men all across. There, there's an epidemic of mental health issues and people don't like saying mental health issues, but let's fucking call it what it is. Because if we don't, then guess what happens? And if

• 4:42:50Speaker 01

  if by actually saying it and actually addressing it, it gives somebody maybe a little bit of confidence to go in.

• 4:43:00Speaker 01

  Talk to somebody or just even acknowledge it personally. And it's fucking worth it. So I'm glad we're doing this too.

• 4:43:11Shawn Ryan?

  Good. Take a break?

• 4:43:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:43:17Shawn Ryan?

  I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Sean Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan Show.

• 4:44:01Shawn Ryan?

  And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's going to be all things terrorists, how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part, the newsletter is actually free. We're not going to spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two, if we release two shows. The only other thing that's going to be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that.

• 4:44:45Shawn Ryan?

  But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up, link's in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter.

• 4:44:59Shawn Ryan?

  Want more from the Sean Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode. Plus, unlock bonus content like our extra intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions, our new SRS onsite specials, and access to an entire tactical training library you will not find anywhere else. And the best part? Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now, support the mission, and become part of the Sean Ryan Show's story.

• 4:45:44Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Jay.

• 4:45:47Shawn Ryan?

  We're getting ready to talk about what you, what you originally came here for.

• 4:45:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:45:51Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, but before we do, I just want to say thank you for, for being so open and

• 4:46:02Shawn Ryan?

  talking about all that stuff. I know it's, it's, it's not easy to revisit that kind of stuff, but.

• 4:46:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:46:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's important.

• 4:46:10Speaker 01

  I bounced that thank you right back to you and say, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that.

• 4:46:17Speaker 01

  And I think it is important. It's important for me for lots of personal reasons, but I also think it's important that you don't waste an opportunity like this and that you have to be a bit brave sometimes. And if you don't, then you can't affect anything. And, you know, I want.

• 4:46:42Speaker 01

  There's good that comes from this situation. I'm in a good spot now and I'm in a good spot because I have had to and I'm willing to acknowledge everything that I've just talked about and be aware of it and have that level of emotional awareness.

• 4:46:59Speaker 01

  It's helped me out an untold amount by just being able to look in the mirror and understand where it is I've been and how far I've come and how lucky I am and how much.

• 4:47:15Speaker 01

  Good stuff I've got going on in my life and how grateful and thankful for it I am because I really truly am and I'm in a really, really good spot now and long may it continue.

• 4:47:26Speaker 01

  But you've got to air that stuff out. You've got to do it. You can't keep it in. Like, trust me. Well, you know the drill. Like, it doesn't work. And I've been a test case for that myself. And I know it doesn't work. I'm never doing it again. So, thank you.

• 4:47:40Shawn Ryan?

  It's my honour. And you're welcome.

• 4:47:43Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 4:47:45Shawn Ryan?

  Let's get into it.

• 4:47:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:47:46Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about your last operation.

• 4:47:49Speaker 01

  Yep. Twenty twenty-two.

• 4:47:55Speaker 01

  I was an assault team leader, so not troop sergeant major, but an assault team leader. So I was in charge of a fire team essentially, but I was also a target here. And we'd been watching this guy

• 4:48:06Speaker 01

  conduct attacks. He was the partner forces number one target that they wanted. He was an assassination cell leader. He'd done a whole bunch of nefarious stuff. We'd watch him opening car- carry weapons, which was very rare. It shows one of two things, naivety or full radicalism because they don't open carry. Because they know we can see it. So if they do, then it means that they're they're serious. They're true believers. So anyway, after, you know, weeks at this point of gathering information, intelligence,

• 4:48:47Speaker 01

  watching these guys do all kinds of, you know, bad stuff, basically. We was ordered to conduct a detention operation on this target, which I planned or was involved in the planning with heavily. And we did everything we could to mitigate risk to force and mitigate risk to mission by.

• 4:49:10Speaker 01

  Our planning process and our professionalism in terms of trying to put ourselves in a most advantageous position in order to capture and detain this individual, which was the main goal. The objective of this operation was to detain this individual as we had done successfully dozens of times before on that deployment and we were in a good spot with it. We understood the human terrain, we understood the location, we had spent hundreds of hours at this time of manpower, ISR, and we had a good handle on the situation. So the order was given, signed off from the highest level, from my regiment, to go down

• 4:49:54Speaker 01

  and attempt to capture this individual.

• 4:50:01Speaker 01

  So on the night of the operation, July 3rd, 4th, we went down and that morning he'd conducted an assassination on a local checkpoint and we observed him wearing a suicide vest. And I remember coming in that morning and being like, damn, looks like he's got a vest on. And then we get reports, human reports, telling us that, yeah, that's exactly what's been going on and he's now driving around this town with that vest on as a status thing to say, you know, this is what I'm about. Doesn't change a thing for us. We approach the same operation as we would do anything, you know, there's no more or less diligence put into it. Due diligence is always applied and we try our very, very best as professionals to make

• 4:50:46Speaker 01

  sure that we are not putting ourselves in unnecessary risk and that we're dealing with the situation in a professional manner. So it doesn't make any difference to us. It doesn't change how we look at it, it doesn't change our mindset, doesn't change our approach to this target. It's just another target and we would consider all people to be of high threat. This one was just active at that time.

• 4:51:09Speaker 01

  So anyway, through a series of events, we uh, we moved down on vehicle. Uh, and the primary location that we had planned to do the operation had changed last minute because he's now hiding. Um, in a rural location, which we know and have observed before to be a hideout location where they go. Um, to cache weapons, which we've seen there, to plan attacks and to basically hide out. Um, when they think the local partner force is probably going to come and try and do a raid. He was right, you know, but unfortunately for him, we'd been watching him for weeks. So we knew exactly where he was going to go. And sure enough, that's where he was. Anyway, as we move closer towards the target, he gets spooked. He then moves off uh, into a different location.

• 4:51:50Speaker 01

  And we go firm where we are and the decision is made to pursue. Into uh, an urban area, which we don't take lightly because we've planned. Meticulously and in detail for a very long period of time.

• 4:52:07Speaker 01

  Executing the operation on a specific place on the, on the ground. So we understand it. We've got, you know, all the positions are there and all the cordons and all the rest of it. So. Now we're having to take a little bit of time to just reevaluate the plan, do a risk assessment and understand. The situation that we are potentially walking into and does it merit the sort of. Risk versus reward conversation, which to us it did, and we were comfortable with what we did. Comfortable with the decisions that we were making at this point. So we get off.

• 4:52:41Speaker 01

  The initial target and we start moving into the urban area where this guy has gone back to his original. Location, his original house. Um, he's picked up a couple of other individuals that we know to be um. Assassination cell members, uh, and now moving to a third location, which is a known weapons cache. And we know it's there because we've got the intelligence reports and the ISAR footage to back that up. So. It's all matching in line with pattern of life. It's all nefarious and. He's already tried to avoid capture one time when he heard our vehicles. So now he's effectively moved to another position. And then a further position to avoid capture. So our intention never changes. We are there to conduct a detention operation.

• 4:53:28Speaker 01

  We get out of the vehicles, as soon as we get out of the vehicles, we're engaged multiple times from different firing points, very difficult to PID those firing points at night and in that that timeframe, you've got multiple radios going off, there was no aviation, the JTAC couldn't get the the um Apaches overhead quick enough, um so we were basically on our own and now we're in a very dangerous situation, you have to understand Sean, that we are not on the original target that we planned, we are now in a place of his choosing in the night against guys that are armed, we know them to be armed and are now engaging us actively, we are, I'm not going to go as far as to say troops in contact because that has a different connotation in my brain,

• 4:54:11Speaker 01

  that's that's a different thing, but we are under fire for sure, um and everybody in the task force acknowledges that, it's like fifty people on the ground and everyone's seeing what we're seeing, this is not just my opinion, this is fact, that's been backed up by dozens of witness statements at this point, ISR footage, etc, etc. We get out, we move into an L shape

• 4:54:37Speaker 01

  formation, which is exactly what we would employ to do a detention operation. At this point here, there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that this is a very dangerous situation, but we are making every single attempt we can to capture this guy, detain him, we're still taking incoming rounds into the into the team, now I see people maneuvering and he's not maneuvering away, he's not maneuvering in a way that's peaceful, he's not got his hands up, he's not, he is moving in an aggressive manner and he is moving tactically and when I mean tactically, I mean up, down, like soldiers move when they're moving into position, now I know that there's weapon caches around it and we're under fire, so I have to be, you know, I have to

• 4:55:22Speaker 01

  make decisions on what I'm seeing in front of me, um so I make the decision to engage a target, it's it's hostile intent to me all day long, it's a threat to my teammates and it's a threat to myself, um and the rules of engagement are there to help us and this is, you know, well within our rules of engagement for the most part, but we are there to to detain this guy, but he is now trying to fight us basically.

• 4:55:49Speaker 01

  So my team and I, we return fire. And we start to manoeuvre up on this, on this element. So we know that there's four people, right? And we are getting closer towards the target and I engage one of the targets from roughly 130 metres and get effective hits on target essentially. And we're still manoeuvring up towards the thing. So in my mind, there's four, there's, there's four people out there. And this is highly dangerous.

• 4:56:13Speaker 01

  So we're moving with extreme caution and due diligence, making sure that we've always got one foot on the ground, making sure that we're communicating to our satellite and call signs and making sure that everyone is aware of what we're doing. There are no fratricide issues and we're now closing up on the enemy as per good doctrine, okay? As we start to get closer, you can start to see this individual moving, um, still, still moving away from us and like across our path, not backwards, not forward, not surrendering. Um, and not putting his hands up. And this is immediate threat. Now we're in a farm, farmland, basically. It's undulating ground, it's dark, um, and it's, you know, it's, it's a high risk position. I'm now committing my teammates and myself, um, towards these enemy combatants

• 4:56:58Speaker 01

  that we have already established are hostile. And there should be four and we're only tracking two at this point. So this is an extremely dangerous position for me and my guys to be in. Um, and due to the professionalism, the courage and the, you know, extraordinary level of, you know,

• 4:57:21Speaker 01

  boldness from those guys next to me to my right and left. We managed to close down these, these enemy combatants and neutralize the threat times two.

• 4:57:31Speaker 01

  I'm still concerned about where the other people are. So we then withdraw back to the vehicles and everything's okay. We then go and conduct, um, SSE on the, on the two bodies. Um, confirm what we need to know. The partner force are absolutely ecstatic at this point. Their number one target's been taken off the deck. Um, so all in all.

• 4:57:55Speaker 01

  There is a level of satisfaction that we executed a good operation. We were planned to do it and we, you know, the fact that he bought a ticket and voted was his, his op- his option. He did that. We gave them multiple, multiple chances to be detained and they wanted to fight us. They wanted to kill us. Um.

• 4:58:15Speaker 01

  And it just turns out that we were better than they were. It's that simple. Um. So I didn't really think too much of it. It's, you know, it's what we were there to do. We were ordered to go and do that. And we demonstrated our professionalism to the highest level, in my opinion. Um.

• 4:58:35Speaker 01

  And at the time, I thought that would have been okay.

• 4:58:40Speaker 01

  Our commanding officer at the time signed it off and was happy with what had happened and had no issue with it. Um, and then it got pushed up to the director of special forces.

• 4:58:53Shawn Ryan?

  You get put in for a citation for this career.

• 4:58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was given a citation for that whole deployment, yeah, but it never came through. It disappeared somewhere in the mail, you know? Um, but yeah, I was told by multiple pe- people, including my sergeant major, you know? Well done, basically. We've written you up. Um.

• 4:59:12Speaker 01

  I'm not here for medals. It's nice to get recognition. It would have been nice for my daughter, for sure. It would have been a nice way to end my military career.

• 4:59:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm bringing that up because of what you're about to say.

• 4:59:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:59:25Speaker 01

  Before I go into what we're about to say, it's really important for context that people understand why this has happened. About three days before that, there was a BBC Panorama documentary making allegations against the regiment for, you know, alleged misconduct in Afghanistan. Ten years previous to this. Now, the guy that was front and center in the crosshairs for this investigation is a guy called Gwyn Jenkins. And he is now the first Sea Lord. At the time, he was the director of special forces, so in charge of all special forces. He is under the crosshairs for his mismanagement and unprofessionalism in dealing with these alleged incidences, you know, ten years previous.

• 5:00:12Speaker 01

  So it goes through my regiment. It goes all the way up to his level and he decides. To launch an investigation into this, in his words, to show transparency, even though there's probably nothing wrong. And if there was anything wrong, they wouldn't have launched an investigation on it. Does that make sense? So he's done this and he admitted to doing this on a V T C. And I stand by this because there's a whole room of people that saw it. He basically said, it's more important that we be seen to be doing the right thing than it is for this incident to go away.

• 5:00:50Speaker 01

  What does that mean? It means he threw us under the bus, knowing full well what would happen. Because he wanted to be seen to show transparency without any care in the world for how that would affect us and our lives. Um, no, well done. Congratulations on being professional and doing a good job. The thing that we ordered you and trained you to do. He sent us down the river and he did that of his own admission to make it seem to the world that they are doing due diligence and that does not sit well because that is not what being a good leader is about. You do not throw your own guys under the bus for your own personal

• 5:01:33Speaker 01

  gain. And that's exactly what happened. And that was acknowledged by my commanding officer. It was even acknowledged by the um policeman that came and arrested me in theatre. They knew and said

• 5:01:44Shawn Ryan?

  Arrested you in theatre?

• 5:01:45Speaker 01

  They arrested me. Wait, yeah. Oh, the plot thickens on that one, yeah. But um it's widely known and acknowledged that the reason for this was so that he could be seen to show that he does do investigations because he'd failed in the past to do it properly. Does that make sense?

• 5:02:04Speaker 01

  So

• 5:02:06Speaker 01

  at the time

• 5:02:07Shawn Ryan?

  So he's holding somebody accountable to save his own ass?

• 5:02:10Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 5:02:11Shawn Ryan?

  Well, not holding somebody accountable.

• 5:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  Because there's nothing to be held accountable for.

• 5:02:17Speaker 01

  No, because it's all been cleared because funny old thing, three years later down the line, they've realised that there is absolutely no wrongdoing in what we did and it was all completely within our rules of engagement. It was not an excessive use of force and it was professional, like there is, there's no other way of saying it.

• 5:02:33Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, what specifically instigated this specific incident?

• 5:02:39Speaker 01

  From which perspective, mate?

• 5:02:40Shawn Ryan?

  Why did he pick this? Of all the combat, through all SAS, why is he honing in on this specific incident?

• 5:02:50Speaker 01

  Because it was one that happened underneath his watch and it was one that happened three days after a BBC interview naming him that he'd been involved in this. That's why. And everybody knows that. And it's, it's disgusting, in my opinion, to do that. And it shows a complete lack of moral courage, a lack of a spine and it's cowardice. It's sending people down the river to save your own skin for your own political and your own personal gain. And I'm not having it.

• 5:03:23Shawn Ryan?

  Has he ever been in a position like this on the ground?

• 5:03:27Speaker 01

  Probably not.

• 5:03:29Speaker 01

  I asked his legal, his lawyer that he had, his, um, they, they went down the line of it's excessive force, which exactly what it says on the tin is, how can you quantify excessive force? He said there was a high round count. I would then argue that by doctrine and standards that we set ourselves accountable for in UKSF in order to be able to deploy on operations overseas or domestically, we reach a level of standards when it comes to firearms and manipulation of weapon systems. And one of the drills, one of many drills is essentially a six round from the high ready in 2.5 seconds. We fired about that between three guys, okay?

• 5:04:10Speaker 01

  Um, so he doesn't even understand his own doctrine because it isn't excessive force. Now, I'd like anybody, can you explain to me how much force is excessive? Is one round too many? Is two? Or are we engaging targets until the threat is neutralised? Where does, where, where's, where is it, or is it subjective? So they took a subjective opinion on what we did and they basically launched a full investigation into it. They opened up the door to the RMP, who are themselves under scrutiny for their unprofessional conduct. Not only in this operation, which we regiments launched a formal complaint against them for the handling of how they've done it. And their overzealous activities, which I'll go into in detail in a minute.

• 5:04:54Speaker 01

  But they're also under the process for their, um.

• 5:04:58Speaker 01

  Their unprofessionalism in Afghanistan and not doing their jobs properly. So you've got two forces operating against us now. You've got RMPs that have got, you know, a chip on their shoulder and are fully going in on this in, you know. What are RMPs? Royal Military Police, Royal Military Police. Um, and then you've got a general who is using us as a test case to, to, to better his own political. And, you know. Personal career, essentially. Now, all of these things I've said are factual. And he's even admitted that that's exactly what it was, but he didn't understand the ramifications of it. Um, or where it would go.

• 5:05:40Speaker 01

  And what's ironic to me is that when he left that position, which is the head position in UK Special Forces. His next guy in, um, came and spoke to us in theatre and said, this would have, quote. A witness room full of people, this would have never happened under my watch. That's never excesses force and you did the right thing. That's what he said. He's changed his, changed his tone on that a little bit now and he's gone back on it. But he forgets that we were all there when he said it. So the outgoing guys. Who is this? Who was it? Uh, what was his name? It'll come to me, uh, Nick, I think his name's Nick, he'll come to me, but he's the, he's the current director of Special Forces. So the guy that replaced Gwyn Jenkins, does that make sense? Mm hmm. Um.

• 5:06:27Speaker 01

  Everybody understands why this has happened, but nobody's doing anything about it. So this is where it starts to unravel. And this is where the real consequences of of people's actions of throwing good guys under the bus. Not only does it undermine the confidence in the chain of command. Not only does it undermine the individual operator's confidence to the point where team leaders coming in to replace us. We're telling us we're not putting our guys on the ground because if they do what they're supposed to do, they're going to get this treatment. We had guys in the squadron that didn't want a soldier. We had guys that have left the military. Out of the four guys in my team, two of us left. One of them tried to leave but couldn't for visa issues, which I'll explain.

• 5:07:09Speaker 01

  And one of them is still serving, still serving his country after what they've done. What a fucking hero, you know, what a fucking good dude that is. But um, it was just how the whole thing was handled. Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics of pointing the finger at every single person that's been unprofessional of this. Because the blame solely lands at Gwyn Jenkins's door. And he's been recently promoted to the first Sea Lord, which is an extremely high position within the military. He was the intelligence, military intelligence advisor to the former prime minister. Um, when the new government got in, he lost that job. Um, and then he got given the first Sea Lord job.

• 5:07:54Speaker 01

  And everyone's there going, oh, what a great guy, what a great guy. Nah, he's not. And for anyone watching this, you need to be careful because that man only cares about himself. He doesn't care about protecting the reputation of the regiment. He cares about himself because he knows that he's under the crosshairs for this Afghanistan stuff. So we were sent down the river. We were told, ordered to write witness statements with no legal representation in theatre. I voiced my concerns about that, and I think I was right to do so. Because all the Royal Military Police did was they took witness statements that we were made to write.

• 5:08:33Speaker 01

  And by made to write, we were given a document that said, if you do not do this, you will be charged, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we weren't given an option, basically. And I said, okay, we'll do the witness statements, but I think we should have legal representation. Now, you don't need it, don't worry about it. The first thing that the Royal Military Police used against us was our own witness statements that we told them. We should have legal representation for this. So without any context or no evidence. They were using our own words against us, even though we'd said. Hang on a minute, can we have some protection here?

• 5:09:08Speaker 01

  So they were caught out with that, which obviously impacted us. They trapped you. They trapped us. Yeah, and you know, I'll I'll read you some of the the the the impact statements from the individuals shortly. I'll give you a broad brush and I'll get into some details. This happened three years ago, Shaun. And it's only last week that they've concluded that there was no wrongdoing and we've been acquitted of all charges. No, no, sorry.

• 5:09:35Speaker 01

  No, you know, no compensation, emotional compensation, no, nothing. And it's ruined people's lives. And it's it's something that needs to be addressed because this this this can't happen again. And it's not okay. And it's not fine to just wash it under the carpet and carry on. That's not in my nature. This isn't about anything other than having our perspective put across. And I've spoken to all the guys involved. And they fully support what I'm doing because they know, hopefully, this might prevent it from happening in the future.

• 5:10:16Speaker 01

  I've already won the battle in terms of I've been acquitted, I've been vindicated that I did the right action after three years, three years. To a point where I was even questioning my own self, you know, that's a dark place to be. And it's a very

• 5:10:33Speaker 01

  stressful situation to be under investigation for double murder, something you know isn't true. And something that doesn't read well. Can you imagine having that conversation with a fifteen year old? Can you imagine having that conversation with your mother? Can you imagine having that conversation with your loved ones, your friends, your girlfriend? It's it's a heavy thing to carry. And we have done it. We've carried it for three years. Um, and now it's finally gone away and.

• 5:11:02Speaker 01

  And all the media picked this up. And all, again, all of the media picked this up. We didn't get a voice. We didn't get our opinion. We've not said a word. We've been professional. We've been dignified. And we've carried on, essentially, just trying to maintain some sort of level of sanity and try and rebuild our lives. Um, but the level of accuracy of the media reports has to have been from a leak, has to have been. There's no way on earth, they could, they've got the picture completely wrong and there's no context to it. But the broad brush, the main details are roughly fairly accurate to a point. So it has to have come from inside the, the organisation itself and it's incredibly difficult.

• 5:11:43Speaker 01

  When people keep putting stuff in the newspapers, on the news and family members are reading it. And it just, it's always murder. Murder, you, you can't look past the word murder. I've never murdered anyone in my life. I'm a professional soldier that does exactly what I'm supposed to do. Within side the confines of my rules of engagement to neutralise the threat if needs be, like what, like I've been trained to the highest level.

• 5:12:09Speaker 01

  I've operated next to some of the most professional operators on the planet, like professionalism is something that we take extremely seriously. Um, and it's insulting to me that people will think that we were unprofessional and it's shameful that they can band us with accusations in order to save their own personal careers. That's disgusting. That should never happen ever again. Um. But it just kept going and going and going and

• 5:12:38Speaker 01

  they tried to arrest us all at the same time, but they failed miserably because of the RMP, the military police's incompetence. Okay. My personal, I'll tell you my personal situation first. They flew out to theatre. They came to our op- operation station, uh, our command post.

• 5:13:01Speaker 01

  They arrested me, they searched my room, they confiscated my tablets and my phones. So I couldn't contact my family and they wanted, I don't know what they were looking for, I don't know what they were looking for on there. Their argument was, well, we have to arrest you so we can seize your personal electronic devices. I was like, they're in a bag, there you go, you can take them. So yeah, well, we need to search your room, the keys are there, do it. They still did it. So technically, I've been arrested for murder at this point. Now, when people look at investigations in the past, oh, we've done this before, yes and, yes and no. Nobody's been arrested for it, okay? One of the guys was arrested in front of his mother, in front of his sister, and the RMPs told him, we're arresting your son for murdering two civilians.

• 5:13:45Speaker 01

  I've got it all written down, I've got it all here, everything documented. One of the guys was arrested at his home, in front of his wife, where the policeman told his wife squarely in the eyes, we're arresting your husband for murdering two civilians. You can't unsee that. Family members will never, ever be able to unsee that.

• 5:14:07Speaker 01

  One guy was tricked by the RMPs of coming for an interview under caution. They got him in a room, they basically locked the room and said, bang, you're under arrest, so they could search him whilst he's, whilst we're deployed, whilst we're out there serving our country, still operational,

• 5:14:24Speaker 01

  still trying to do the right thing, and we have to deal with this, not only at home, but also overseas, okay? So it's a lot for people to deal with. We were offered next to no support when it comes to legal aid. It was sixty, sixty-five days, I think I've got the detail, I'm gonna read all this stuff out in a minute, but it was over two months of limbo, where we had no legal support because they couldn't be read on to the specifics of the operation, which we're not talking about, um, for legal reasons and disclosure reasons, but they couldn't even, we couldn't even get lawyers. They wouldn't even provide us with lawyers, and the ones they did provide us with initially wouldn't do it because they weren't getting paid enough money by the MOD. It's disgraceful. Um, so a lot of the guys felt very isolated.

• 5:15:10Speaker 01

  Fast forward till fourteen months ago, I left, I'd left the military. I was trying to put everything behind me, move on and try and give something back. I took a job for GBRS as their lead instructor. I went out to Virginia Beach and I was staying with DJ and Patsy at the time. Lived in their house for the best part of three months. And I was granted an O one visa for extraordinary ability. And that O one visa was a pull, not a push. And what I mean by that, I was written commendations from SWAT team guys. I'd also spent some time at the unit. I'd trained guys from Green Team as a, as a guest instructor.

• 5:15:54Speaker 01

  I'd deployed with a US flag on my chest. The United States asked me effectively to come out and help train law enforcement officers, SWAT teams, military units, et cetera, et cetera. That was what I was going to go and do. That was my, that was my future. I come back to the UK to collect my visa. And one of the things that you need to provide is a sheet which states whether you've got a criminal record or not. I don't have a criminal record because I've been in the military for the best part of twenty years, serving my country. But on this piece of paper, it says, wanted for investigation, under investigation for murder. Now, I'm at the US Embassy with this sheet and I have to show this to that lady, at which point they'll add negative.

• 5:16:37Speaker 01

  We are not giving you a visa because it says you're under investigation for murder. Which has been vindicated, that is obviously not correct. So it's impacted my life. I came back from Virginia Beach for three days. I was supposed to be there for three days with a small bag to collect my visa from the US Embassy in London. And then go on with the rest of my life. And it's been a heavy few years. And for the first time, I felt positive and I felt like I could get on with my life and I could change direction. And it was all good until that moment. One of the other guys tried to do exactly the same. He was that broken by this whole process that he decided to leave. He was an A-stream operator. He was selected to be a troop sergeant major and he turned it down.

• 5:17:22Speaker 01

  He was like, no, I don't want anything to do with this because of the way that we've been treated by this individual and by the RMP. This is all about how he treated us and how the RMP treated my teammates, okay?

• 5:17:38Speaker 01

  It's very difficult for guys to move on with their life when you've got this thing hanging over them in the back of your mind. It only feels like I left the army last week. I've been a civilian for coming up to two years, but I only feel like I left the army last week. And it's had a fucking significant effect on my

• 5:18:00Speaker 01

  on my life, how I feel, um my teammates' lives, my teammates' families' lives. It's caused the breakdown of two relationships. Um, guys that have given everything and loved that regiment to death and I still do have had to walk away from it because of what Gwen Jenkins did to us and our team. And, you know, I just want to be able to sit there here and put my side across, our side across, because nobody's asked us for our narrative. And yet it keeps coming out in the press and now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon saying this and saying that. I want to clear a few things up and I want to get the truth out there.

• 5:18:42Speaker 01

  So that people should be held accountable and this, my primary goal for this is nothing more than this should never ever happen again to anyone because it's absolutely disgusting. It's a disgrace. And it's something that we need to address because we can't just turn a blind eye to this, which is exactly what he wants. Okay? So if he does watch this and feels uncomfortable about it, good. That's a good thing because you should do, you know, he really should feel uncomfortable and I want him to know the impact. Because he's too arrogant to reach out after multiple times and, you know, this really is a last resort because I've written, and I'll tell you in detail, multiple letters from my solicitor, my, my lawyer to the Royal Military Police, to the Serious Investigation Board, to

• 5:19:28Speaker 01

  Director Special Forces, to basically anyone and everyone. We've written letters saying hurry the process up. Or at least allow people that are under investigation for military, you know, incidents in the military. How can I be blocked from travelling?

• 5:19:43Speaker 01

  Make that make sense, like I'm innocent until proven guilty anywhere in the world. But yet we're being treated as guilty until proven innocent, which is not only morally wrong, but how can we treat service personnel like that? Where's the level of respect or compassion for us and our families? There is none, um, so it needs to change. So that's the reason we're doing this. And I want to highlight the actual emotional effect it's had on people. And we've never been able to have our say. And yet we have to sit there and watch the whole world read about this and read about that in all the press. And we're supposed to just sit there and do nothing. They destroyed your name. They destroyed it, yeah. They destroyed us.

• 5:20:28Speaker 01

  They tried to destroy us. But um, we're still in the fight for sure. Um. I wrote a letter to my MP, which is a member of parliament. So a politician essentially, who wrote a letter to the Veterans Minister. Who basically, and I'll read you his response, said, yeah, there's a charity out there somewhere. That's what we're supposed to be doing. If he needs help, ring this hotline, basically. No empathy there. Bearing in mind, this guy was, used to be in the special forces. Um. What's significant about him is everyone knows how unfair and how poorly we've been treated. Do you remember I told you the guy who was blown up in Afghanistan?

• 5:21:12Speaker 01

  John, who lost two legs and an arm. He's a close friend of that Veterans Minister. And he wrote him a personal message and basically he got the same short shift reply of, yeah, process is process, just wait out. So I've tried everything. I literally could not have tried more. I wrote in letters to lawyers, I've wrote in letters to politicians. Years of trying to get some resolution on this. Years of trying to get some sort of clarity on it, of trying to be able to move on with our lives. It's significant to the point, it's affected me for nine months, Shaun. I couldn't earn a penny. So when I left the military, I didn't leave with much, I'm not a rich man, but I spent all my pension.

• 5:21:50Speaker 01

  All of my savings, maxed out credit cards, I was living in Airbnbs. There were times where I didn't even have enough money to to get that and I was sleeping in my truck. Like, I'm not joking, Sean, it's been a fucking nightmare for the last fourteen months. Three days I was supposed to come back for, nowhere to live, no, no source of income. I couldn't earn money from G B R S because I didn't have a visa and we wanted to protect the integrity of what we were doing because we're professional. So I'm using everything I can at this point. I'm getting no support. The only support that I got was from the regimental association and they they threw me some money in order for me to basically put a roof over my head in an Airbnb uh and do some laundry. That was basically what we got. So I'm thankful for those guys for doing that.

• 5:22:32Speaker 01

  But they're not part of, they're not part of M O D. They're they're they're a regimental association, an old boys' network.

• 5:22:40Speaker 01

  But it's, that's not good enough. That's, that's not enough. The loss of income, not being able to to earn money, let alone having to spend all of my own just to, you know, just to keep a roof over my head essentially, um.

• 5:22:55Speaker 01

  Tens, hundreds of thousands probably at this point is is loss of income and um expenditure from my own personal, personal accounts, just, just trying, just trying to, you know, survive day to day. I'm not after a fucking penny and I want to get that out. I don't care about money. I don't care. I just want this to never happen again. And I want people that are involved in this to be able to look themselves in the mirror and go, yeah, we need to do better in the future. That's what this is about. This is not me spitting my dummy out or, you know, having a Prince Harry pity party situation. It's not that. You're not here to victimize yourself. I'm not here to do that. Looking out for the future of S A S operators. Yeah, a hundred percent. This can't happen again. And it's all good and well saying it won't, but it won't.

• 5:23:40Speaker 01

  It will, sorry, if we don't change it or if it doesn't get voiced and. It's it's my time now. It's my time to have my say because for three years I've had to sit by and watch people destroy the integrity of of what we were doing, attack my team and drag my regiment's name through the mud for no reason other than personal gain, political gain. Um, and that's not right. The regiment is a fantastic organisation. It's an incredible asset to the nation and it provides an incredible layer of security um across the world for not only our civilians and citizens, but you know, our coalition as well. The regiment is a fantastic thing and dragging it down like this is disgraceful. It's disgusting and I'm not having that. So

• 5:24:25Speaker 01

  these people need to be held accountable. I want to touch on a couple of the points from the guys because without that, you know, it it the context is important on this. So we've got everything from the very start to the very end. So first thing I'll read out is from the Colonel Prosecuting Officer. Again, I'm going to leave him out of it name wise because I've got class and I've got dignity. But I'm going to read this to you. The first word, you, Soldier C, are notified that charges will not be brought against you under section one, two, one, two of the Armed Forces Act two thousand and six in respect to the case referred to this

• 5:25:09Speaker 01

  authority arising out of the allegations of murder during a deliberate detention operation third, fourth July twenty twenty two. The position may change, however, if, for example, further evidence comes to light or a further allegation is made, or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with the service prosecuting authority's victims' right to review policy. That's what we got. After three years, Shaun, that's what we got. So no name, you, Soldier C, not very personal. And then at the end of it, it's a warning. It's not a sorry, it's not congratulations, you didn't do anything wrong. It's a you, Soldier C. How degrading is that? You can't even, it's disgusting. And then at the bottom

• 5:25:51Speaker 01

  of it, well, this might change. But no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing there whatsoever. No, no empathy, nothing. So that's, that's what we got after three years. You can check that out and you can have a look at that. That's some bullshit right there.

• 5:26:19Shawn Ryan?

  So they're still digging in?

• 5:26:22Speaker 01

  Essentially, yes.

• 5:26:23Shawn Ryan?

  If, for example, further evidence comes to light, or a further allegation is made, or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with service prosecuting authorities' victims' rights to review policy.

• 5:26:37Speaker 01

  What that means is it's not over, it's just they haven't got what they need right now. It doesn't tell me, there's not, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling that I'm gonna get left alone here.

• 5:26:46Shawn Ryan?

  Why would they even send us?

• 5:26:47Speaker 01

  So why would they even, exactly? It makes no sense, right? Does that make sense to you?

• 5:26:52Shawn Ryan?

  It makes no sense.

• 5:26:53Speaker 01

  Good. It's not just me, then?

• 5:27:00Shawn Ryan?

  So you're not clear? You're clear for the time being?

• 5:27:03Speaker 01

  I'm clear for the time being. And I was speaking to the lawyer again, recently, last couple of days, about trying to get my form redacted, so it doesn't say under investigation for murder, so I can go and get my visa, so I can go and get on with my life. And there's this whole bullshit process, and they're like, no, it's gonna take some time, you've got to do this and that. So I'm either innocent, or I'm not. You just told me I am, so give me my form and let me get on with my life. That's it.

• 5:27:33Speaker 01

  How long does this go on for? For the rest of my life? I've given enough my country, Sean, I just wanna get on with it, mate. I just wanna have a nice life, you know what I mean? I feel like I've earned that. I feel like all my teammates have.

• 5:27:46Speaker 01

  This one here. This is from the Ministry of Defence, from the Veterans Minister. "I was sorry to learn of Mr. C's financial hardship and homelessness. I would encourage him to seek assistance from the Veterans Gateway, which offers support to veterans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on a range of issues, including housing and finances. The Veterans Gateway can be contacted on a free phone number, and there's a website that you can go and look at." That's from the Veterans Minister. The guy that used to be in the SBS, the guy that used to be one of the squadron. That's what you get.

• 5:28:23Speaker 01

  That was in direct response to a letter that I had written, drafted.

• 5:28:30Speaker 01

  By somebody that is very close to the Prime Minister, who actually wrote his autobiography. Via my local politician, a guy who was supposed to help me. We wrote that letter to that local politician, who then forwarded it to this, this guy, the Veterans Minister. And that is the, that's the response I got.

• 5:28:57Speaker 01

  A free phone number.

• 5:29:01Speaker 01

  And you know what really winds me up about stuff like that? Is, is just the sheer cowardness of it, because it's like, we've reached out to that dude twice, once from a guy whose life,

• 5:29:12Speaker 01

  I was there to try and help, save. So a personal touch and one through a completely professional touch. And get nothing, nothing from these people. Not, okay, let me look into it, let me do this, just, it's just due course, wait out. And that's not good enough. And yet, I look around and you're doing expeditions to Mount Everest and this saying that you're for the Vet- no you're not. You're for yourself. And if any of these people have got anything to say, I'm more than welcome to sit down and have this conversation with them. But I've tried to reach out to them on multiple occasions, through multiple sources, through every official channel possible, and get nothing. So if they feel like this is unfair,

• 5:29:49Speaker 01

  then they need a reality check, okay?

• 5:29:53Speaker 01

  Let me start working through some of these personal issues that the geezers have faced, okay? So personal issues, RMP searching of my personal home that I just moved into after telling me they would not search my property, arriving unannounced with multiple cars and cops late in the evening. Telling my girlfriend directly I'd murdered two people.

• 5:30:12Speaker 01

  Turning a house upside down during their search. Taking personal items from me and my partner, family photos on USB devices that I've still not received back. This one breaks me. Searching my one-year-old son's nursery bedroom while he was sleeping in his cot.

• 5:30:30Speaker 01

  I want them to think about that. Imagine being at home with your new wife and a brand new baby and all of a sudden, military police come knocking at the door. They tell your wife to her face that you're being arrested for murder and then they turn your house upside down, including the baby's bedroom with the baby asleep. That's what the RMP did to us.

• 5:30:48Speaker 01

  How does that make you feel? It pisses me off. It pisses me the fuck off, mate. That's what it does. It's wrong.

• 5:30:56Speaker 01

  Partner having counselling because of it and put her in a terrible mental state for years, almost to break down in our relationship.

• 5:31:03Speaker 01

  That's one guy.

• 5:31:08Speaker 01

  I was arrested on the 28th of July 2022 in front of my mother and sister while home at R and R.

• 5:31:14Speaker 01

  During the arrest, the RMP told my family that I was arrested for murdering two civilians, which has caused irreparable damage to my relationship with my sister. These people are destroying lives.

• 5:31:27Speaker 01

  Two weeks after being arrested, I was back in theatre when all our weapons were seized. So get this, this is the professionalism of the guys that I'm talking about. They came, they seized all of our guns whilst we're in theatre on combat operations. They take all of our guns, all of our rifles, pistols, optics. Do you know what we did? We went down to stores, got new guns, re-zeroed and cracked on. Because we're professional. That's what we're about.

• 5:31:52Speaker 01

  I wasn't able to speak to my lawyer about the case as disclosure cell. It took 69 days to read him on. So for 69 days, we had no legal support because the people that are supposed to be dealing with this to read these people on, didn't do it.

• 5:32:10Speaker 01

  We were offered two and a half thousand pounds for a holiday. That's what we were given. That's what they offered. Obviously, we turned that down.

• 5:32:22Speaker 01

  I feel that there was an irreparable mental distress caused to me and my family by the fear and anxiety which generated by the investigation. My confidence, self-esteem and personal relationships feel permanently damaged.

• 5:32:35Speaker 01

  I had a breakdown in January 2025 and was close to taking my own life. I've been undergoing professional mental health treatment since early 2024.

• 5:32:45Speaker 01

  This guy flew out to Colombia to go and do psychedelic treatments because he was on the verge of killing himself.

• 5:32:53Speaker 01

  Jeez. And he didn't get any support from the military. There was no programme for it. So he's gone off his own back and done that because he was at his last, last phase. He had nowhere else to go and I could see it in him.

• 5:33:13Speaker 01

  Next guy. Been instructed, ordered to fill in witness statements with no legal advice for the serious investigation reports which were then used against us. You were the only one who questioned it, you being me. Uh, SIR signed off by headquarters but then referred to the RMP by DSF Gwyn Jenkins. So what that means is the regiment were good with what we, the commanding officer of the regiment signed that off and said that is the correct use of force. Everything's good. I've got no problem with it. They then refer it up and guess who gets it? Gwyn Jenkins

• 5:33:54Speaker 01

  and he's the one personally who referred it to the Royal Military Police. He did that.

• 5:34:02Speaker 01

  He was only protecting himself because he wanted the CDS job, but he didn't get it.

• 5:34:08Speaker 01

  We were tricked under the premise of an interview under caution. The RMP tried and failed miserably to arrest us all at the same time. So they tried to do this all across the world at the same time, failed miserably. I arrived at the right time and the right place to conduct the interview. Then they arrested me, read me my rights, fingerprints, swabs, DNA, then physically marched me to my accommodation so they could confiscate and seize my phones. It's exactly what they did to me. This also coincided with the botched search of the, um, the guy's houses and the home addresses in the UK.

• 5:34:39Speaker 01

  Handing over weapons, everyone's, I love the mindset of the geezers here, including pistols and MVGs. We went and got new ones, zeroed them in and was good to go to deploy again. Looking back, our professionalism and ability to crack on probably wasn't the best idea. Shaun, what you must understand about this is they flew us back from theatre. They got us all in a room and conducted a no comment interview, under caution, in a police station with two SIB investigators that went on for hours and then they flew us back to theatre. Two weeks later, I jumped out the back of an aircraft and led my team to target.

• 5:35:17Speaker 01

  So all this is going on and we're still having to do this.

• 5:35:23Shawn Ryan?

  How the fuck are you supposed to think?

• 5:35:27Speaker 01

  Put it in the box, don't you? Put it in the box and you crack on, that's what we do. BTC stating that RHQ would get us the best lawyers, money no object. I rang one, explained the situation, reading a pre-prepared script with a number for, a number on it for the lawyer to call. Then we were told they were too expensive, had to choose basic legal aid lawyers. So what that means is they promised us the world, Shaun. They said, we're going to give you the best representation money can buy, no object. There's a big fund for this type of stuff with millions of pounds in it and yet they wouldn't pay for legal aid. We had to get basic lawyers. Now, the one that I've got is incredible and I'm very grateful for him, but they gave us a whole list of these high-flying lawyers and not one of them would touch it because they weren't willing to pay the price for it.

• 5:36:12Speaker 01

  Sixty-two pound an hour was the cap.

• 5:36:16Speaker 01

  Sixty-two pounds an hour is what we were worth for these guys. Now, this might sound like I'm digging in on people, but if you don't talk about this, then it goes away and it doesn't get rectified. So there's, there's-

• 5:36:25Shawn Ryan?

  It doesn't sound like you're digging in on people, it just sounds like you're telling the truth and you want the truth to come out.

• 5:36:31Speaker 01

  These are from the guys.

• 5:36:35Speaker 01

  Having to tell my wife, our families about the investigation, there was no help, advice or support on how to deliver such news. Then they, the wives, families etc, had loads of questions that couldn't be answered because we didn't have any information, i.e. how long will this take? General Nick, on his handover takeover, coming out to theatre and standing next to me, stated, "That's hostile intent all day, there's nothing to worry about." That's the incoming Director Special Forces that I mentioned a second ago. Only to change his tune years later, saying that he would have done the same thing as Gwyn Jenkins. These people are spineless.

• 5:37:07Shawn Ryan?

  He completely reversed his statement.

• 5:37:10Speaker 01

  Completely reversed his statement, 180 degrees, after standing there in a rooftop with all of us, my entire team, drinking a beer, telling us how fantastic a job we'd done and it would have never happened under his watch, was his exact words, and that "You've got nothing to worry about."

• 5:37:25Shawn Ryan?

  I don't, I don't understand this at all. So they arrest you and your teammates for murder.

• 5:37:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:37:33Shawn Ryan?

  Fly you back to the UK.

• 5:37:34Speaker 01

  Investigate, yeah, for, for an inter-

• 5:37:35Shawn Ryan?

  Investigate.

• 5:37:36Speaker 01

  Interrogate. Yep.

• 5:37:38Shawn Ryan?

  Interrogate you.

• 5:37:39Speaker 01

  Four hours, we sat in that office, four hours, under caution.

• 5:37:43Shawn Ryan?

  And then they deem you fit for duty again, while you're under investigation, to go continue doing the job.

• 5:37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I conducted two freefall exercises, combat operations in a week, shortly after that. I led my stick to target twice.

• 5:37:56Shawn Ryan?

  Why, why would they... I know you don't know the answer to this, but I'm just gonna ask the question anyways.

• 5:38:04Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 5:38:06Shawn Ryan?

  If you guys are loose cannons out there murdering innocent civilians, why would they fly you back into country to do it again?

• 5:38:14Speaker 01

  Because they knew it was all bullshit and they knew we didn't do anything wrong. If they thought we'd done something wrong, if they really thought we'd done something wrong, they wouldn't let us do that, right?

• 5:38:24Shawn Ryan?

  And there's drone footage.

• 5:38:25Speaker 01

  It's all out.

• 5:38:26Shawn Ryan?

  This exact-

• 5:38:27Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 5:38:28Shawn Ryan?

  Operation.

• 5:38:29Speaker 01

  Yep, it's all there. 50 witness statements. What makes it even more of a bitter pill to swallow is the two police officers that came and arrested me in theatre, when they came out the first time.

• 5:38:39Speaker 01

  Said to me, "We've seen the drone footage, we don't even know why this is a thing, but we've got to do our jobs." And it was almost like they wanted me to like have sympathy for them, you know, it's like, "Sorry mate, I'm just doing my job." Well, "sorry mate" doesn't quite cut it in this situation. This isn't a "sorry mate" situation, you know. When you've got the two people that are arresting you, telling you that they know this is bullshit and that it's political, and they admitted that to my face, it's a hard thing to get your head around, Shaun, it really is, mate.

• 5:39:13Speaker 01

  RHQ decided to give a Charlie Charlie one, which means an all hands, basically. They briefed everybody about an ongoing investigation, an invite that wasn't extended to ourselves. I heard the news from my wife. So basically, for damage limitation and reputation control, because they knew that the guys in the squadrons were fucking outraged and were questioning whether they could be, you know, deployed and trust the chain of command, not the regiment so much, but above that.

• 5:39:40Speaker 01

  They invited everyone in and explained the situation, but they didn't invite us.

• 5:39:45Speaker 01

  Make that make sense. What would be your take on that?

• 5:39:51Speaker 01

  I know what I think. I think they know they fucked up and they were trying to fight fires and they didn't want us in there, because if we were, we would have told everybody what actually happened. How can you have an all hands without the people that are involved? And why is he finding out by his wife, who another wife said, "Oh yeah, my boyfriend was at this brief." "Did you go to it?" "What brief?"

• 5:40:13Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 5:40:17Speaker 01

  See, he said he was being almost accused of potentially leaking the story to the press. All the scrutiny was asked for. I was accused of leaking this story to the press. Two days after my visa got returned, I got a phone call from one of the guys saying that the adjutant had phoned him up personally because the story had leaked into the papers. And he said, "Jay's, I think Jay's gone and done this, or do you think Jay..." How fucking dare you? How dare you have the audacity to accuse me of leaking this to the press? And I know you might be sitting there going, what are you on the shore of my mind talking about? Yeah, because it's done and I want my say. Can you imagine how offensive that is to me? Do you think I would leak that to the press? No. And if I was gonna do it, I'd do it with accurate details. I'm not leaking the shit to the press. Somebody's leaking it to the press.

• 5:41:03Speaker 01

  And I'm setting the record straight because I'm sick and tired of reading about bullshit stories in the newspapers that my family see. It's not correct, it's not right. And quite frankly, it needs to be addressed. So that's what I'm doing.

• 5:41:18Speaker 01

  My wife and other people's families rightly having enough of this bullshit after seeing me asked going through a hard time.

• 5:41:26Speaker 01

  Speaking to the welfare.

• 5:41:29Speaker 01

  Speaking to the welfare and being basically dismissed, there's nothing that can be done. And then, this, this upsets me, receiving a phone call from the next day telling him to, quote, get a grip of my wife. So basically, she's phoned up. She wants to know answers, she's, there's a protocol for this, there's people that if you ever have any dramas, whether you're deployed, or whether it's this, or whether, you know, the kids need picking up from school, or the car breaks down, or your husband's been accused of murder. Then phone this number and we'll try and help you. She phoned that number, got nothing. And then, to take, take the piss, that dude phones the guy up the next day and goes, hey, tell your wife to get a grip.

• 5:42:09Speaker 01

  Get a grip. Depression, fear, anger, and a complete loss of self. All the negative effects it's had individually and the family friendship level. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't want to leave the house when I have panic attacks. You're talking about one of the finest operators I've ever met.

• 5:42:28Speaker 01

  Panic attacks.

• 5:42:31Speaker 01

  Seeing the mental health nurse at work and being told if I want to go on medication, I would be downgraded. Not allowed to access weapons and my chain of com- chain of command would be informed. So he's reached out and they've basically said, cool, we could help you, but it means that we're gonna have to report it. And that you are no longer allowed to do your job. How can you be in the SES but not be allowed to play with guns? The fuck are we talking about here? I didn't do that for pride reasons and worried about my reputation. So we sucked it up, basically. He tried to get help, they bounced him and he sucked it up and carried on. Having to leave home and start divorce proceedings because I was unsafe.

• 5:43:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's destroying families.

• 5:43:10Speaker 01

  It's destroying people's lives, mate. It's destroying families. Big drinking issues. Multiple jobs falling through because of the ARCO form, same situation I'm in. We're looking for employment outside of the wire. Basically, it makes it nearly impossible to get a visa to go anywhere. So what are guys supposed to do? How long does this go on for? How long are we going to be punished for indefinitely? Bearing in mind, we've done nothing wrong, and everybody knows that this is a test case by Gwyn Jenkins to show transparency. If you want transparency, here it is. This is transparency. You reap what you sow, you know?

• 5:43:46Speaker 01

  Again, I know there's more, and there is. There's pages of this. These are just the ones I've highlighted. There's pages of it. This is the ARCO form. This is the form that caused the dramas. Read that.

• 5:44:11Speaker 01

  See what that says.

• 5:44:18Shawn Ryan?

  This personal data is provided to you by A C R O, Criminal Records Office, for the purpose of an immigration, consular, visa, or citizenship related to applications made to a foreign government. Keep the data secure, protected against loss, or unauthorized access.

• 5:44:50Speaker 01

  Having the word "under investigation for murder" on that form is not a good look. I felt sorry for the girl at the embassy. She was loving it. She was like, "Yeah, awesome. You're exactly the kind of person we want to give an O1 visa to." "Thank you for your services," what she actually said to me until she saw that. And she was, she didn't know how to to circumnavigate it. She had to get a superior in. Then another one came, this whole thing. It's embarrassing to me, Sean. I'm stood in the freezing cold rain for four hours queuing up to get into the US Embassy, a nation which I'm deeply proud of and will die to protect. I'm stood in that line, and I get humiliated. I'm made to feel that fucking big by my own government.

• 5:45:32Speaker 01

  I've already had a US visa, Sean. I had a NATO visa. I lived there for a year. I've been to America over fifty times. I've been to war for that, for that country.

• 5:45:41Shawn Ryan?

  What recourse do you have now?

• 5:45:45Speaker 01

  In terms of what's next?

• 5:45:46Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, when this first letter came out, that you read.

• 5:45:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:45:51Shawn Ryan?

  The position, the position may change, however. Well, just to read it again. You, soldier C, are notified that charges will not be brought against you under section one twenty-one-two of the Armed Forces Act two thousand and six in respect of the case referred to. This authority arising out of the allegations of murder during deliberate detention operation on three for July twenty-two.

• 5:46:19Shawn Ryan?

  The position may change, however. So I just, we've already read this. The position, the position may change, however, if, for example, further evidence comes to light or further allegations are made. Or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with the service prosecuting authority's victims' rights to review policy.

• 5:46:43Speaker 01

  It means it's not over, Sean. It means it's just on ice. And that we have to go on with the rest of our lives with this. What happens one day? What, in ten years' time? Are they gonna, are they gonna call me back? Are they gonna arrest me again? Because they don't leave this stuff alone. There are guys from, you know, and part of what we're doing here is shedding the light on this. There are guys from Northern Ireland. There are guys from the Falklands. There are guys from all sorts of conflicts that have been going on for decades that are still fighting this. I said, you know, there's a petition. I sent it to Jeremy. Over a hundred thousand people have signed that petition in the UK because of what they're doing. They're reversing it and making it. The government are making it possible for people to just keep revisiting these things. It's, it's disgusting. It's, it's, it's got to stop. It's undermining. And this doesn't undermine it.

• 5:47:28Shawn Ryan?

  What do the attorneys say?

• 5:47:30Speaker 01

  They don't say much, to be honest.

• 5:47:33Shawn Ryan?

  Do they care?

• 5:47:35Speaker 01

  It doesn't feel like it.

• 5:47:38Speaker 01

  Doesn't feel like it to me. My personal one does. Gwyn Jenkins certainly doesn't care.

• 5:47:45Speaker 01

  Who else could do? Veterans Minister doesn't. Who could get involved to solve this? Whose attention do you need to get? I don't know. I don't know. I'm at a loss, Sean. Like, I'm just a dude from the squadron, bro. I don't, I don't know. I'm lost in this. Like, I've had to stand by and watch for three years how this has just destroyed people's lives, like, destroyed it. How many different investigations are going on throughout the military right now? Dozens, countless, man. I don't know, I couldn't give you an accurate detail, but a lot. Have you seen any come to completion? They very rarely do. They just rumble on for years and years and years and years. Until somebody, until, until the guys under, you know, um, investigation die. There are guys that are dealing with stuff from Ireland from like the seventies, eighties. It's twenty twenty five. The fuck are we doing it?

• 5:48:30Speaker 01

  So they never close a case? Sometimes.

• 5:48:35Speaker 01

  How's that make you feel?

• 5:48:38Speaker 01

  And it's all good and well saying it's all good to go. All I want is my form. Let me go and get on with my life. That's all I want. I want that, and I want this to never happen again. And before people start throwing people under the bus for their own political gain, maybe have a little think about it, you know? I know I'm not gonna change the world. They'll probably throw the book at me. I don't care. I'll die on this hill. Fight to the death on this one. I've got nothing to lose. Like, I know I'm in the right. I'm armed by the fact that I'm in the right. You've already admitted in that piece of paper there that I've done nothing wrong. There's no evidence. There's no crime. This is bullshit. Everyone knows it. Make it go away. How big of a story is this in, in UK right now? Depends what day of the week it is. It's in all of the major tabloids.

• 5:49:24Speaker 01

  All of them. Is it in media? Yep. All of the newspapers, all of the digital newspapers.

• 5:49:32Speaker 01

  It's in all of them. The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, like legitimate newspapers. Everything, yeah.

• 5:49:41Speaker 01

  And none of them have reached out to you? Nope. And every single one of them, the, the, the, the information that's in there just keeps getting thicker and thicker and thicker. Somebody's talking to them. Somebody's explaining it to them. And yet they have the audacity to try and accuse us.

• 5:49:55Speaker 01

  I'm not having it. It's not fair.

• 5:49:59Speaker 01

  And you know what? The worst thing about it is like.

• 5:50:03Speaker 01

  The silence is deafening. Like.

• 5:50:07Speaker 01

  If you know about this and you don't do anything about it, to me, you're just, you're, you're, you're just as guilty. You're just as guilty as Gwyn Jenkins and those R and P that did that.

• 5:50:18Speaker 01

  You know, we had an incident recently where a. Armed police officer. Uh, shot a guy, lethal force. A guy that had been involved in a shooting the night before, he was into drugs, he was into, he was a gangster. And.

• 5:50:35Speaker 01

  Multiple attempts to detain him, very similar story, eventually had to use lethal force. He's subsequently been vindicated that that lethal force was just and righteous and proportionate. But they had him up in court on a murder charge. And you know what the police did? They put their guns down and said, we're not going out. We're not gonna do it. Because this is how you treat our people. Do you know who stepped up when those armed police stepped down? Who? We did.

• 5:51:06Speaker 01

  Our regiment.

• 5:51:11Speaker 01

  The irony isn't lost on me.

• 5:51:14Speaker 01

  The police are not having it. They're like, no, fuck this. Why should we? We don't do that because we're the military. And you know what? There's guys that are like, if that happened to our squadron, we'd all do the same thing. No, you fucking wouldn't. He didn't. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not attacking that. I'm not, I'm not saying it. Everyone's got to get on with their own thing. And.

• 5:51:33Speaker 01

  I don't want this to damage anybody. But it can't fucking happen again. And people should know about this and feel uncomfortable about it. That's what this is about. And if they don't, maybe they're too arrogant to care. Maybe they are. I'm pretty sure Gwyn Jenkins won't reach out. I'm pretty sure he'll come up with some bullshit or try and come after me in some way or whatever. Cool. I'm good with it. I've done nothing wrong. I defended my country. I defended my teammates. And I was put in a position, ordered to be in that position.

• 5:52:03Speaker 01

  Took fire from enemy combatants, re-engaged, neutralized a threat. It's that simple. And it's on drone footage. It's all there.

• 5:52:15Speaker 01

  It's a difficult one mate, it's so frustrating, like so, so frustrating and I feel like the last few days, I mean again, I don't know how many times we're gonna say this today, but I don't believe in coincidence, I think it's very ironic that a couple of days before this, that happens. People are note, people are aware of it. I was coming to talk to you.

• 5:52:34Shawn Ryan?

  People are aware of that?

• 5:52:35Speaker 01

  I think so, a couple, close people. But, like anything, once one person knows, you've got to assume everybody knows, right?

• 5:52:43Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't like it.

• 5:52:44Speaker 01

  No, no, I trust you, yeah, yeah. But, um.

• 5:52:50Speaker 01

  It's just heartbreaking, man, I just love that, I love, love, still do. That organisation, that cap badge with my whole fucking heart, dude, I'd die for it, I'd still die for it. Loving it nearly killed me.

• 5:53:05Speaker 01

  And, and, and I feel like it's.

• 5:53:08Shawn Ryan?

  Who do we need to reach? How can I help you?

• 5:53:12Speaker 01

  Other than doing this interview?

• 5:53:14Shawn Ryan?

  Who do we need to reach? Who does this, who does this conversation need to get to? Do you need somebody wealthy over there to back you? Do you need to reach a certain politician?

• 5:53:28Speaker 01

  It's a strange one because I, I've exhausted every single aspect that I can, I don't think we can throw money at the problem and it will go away, I don't know, Sean, how this

• 5:53:41Speaker 01

  doesn't happen again to people and I'm fairly confident that within a period of time I will be able to get my form because that's only right, but at the same time I don't trust them to be able to do the right thing.

• 5:53:54Shawn Ryan?

  What is the form that you need?

• 5:53:55Speaker 01

  It's the ARCO form, so that career, that criminal record form, so as soon as that form comes back with, I'm no longer under investigation and it doesn't say murder on it, I can now go to the embassy, I can give it to that lady and she can give me a visa and I can get on with my life. And they're still dragging their heels.

• 5:54:12Shawn Ryan?

  Have you brought the, have you brought this, this, the notice of non, non-direction? Have you brought that to the embassy?

• 5:54:19Speaker 01

  Not yet, no. So what we've done is we've sent that to my legal team. So I've got an immigration lawyer that GBRS have paid for tens of thousands of dollars at this point, you know, trying to help me out. They paid for all of that, couldn't be more grateful. And they've held my hand essentially through this whole process. So she's got all the information. I've reached out through my lawyer. Um, in the last couple of the day, last couple of days to reach out directly to the Royal Military Police and to get this situation unfucked so that they can get that off my record and I can get on with it. And then we got some bullshit army response saying, yeah, there's a step down process. But basically it's like. It's completely unhelpful. It's like.

• 5:54:55Shawn Ryan?

  There's a step down process. What has that been?

• 5:54:57Speaker 01

  Who knows? Not even my lawyer knows. He said, I'm going to go back and, and, and work out what, what that actually means. Like. It shouldn't take more than a second for them to be able to go, is he under investigation for murder? No, he's been cleared. Cool. We'll take that off the sheet then and give him a new sheet and let him go to the embassy. It's not hard. But it's still like they want to have some sort of, this whole thing has felt like they were looking for something. They were looking to try and find it. And I guarantee you, Sean. If they could have and they had found something or some angle to come at us and, and put us stood there in, in a, in a trial. They would have done it. But there isn't anything there because there's no, there's no, there's no wrongdoing.

• 5:55:37Speaker 01

  That's the most frustrating thing. It's like, and I'm glad that they've written that and said that we've done nothing wrong. Because otherwise you can come and hear and people are still going to have that in their minds. Like. I've lost close relationships with family members because they wanted to distance themselves from me and this, this, this allegation. You know, that's, that's a fucking hard thing to deal with, man. It's, it's ongoing for all of us. And when we all got the news.

• 5:56:09Speaker 01

  It was an incredible moment, but it was a very bittersweet moment. Doesn't feel like it's a hollow victory.

• 5:56:16Shawn Ryan?

  It's because it's not.

• 5:56:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:56:19Shawn Ryan?

  What's the appetite of the UK citizen on this?

• 5:56:24Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think they'll do when they hear this? Will they be pissed?

• 5:56:27Speaker 01

  I think so. Every single person I've spoke to in the last three years is outraged by it, from all demographics. Military, non-military, law enforcement, civilian, you name it. There's, you can't look at any of these facts and everything I'm saying is not subjective. It's not an opinion. These are facts. Backed by the data and you can see it's all in black and white there, you know, those letterheads have got army letterheads, Ministry of Defence letterheads. Like, you can see it, it's all black and white.

• 5:56:55Speaker 01

  There's an outpouring of out, you know, of disgust in the UK for this. We shouldn't be treating our soldiers like that. That is the general feeling across, across the nation. Hence the reason a hundred thousand people have signed a petition to, to get these guys from Northern Ireland left alone, like.

• 5:57:10Shawn Ryan?

  What is Jenkins doing now?

• 5:57:11Speaker 01

  So he's the first Sea Lord. So he now has the highest position in the Royal Navy that you can get.

• 5:57:24Shawn Ryan?

  Does he have political aspirations?

• 5:57:26Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 5:57:35Speaker 01

  He can sit up there and, you know, Whitehall, in your ivory tower, making these decisions that affect guys like me, guys like my teammates. And yeah, we don't have the political horsepower. I don't have the government.

• 5:57:50Speaker 01

  Or some fancy title. But I have got my truth. And I have got a voice. And I've served my country for a long time. And I think my voice should be heard. And when I speak, I speak for all of us.

• 5:58:09Speaker 01

  And with the full backing and support of my teammates.

• 5:58:11Shawn Ryan?

  Have you thought about getting a publicist?

• 5:58:14Speaker 01

  What is a publicist, Sean?

• 5:58:15Shawn Ryan?

  A publicist can get this into the media.

• 5:58:19Shawn Ryan?

  A publicist can

• 5:58:22Shawn Ryan?

  connect you to the right connections to

• 5:58:26Shawn Ryan?

  put public pressure on him.

• 5:58:31Speaker 01

  I haven't thought about it, no, but I'm something I'm not adverse to.

• 5:58:37Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm better than him. I've got more integrity and more

• 5:58:43Speaker 01

  more class than him. I don't want to destroy his career. It's not worth it for me. I don't care about him. He's worthless. He's a coward. I don't even expect an apology. He hasn't got the spine or the moral courage to do that.

• 5:58:57Shawn Ryan?

  These kind of people never give apologies.

• 5:58:59Speaker 01

  Not. He won't. I just want him to know.

• 5:59:05Speaker 01

  Maybe his wife can read that. Maybe his wife can watch this.

• 5:59:10Speaker 01

  And when they have that conversation and they look each other in the eyes, maybe they can see how it's affected us.

• 5:59:17Speaker 01

  I'd have died for my teammates that night.

• 5:59:20Speaker 01

  And I'd die for him again. That's the difference.

• 5:59:22Shawn Ryan?

  There's a lot of people in UK that are not happy with the way things are going.

• 5:59:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:59:27Shawn Ryan?

  For a multitude of reasons. In fact, we had a group of extremely wealthy people that want to talk to me about it and want me to to bring it to light and so maybe we can connect you with them. Maybe they have some type of pull.

• 5:59:44Shawn Ryan?

  I wish I had more connections over there for you, but

• 5:59:51Shawn Ryan?

  I think this is a damn good start.

• 5:59:53Speaker 01

  I hope so. I hope good comes out of this. Again, I don't want to come across like I'm whining or bitching or

• 6:00:00Speaker 01

  you know, that's not what this is about.

• 6:00:02Shawn Ryan?

  You're not coming across like that. You're coming across like you just want your life back.

• 6:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:00:06Shawn Ryan?

  You want your teammates to have their life back.

• 6:00:12Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 6:00:13Shawn Ryan?

  And you want

• 6:00:15Speaker 01

  I want it to change.

• 6:00:16Shawn Ryan?

  Future operators to not have to worry about this shit.

• 6:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:00:19Shawn Ryan?

  So they could serve their country without this type of stress.

• 6:00:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:00:22Shawn Ryan?

  That's the way it comes across.

• 6:00:23Speaker 01

  Good, but I hope it does. And that's genuinely, genuinely, a heart and on heart. That is all I want from this. And I don't know, maybe can we can we make a change? Can we not put that stuff on forms? Can we not? Can we not do that in the future? Like? Can we just not put it in the press? And that, yeah, I don't want my fam- I hid this from my family for a long time to the point where it was untenable. I couldn't. I had my mum phone me up on New Year's Eve, everyone else celebrating. Oh, this is gonna be, you know, Happy New Year and all this other bullshit. She phones me up and she's like, this is you, isn't it? She, she's not stupid, smart woman, she puts it together. Like, that's a fucking conversation you don't wanna have with your mother, you know?

• 6:01:05Speaker 01

  How's your daughter handling this?

• 6:01:10Speaker 01

  She doesn't know, Sean. She doesn't know? Not the extent of it, no.

• 6:01:16Speaker 01

  I can't hide it from her for any longer. That's one of the reasons this is useful, we need to, need to get it done. And I've had to hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. She hasn't seen the press? She got a phone.

• 6:01:29Speaker 01

  What did happen?

• 6:01:35Speaker 01

  It's little things like one minute I'm watching her play soccer, right? Mum stood there watching her play soccer. All those parents all know what I did for a living. And there's a fucking documentary coming out by the BBC telling us that we've done this or done that, or there's some newspaper story. There's a documentary coming out? On the panorama, yeah, about the Afghan stuff, the Afghan stuff. So this whole thing, this whole thing is because of the Afghan inquiry and he's under pressure from it. So he threw us under the bus to show transparency because of that.

• 6:02:03Speaker 01

  That's what this is about.

• 6:02:06Speaker 01

  And the BBC, like,

• 6:02:09Speaker 01

  make this make sense. How can the BBC commission investigative journalists to go ambulance chasing around Afghanistan about stuff that happened

• 6:02:19Speaker 01

  a decade ago, allegedly, with no real valuable sources of information other than, you know, people and farmers and people saying, you know, they're all getting paid, they're all getting paid to give those testimonies. So on one, one hand, the BBC are doing that. And on the other hand, they're spending tens of millions of pounds per episode to commission Rogue Heroes. A documentary about the SAS called Rogue Heroes. So you either like the SAS or you don't like the SAS. How can you do both? Which one is it? Hypocrisy of, of the British media when it comes to this stuff is.

• 6:02:55Speaker 01

  It's not even shocking anymore. It it really isn't. It's a shame, but it doesn't surprise me anymore whatsoever. And again, for these journalists out there that are writing these stories to get clicks for a bit of clout or whatever it might be, just think about it. I hope they see this and and think about how that affects all of the good people. What about all of the people? What about what about my friend Matt's family? A guy that lost his life serving his country couldn't be prouder to have been in that regiment. How the fuck do you think it makes his family feel reading that? You know, there's just no empathy whatsoever. People need to be really careful and that's why, you know, I wanna come here and say this so I can set the record straight a little bit.

• 6:03:40Speaker 01

  You know, I can look you in the eye and tell you that I didn't do anything wrong, Sean. I stand by what I did and I do the same thing again, again and again and again. And I felt that at the time and I feel it now. I wouldn't have done it. How can you question my professionalism? Like,

• 6:03:54Speaker 01

  what would have you rather us do, not return fire and take a casualty in the middle of a field? Just let them run away. Is that what we do?

• 6:04:01Speaker 01

  What do you, what would you propose that I, you know? What course of action would have you suggested that I take?

• 6:04:08Speaker 01

  No, it's fucking bullshit.

• 6:04:13Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure the the drone footage has never been released.

• 6:04:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:04:17Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have access to it?

• 6:04:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:04:21Shawn Ryan?

  Does your attorney have access to it?

• 6:04:23Speaker 01

  Um, I can ask him potentially. I don't think so. I think they're very careful and very, not sneaky is probably not the right word, but they keep it all under lock and key. A lot of this stuff needs clearances, this and clearances, that to be released, you know?

• 6:04:38Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I've seen this before. I interviewed the the Blackwater guys from Nassau Square. I don't know if you're familiar with that incident, but they, the US government actually deleted the ten minute section of drone footage that proved their innocence.

• 6:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04:58Shawn Ryan?

  And then they were pardoned.

• 6:05:02Speaker 01

  You know, I'm not, I'm not too concerned about.

• 6:05:10Speaker 01

  As that piece of paper says, it's not completely done, but I am confident in the fact that, at least, not in the meantime, there's gonna be a knock at the door, but it's still there. It doesn't feel like it's gone away. And I've been given assurances that the form will come, it might take a little bit of time and there's some process to go through. But three years is a fucking process. How much process do you want? Don't keep saying process to me. I've been through the process. It's nearly fucking destroyed my teammates' lives. It's had a negative impact on mine. Completely turned my future and, you know, upside down.

• 6:05:51Speaker 01

  It's not right and it needs to be addressed and that's what we're doing. And I think hopefully, like, people will see this and go, we need to do better. We need to treat our service personnel better because they deserve better. You know, they deserve better.

• 6:06:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. There's not a person that I've spoke to about this that doesn't look at that and go, yeah, that's not good enough. You talk to us about exacting standards. You talk to us about judgment. You talk to us about leadership and all these other buzzwords that these people want to throw down our necks and, you know, throw in our faces. Well, let's see some. People don't get involved in this because they haven't got the moral courage to stick their head above the parapet. And they're happy just staying there and being ignorant to it. And that's not, that's, to me, that's complicit. You're part of the problem if you don't do anything about it. If I was to just go now, get my visa and disappear off and not address it, I feel like I'm letting

• 6:06:47Speaker 01

  myself down. I feel like I'm letting the dudes down. And I also feel like I'm letting the fucking next generation of dudes. Like, we need to address this and make sure this shit doesn't ever happen again. Because it's wrong and the guys deserve better. That's it. This is my goal for this, you know? It's my end state.

• 6:07:08Speaker 01

  I'm not after money. I'm not after a thank you. All I want is for this to never happen again and for people to look at this and go, we need to make fundamental changes to the way we do business.

• 6:07:20Speaker 01

  And if that happens, it's a win. And that's why it's worth flying fucking halfway across the world.

• 6:07:28Speaker 01

  And having this conversation with you. That will get seen by some people. It'll get seen. Can guarantee you that.

• 6:07:41Speaker 01

  And I don't wanna go to war with anyone. I'm done, I'm tired of it, Sean. I'm exhausted with the whole thing, honestly, it.

• 6:07:49Speaker 01

  It's exhausting. I don't feel like there's a silver.

• 6:07:55Speaker 01

  Lining at times.

• 6:07:59Speaker 01

  When it comes to this.

• 6:08:02Speaker 01

  I'm grateful that I'm quite resilient. I'm grateful to myself for being quite robust. I mean, I doesn't appear like that sometimes. But the fucking tactical patience and. The amount of times when I see, you know, pictures of his face. Being promoted, being awarded stuff, you know, smiling as if nothing's happened. It makes me. Angry is not the right word. It makes me fucking furious. You understand how angry? This situation.

• 6:08:36Speaker 01

  Makes me feel. And I've been nothing. But patient. Reserved.

• 6:08:44Speaker 01

  Dignified. And I'm not out here screaming and shouting, saying, I want this, I want that. I just want it to go. Away. And I want it to never happen again. And I don't think that's unreasonable. And if they'd have answered. My requests. And they hadn't just fobbed me off with some free phone number or ignored me. Or made me feel like a piece of shit. For three years. And they'd done their jobs with the same level of professionalism that my teammates had done. Then I wouldn't be sat here. So they can have no complaints. And those R and P officers that did that, they should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure they are. Good. There's no sympathy from me on that, zero.

• 6:09:27Speaker 01

  And there's a whole bunch of names I could bring out there, but I'm not gonna. Not gonna do that unless I have to. And this isn't a passive aggressive threat, these are facts. That's only the tip of the iceberg, we've got all. We've got every single failure, every single unprofessional action. From the fucking minute those rounds left our rifles to the fucking second that I'm sat here now. So we've got more if we need it. Yeah.

• 6:09:55Speaker 01

  If you put it all out on a piece of paper, you'd look at it and go, this has to be some sort of joke, this can't be real. But it's not very fucking funny if you're sat where I am. I don't think you find it's very funny, I would do, Sean. No, I don't. I can see in your eyes, you know, I know, I trust you, you know.

• 6:10:13Speaker 01

  But. You know, DJ Cole backed me from day one, they knew about all of this situation. I told them straight away and they still decided to give me a contract, they still decided to pay for my legal fees, they still backed me. They still gave me the opportunity to have a career from the day one, like.

• 6:10:32Speaker 01

  I'm so grateful for that and thank you for them to for doing that, you know. And what's been really nice about this in a weird way is that.

• 6:10:41Speaker 01

  I've lost a lot of people in the fire over this, there's been a lot of casualties. Friends that I thought were close to me are not.

• 6:10:49Speaker 01

  People I feel like are manipulating my situation for their own means, I feel like.

• 6:10:56Speaker 01

  It's cost me.

• 6:10:59Speaker 01

  Multiple relationships with people. Including family members, hopefully we can rebuild, I hope we can. Um, but what it's done has left me with a core circle of people I know genuinely care about me.

• 6:11:14Speaker 01

  The people that I've got in my life now and the small circle that I remain with. Are my people. They're important to me. And I know I can trust them and I love them all dearly. And that is a blessing, there are good things that have come out of this. But it doesn't excuse it. You know. It doesn't.

• 6:11:37Speaker 01

  And I say this, if you don't know the code to my wi- you know, if you don't know the code to my wifi at my house, you are not my friend. There are people now reaching out after eighteen months, three years. Alright Jay, good news. How's it going mate? Nah, not interested dude. Uh, the people that were in the trenches with me, the people that got down and actually backed me, trusted me, believed in me when I said I didn't do anything wrong. They're my people.

• 6:12:00Speaker 01

  And if you haven't heard from me for three years, there's a reason why. And if I haven't heard from you in three years, don't bother. I'm done. You know?

• 6:12:10Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 6:12:11Speaker 01

  It's a shame.

• 6:12:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well Jay, I'm sorry man, I am sorry this is happening to you and

• 6:12:24Shawn Ryan?

  it's killing me right now that I can't think of a solution, but I'll be thinking on it. And we'll do the best that we can to get this out there as wide as we possibly can to as many people as this possibly is, is, is we possibly can. And um,

• 6:12:39Shawn Ryan?

  I'll be thinking of people that I can connect you with.

• 6:12:45Speaker 01

  It's, I can't say thank you enough. And again, it's almost like

• 6:12:53Speaker 01

  it hurts me

• 6:12:56Speaker 01

  that I'm in this position and the people feel like they have to help me. I'm a proud man, you know? And I don't, I don't wanna ask people for help, but I, I don't know what to do. I, I don't, I don't, I don't know how this gets solved or

• 6:13:11Speaker 01

  how we rectify it and it doesn't happen again. Like, I am fucking so grateful for the opportunity to sit here and say this. I'm so, so thankful for all of you guys. It's not lost on me that you are thousands of miles away from your home and that you've taken this and I can see it. I, I understand that this resonates with you and I know it resonates with a lot of people and yeah, it's, it's, it's humbling to see.

• 6:13:41Speaker 01

  There are good people out there that wanna see good things happen to good people. And that's a lifeline for me. That's something that gives me a lot of strength and a lot of confidence. And there are times I really need to draw on that and remember that it's, you know, there's good, there's good people out there. The regiment's a fantastic organisation. It shouldn't be put in this position by top brass. It shouldn't be. Its people should be looked after by these politicians and these generals. Like I said before, I love it. I loved it to death. I still do. I'm very proud of it.

• 6:14:21Speaker 01

  But the people that organise and run that shit need to change.

• 6:14:24Shawn Ryan?

  They're destroying the organisation.

• 6:14:28Speaker 01

  If they don't address it, it's gonna, it's not positive.

• 6:14:31Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody can do their job if this is looming.

• 6:14:34Speaker 01

  No, you can't.

• 6:14:36Shawn Ryan?

  We talked about that at the beginning.

• 6:14:41Shawn Ryan?

  Been through a lot.

• 6:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:14:44Shawn Ryan?

  It's been a rough go for you. You definitely don't need to be dealing with this shit.

• 6:14:49Speaker 01

  I'd rather not.

• 6:14:51Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sorry.

• 6:14:53Speaker 01

  It's not you, brother, but I appreciate that. Thank you. I do. I genuinely do appreciate that, Sean. And hopefully some good will come out of this. I'm an optimist. I am. I'm an optimist and I think with my background and my life, I wouldn't be sorry if I wasn't, you know, I'm an eternal optimist to a point. But at the same time, acutely aware of

• 6:15:22Speaker 01

  how fucked up this whole situation is and it needs to be changed. One of the things I, I won't keep talking about it and, you know.

• 6:15:31Speaker 01

  It's, it's unnerving to see the level that these people were willing to go to show.

• 6:15:38Speaker 01

  Transparency to the point where for the longest time, I genuinely thought I would end up standing in a dock and there was going to be a moment in my future where twelve people would disappear and come back and someone would say, are you guilty? Yes or no?

• 6:15:55Speaker 01

  Sitting in a cage felt like a very, very real possibility for me for a long time. And people will go, no, it's never going to go that far. I was like, well, it's gone this far for that long. What else is coming, you know?

• 6:16:07Speaker 01

  That's a bad place to be. And I'm grateful that I'm not in that position anymore.

• 6:16:14Speaker 01

  So let's just hope good comes from this. People look at it. And go, yeah, we need to fucking make some fundamental changes how we treat our soldiers. Not just now, but in the past. Guys dealing with legacy stuff. And I spoke to DJ about this.

• 6:16:33Speaker 01

  And to Cole.

• 6:16:37Speaker 01

  And I'm sitting there thinking, what about the guy that lives in Hereford? That has been involved in this for twenty, thirty years from something that happened in Northern Ireland. And he made a split decision, split second decision. He's not coming on the Sean Ryan show. He can write all the fucking letters he wants to whoever he wants and no one's gonna hear him. Hear me. Cause I'm blessed. I'm in a position where. I've got friends that do have a platform. And I'm damn sure not gonna waste that opportunity. I'm not trying to sound like I'm a. Some sort of white knight or I'm a martyr, far from that. My life's far from perfect, as we've just found out, but.

• 6:17:16Speaker 01

  If we can weaponize.

• 6:17:22Speaker 01

  The ability to get this scene and broadcast. And that message out there to the point where it becomes loud and people cannot do this again. Then that's it, that's worth it. And if I didn't do that.

• 6:17:38Speaker 01

  Then I don't think I'll be able to look at myself in the mirror properly. If I just ride off into the sunset,

• 6:17:45Speaker 01

  that's not who I am. I didn't leave my teammates in the fight that day, and I fucking damn sure ain't gonna leave my teammates in the fight now. I'm here to the fucking bitter end of whatever this looks like, and I'm willing, I'm willing to go all the way. And I know I've got a team of people behind me that little back me, all the way.

• 6:18:04Speaker 01

  So let's just hope that the message lands,

• 6:18:07Speaker 01

  and that some good comes out of it, you know?

• 6:18:09Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Jay, like I said, we'll do everything we can to get this out as big as possible, as wide as possible, to as many people as possible. And I'll be thinking of ways that, that, that we can help you further. And if something comes to me, I'll let you know.

• 6:18:27Speaker 01

  Awesome, Sean, thank you.

• 6:18:28Shawn Ryan?

  Stay in touch. And, um,

• 6:18:32Shawn Ryan?

  just want you to know, thank you for being here, and, and it was an honor to interview you.

• 6:18:41Shawn Ryan?

  It was a real honor, and I fucking hate that this is happening, so.

• 6:18:47Speaker 01

  Thank you, it's reciprocated, like. I've watched you interview some of my heroes, I've watched your

• 6:18:57Speaker 01

  voice help people directly. I've seen the impact that DJs interview had on people firsthand on dozens of occasions.

• 6:19:09Speaker 01

  And you do a good thing, so to be sat here in front of you is A, a little bit surreal, but also extremely humbling, so, you know, thank, thank you again, and

• 6:19:20Speaker 01

  I probably won't do another one of these, certainly not for a long period of time, and certainly not for these reasons. I didn't do anything before because this.

• 6:19:32Speaker 01

  This, this platform is, is where this needed to be heard. And I'm grateful that we had the patience to wait and we did it properly. And we've come here to Dubai. And uh, we've done it properly and I'm glad for it. So thank you and same to you, Jeremy. Thank you for reaching out and that weird set of, you know, circumstances.

• 6:19:56Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I told you that I don't believe in coincidences and to get your name brought to my face three times in fifteen minutes, totally fucking random.

• 6:20:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 6:20:05Shawn Ryan?

  I got a feeling something's gonna happen because I'm, I'm here because that happened and I don't, I don't believe in coincidences, so.

• 6:20:15Shawn Ryan?

  Have faith.

• 6:20:16Speaker 01

  I've got faith.

• 6:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  All right, brother.

• 6:20:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 6:20:18Shawn Ryan?

  God bless.

• 6:20:20Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.