#201 Jon Truett - Optimizing Human Performance

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Shawn Ryan?

  John Truett, welcome to the show. Well, um, thank you for the invitation. Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome. We've been wondering if this happened for a long time. So you'll be, you'll be the second SAS guy on the podcast. And, um, I'm just infatuated with your guys' life stories and career and, um, and, uh, looking forward to a really good discussion here. So we'll do a life story on you, starting at childhood, go through your military career, all 20, 20. Just under 23 years. 23 years, 19 deployments. That's right. Wow, wow. So we've got a lot to cover. And I want to get into a little bit of the history

• 1:16Shawn Ryan?

  of, um, what you guys were doing in Ireland back in the day. So, cause, um, you know, primarily it's American focused. And, uh, you know, we're not, we're not as in tune with everything that's happened over there as, as we probably should be. So I'd love to get a little history lesson on that. But everybody starts off with an introduction.

• 1:40Shawn Ryan?

  John Truett, a man forged in the crucible of elite military service with 23 years in the British Army, including 19 operational tours across Iraq and beyond. A parachute regiment veteran who volunteered for the grueling SAS selection in 2002, a survivor of profound personal loss, navigating the deaths of your mother in 2004 and father in 2005 while serving in high stakes operations. A pioneer in human performance dedicated to unlocking the potential, the potential of physiology.

• 2:16Shawn Ryan?

  Through innovative technology and expert knowledge. An advocate for rehabilitation, working on initiatives like amputee football tournaments to help conflict survivors rebuild stable, meaningful lives. Engaged to be married to your fiancee Ellie. When are you guys getting married?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Later on this year.

• 2:37Shawn Ryan?

  Congratulations, man. Met her at breakfast today. Amazing woman, amazing woman. And so we have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account and they've been with me since the beginning when I was doing this in my attic. Turned it into one hell of a community. And so one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. This is from Stephen Casey. What do you see as the boundary between human endeavor and neuro-controlled robotics on the battlefield? And if there's no real boundary, does that mean we substitute robots for human wholesale?

• 3:17Shawn Ryan?

  If we do, what does that mean as to the ultimate human cost of war, which has historically been huge metric, been a huge metric on warfare?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Great question.

• 3:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's right, yeah.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  And I wish there was only one line, because in the middle, there's the partnership of robots and human beings in one entity like exoskeletons. So starting off with human beings, you know, and you look at the ongoing conflicts right now, they're done human to human assisted by drone technologies, not yet robotics to, you know, there are elements of it. And if you go to the other end, you know, having robots just doing conflict, I think to me, I can't envisage what that looks like. I think it's a leap too far, you know? The conflict will become increasingly machine teaming and increasingly I can't see the

• 4:15Speaker 02

  sense of humans standing in defending positions where you can put automated machines to do it. And technology certainly allows you to do that in a responsible manner.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  So I think we can be a lot more judicious about how we put lives at risk. But I just cannot see a future where you will not need the highest trained soldiers. Uh, I think soldiers are becoming more and more special and more and more enabled. One of the key points I've been looking at most recently is exoskeletons. Um, it's all about the concept of human augmentation. And my worry with exoskeletons is you start putting robotics around humans to assist them in what they do, you start disadvantaging the human being themselves.

• 5:06Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  And because we have a propensity to push for greater and greater things. So if, for instance, certain type of exoskeleton is really, really powerful and it can be used a lot, it'll be overused. And if, you know, it, take the concept of an R man suit. If you put a human being in an R man suit and it's not chiming you to do what you are trained to do, your muscles, you, you, you, you absolutely depend upon your own physiology to drive your health and then over reliance on something in the middle like an exoskeleton. Although it could mean a soldier can march with a hundred and thirty kilogram pack over a hundred miles. You know, I have a problem with that because you will disadvantage the human being in making those sorts of choices.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  So choose where you put robotics in judiciously and save life by doing it. But don't compensate human biology. The art is to shift the human biological limit further to the right.

• 6:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, it's, man, warfare is just changing so fast right now and there's

• 6:11Shawn Ryan?

  all these different companies that I've been diving into like Andurall. Uh, we got this guy coming on that, uh, was a former SEAL, Dino Mavroukas, and he's doing autonomous surface warfare vehicles and man, it's just, we have unmanned subs, we have unmanned planes, we have unmanned surface warfare vessels. I mean,

• 6:36Shawn Ryan?

  it's gonna look, it already does look completely different than what I was in and I don't know, you know, first I was.

• 6:46Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty apprehensive, but that was probably my ego thinking no robot could ever do the fucking job that I did. But, I mean, these things, now I kind of changed my tune and I mean, it does, you know, it does preserve our lives and, you know, having kids, and you have kids too, I mean, I would rather a robot go and do the dirty work than have my kids out there.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Absolutely. When you're defusing a five-ton sea mine.

• 7:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  I'd much rather, you know, I'm an absolute supporter and advocate of unmanned systems that can look at threats as well as illegal maritime shipping and fishing. You know, this is real age of dual-purpose technology. And these unmanned systems are incredibly advantageous for us, you know, we should look to preserve life. We shouldn't try to remove the challenges and hardship from human endeavor. You know, and maybe it's not, maybe not all conflict, you know, I don't, I can't sort of qualify this statement by saying emetrically this happens, but I can't see that all conflict is going to be able to be handed over to robotic systems.

• 8:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  And I think somewhere in the line, human judgment has to come in.

• 8:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, I think that's kind of the, so far with everybody I've talked to, that's the premise, is that, is the final decisions will be made by humans, but especially with some of these things like, uh, Scale AI and Palantir, I mean, it's, the interesting thing is, it's, it's taking the intel and all the things that go into the decision-making process, and instead of actually having humans do it, where it would take days, sometimes weeks, maybe even months, I mean, it's literally displayed all the different outcomes and, and the probability of what could happen and your percentage of winning, I mean, it's all handed to you through AI within.

• 8:53Shawn Ryan?

  Hours or less.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:55Shawn Ryan?

  And um, so, interesting subject.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  I'd like to add, I mean, I was in a park watching a child play with a drone, one of those small drones that tethered you. You know, and it can quickly, you know, the the future is, it's already there. Now that drone can recognize facial feature. Capture it, lock it on and tether it, and I, you know, I was sort of joking my own head going, I wonder if I can outrun that.

• 9:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Go back and try and have a race with it.

• 9:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  See if I can, you know, this technology is, is brilliant.

• 9:26Shawn Ryan?

  If you.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  It's already there and it's, it's on the street, you know, it's like a drone that can tether to you and will follow you around whatever. It's there.

• 9:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Buy it for very small amounts of money off the shelf, I won't say the drone it was in that case.

• 9:41Shawn Ryan?

  If, if you, um. I mean, some of the ways they're integrating technologies is, I mean, if, if you heard about the helmets that, that, uh, Palmer Luckey's designed with Android.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Not, I haven't.

• 9:55Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, so he, he's making, it's, it's like an interface heads up display. And it will replace all, not just special operations, which I love, because special operations always gets the cream of the crop. But I think what's really cool is that all military ground units will get this eventually. But basically, it almost looks like, uh, like a pilot helmet, you know, with the visor.

• 10:23Shawn Ryan?

  And he's integrated, I, I believe it could be wrong, but it's, um, it's like the next generation of night vision, which integrates color and thermal and all these things. And not only that, it will, it will, there'll be a heads up display of where all your guys are at if you're, if you're on the ground. Till you highlight them in blue or green or whatever color. It'll highlight bad guys in red, you'll actually be able to see through walls. So if you have somebody shooting at you from a lip, when they drop that down, you can see exactly where they're at, wait for them to pop back up and it'll do, I mean, it's, it's just insane, like the technology, it'll, it'll even identify.

• 11:08Shawn Ryan?

  Friendly info aircraft and by the way that they're maneuvering tell you what it's about to do. I mean it's It's a whole nother, it's a whole nother game out there right now.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's really interesting because you confuse all of that incredible technology. And I'm all for it, you know, but we've got to remember it's all going back into a human being.

• 11:28Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  You know, and it, you know, and even in ten years ago, you can get cognitive overload with all of this, right? And um but I I think all of that technology is good. We just have to be very judicious about how you apply it.

• 11:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  And what that human being in it, in it can can reasonably be expected to apply it for. Um because you can get easily get overloaded with everything. And I was a chain J-TAC and you've got multiple nets going on. All good stuff. Your brain learns how to do it. We call it four D thinking. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, the power of what's inside there is incredibly powerful as well. You can build pictures and you can always imagine where that aircraft is. Um to have it in a uh hood is absolutely brilliant. I remember, I I think you had, you have to learn to use it. Remember when you're putting that on, that's uh remapping your own pathways in your brain. So you're actually pushing the human biological limit along in my eyes as well.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  You know, your brain will learn very, very quickly to adapt to what that extra coding, what our extra signals are, you know, and it's it's incredibly powerful and adaptive. So human beings can take this, you know, and uh and definitely they can adapt to it. Um so I I'm all for technology. I'd love to, you know, blue force tracking is absolutely uh critical, you know, it's one of the the hardest things you have to do.

• 12:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  I'd be aware where the uh each other are, but also remember the criticality of your own instincts and your own senses and not having an over reliance on technology. And we used to wear a lot less protection. Because actually we trusted ourselves, you know, the power of, you know, sense and instinct is incredibly important to soldiers.

• 13:14Shawn Ryan?

  Human intuition.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Human intuition, instincts, sixth sense, gut instinct, whatever you want to call it, it's there and it's very, very real. And we need to ensure we keep that forefront of the people that's doing it. Empowerment with technology, I think Palmer Lucky's Andrew, wasn't he Andrew?

• 13:31Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yes. I mean, it's super, super exciting where they're going with some of their capabilities and technologies.

• 13:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  And I think it's a good time to do it. And I think we're looking at a really, really interesting turn uh in, in um, in, in our present day.

• 13:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  You know, we do need those autonomous systems skirting around, uh in, you know, in the waters.

• 13:55Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Um, you know, resources can be far like.

• 14:01Shawn Ryan?

  One other thing before we get started, everybody gets a gift.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 14:11Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance League gummy bears, legal in all fifty states. I don't know if they're legal in UK or not, but you'll have to find that out when you get home.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I'll do some reset.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Um, I've got some gifts for you downstairs as well. I haven't got them with me.

• 14:25Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, perfect.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Can I possibly run out and get them and bring them back up?

• 14:29Shawn Ryan?

  Sure.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Mini.

• 14:35Shawn Ryan?

  What is this?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  It's just some uh very.

• 14:37Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, damn.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Um, something for the bookshelves.

• 14:42Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, thank you.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  And then I've got you some quintessentially British marmalade from a shop called Fortham Mason.

• 14:50Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  So I don't know, don't know whether marmalade's the same, but it's like a, a, a, a jam and it's called the monarch.

• 14:57Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Pleasure. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

• 15:05Shawn Ryan?

  All right, John, you ready?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:09Shawn Ryan?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  So, um, I grew up in southeast of England, um, and, uh, uh, really, I was, uh, born, uh, to parents. My dad was from a family in London, uh, generations back, and they had a small business. It was actually a joinery company. And so they came from an area called Thornton Heath in London that used to be lovely. It's pretty rough now. Um, but before I was born, they moved down to the southeast. I moved down, they found a little cottage in the country. Uh, my mom moved fourteen times, I remember you say. So she's very mobile. I think it's associated to her father's job. Um, I'm sure he's an architect. I think he's an engineer as well.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  So essentially, uh, when I was born, I was born up into a very, a small house that was always under construction. My dad was a builder, ran a building, small building company, adjoining company. Um, and, you know, all I remember is being a very happy childhood. Um, but we were always outside, um, always tripping over stuff that, building materials. Uh, my dad was always sort of building extra bits to the house. So it was quite big at the bottom by the end. Really small at the top. Um, uh, and essentially, you know, it's a very outside life. Um, and sort of growing up even from a very, very young age, um, I spent a lot of time with my mother. Um,

• 16:40Speaker 02

  uh, my father was a competition sailor, so he sailed, actually sailed in the Olympics, came second in the world championships.

• 16:46Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:47Speaker 02

  Built his own boats, one of which went to the Maritime Museum. Um, it was a class called the Flying Dutchman, which I believe was, uh, deemed too dangerous. It became Olympic class, but then came to dangerous cause it was, uh, the fastest of the racing dinghies. And it had a habit of, uh, going end over end, uh, in certain winch. It's had a spinner cut. So he's a, is very, very strategic and technical person, a really, really brilliant person.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Um, um, but we spent a lot of time with my mother. Uh, my mother was an architect. We used to get up at four o'clock in the morning. She also did something called milk recording, so. God, what? Milk recording. So you go to farms and you record how much milk you're getting for, from the cows. So me and my brother would wake up on a mattress in the back of a mini estate. It's a tiny little mini estate, very iconic to, to the UK. And we sort of opened the back doors and sort of on a farm. And go and find my mother and she's in this sort of cow shed and noting down the volume from each cow. Uh, the milk they were given every day, very fastidious. But I re- remember very clearly.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  We always used to take a silver urn full of milk back to the house. My dad, one of my dad's favourite things was to eat. The cream, which is about that thick. Wow. The top of the milk. So we had a, a growing up like that, you know, I was. Outside a huge amount. We didn't have a TV. In fact, we didn't have a TV till very much, much later on. And um, so my dad read books and we listened to the radio. Um, you know, I wish I could meet him at this age again, because he's a very, very interesting person. Um, uh, but essentially we spent most of our time with my mum. My dad worked extremely hard. He was commuting. A lot into, into London, running a small business.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  And in Britain, the housing market, sorry, uh, the building market crashed in nineties. And essentially the business went with it. So he was always working extremely hard. To try and keep this going. He had some employees that he deeply cared about. I remember him talking about it. Um, but you know, I spent a lot of time with my mum, very, very close to her. I did a lot of hunting when I was younger, always with dogs, hawks, all sorts of animals. Never guns, ferrets, pole cats, uh, and you know, more latterly, I realised that was all my mum as well, you know. My mum was organising for me to go out with someone. He had, um, I'm sure it was a red American, a red eagle.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  And a kestrel, I think it was, um, and we used to go out and the horse, the eagle was actually quite good. But the the kestrel was awful. He he would basically give up. It wouldn't even try and get. Mostly rabbits and squirrels that we're after. And they would go and sit on a power line and just sit there like that and just look down at us. So we spent most of our time running around, um, like swinging around the lure to try and get it. To to come down sort of covered in rabbit pelt. I just remember a really young age, just looking up at this hawk, just. Looking down at us going, yeah, okay, do this all day if you like. And eventually it come back. So all those experiences are, you know, it's sort of occurred to me later, they're all through my mum.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Um, and she was an incredibly strong person, woman, you know, I don't. You should, everyone faces challenges in their lives. She was holding down two to three jobs at a time. Incredibly supportive of my father, although he, she didn't always agree. So, um, me and my brother. Went to boarding school at seven and, um. I still don't know how much was this design deliberate strategy and how much was it was just opportunity at the time, light bulbs went off. But we had a piano in the house, just like a small baby grand, I think it belonged to my grandma and she didn't have space for it, so. Was in the house and by hook or by crook, I started playing the piano. Um, next we started getting lessons.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  And then my brother took up the violin. Oh, really? Yeah, so all of this sort of started happening. And as I say, I'd never, never know whether it was by design. Um, or actually it was just like, oh, they're starting to play music, we could turn this into something. But me and my brother went to boarding school, um, at seven years old. As Queen's choristers. Are you twins? No, so he's fifteen months older. Fifteen months. So, yeah, so pretty close. Um, a lot of people see lots of similarities, a lot of people see lots of differences. I guess it's depends where they look from. We're very, very close as people. He's very, very busy himself. He was in the military himself, um, as a commissioned officer.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  But when we went to boarding school at seven, and I remember mum saying, you know, mum did not support that. She she wanted us to be at home. But my father saw it as the best opportunity he could give us. And so we. So very, very funny stories from throughout my schooling. And it started early. So I went to, um. A school in London that provides choristers to the Queen's Chapel. And essentially, this was a feeder school or a preparatory school for Eton College. So Eton College is a very significant, uh, well-known school in, uh, in, in, in, um, uh, England.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  And so we started singing in the chapel and I found it very hard to concentrate. I wasn't a very good chorister, I'll admit. And we started learning music, um, to a much greater level. I had a very good teacher, actually, who's, uh, the mother of. Someone I'm very, very close to still, um, who taught me piano initially. But then we started scaling up the grades and you had to be, and I don't know what grade it was, but seven or eight to sit a scholarship at Eton. But in that period of time, and you know, it's a corporal punishment school. And I was, I believe there was only three left in country at the time I went there. Um, and, um, corporal punishment school is where you discipline children using slipper, pear drop. Well, it's a very English thing.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Uh, doesn't go on now. Quite rightly, I think I've got, and again, you know, it's funny because you pull sort of stuff out of your head. Um, and I do remember on one night, uh, in this school, under that current management, I think it's a very good school now, I'm very well run. Um, but on a certain night, you were allowed a bath and in these, you had these rows of baths. And, uh, in the bottom left bath was reserved for people who'd be misbehaving. And I'd invariably misbehaved at a certain point during most days, not even a week. And it's full of cold water. So you get in your cold water bath and I think you had a minute to have your bath.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  So there's lots of that. And it was, uh, you know, when you look back as a child, um, when you've got boarding, it's boarding a day. But boarding and you're sleeping in dormitories of fifty children, you know, there's, you know, as a child, you see some quite tough experiences. Um, I was constantly what they called running away, which wasn't running away. So it was going to get a bit of chocolate out of the chocolate machine at the station. At one point, we made it miles away from the school. Um, we're actually going to the cinema, me and my friend. But of course, every time they caught us, they said it was running away. And I was like, no, I'm not running away. I'm going to get chocolate from the chocolate machine.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  So a trend had started up already, right? You know, I was a boarding school. Um, my behaviour was quite challenging. Um, I didn't get it myself. I don't remember being unhappy. Um, I did miss home a great deal. And, um, that was, you know, they did have very, very strict rules. You weren't allowed to see your parents anymore than around three times a term, I think. You weren't allowed any other clothes unless they were school clothes. Um, it was all, um, school food. You weren't allowed any, any stuff brought in.

• 25:01Shawn Ryan?

  No chocolate, huh?

• 25:02Speaker 02

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

• 25:40Speaker 02

  And again, you see, you know, looking at it now, it's it's really quite funny. But at the time, it was also done and it was a. I don't know, it was all perfectly normal. Uh, so. Um, I ended up getting removed from the school. Uh, because it had become untenable, but actually the amount I was misbehaving, I was getting beaten a lot. Um, it's not like beaten as in beaten, I mean, you can't crush children by hitting them, right? They are actually turn out to be much more resilient than you are. And I think that was. Part of the problem with the school, they resorted to the corporal punishment far too much, spending a lot of time in detention. And again, I don't remember being unhappy as such, but um, I don't think I was, you know, I was I was removed, but with the intention that it wasn't.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  You know, let's come up with a different solution for it. That was one year before I had set my exams uh for Eton.

• 26:32Speaker 02

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

• 27:16Speaker 02

  And I got there on sports awards as well, so a fairly heavy bursary. Uh, and went to Eton, my brother al- already there. And so Eton is that school with the penguin suits. Oh, okay. Yeah, so we got obviously second hand penguin suits.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  They look very smart if they knew, but I was definitely the scruffiest. Child in school. Um, and it, you know, it's an incredible institution, right? It's one of the oldest institutions in the UK. It's a very, very big landowner, therefore they are wealthy enough to offer the types of versaries that they do. And they actually make a lot of opportunity to people. But there's um also hereditary lines that re-attend Eaton. Um, and uh, you know, so it's a basically a full town. And uh, and again, I was already, my mum always used to say when I was young, I'm right, we're just gonna leave the keys out for you. She had a habit of leaving the house at night and going on walkabouts.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  And I liked to walk through the woods at night uh and everything. And every so often I do remember frightening myself and running home again. But to a larger extent, I had a habit of just getting up and just going for a walk, uh going out in the night. And I continued this trait at school, but I didn't really like it, didn't really understand it. Which I think a lot of the accusations of running away were just because I got in a habit of picking the locks. Of taking the window locks off and calling down Vainfels and off I went. So uh, and you know, again, I guess, I don't know. Growing a trend, so I'm still at it, Eaton. Um, I was, I'm not, I don't remember being like really badly behaved, but I was always on the tardy book where you had to run up.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Had to run very early in the morning and sign a book, do it again at lunch and do it again at night just for bed. Um, so the school, we were all in boarding houses. So I think the nub of this issue was really I sort of had loggerheads with the boarding house. So certain traditions at Eaton where the older boys come down to the lower floors where the younger members are and they do certain things like bed posting and. You know, that sort of. Yeah. What do they call it? Initiation things. It's basically another name for bullying.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  So, uh, we were the first year across our board. I can't remember how many in the year, like ten or thirteen, but we were sports and music. And it traditionally been an academic house. And I think they just weren't expecting what, what, what difference we were like. We were completely different, you know, and actually we ended up going upstairs. And kind of sort of trying to dissuade them from coming downstairs a lot. And they just didn't know how to manage this. Um, so essentially, and it's really, really interesting, actually, because, you know, Eaton's a really special school. And they have really amazing people there. They have something called King's College.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Um, uh, which Henry the Eighth, I believe, started the school, um, with express intent to kind of shape academics. Um, I think it's got heavy lines into political circles, so shaping government, uh, that sort of stuff. So it's got a really amazing history. And I remember there was a guy with, I think it was, um, multiple sclerosis, is one of the most brilliant mathematicians, and not predicted to make it beyond his teens. I think he did. But, you know, he, he was given that opportunity. He was one of the most brilliant mathematicians there. So it's a very, very special school. But essentially, because I was at loggerheads with my housemaster, I kept getting in trouble.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Kept having to sign a tidy book, which was a lot of running, which made me very fit, and I didn't mind. But I wasn't getting my homework done, uh, which is again, something that's left to you to be responsible for. Uh, when I was getting, when you get punished in Eaton, you have, well, you have to go and see the lower master in my case for the bottom years. That it's called the bill.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  And I was on it again and again and again. And, you know, they're having to put special reviews in because they've got certain rules for you're on the bill this many times, then we have to review you for suspension.

• 31:24Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  And it was really, really interesting because when we were clearing out my dad's desk. Uh we found some letters between him and the lower master. And it exposed and highlighted how to what extent the school and my father were going to try and solve this issue. Um which is, you know, you could see the intent and actually the lower master, I think he felt quite sorry for me. Which not, not, not, I wasn't feeling sorry for her, like I said, I do not have a recollection of somehow having. You know, being sad about this or unhappy as a child, child at all. Uh but I was just endlessly in bits of trouble. And essentially I had completely the wrong house master to solve it.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  And I think it came down that, you know, so the lower master started giving me chores by doing his gardening. In his house on a Sunday. And so I'll go and do his gardening and actually what that was was so I could have Sunday dinner with him. So sit down with his family and have Sunday dinner. So that's the sort of kindness they were showing around it. Magic, sort of managing it in a very, very interesting way. But essentially they, you know, it was gonna go to one end or not. And if I, they looked at whether I could move to another boarding house or not, and whether that would change um the things. People believed it did. Um but essentially it came down to, do we break tradition? This has never been, this has never happened before.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  You know, so um, you know, I, I fully appreciated. Uh the levels people had gone to. And you know, and when I talk about that sort of educational psychology report, that was when it was done. And I found it much more latterly. There was two of them and I found one. And it's really quite interesting and I believe that was an agreement between my dad and the school that let's, you know, let's have a look. And let's see what we can do to kind of sort of address this because, but in the end. Uh I moved on from that school, uh went to another school. Um on music and sports awards, but given a place.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  And uh I spent, I think it's less than a year there. Uh I've got um removed three days after the rugby season was unbeaten. Wow. Finished. I do suspect it was done. Yeah. At least we finished the rugby season, but I absolutely love my sport and you know, it used to make me laugh actually at Eaton. Cause I said, you've given me all these sports awards. And Eaton's got two incredibly quite contact filled games, one called the wall game, one called the field game.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  And the wall games played in King's College and the field games played by all the others. So the boarding houses and it's a mixture of football and rugby with some quirky rules in it. And, you know, obviously I was kind of breaking my fingers all the time, which didn't sit well with keeping my piano scholarship.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  So I remember like going to piano lessons and, you know, it's musical geniuses. Of which these teachers were tend to be quite sort of emotionally charged. And so when I was turning up in these rooms. Um, and not able to play the piano, uh, it becoming really, really exasperated with me. Uh, and I was kind of sort of perplexed by this. I was like, well, you know, the house wants me to play all this sport. Uh, you're asking me to practise for hours doing this, um, which I did, you know, I do. I fully, fully realised right from the start, I looked, looked at the other scholars and I was never going to be. Absolutely brilliant. I was good. I wouldn't have got a scholarship before.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  But, you know, when you look at sets of people and you see, okay, wow, you know, you, you will be something that is truly special in the future. Whereas for me, I could have become good and your training does a huge amount, but it only takes you so far.

• 35:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  And there's individual ability that is, is even more important. If you want to become part of that last one percent. You know, it's, it's something in there that, that, that will do it. I think there's that sort of mode of 10,000 hours of training or whatever. It's absolutely right. That final bit, there's something special inside certain people. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I sort of finished at that school, uh, the next school after the rugby season, three days after it, I went for a period of no school. This is just before, just before, um.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  My exams, I was within a year of having to take my national exams called GCSEs. Um, I spent some time in Spain, uh, living with a navy family there, then came back. Went to my local state school, where I should have gone. Holy shit, you went to all kinds of schools. Yeah, yeah, so I had full range and it was great, amazing experience. But the irony is when you go to sit your scholarship at Eton, uh, they ask you what your second school is. And obviously, say, Eton College and A and other very, quite sort of, I don't know what you'd term it, but they're special schools. Uh, this community college, um, and, um, yeah, I remember them looking at me and just being like,

• 36:30Speaker 02

  that's pretty extraordinary. So, so, and you know, I sort of ended up back at this school. I did my exams, uh, passed them okay. And I particularly strong on languages at that point. I went on to A levels, still playing lots and lots of sport. Uh, but within those six form years where I was studying A levels, I did two languages in sociology. Um, I started working, uh, for a building company as a labourer. Sat my exams, but my attention, my attendance levels weren't very good, so my grades certainly didn't reflect what I could have done. But really, I didn't feel that those exams were really the key to the next step. Mm-hmm.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Um, and I became building labourer, working for a local company, loved it. There's something called the HOD, so the HOD is where you carry the bricks, you stack them up in different, um, levels of brick, I think eight, sixteen, and I think there was one over twenty. You know, I'm quite good at that, and so the bricklayers quite liked me being their labourer.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Um, and I sort of enjoyed it and I enjoyed that at that age. Um, then I got an offer to become an industrial roofer. I became an industrial roofer and I absolutely loved that. Um, but it was in the time when you could do roofing by walking the open steels. Really interesting job. I was travelling a lot around the UK. Um, and it was quite, you know, as you can imagine, certain people who get involved in roofing, as anyone's guess who would be in our roofing gang at any one time. Uh, sometimes you didn't get paid and you have to sort of go and insist that you should be paid. Um, and uh, but it was really interesting introduction into working life.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Enjoyed it, but started doing jobs in London and I was getting up at like four o'clock in the morning. Playing rugby, I was doing, I used to represent certain people's gyms or I used to box. Um, so I was doing those things at night and we were getting really quite small money. We put on day work, so we couldn't really work hard. There was no incentive for price work for laying the area. Plus they were bringing in safety systems because there's quite a high rate of injuries and death in industrial even. They're bringing in systems that weren't, weren't very well designed at all. So there are rest systems that would suddenly, you're supposed to clip and want yourself. You're carrying sharp cheating and you know, it'd suddenly stop you and all of a sudden the shit.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  So all of that factored in just made me look elsewhere.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Um, so you know, I kind of, so that's what sort of led me through childhood, a very, very different range of schooling.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  I don't think I fitted too well at school. I didn't fit, you know, it's not like I was short of friends, but I didn't have. Cause it's not like I was part of a scene at school at all, just sort of bimbed about. Got a lot of chores. I mean, I used to love my chores at eating because they were building stages for theatre. I actually sort of spent most of my weekends, you don't get much time off it, right? You have to study hard to, to, to stay the grades. Um, but you know, all my passing time, but I actually quite enjoyed that. Um, and you know, I don't, like I say, you know, you. I don't remember being unhappy as a child and you know, I remember them diff, they had difficult times, you know, I used to come back.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  My father was incredibly sort of disappointed and frustrated that these schools weren't working. You know, my mum didn't want us to go to boarding school. That was a very tough time for them. But she was ultimately extremely supportive to my father and recognised that how much they were both giving up. To offer us the opportunities that we could have been offered.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  And I did speak letterly with my father about it, you know, um, um, actually not long before his death. And I think going into the military was a part of him. He could see that he'd had sort of found some space. Um, but you know, at the time, he kept coming up with these brilliant plans to offer us opportunity and they just weren't working out. That must have been incredibly frustrating. And you can see from the educational psychologist report at fourteen, you know, the effort and energy that was put into trying to get this in some sort of shape where it would go. Would the outcomes have been any different if I'd stayed at those schools? I don't believe so. You know, I don't think, you know,

• 41:03Speaker 02

  as a person, they would have been. I don't, I don't, I don't know whether they would or not.

• 41:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 02

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

• 41:37Speaker 00

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• 42:07Speaker 03

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• 42:23Shawn Ryan?

  What, what got your, I mean, so you went from?

• 42:27Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know how many schools. Where you were very talented in music and sports, then you became a construction laborer. Roofing. How the hell did the military get on your radar?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  So whilst I was roofing, and again, you know, there are long days in London. I was just like, we're on day work, we're refixing the same panels over and over. And they're condemning the steels below us, and that was nothing to do with this. My brother had become a commissioned officer. And he had joined the parachute regiment. Um, he deployed to Kosovo, and I was watching in the background, him doing all of this interesting stuff. You know, the parachuting, everything else. So when I did look elsewhere from roofing. Um, that became the obvious answer, you know, and I didn't, I had no aspirations of being a commissioned officer as such. But, you know, going into the military and seeing that, you know, that was interesting.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  It's like the parachuting is involved, you know, you've gone to an interesting place. I hadn't travelled great. I used to travel with my mum a lot. My mum used to drive my dad's boat in a trailer. Um, all over so he could compete sometimes with and sometimes travel separately and they used to sleep in tents. He's very famous actually for getting up in the night and it shaved like two millimeters off the keel. Cause he believed he'd analyze the tide right. And, uh, and actually he used to say, I never, I'm never gonna win every race, only just the occasional one. Because I have a nemesis. And I remember him saying this, and I said, he said, my nemesis is a sailor, I believe called Rodney Patterson.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Who I think it's Rodney Patterson, who is one of the world's most famous sailors. And he used to win everything. And I used to hear my dad say, it's just because he's got more ability. So my mum used to drive, uh, my dad's boats a lot and we'd go with them if we possibly could. So we'd pop up in places like San Remo in, in, I think it's Switzerland, San Remo, beautiful places. We'd be staying outside or whatever. And it was brilliant, really lots and lots of fun. And then I did some travelling with my mum to Spain.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  I went to Holland. My godfather was the person who designed the Flying Dutchman, the boat. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, so it's called Flying Dutchman, and my godfather, Conrad Goltzer, used to be the designer of that boat. And I remember visiting him in Holland with my mum in a camper van. And he'd give us, every time I saw him, he'd give us one bag of red licorice bootlaces. So I did quite a lot of getting around and travelling with my mum, but when I saw my brother going off to these places I'd never heard of. You know, I was like, okay, well, this is interesting. So I walked into the recruiting office. And said, can I join the parachute regiment? And they said, no.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  You can join the engineers, but I don't want to join the engineers. Of course, that's when they get an incentive. A set amount of money to fill gaps in other units for recruiting. So I sort of kept to my guns. And I said, I want to join the parachute regiment. They said, do you know what you're letting yourself in for? Um, I said, yes, my brother's a powder trooper. So, um. Yeah, that's how I ended up in the military. How old were you when you joined? I was twenty one. And actually, that's good, you know, in in many aspects, that's a bit later. Some people go in at eighteen. That period in roofing gangs, things like that, I think stood me in very, very good stead.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Uh, for going into the military, just that slightly bit later, having worked in opera, uh, professional roles. Like building labourer, roofer, that sort of thing. What year is this? Uh, so basically, I enlisted in November ninety eight. In ninety eight? That's when I signed something. What was going on in the world at the time? Um, I think it was relatively, it feels like there's lots more now. Um, probably didn't feel like that to to people. Um, mainly for the UK, it was Northern Ireland. Um, uh, the last big conflict had been the Falklands and parachute regiment had played

• 46:58Speaker 02

  a really, really key part in it alongside the Marines and the Guards and numerous other units, you know, the Falklands War predominated, um, British soldier thinking, certainly when I joined, and there were still people serving that had served and fought in that war. Um, and it's, you know, incredible hearing them and, you know, the Falklands War was genuinely a very, very tough experience for all of them, a proper conflict. Um, so really, you know, I think, I can't remember, two of the battalions had gone to the Falklands and one hadn't, so there was this thing going on in the parachute regiment, but I didn't

• 47:39Speaker 02

  really pay that much attention. Um, so really it was all about sort of Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Accords had happened. Um, so it was really just support to, you know, it's presence, basically.

• 47:55Shawn Ryan?

  Can you, can you describe what was, what was going on in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday?

• 48:02Speaker 02

  So I got, again, because I was quite young, I can't really explain in massive detail, but, you know, the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland is very, very complicated. And you, you know, very, very, um, you could set communities off against each other a huge amount, you know, and it's got a element in British history where, uh, an element want to be apart from Britain and an element want to be part of Britain. And quickly this could turn into a great deal of violence. Um, I don't know a huge amount about the British military history in there, but it goes back a long, long time.

• 48:39Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Um, when I went there, it's Good Friday Accords and therefore there wasn't much going on. Um, but there was some really intensive work and effort going on in, in more clever spaces, more covert operations, that sort of stuff, you know, whereas when I turned up as a paratrooper, you know, and we, I remember we did lots and lots of public order training. Because Northern Ireland could conflagrate very, very quickly. And so part of our role was to support the police in trying to prevent, you know, public order and protests. Part of our role was patrols, so reassurance patrols, clearance patrols.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  It was all sort of pretty simple stuff. There was a huge amount of sentry in sort of guard duty. Go around this sort of rotation.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  And, you know, in my round in the parachute regiment, I played a lot of sport for them. So I played a lot of rugby, played some of the, some testing rugby. Like I remember a particular game against the Marines. That was a play rugby league against Marines in what I remember to be some concrete stadium. Really, really tough, like, um, uh, competition games. And they sort of were trying to sort of encourage me into the boxing team. Oh, really? Um, so I did a lot of boxing in there, but essentially the two tours of Northern Ireland, they weren't testing and challenging in that sense. You know, the, the environment you're in, you're in a, what we call a sub, so it's hardened block.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Um, but, you know, I don't remember getting shot at any point. Um, there's a lot of rocks thrown at you, um, you know, you spat at a bit. Um, but essentially you're coordinating off areas because you thought someone reported that there was a box that couldn't be trusted. And you're waiting until it could get cleared. But I was very, very aware that there was these forces, um, that we didn't necessarily know we would stand up and be cure of F two. And they, you know, a lot of the, um, important work was getting done there. So in a sense, it was a very, very good introduction to military service. Um, but when I was with the parachute regiment, and I'm not, you know, although I boxed and I was quite a successful boxer,

• 51:02Speaker 02

  I wasn't necessarily good technically. I didn't lose, but it was only a matter of time until I was because, you know, I was winning more by force of will than, uh, than good boxing technique. And army boxing is very points orientated and I've, I've not done a long pedigree of boxing. I've spent a lot of time boxing gyms, you know, sparring with people, uh, who they used to ask me to. So it's not like I wasn't, but I wasn't a boxer as such, you know, I wasn't seeking to be com- competition boxer. And there was sort of a push towards me in going into the army boxing

• 51:41Speaker 02

  team. And again, there was the same suggestion for army rugby, but I'd already kind of seen this at county level for rugby, is I was good enough to get in, but I was never going to be good enough to really excel at it. And I was the wrong shape and size. And wherever I really enjoyed playing, they wanted me playing a different position. So I was never really going to enjoy it. And I actually never really got, it's the county, it's a privilege to play for it. But not if it means I'm going to be playing on the wing all the time, or playing out of position all the time. So same with the boxing, you know, the boxing, even if I was really keen at boxing,

• 52:22Speaker 02

  which I wasn't, then, you know, the style of boxing just didn't suit me. It was very much straight punching. And obviously, I'm quite short, my arms are quite short, I'm never going to really beat on reach, and army boxing was all about. So when they were trying to push me into, into the army boxing team for trials, you know, I was being held at a very, very low weight. And it was seen as a privilege to be on the boxing team. So when I pushed back and said, no, I don't want to, it didn't go down very well with certain people. And, you know, and it's brilliant.

• 52:58Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, what did you want to do?

• 53:01Speaker 02

  So I had already noticed, so on the bottom of one of my pay slips, was a notice that, you know, it's essentially saying if get paid more. And there was an invite to be considered for special duties. Special duties is a, a, a community, so an SF community as such. So I already got my notice. I'd obviously been to Northern Ireland and saw some of the work that was going on, didn't fully understand it. But I knew there was something else. And that's why I ended up, how, how I ended up applying for selection, going on selection. And selection is our name for entrance into the SS or the SBS.

• 53:44Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. So they, so they, they put in, they put a notice on your pay slips of who they want to try out?

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I'm pulling this out of the back of my, I just remember seeing a comment or a caption saying, you know, it's all about professional development or something like that. And it was something I'd noticed that said, you know, there's something else there. Now, to that point, remembering that, you know, I joined the parachute regiment really to, because it was interesting. I hadn't had a long period of time of knowledge of military. My father was very supportive of both of us going into the military. He was a huge believer in the military as an institution. He himself had served in the military, albeit only for a few years, as a bomb disposal person.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  So mostly he was disposing of World War Two munitions. Did a tour in Germany. And I remember he had sort of good memories of, of doing that. And he'd learned to ski there and he'd learned to do all sorts of stuff. So I remember my father had a very positive opinion of it. And I don't remember my mum being against it. Although my mum was that sort of person, right? She was so strong, even if she didn't like it, she wouldn't have said. No, so essentially, whatever decisions we would make, she would quietly culture the way we went about them. Very clever in how she did it, but ultimately she'd support you, you know, as long as it wasn't a bad idea.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  And, but I don't imagine my mum would have been, you know, brilliant, but not against either. So I know my mum was actually very proud of it as well.

• 55:30Shawn Ryan?

  What, so what, so the caption said you'd get more pay?

• 55:35Speaker 02

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

• 56:01Speaker 02

  Whereas um, uh, I was lucky, you know, I got a lot of support. I was asking to go quite early. Um, and essentially I was, you know, I'd not spent a lot of time and been graded as a soldier. So they could look at me and be like, okay, but obviously my performance was good enough. Um, I did get um, champion recruit in chaining, um, which I don't know what that means. So certainly wasn't for drill.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Um, so I clearly I was sort of capable, they were seeing that I was able. So when it came to me sort of saying, you know, look, can I get, have a go at that, um, I got the support of the unit. Uh, when I was in parachute regiment, I went to support company, which is the machine gun platoon. It's the anti-tank platoon and the mortar platoon. And I remember, um, really as I was passing, you know, they are elite soldiers. The Marines in the parachute regiment are the elite infantry as such. And the parachute regiment in particular is configured for airborne forces. Um, not delivery by parachute really so much anymore, but it's kind of sort of airborne delivery. But the mindset is all about, you know, an offensive nature.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Uh, and we did, you know, platoon attack after platoon attack, company attack, company attack. That's what you excelled at. Um, so I, I really enjoyed it. It was very, very tough. Um, there's a lot of getting messed about, you know, on a Friday, we used to do a 10 mile test. And I remember if you didn't pass it, you wouldn't go home. So, you know, it's a, it's a good, tough existence. And I really, really respected it. Uh, and some of the soldiers you served alongside are incredible people, you know, they, they, you see what real professional soldiering looks like. And I remember looking across and. Um, and in the machine gun platoon, uh, we became like any other, um, uh,

• 58:00Speaker 02

  company in the unit when we went to Northern Ireland, cause there's no call for any of that. So you'd just become a normal patrols, uh, company. When we came back, we got the opportunity to do the course, which is the carder to join the support company, machine guns, um, which is a tough course in itself. I remember it being a month long, carrying um, tripod mounted guns, learning about gun lines and everything else, you know? Um, but that's also where, you know, I started, you know, getting pretty beaten up by being in gun lines, you know, fifty cows and you're in amongst it, you're lying right next to it. Uh, and you know, I didn't pick up on it at the time. Um, so it was brilliant doing lots of sport, really, really enjoyable.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  But there are periods of getting back to barracks and you just sort of, you start getting a sense of like how challenging this job can be in certain respects. You know, I remember kind of losing my balance a lot. And oh, this is only retrospective understanding of what was going on at the time. You just all sort of sucked it up as tiredness or, or whatever. Um, you know, some of the, um, the, uh, brigade exercises we'd do, we'd have really, really long tabs carrying a tripod mount. Um, carrying tons and tons of ammunition we knew was never going to fire. Cause uh, the GPMG doesn't work very well on blanks.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  So it's a bit sort of soul destroyed, uh, you know, so, and it, it really was very, very hard professional soldiering. Um, a, a absolutely fantastic foundation to have built and come from. Um, and the sport, I think was really, really enjoyable, although something in me was like, you know, I didn't join this to be all about sport.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Um. So, you know, I enjoyed my time there, um, but it was roughly about three years. Um, you know, I can't pick out the dates exactly from when I entered or asked for selection. You do some preparation, particularly navigation, uh, because selection's very tough for navigation.

• 1:00:03Shawn Ryan?

  So they get you ready for selection?

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the parachute regiment are really professional how they do it, right? Because actually they take a pride in your passing. And, um, so we did some courses. I remember, so when I did drill and duties, which is a, a, a lower echelon command course, um, to become a large corporal, you had to do it. And I was, I remember on it, and actually that was when I remember nine eleven happened. I was on the drill square at the time. I remember becoming aware of, of this, this, um, event that had happened. And, um, I can't remember if we watched it on TV, but I remember then something sort of

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  occurring to me, this is something really, really important. But I was on a command course at that point. And so they were preparing me to stay in the parachute regiment on the expectancy that you would not pass selection. Because most people don't. But essentially they're also giving you courses to prepare you for it. And that was just simply how to read a map effectively. You know, selection is the type of course you prepare for it, you should prepare for it.

• 1:01:18Shawn Ryan?

  How much time did you have to prepare for?

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  I can't remember great, uh, you know, I think it was about kind of sort of three to five months. You still had to do all your duties, but you got appropriated times, have two weeks here, have one week here. There's a course, teach you navigation, go on that. You know, and actually that's really, you know, the, the units don't have to do that. Um, but I think it's a good level of cooperation. Um, because ultimately, you know, people should want their soldiers to go on to the special forces community.

• 1:01:48Shawn Ryan?

  Were you aware of what you were getting ready to try out for?

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Um, yes and no, as in, no, I wasn't really aware of these units too much, you know, I hadn't paid too much attention. Some people really are aware of it from a very early, uh, early um, point. And they're working towards it. I wasn't, you know, at each step I kind of did it. And then reviewed what I was, where I was and was like, okay, well, you know, is there a next bit? Where do I go next? So I hadn't really considered it and I hadn't really considered their role. It changes, well, their role doesn't change, but what they're doing at one time does. But I simply just went on selection because it was a progressive step.

• 1:02:34Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  Um, and it was, you know, a highly, highly, highly respected community, the whole community is.

• 1:02:40Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Within the military. Um, so it was a natural place to go. Um, and I didn't necessarily take loads of advice, anything I sought, sought it. You know, just instinct saying it's a good move to make. Um, so go there.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  And, um, yeah, I mean, it's, uh.

• 1:03:01Shawn Ryan?

  What was, what was it like checking in for selection?

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Daunting because you, you've got so many people there.

• 1:03:11Shawn Ryan?

  How many?

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Uh, I think on my selection, and forgive me for the numbers, because I really can't remember how to be accurate on these. But two four, two forty or something started.

• 1:03:22Shawn Ryan?

  Two hundred and forty people?

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  I think so, yes. I mean, you get some that a hundred and twenty, some that a hundred and sixty. I think ours was particularly big.

• 1:03:30Shawn Ryan?

  Because of nine eleven?

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  Potentially, yes. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:35Shawn Ryan?

  What did, what was the, I mean.

• 1:03:41Shawn Ryan?

  What, what did, what was the pulse of UK when nine eleven happened?

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  So absolute shock, as in, you know, I think everyone was universally shocked by it. And there was a real feeling that this is something extremely important. Um, that's across society and the public. I think there was a real nervousness.

• 1:04:04Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  About it. It's just shock, you know, it's like, how has this happened? And, um, you know, within the military, there was an anticipation of what was to come. We knew it was going to be something. No one was guessing what. Um, but we knew that there was going to be an extremely important part to play. And I, I, you know, and again, thinking about what people were feeling or whatever is a very kind of sort of inaccurate science. But it really, really got the sense that people felt threatened themselves by it. You know, why could this not as equally happen in this country? You know, and, um, so I think it was took extremely seriously. Um, I think there was an expectation of what was to come. And I think people, everyone was watching it very, very intently.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  To see what was, what was going to be the response. You know, would people capitulate and give the people that are responsible up? Um, which they didn't.

• 1:05:03Shawn Ryan?

  So you, you joined at twenty one, spent three years, nine eleven happens in there. And then by the time you're twenty four, you're trying out for.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  That's right, about mid twenty four, I think it was. Um, and it takes six, six months.

• 1:05:19Shawn Ryan?

  Selection?

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Yes, tested every day. So by the time, I'll probably twenty five by the time I went in. I mean, I can't feel, if I got a pen and paper, I'd be able to work it out. I was either twenty four when I became what's called badged, or I was twenty five.

• 1:05:36Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so what is, what does day one look like when you go to selection?

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

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

• 1:06:00Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Um. Because what they're really interested in, what sort of person are you, you know, and how sort of mentally are tough and plied can you be? And you can't test that out when there's still such massive individual differences in physicality. Um. So, you know, it's not that you can reduce everyone down to a level platform.

• 1:06:18Shawn Ryan?

  How would they do that?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Um. Just, you know, there's uh runs all the time, um carries up hills. Almost at every point, you're getting run around to do something. Um. There's some tuition in it, so they're teaching you some skills in how to then do test week and they're building you up and developing. I mean, let's face it. No one's succeeding in their job if everyone fails everything.

• 1:06:43Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  You need to get people through these. So ultimately, I saw what they were doing as it was helpful. And the DS are extremely well trained, um and they're essentially preparing you, although it didn't feel like it. Uh. What's interesting about selection is they don't get any encouragement at all. Uh. That's one of the tests. It's seeing what's inside you, you know, it's like, you know, you don't get shouted at, play a few games with you, you know, keep you, call you a name or two, right? Uh. They're not necessarily trying to be your friend, um but they're certainly not giving you any encouragement. And you don't really get shouted at, you know, if you've had enough, get told to put your burger down.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  And that was very, very interesting because I think essentially what they're looking at is each individual to sort of demonstrate who they are themselves, you know, and I tend to see that the people were there to try and just impress the uh the directing staff, you know, they'd be some of the first to go.

• 1:07:44Shawn Ryan?

  Really? Do most people quit or do they fail?

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  Most people quit, um, well, no. In the first part, which is all physical, it's hills and tests over marches, test marches with weight. Um, it's that people will fail mostly at that point, so that's the big reduction in numbers. But when you go into the jungle, that's when people, more people will fail themselves by withdrawing.

• 1:08:11Shawn Ryan?

  When you go into the jungle.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:13Shawn Ryan?

  So this isn't, this isn't just a selection that takes place in UK.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

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

• 1:08:47Shawn Ryan?

  Where do you go?

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Uh, so, uh, over by Malaysia. So it's all over in the Malaya, in the Malaya area.

• 1:08:55Shawn Ryan?

  So is, is selection broken up into phases? Or is it?

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:59Shawn Ryan?

  It's how long is it? Did you say six months?

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, it's six months. I remember it's a hundred and eighty two tested days. It's actually, you know, it is tested. But at certain stages, you then become expected to pass. But essentially, you've got, you've got your physical part, which is your hills phase. You've got your jungle part, which is when they start being interested in who you are. So they look at you as a character. And they start, most importantly, they're looking whether you support one another. Because you can go into.

• 1:09:28Shawn Ryan?

  They want a team player.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  You can be the biggest superstar, you know, the greatest physical. You know.

• 1:09:36Shawn Ryan?

  Specimen.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  It's best in the world. If you cannot work amongst other people and support one another, you are never going to be good. So in my opinion, any special forces unit, definitely not one.

• 1:09:48Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Um, and that's a really, really key trait that they're looking for. And they're also looking for that thing in you that says, you know, it's got too tough. I want some respite. I need a moment. And that's called voluntary withdrawal.

• 1:10:02Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 1:10:04Shawn Ryan?

  So the first is all rough marches and

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:07Shawn Ryan?

  Physical tests. What are you doing in the jungle?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  Jungle is more operating in the jungle. It's not, it's basically used because it's such an amazing environment to see what soldiers are like and characters are like. But you're also starting to learn the SOPs, the standard operating procedures, how to exist in a tough environment. You do a lot of patrolling. You do a small amount of survival. You do other bits, but essentially it's really used as a way of looking at you to see whether you're suitable for service.

• 1:10:42Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of survival?

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  So you just go without food and then it's up to you to kind of survive. You know, they bump you at one point like they usually do. See how you respond to things. You have to go on long, long patrols. And, you know, the jungle is a very tough environment to exist in, you know. You, you, you, you only sleep at night. You get up in the morning in the dark, put cold, wet clothes on. You have to work hard to stop your body from rotting, you know. So all of these things are very interesting things to look at when you're trying to evaluate someone for whether they're going to take the easy way out. You know, whether they're sort of nipping on their administration. You know, you may make a mistake in the jungle, you aren't coming back from it, right? You just aren't.

• 1:11:29Shawn Ryan?

  How long is the jungle phase?

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Uh, so.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Six weeks.

• 1:11:37Shawn Ryan?

  Six weeks?

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  No, but not all of that's in jungle, some of it is preparation. I'm sure it's six weeks, some, some, some like six weeks.

• 1:11:45Shawn Ryan?

  Close to six weeks.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Shawn Ryan?

  How long do you go without food?

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  Not, not, not long there. Just, I think it's, it's, it's just a kind of introduction to. Because I haven't had the chance to train you at this point. You know, I haven't had a chance to.

• 1:12:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, so this is like light instruction? Like very little.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so most of all, they're looking at you.

• 1:12:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  Learn enough to be quite basic in the jungle, patrol, set up your camps, whatever you do. They're really just looking.

• 1:12:15Shawn Ryan?

  Observing.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, and ranges in the jungle are extremely tough, you know, the environment is really kind of quite oppressive, you can't see far. Again, you have to rely on a lot of your instincts to tell you what's going on. Um, you know, it's very noisy, it can be very wet, everything's trying to eat you and it's all really small. And it can be very, very uncomfortable. If you take shortcuts on your administration, you'll quickly become ill, your body will start having problems and rotting. So all of these things, they can just allow to happen. Um, you know, you do some really, really tough physical tests, it's very, very humid, you know, the, the, the hills there are very, very steep.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Um, so you do some very, very tough physical tests and they're looking for that moment, you know, looking for that moment when you say, look, you know.

• 1:13:10Shawn Ryan?

  I'm done.

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  Done or, you know, and the vast majority of people who say that, they've kind of changed their mind quite soon after. Um, but that's what they're looking for.

• 1:13:19Shawn Ryan?

  What, where do you go after jungle phase?

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  So they do a review of everyone and then they pass or fail you afterwards, the ones that have done. And you go and do a series of different, um, courses, uh, sort of tuition courses. So you cover, uh, stuff like signals, I think. I might be getting the order mixed up here, but you know, you do your skills and you learn various things. But the significant phases, then you start going into, um, um, mastering basic OP, so living close with people in, in holes and mastering some sort of elementary, um, elements of surveillance reconnaissance.

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  Um, then you, um, I think do some parachuting for the ones who are not. So for us, I was a trained paratrooper already, so I didn't have to do the basic part, just had to convert on to different parachutes. Um. There's an element of starting to do sort of multi-floor, multi-room combat, which is, you know, CQB is very, very tough testing environments. Uh. The margins are very small and the arcs are down, so that can be a challenge for certain people. And again, all of these things, if they deem you unsafe, um, then ultimately they fail you. Last thing people want in this, in these sorts of roles is people who are out of their depth all the time. So they, that's why it's called pass or fail all the way through. Mm hmm.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Um. But it's unlikely you're gonna start failing after that. There's a. After CQB? No, so it, there's an escape and evasion phase. Um. It's quite iconic. Um. And it's split up into how to survive out in the wild, out in a unsupported environment. And then there's a, a part where you just get chased around by hunt force. And there's another part where you go and, you know, you have your uh introductions to interrogation phases and things like that. You know, at that point, if you've passed that, you're expected to pass. Oh, okay. But, uh, you know, if you get through the jungle, people. That's the majority.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, you'd be like, you, you know, you don't wanna lose people after that. You know, I, I did pick up on it. It's like, but it's not, it's not supposed to be friendly. But you're kind of, oh, this is a joint effort. And there was a level of trust in it, you know? The way I went about selection is, you know, I was like, I'm just gonna be here. I'm never gonna question whether I'm good enough or not, because actually it's up to the DS to tell you that, and they will do. You know, and actually, if, if you're gonna be failed, you know, and I found it was a better way to go about it for me. So then I have to keep, keep questioning, am I good enough for this? Have I done well enough? You know, you cannot go through that period of training and have, not have a couple of mistakes. You know, you have a couple of safety calls, all that sort of stuff, you know?

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  And that can weigh heavily on you if you let it. So you just accept it, it's moved on, do you know what? It's your decision. You know, at the end of the day, you know, you're either gonna get carried off because you're injured or you're gonna get failed because you're not good enough. Mm hmm. And that's, that was a good enough sort of stage for me, you know? And essentially, you know, it's not comfortable, it's not meant to be comfortable. Uh. And parts of it are enjoyable, but only very, very small parts.

• 1:16:43Shawn Ryan?

  How many people disappeared from the start until after jungle phase?

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  How many people disappeared? So if I remember rightly, I think after the jungle, we're down to roughly about thirty six.

• 1:16:59Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  I don't know why thirty six sticks out. Yeah, yeah, so but the the main loss of numbers is is um on the physical phase.

• 1:17:09Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  At the start. You know, and um they they I don't think selection's changed much, you know, it's a tried and tested pathway. And it prepares people very well, but they may have adjusted certain parts of it now. Uh and the way they do it, but essentially, you know, there's a test at the end of the first week. And if you don't pass that, and a lot of people don't, then that's you lose a lot of numbers in the first week. And down, but you know, it's pointless staying on the course if you're never gonna make it to the end, right? It's better to sort everyone out quite early.

• 1:17:42Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  Look at things, and I don't know why thirty six stands in my head, but it does. I'm pretty sure it's thirty six by the end of that phase, and then we only lost.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  I think another ten.

• 1:17:53Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:17:55Shawn Ryan?

  So down from about roughly two hundred and forty people to twenty six by the.

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah, and they they were split between the two units, you know, uh SES and SB.

• 1:18:06Shawn Ryan?

  How do you know? Well, we'll get there. So what happens when you pass everything?

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Can't remember. So I think it's it's work as normal, you get sent to a squadron. Um, and I think.

• 1:18:19Shawn Ryan?

  What do they tell you? I mean, is there a graduation? They tell you congratulations?

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  I don't remember one, I you get given.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  That you get a visit from the commander, who gives you your beret, and it's an enormously proud. Um. Like moment hugely proud. And I I remember passing the jungle and it was just like, wow. You know, and bearing in mind, I hadn't gone into this with the sort of knowing a lot about it. You know, so that sense of like really valuable will to be part of this was really from from my first interactions. Um from going on there, and I remember a huge sense of pride from, you know, um from getting that beret. And it's given to you, I'm pretty sure, by the commander and the existing Sartre Major.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  I can't even remember where it happened, I assume in Hereford somewhere. And I think it's fairly sort of inauspicious, but it's a very, very special moment. So it's like, well done. Um, but essentially everyone then joins their squadrons, uh, and off they go.

• 1:19:26Shawn Ryan?

  How do you know if you're going SAS or SBS?

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Uh, in those days it was choice.

• 1:19:31Shawn Ryan?

  It was choice?

• 1:19:32Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, yeah, and it makes sense for there to be choice. And I have this conversation quite a lot about, you know, paratroopers and Marines. You know, you know, they're both fully infantry and they're both incredible professional soldiers. There's something within you that wants to be a paratrooper and an airborne forces. And there's something in you that wants to be a Marine. And I think that is good to have that element of still, I want to be that. I think it's that final part of pride. You know, and um, it's interesting seeing what choices people make. And you know, SBS is a mainly maritime organisation. We share all the same roles, missions and tasks, but their emphasis is maritime.

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  The SS was emphasis was those sort of air and land. Um, didn't mean that others didn't support one another in it. Um, but you know, essentially it made sense that people got to make the choice. But in terms of professionalism as soldiers and in terms of what you're asked to do, they're equals. There isn't a difference. And um, you do the same selection. Um, you, you, you go into the same environment as such, totally different in locations. And you know, a sense, but you're, you have signed up to special forces units at that level. And that's what you're asked to do.

• 1:20:57Shawn Ryan?

  And you pick SAS?

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, at the time.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  And you know, if I do it all again, I'd pick that again. You know, that's, that was what was within me, you know. And I don't, don't mind maritime environment.

• 1:21:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  But it's.

• 1:21:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  You know, at, at that time, it was all paratrooper and, and this, this, this, and the other. And it's important to mention that both those units selects, you know, from all over. Many have international, um, people that join from, you know, New Zealand. I had a number of friends who were New Zealanders. Um, you know, and that goes, that harks back to its heritage in World War Two, which is essentially, if we understand your background and you share our, uh, mission, then you're welcome to come and have a try.

• 1:21:47Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  So, you know, at the end of the day, it's not that you're precluded. Um, but, um, you would expect the SBS to be quite heavily marine orientated.

• 1:21:57Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  Um, the parachute regiment used to have a lot of people in, uh, but I think it's more, definitely more sort of spread now, uh, between people. But let's face it, if you're a really decent professional soldier, you can learn the rest of the skills.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  And what's beautiful about special forces role is it is quite varied. And it's multiple skills, all applied. And most of those can be taught and trained if you've got the right characteristics to apply to it.

• 1:22:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk about how it was to check into the unit.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:22:35Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 1:22:44Speaker 00

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• 1:23:18Shawn Ryan?

  All right, John, we're back from the break. So I want to talk about what it was like for you to check into the legendary SAS unit.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's really, you enter an ecosystem that's already running hot. And essentially, it's a constant process of courses, training and deployments when they happen. And for me, my team was already preparing to go away because Iraq was already in the process. So it just depends on where you, you know, what, what squadrons you get sent to, what you're likely to then be involved in first. But there's an element of courses, to catch up on your courses very, very quickly. You're meeting those soldiers that have had

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  lots and lots of experience in so many ways that you don't recognize in the wider military. You know, so immediately you pick up on there's lots of other skills that you've got to learn and master. So I mean, I don't remember being overwhelmed by it. I remember enjoying it a huge amount.

• 1:24:30Shawn Ryan?

  What do they, how do they greet you? Are they welcoming? Or are they treating you like an FNG?

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  No, no, so I mean, it's welcoming. Yeah, it's welcoming, but very, very grown up.

• 1:24:43Shawn Ryan?

  That's

• 1:24:45Speaker 02

  Let's just call it very grown up, right? You know, essentially, you're on a test and trial period anyway.

• 1:24:53Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so you

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  You always are.

• 1:24:55Shawn Ryan?

  So you go through, all right, so just walk me through the pipeline. So you go through a six month selection process. You do, in there, you do CQB, land navigation, escape and evasion, survival.

• 1:25:09Shawn Ryan?

  Parachuting, pretty much all the stuff that it takes to turn you into a special operator, correct?

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  At the lowest level.

• 1:25:16Shawn Ryan?

  At the lowest level.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  So these are the very, very.

• 1:25:18Shawn Ryan?

  Just the basic.

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  Basic skills.

• 1:25:21Shawn Ryan?

  So this is similar, I don't know how familiar you are with with our pipelines, but this this sounds very similar to me is is BUDS.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:25:30Shawn Ryan?

  For SEAL SEAL training, where you we go through the first two months as a kick in the balls, where it's just you're cold, you're wet, you're miserable, it's lots and lots of P T and and and physical tests, and then you move into a dive phase for two months, then you move into a land warfare phase for two months, and then you go to jump school, and then you show up to to the unit.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:25:58Shawn Ryan?

  Which is roughly six months if you make it in one shot.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  That that's exactly like that you you turn up having learned rather than, you know, really become very good at the bare elements of what you're going to need to do now the.

• 1:26:16Shawn Ryan?

  So you're you're a guy that they just, just like, it's very similar to BUDS, you are a nobody when you show up to the unit, and then the unit trains you into what it needs you to become.

• 1:26:31Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:26:31Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  And they do it with urgency, um, so it really depends on um, what your squadron is next going to be devoted to, committed to, um, that will inform what immediate courses you're doing, but essentially it's, you know, and again, it's a great thing about is education, education, education. I did a mortars course very early, um, I but they'll up up train you, you immediately join in with squadron training, where they are looking at you to see how quickly you fitted and how well you can sink into it, uh, and people spend intensive um, periods of time training you individually, you know, to help you within your own teams. Um, another thing that they will be under a lot of pressure to do is train you in your

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  specific insertion skills. So each team has a real major in certain types of insertion. So it's um, air mobility, boat and mountain. So I was mounting, um but essentially you may be waiting quite a period of time to do that. And so you don't feel like you're properly accredited until you've sort of done those courses as well. Got you. It may depend on what you're doing. Now, I deployed quite quickly. Um, so. How fast did you deploy? I cannot remember, but you know, it's within months, if not weeks. Within weeks? Yeah. Holy shit. Basically, it was because Iraq was underway already. What year is this? Uh, two thousand and three.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

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

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  to get to the top of it, it's not really all about that, although people do, a lot of people go up Everest and do sort of amazing expeditions, but it's not really role operated. It's not really sort of operations orientated. So mountain's quite a interesting one to pass. Um, but I was waiting quite a while because I did my first deployment first. Um, I think, yeah, I'm absolutely sure I did my first. And these were in our deployments were short periods of time. What is the, what is the, sorry, but how is, how is SAS broken up?

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  So there's four main squadrons and there's elements of departments and wings. Um, that provide various functions of support, tuition, instruction, uh, backing. Uh, a lot of, and I always used to say, you know, special forces roles, that unit's role. Uh, probably subdivide it into seventy percent, thirty percent, seventy percent support to other. We support our emergency services, um, you know, on a, on a national remit. We do a lot of support to other people. We do a lot of training to other people. And it's also important, um, when you're talking about UK special forces to, to recognize that we don't have a tiered system.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  So we re- refer to our SES and SBS as tier ones to be comparative levels in communication. Knowledge and understanding with, um, US special forces. But actually the unit covers multiple tiers of operations and ways to do things.

• 1:30:17Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  And I think it is part of its strength because, you know, everyone is orientated differently. The resources they have are different. And, um, certainly I enjoyed having that range of activity and operations that I took part in. So, but tier one is a status where you can only be appropriated certain missions, you know, it'd be unfair to. For instance, take, uh, someone who is a reserve and give them a hostage rescue to do. Now hostage rescue is an incredibly complex mission to do. You have to train very hard and you have to be assured at certain, at so many skills. So, you know, the, the two unit, two units, the SES and the SBS are comparative in that, that respect.

• 1:30:57Speaker 02

  But they will also deliver lots of other activity and support, which would be recognized as tier two, tier three, tier four. Um, so. Is this. The myriad of school, skills we learn is also reflective of that.

• 1:31:10Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:31:11Speaker 02

  So, um.

• 1:31:13Shawn Ryan?

  Are you guys foreign and domestic?

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, yes, we're global.

• 1:31:19Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of stuff would you do domestically?

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  So we support, so the, the UK has got, um, an interesting construct that you don't see many. Where there's something called military assistance that can be given to the emergency services. So this has happened. You saw it in the Iranian embassy siege. Um. The the unit has always had a very, very high priority to support our emergency services at times when it's to do with terrorism. So it's never anything to do with criminal at all. It's always terrorism. And we have a remit to support everyone. So we have to train very um very consciously with that. You know, it's the highest priority we've got, actually.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  And it's conditioned with dedicated teams constantly, and it's a role that you go through. So that forms a key part of our training in every role that we go through, from a global remit to an operations window to a domestic C T remit. We will have a set of um preparation exercises and currency exercises we'll do to ensure we've got the skills and we've proved ourselves um up to a very, very thorough level. Um. To prove that we're good to take over that role and then they'll hand over. And essentially, it was a two-year cycle. So if you appropriate six months to each and you cycle through that. So it's a pretty relentless operational rotation. How is the cycle?

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  So what and what order does it go? Yeah. Can't remember exactly what order, but it is a tier of domestic C T, so support um to um our our services. Think operations window. Come back, then you have your global standby remit. Where you'll go and you'll support anything that happens, or there's something that happens they need to deploy teams to. So often there'll be small teams. Um. If there's a hostage rescue um to do, then you'll be stood up immediately for that. And then there's a period of uh training where you'll go away and do some sort of environmental training. Okay.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  So you'll share it and make sure, because we have to operate in every single environment. So we train and prove in every single environment. So over the years, they'll prove desert, they'll prove jungle, they'll prove mountain. Um. So it's it's always an arrangement. It's got those three pillars in of domestic support, operations, global remit. And then a period of uh preparation, they sort of meld together inside. But taking over and handing over those different responsibilities is is really non conditional. You have to do it on a certain date. You have to prove yourself by a certain time. What that results in is an endless cycle of training and preparation and currencies.

• 1:34:12Speaker 02

  Um. That's very, very hard and intensive on the uh on the unit to to keep up. But essentially, as a soldier, you're gaining so many skills as you go along and you're taking on more and more. You know, I was, um, for instance, I became demolitions trained and then he will he he trains. I was a breach for on certain squadrons, but also. J TAC, it's Joint Terminal Air Controller, uh Attack Controller. Um. So in our parlance, that started off as an F A C, which came to subfac supervisory F A C. So you look at all of these ranges of skills, and I think that's one of the strengths of the the the members of the unit is they become multiple skilled in in lots.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  But, you know, we always used to sort of laugh because it's very, very hard to stay good at these skills and current at these skills. Because they adapt and change all the time. So within all of that rotation, they've built in other courses that you need to do.

• 1:35:08Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  Um. Every period of time, you'll go on a post as well, and it'll either be support externally or to one of the instructor's wings. Uh. And then you'll take part in obviously instructing um and ensuring that um squadrons are prepared. Selection is delivered, all of those sorts of things.

• 1:35:29Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, interesting. So you go to Baghdad?

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34Shawn Ryan?

  Or you go to Iraq? You go, did you go to Baghdad?

• 1:35:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, straight in because it was it was I arrived just as I was actually doing courses to prepare. So I remember doing a mortars course. Um, and uh I can't remember what other courses, but because I was brand new, I was doing these courses all the way through. Uh. So I caught everyone up. Um. Really, not long after, you know, Baghdad had, um, you know, um. Uh. People had got to the centre of Baghdad and sort of secured it.

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  What was that like for you? Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely a huge eye-opener, you know, experience of being really quite sort of being a paratrooper, very, very exciting, but to be put into a complex environment like that, uh, following up on something that was a war, um, was really sort of an incredible experience for someone so young, you know, really, really opened my eyes. For the first time I was meeting and, um, uh, often and interlocuting with US forces. Uh, and then gradually we became part of a comprised task force, um, that was mostly US forces. I don't remember if there's any other nationalities in there, but we were part of it as well.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  And that was an incredible learning experience, um, but bearing in mind I had no experience backwards. So I was quite adaptive, uh, state, I could be quite adaptive. But I was noticing difference in equipment, I was noticing difference in techniques, tactics and procedures. And I was noticing very, very big difference in equipment and, uh, at that time, uh, Baghdad and Iraq was relatively safe and I remember there being quite a sense of hope and opportunity, um, there, but then quickly security started breaking down, you know, you were noticing the looting. No one's interfering with us, but quickly there were no-go areas springing up. Like I remember Haifa Street being one of the notable areas.

• 1:37:33Speaker 02

  Um, and, uh, you know, you just got a sense that, you know, things were gonna turn. Um, but essentially that first tour, it was very, very busy. You know, you had the, that, that deck of cards, you had the former regime elements. And I remember kind of sort of coming up against them and most relieved to actually not be tracked down by militias or things, you know, and I remember also, um, I don't think there were any suicide bombs going off at that period. And there was a sense of hope, but I do have recollections of, I'm sure we went into Sada City and we were kind of, there was something to do in electricity substation. Something that was very critical that someone needed to look at.

• 1:38:18Speaker 02

  And I bumped into, I was standing on the corner, and again, you know, it was actually quite not relaxed. You're aware that it was all very.

• 1:38:28Shawn Ryan?

  I wouldn't say, uh, I don't know anybody that's been relaxed in Sodder City.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  No, no, the, um, but there was a sense and it, you know, it's, and I'm sure it was an electricity substation. There was a key of like, we can get the electricity stable. And I bumped into a young Iraqi boy coming back. So I was speaking to him and he was speaking English. I was asking him, saying, oh, you know, how, how are you doing? Like, what, what are you doing? He said, I'm going home to do my French homework. And I was like, okay, well, I speak French when I see, uh, help you. And essentially I just sort of sat down and helped him do his French homework. And it just struck me that at that time, there was actually quite a um, element of hope amongst the public. However, you didn't have to look too far to see between the seams of these collections

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  of militia type organizations growing up and quickly taking areas of control. And I remember, you know, they called that deba- uh, barfication. So element, um, quite early, I'm sure it was that, that, that first tour. And it's sort of sudden, suddenly occurring to me that, you know, this is

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  I don't see how you can remove the whole governance from a country. It's, it's very, very hard to do. It's not just about positions. It's about people's loyalty and who's paying their, their wages.

• 1:39:50Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  And you just got a sense that this was going to become very, very complex, very, very quickly. And by the second tour, it had already.

• 1:39:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did you, did you go kinetic on your first tour?

• 1:40:03Speaker 02

  If we did, I can't remember much of it, you know, I think, I don't think it was particularly organized. You know, the main threat is we were driving around in unarmed vehicles. You felt quite exposed and there was a lot of unrest. There's a lot of movement and everything else, but I can't remember people firing us too much. Um, I definitely don't, no, no operation sticks out particularly. But you did get that element of this will quickly become coordinated and complex.

• 1:40:35Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember your first operation more on one kinetic?

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  So I can't really pick it out. I think it was on my second tour. I think it was on my second tour. It might have been on the first, right? We did quite a lot of operations up into Krit. Um, and, um, you know, I can't pick it out if it was there. And on the second tour, you know, it was more about events that started happening. Um, and there were, there were sort of exchanges at breach points. And moving to, but we hadn't been, we hadn't got particularly coordinated in. Uh, we'd been shot at from roofs a lot, you know, it all started, but there was not really any sort of coordinated. Um, action against us and the targets. We started on, um, Al Qaeda associated targets in the second tour.

• 1:41:31Speaker 02

  And that's not because we, that became our mission and task. It's because we started coming across these, these houses. Where, you know, they weren't that often armed, but when they were armed, they were heavily armed. You know, and, um. Uh, and the main thing that happened on the second tour is our own Hercules getting shot, shot down. Which we responded to extremely quickly. Uh, and that was a very, very significant moment in that tour. Your own what being shot down? So our transport Hercules, uh, and essentially. What is a Hercules? Uh, transport plane. So we have specifically trained aviation crews because of the complexity of, of what they're doing.

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  And at that point, we were moving about a lot. I remember there was, um. Uh, on the second tour, there was a lot of moving around into different regions, contacting other forces, doing bits with them. Uh, a lot up to the west, up towards Ramadi. And you could see that, that funnel and that's where we started coming across these houses. Um, these groups that were dressed similarly and. Mainly, I think we were connecting with, um, US forces. I think the most significant thing in that tour, these were short tours. They were about three months at a time. And, um, it was our, our Hercules. So the Hercules had just dropped off and it took off again.

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  Was heading for Balad and it's the time when they were flying low level. And, um, we heard a May Day call. Um, because it goes over international channels as well. So unhelpfully, Sky News reported it. And it was UK badged Hercules that was shot down in the Enveronze of Iraq. So it was off towards the northeast or northwest, heading towards Ballad. Um, I don't know the the details about how they managed to shoot it down, other than it was some sort of rocket pack. And the Herc probably was, you know, how it's very, very difficult to continue to break up your patterns. If you're flying in and out with that density and volume of of times.

• 1:43:39Speaker 02

  Um, but essentially we got into the Pumas and responded very quickly to this. And um, uh, as you can imagine, responding to an aircraft crash like that, um, it is. It's almost.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Perplexing the scene you come across because there's nothing identifiable fireable. There was only the tailplane and nothing else that was particularly identifiable about it. Wow. It was coming in night. I remember there was a fire in a ditch because there was a a a water filled ditch and there was a fire burning on top.

• 1:44:14Speaker 02

  And essentially we'd sort of cleared the air. It's in a very, very difficult area. How did you insert? Uh, on our helicopters. So had our helicopters right by our house. And essentially we we could get on them very, very quickly, run them up and we just flew up flight line. Found where that um, accident had happened, uh, that incident. And essentially if the uh, aircraft is flying about two hundred foot or below, it gets hit. It goes in headfirst, right? Um, it just tips forward and essentially it was a very, very complex space. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff on Hercules that needed securing.

• 1:44:54Speaker 02

  And we had to account for the people on board and um, that that's quite a task, right? And, you know, sadly, there's families involved and all those people were related to families. Um, so I won't go into the details about exactly what we had to do in order to account for them. But I remember a US call sign, a Caesar call sign, responding to the call ourselves. Now, at that point, we'd secured the site. We were just looking at it like, where do we start? You know, and we did locate one person. Um, but the rest, there's really no sign of what we were supposed to do next. This be beyond our remit of like, how you do this.

• 1:45:36Speaker 02

  Uh when the US call sign, Caesar call sign, turned up, you know, there was just.

• 1:45:44Speaker 02

  They turned up and said, look, you know, you get on with accounting for your people and securing your equipment. And we will get on with working out how we clear this site up. And I remember they turned up with equipment. I've got memories of them putting on, um, you know, like, uh, dry suits to get into the waterfield ditch. Oh, man. Even as they're jagging metal in there. Uh, and you know, I do remember some birding and things like that. And, um, you know, with their help, we got back in front of what was really, really. perplexing problem. That does stay with you, you know, it's like, so when you, you, you were picking up. Sending off and saying, look, how, how much more, you know, that's a, a really sort of tough.

• 1:46:29Speaker 02

  Experience, especially, you know, a lot of us were quite young. That's the first time I saw sort of events like that happen. How many people were on board of that?

• 1:46:39Speaker 02

  So I think it was ten. I think it was ten. We believed it was more at the time. But it was ten. And as you can imagine, you know, if you're sat near the bulkhead of the aircraft. It's, it's gone straight in in its nose. And in fact, we couldn't find anything that resembled a nose of an aircraft, you know. Man. Almost like it buried itself. Um, so. Did you find the bodies? Uh, only one. Only one body. We had to account for everyone, which we did.

• 1:47:09Speaker 02

  You know, so that's a tough experience. But, you know, again, when I'm telling these stories. I'm absolutely, completely conscious that those people were members of families. You know, they're in, um, relationships. That's really, it's something that's always stayed with me. As I've gone through this job, the impact is more keenly felt. Um, there and, you know, uh, always sort of.

• 1:47:38Speaker 02

  Have that consciously in my mindset, you know, and that was a very, very tough night, you know, we were, we came off, I remember we stayed out there for, it was into daylight and it became too insecure, too uncertain. Um, so we lifted off having accomplished that. We had to account for people, which we did. And we had to secure all of the immediate, very important equipment. We came off and we left most, lots of the wreckage there. And I think I remember we coming off the ground because it was very likely we were going to start getting mortared at the site. They picked up a lot of activity and comms that they're kind of sort of getting themselves together to make it a real problem for us. And you have sort of options there. You can either call in more air and, you know, so I think the decision was, hey, have we done enough here?

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  You know, could, do we have to stay here? Um, and the, the answer was no. So we lifted off. And then we did return to the site. I can't remember how much longer it may have been the next day. And by that time they gathered up all of the, the, the metal, because it was obviously valuable. And piled it in piles, but at that point you're looking at sort of useless metal towards people. Um, so that was kind of the event and that really was the seminal thing of that tour. There's lots of other kind of operations and activity we got, we got on. That was a really, really significant one that stuck with me for quite a while, you know? Um, you know, highlights, complexity of these jobs. No one expected that bit.

• 1:49:02Speaker 02

  And I think as I go through all of this, you know, all of the operations, you just reroll, reroll, reroll. We weren't as busy on that tour as we was on subsequent tours. But the numbers were absolutely huge and you're just rerolling, rerolling, rerolling all the time. And hardly any of it is sticking out, you know, it's when something like an aircraft gets shot down. And you have to respond to that. And you're keenly aware of like, those people that were killed were members of people's families. And that really, really highlights it to you that there is a big cost to this. You know, no one expects to lose aircraft, but they do, you know? And we aren't the only ones to do it. And when it happens, it's, you know, large numbers.

• 1:49:49Speaker 02

  So, um, yeah, I mean, that's one of the seminal points in my career is responding to that as quite a young uh, a member of special forces. And that was what we're asked to do. So we did it.

• 1:50:03Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 1:50:05Shawn Ryan?

  What other kind of operations were you guys doing?

• 1:50:08Speaker 02

  So there's a range, it still really hadn't sort of tidied up into, the first one was former regime elements.

• 1:50:16Speaker 02

  None of whom, you know, there was, I don't remember any exchanges of fire and all of that. The second one was a greater myriad of operations, again, none of them particularly stick out. But they were task operations against buildings of known people that were started to take part in insurgencies. There was some AQ-linked things, but we hadn't really found a proper form and function at that point. And I remember the country being dangerous, but it wasn't, we could go out during the day. You know, and by that time we had got armored vehicles.

• 1:50:55Speaker 02

  And I think we were, you know, we were using, yeah, we were using our own helicopters by that point. So we had found form and function, but it hadn't really entrenched into a, a, a program of operations as such. And the, the networks weren't clear to us either.

• 1:51:19Shawn Ryan?

  And that was, that was all right around 2003 timeframe?

• 1:51:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so these tours used to come around quite quickly. The first one would have been 2003, the second one 2004. Third one, 2005, crossing in six, was it 06 into 7? No, it's 05 into 06. But that's when we were sharing, uh, the theater between us. So the SS and SBS were rerolling between us. And then they started saying, okay, we'll appropriate regions. Um, because this is now going to be a, you know, a task that is going to go on for years. Um, and by that point, we made our tours longer. Um, I think in order to suit the other parts of the operational role.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  So we weren't taking risks against them. And so they became six month tours by the third tour.

• 1:52:19Shawn Ryan?

  And in two thousand four, you lost your mother.

• 1:52:25Speaker 02

  Um, yes, so I still try and organize it out of my head and I have to look at the dates on the, on the gravestone to appropriate. And again, it's a kind of muddle as to what organization of these, these tours. I did eight, eight or up tours, two thousand three to twenty fourteen. But it happened just before the second tour. Um, it must have been the second tour. And I was standing in the camp and I received a phone call to come up to the squadron, uh, block headquarters. Um, and I kind of knew that something was up. I was either gonna get sent away on something, which was exciting, or there was something

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  wrong. And as I walked into the squadron block, I could immediately tell something was, was up. So I went into the office and you know, when you look at someone's face, you can see that it's really, whatever you're about to be told is pretty awful. And they said that, uh, my mom had been hit by a car in a car accident. She's very, very severely injured. So when someone uses those words, you kind of know what this is leading to. Um, but what happened next, and I can't remember a thing, you know, when you get told news like that, you know, I think your head just goes on fire. Very, very confused. They had

• 1:53:44Speaker 02

  a car waiting outside and I was led to the car. I got took down to the H L Z on our camp and I got lifted out on the reserve helicopter for the teams that are on standby to respond. My mom was declared dead whilst I was in the air.

• 1:54:04Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:54:05Speaker 02

  And I was kind of phoning, um, my brother and my dad to see they'd already got to the hospital. And I basically got dropped onto a village cricket pitch, um, to awaiting a police vehicle with blue lights. And they thought they were gonna pick up something really, someone really important and got an extremely upset SAS trooper. They raced me to the hospital. I went and I remember saw, um, my brother, my dad on the ramp. I knew, uh, life was not gonna be the same again.

• 1:54:45Speaker 02

  I went in, saw my mum's body, and you can see exactly what happened. And, you know, I actually did a further investigation into her death because the police kind of sort of got some details wrong, not that it made any difference. But I remember looking at my dad, and I was just like, wow, now this is, this is gonna change everything. Um, he was utterly distraught, as you would be. Didn't make any sense to him. The car that hit my mum had about, you know, between seven and thirteen seconds to see what was happening. My mum had, um, uh, dropped something in the road, and it just hit her and she'd gone underneath the car. Oh, man.

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  And had, um, really, really severe injuries, head injuries, compound fracture to the femur, um, massive breaks all over, right? And actually, I'm very, very pleased that there was no HEMs team, like a special emergency team that could have come to her aid, because her Glasgow Comas scale was four out of fifteen. There was a massive, massive head injury around the York City area. Big pools of blood in the road, um, because it was quite a small car, so she got caught underneath it and rolled under. And the final piece to the actual incident itself is that the lady who had hit her was

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  eighty years old, and she knew her, and she, my mum used to buy eggs off her. So I know the situation intensely, obviously, because we looked at the police investigation, we looked at how on earth we're gonna manage my father. You know, he was utterly distraught, he just shouted at my mum, they'd been married for decades and decades and decades, and, um, he'd shouted out the door, she'd shouted and said, look, I'm just off to the butchers. So he used, my mum used to run a very, very small, um, beef farm, uh, herd, that was her passion, right? And it was all really, really small enterprise, and there was a butchers, uh, in a nearby village that she chose to, to manage to meet at, and that's what was happening, what she

• 1:56:54Speaker 02

  was doing at the time, she said, I'm just off to see, you know, how we're doing with this. She tripped into the road carrying trays and was picking up things to put back in the trays.

• 1:57:05Speaker 02

  So, you know, of course, this makes no sense. This is an utterly tragic accident. This isn't a case of whatever the reason the woman did not see. There is a, a concept of looking without seeing, um, in, in there. You know, that she may have seen and, and, and never took into account what should happen. But to my dad, this was like too much. It's like something he was never gonna get over, ever. And at the age that it happened, which I think he was in his sixties. He's quite, quite, really healthy, really good. You, you know, I remember chatting with my brother and I said, no, I've got to deploy.

• 1:57:48Speaker 02

  Um, so, um, what should we do? Right, we made that decision at the time that we're gonna both stay doing our jobs. Made a decision, a conscious decision that living with my father during that time was not going to make a difference to the, the levels of grief he had. And the level, mo- most of all, why on earth, how, how could this have happened? You know, and you couldn't resolve it for him. And I actually went and investigated my mum's death myself. Um, and I've, I know the details extremely well. In order to try and provide some sort of closure, to explain that, you know, there wasn't gonna be a prosecution. No one can, you know, and actually it's just a tragic, tragic accident.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  This lady that hit her, it just destroyed her life, as you can imagine. Especially just cause she knew my mum. So when I were in, um, I was in the hospital. Me and my brother had started working out, okay, what we gotta do? My brother helped my father with adjusting their, um, arrangements. Um, and my father started living alone. He didn't, he lives, lived, lived in the house. We had a couple of dogs. And essentially, I think he went walking, he went travelling quite a bit. Um, and he really was just trying to attend to himself, but we could see that he was just hollowed out. Right, you know, it's, um.

• 1:59:13Speaker 02

  He was gonna struggle for the rest of his life and the physiological impact of that grief was really, really dangerous to him and there was nothing that anyone could do about that. Because if no one can explain why or how that happens, that's unresolvable.

• 1:59:31Speaker 02

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

• 2:00:14Speaker 02

  And he used to come and see me at home and in that period of time, um, uh, I sort of saw how he was living and he was living, uh, you, you know, he was just, well, is it a generational thing? I don't know. But he could barely use the washing machine, you know, he's, he, and he used to describe his darkest hour. And I remember I was, I'm special forces trained medic. And part of what we do is we learn off, uh, the hospital experts. I remember driving home from hospital one morning. So he used to describe this moment, so I thought I'll get home early because I was working in London. So I went back, uh, home to kind of try and to like have a cup of tea with him, cheer up with him.

• 2:00:59Speaker 02

  And I remember walking into the kitchen, it was really quite early. I remember it was just getting light, it was about sort of five thirty or something like that. And he was dressed in his pyjamas, um, and he was just kind of, I walked into the kitchen and it was almost like I wasn't there, he's just turned around and he started talking to me as though he assumed I was gonna be there or not, you know, and I was trying to surprise him. And he was just kind of, just don't understand how this could happen.

• 2:01:26Speaker 02

  So, um, so he used to describe this period, this darkest hour. And it's when he got, uh, got up, um, and that's when he used to have a cup of tea with my mum. And, uh, one morning, um, in, in this period as well. I think I've got this right. No, that was later. So, um. My father got up one morning. He was due to actually come and see my brother. It was twenty third of December. One year later. It's almost one year to a month. From when it had happened. And you imagine around Christmas, when you're used to being with someone.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  And I think it was just loaded up and loaded up and loaded up on him. And, uh, he got up one morning at exactly that time when he would be going downstairs to have a cup of tea. He had a massive heart attack and we hadn't spoken to him for two days. Um, so I was at home, uh, and I rung my brother and said, hey, have you heard from dad? Um, I haven't spoke to him for a couple of days, but he's due to be coming to see you for Christmas. And he said, I haven't heard from him anyway. And a lady who held keys to our house. Uh, went in and she found him and he'd had a massive heart attack and he fell over. His head had gone through the wall. It's quite a sort of plasterboard wall.

• 2:02:50Speaker 02

  And that's exactly what happened, right? Just overcome with physical grief. And I believe, uh, what he, what actually killed him was something called tachycardia cardiomyophi. When you're in a unrelenting, chronic loop of stress, the release of cortisol and epinephrine. For some reason, and no one really understands, stuns muscles in your heart. And the reason it's called tachycardia cardiomyophi.

• 2:03:20Speaker 02

  Because it was found in the eighties in Japan. And someone had died and they'd done a post-mortem in time. And found that the heart, the left ventricle, had gone out of shape. And Tako Tsuba Tsuba, it means octopus trap, so adopted that. And of course, in most cases, you know, when you've got that level of grief, that level of shock, you have central heart pain. I believe that's that thing, that's that adrenaline, epinephrine, whatever it is, it's stunning those muscles, one of those or number sets of those eighteen autonomic muscles that govern your heart. And because it goes slightly out of shape, it leaves its, it loses its integrity with blood pressure and other harmonies within your physiology.

• 2:04:05Speaker 02

  And in most cases, that's not dangerous, right? So in people that have no heart conditions, whatever, it just goes back to a normal shape at the point where the point of chronic stress had gone. But with my dad, he was in his loop every morning, just crushing um period of stress that he was um undergoing. And because of his age, which I think he was late sixties at the time he died, you know, he was just slightly more vulnerable. And I absolutely believe in the post-mortem, you know, the toxicology reports, there was nothing that was could explain for the fact he'd had a massive heart attack. He's very healthy, he's very fit.

• 2:04:46Speaker 02

  Um he's an intelligent man, you know, I, you know, and one of the things I looked at in the fridge, I was seeing what he's eating. He had mackerel and cold fish, um tomatoes, uh sort of various good diet, but absolute staple and things he didn't need to cook. So I think he was living in this sort of period. Um and you know, I don't think um either me or my brother living with him during that period would have changed that outcome at all. Because nothing anyone could have done for him at that point would have prevented him from having that moment, that extreme moment of vulnerability, uh first thing in the morning.

• 2:05:28Speaker 02

  And again, you know, what I'm sort of involved in now, I'm really, really interested in the physical impacts of grief, you know, professionally related stress.

• 2:05:38Speaker 02

  So um that was, you know, how my parents were connected to that. I continued working all along and the people were managing me, you know, first of all.

• 2:05:46Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, hold on. So you lost your mom and your dad in a span of a year and a month.

• 2:05:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  Thirteen months.

• 2:06:00Shawn Ryan?

  If you had anything to say to them right now, what would you say?

• 2:06:04Speaker 02

  So they left an amazing legacy behind them. And, you know, they were proud of what we were both doing at the time. And I don't know what I would say to them, you know, I'd just say hello, you know, it's like.

• 2:06:20Speaker 02

  I look at that period, it's all connected, but it started with an accident like no one could predict. And that could happen to anyone. You know, when we're talking, I was sitting down and talking to my dad and trying to explain that there was no closure. There was never going to be an explanation that was going to satisfy him. You know, he was, you know, so I don't know what I would say to them now. But, you know, if I could see them again, um, um, uh, a lot of people asked me about, you know, who they were. They're very special people than most people are special people. Um, but, you know, I, I don't think I'd tangle over what I'd say to them at all, you know, I'd, you know, they were great people.

• 2:07:04Speaker 02

  And, you know, the last chat I had with my dad um was on um my sofa at home. And um very connected to him, um but it wasn't like um, you know, that uh he didn't lean on people at all. You know, he, and he was very.

• 2:07:24Speaker 02

  He wanted to understand everything, so I think he was always going to struggle with what had happened. Um, I don't know whether he had any regrets over it. I, I ju- I am and I genuinely, I don't know what I would say to them. Um, you know, they're both people I absolutely loved. Um, my mum I was very close to, um just because of the nature of what we did. Um, but equally uh connected to my dad in a different type of closeness, um hugely admired him. And again, you look at what he did for his life, making the opportunities for me and my brother. Working extraordinarily hard, you know, he had a business that um went bust, um when the market just, you know,

• 2:08:08Speaker 02

  there was no saving it. And I remember him saying, and he was a, it really, really, he, he, well, he really stuck out as someone who was very strong and good. Um, and he wasn't necessarily um easy to deal with at times, you know, because he was very, he knew exactly what he thought was, you know, right to do. I remember his, his biggest entanglement over the business and the fact that it couldn't be saved is the fact that he had employees, people that had worked in the joinery works for so long.

• 2:08:40Speaker 02

  So that was the sort of man he was. Um, I remember, you know, seeing him during that year, uh, he, he started doing a lot of walking. So he said, oh, what do you think uh I should get for walking boots? I also remember him having a Nokia twenty two ten phone. He'd never had a mobile before and we, we now said, look, you have to have a mobile. We need to be able to talk to you. We need to understand that you're right. Um, he wasn't used to taking calls. He didn't, you know, if it wasn't working, he wasn't, you know, making phones, uh, phone calls to people. So trying to impress upon him that he needed to answer this. You know, and um it's all those things, I think, over the board.

• 2:09:23Speaker 02

  Life was an impossible challenge for him um after my mum was killed.

• 2:09:29Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 2:09:31Shawn Ryan?

  How did you overcome that?

• 2:09:33Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it's, whether those two are linked or not, you know, a lot of other things were happening at the time within my family. Um, those were absolute seminal points in my life. And I talk about this in a very, very.

• 2:09:50Speaker 02

  You know, that's not unusual, actually. There's lots of people that have these tragedies happen to them. Frank thankfully, that is not frequently the way. But you know, I look at other people's circumstances and they're caring for elderly parents. And some of them, you know, that's very, very tough period. And I think, you know, intuitively, I saw my way through it. And you can see the response my body had. I've still got alopecia now. And you know, you can see that I'm under stress now because it comes back. And I've just got it in patches here. And as I understand it, alopecia is an autoimmune response to link to stress. You can see that my body was really sort of struggling under the strain to to kind of sort of re reorientate itself back. But it was doing that, you know, and

• 2:10:33Speaker 02

  I actually got beyond the trauma of that happening. I don't know when. No, it definitely had a massive impact on me, huge impact. And I always say it, like, what happened with my mum and subsequently to my dad. But I see, you know, the dad, what happened to my dad is less of a shocking trauma, because it was almost connected. We didn't expect that to happen. We were shocked when we were told it, but it made sense. And so what happened with my mum, you know, was actually, it will always be tragic. And arguably, it's going to be sad. But it's not necessarily traumatic for the rest of time. And I think it's the first, and again, I only understand this by looking back on it now, your body's

• 2:11:17Speaker 02

  actually quite powerful in getting yourself through these traumatic periods. And I think, you know, I went back to work and I was given the option not to, you know, everyone managed me. The levels of leadership I saw at that point in the management of me, I'll never forget. And the people I was working to in my squadron, incredible people, right? You know, and they were saying, it's your choice. And I was saying, that this is the grown up world of SF, you know, it's like, you know, you tell us what you need. It's your choice. And I said, no, no, I can't remember it's day one, but it was very soon after, if it wasn't day one. But I was on the tour and did the whole tour. But I hugely appreciated how they managed me, especially, you know, you look at the response that they gave me to get me to that hospital.

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  Actually, everyone knew that those injuries were fatal. I should have already been intubated, you know, that. There was really no difference, other than shaving off tens of minutes by using a helicopter by a versus, you know, if they'd asked the police, they'd have blue lighted me there. You know, we get tremendous amounts of support from people when we've got times of need. And I've always, someone took a decision to use that helicopter that was a reserve helicopter. There's an element of risk there. They looked to my situation and time of need, and I've always been hugely appreciative of it ever since. I think it's one of the finest examples of leadership you can ever show.

• 2:12:46Speaker 00

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• 2:13:16Speaker 02

  And actually, you know, they know, you know, all of us collectively, apart from me, knew that wasn't actually going to change the outcome at all. But they got me back to my father and my brother's side the soonest they possibly could. And there wasn't ever anything, and not, not a minute could have been shaved off it more. You know, and that really, really stuck with him. And I think how I was managed through that period has been absolutely fundamental to remaining through it, you know, and, you know, you come out sort of bruised, of course you do, right? You come out, um, thing, but, you know, I didn't see the point of missing work, um, not when it, you know, I had these chats with my brother.

• 2:13:58Speaker 02

  I think that's very, very fundamental. And then more latterly, you know, we lost more people, you know, so the godfather to my, uh, he um, was killed. Um, and then, you know, over the time, and I've always been surprised how few people close to me I've lost, but over the time you realise they have. So a next door neighbour was killed, um, a godfather was killed. Um, you know, my next door neighbour was very, very badly injured. And you look over the period of time this happened. Um, so, yeah, what happened to my parents was, it changes forever. You know, there was really, really big, big challenges in it. It was a building company.

• 2:14:40Speaker 02

  There were open mesothelioma claims related to use of asbestos. And of course, no one can prove um, the, uh, that there was insurance in place. And no one can prove the veracity of the claims, you know, and two of the claims actually, they'd worked days in the company, but one particular very, very sad case. Someone had worked there for a quite considerable period of time. And I remember looking at, because we inherited these, these cases, me and my brother. Because we were de facto now become inheritance of, of all this, all these complicated businesses around the buil- business. So we had all that going in the background. I investigated my mum's death myself, because the police got it wrong.

• 2:15:24Speaker 02

  And it wasn't actually the details of where she had been hit and how far she'd been rolled down the road. But it was enough for my dad to really just go into almost like a grief stricken frenzy over it. They've got it wrong. Why could, how could they ever? So I went and did it myself. And I explained how it happened. And I said, look, just because they'd marked it here rather than here, it just, it doesn't change anything. So we're doing a lot of work around that. I ended up managing one of the mesothelioma cases assessed and it was, you know, absolutely tragic consequence. But do you know a lot about asbestos led mesothelioma? Shards go into the lung and then they activate about sort of twenty years later and they get sharp. It's a really, really horrible tragic situation.

• 2:16:06Speaker 02

  And whether there was safety or not, knowing who my dad was, now he ran the company. I would almost be certain that there was, whatever it was at the time was available to use, but that wasn't the point. You know, they would have always had insurance and that's what insurance was there for. But we could not, could not prove uh who had the insurance. And I remember dealing with this and we'd worked out which company it was. It was after sixteen buyouts of one particular company. But they were just barmholing us. They're saying, no, no, you can't prove it. You haven't got a policy document, la, la, la. We've found scraps and we, there's a place in Norfolk where they hold miles and miles of old paperwork of insurance.

• 2:16:48Speaker 02

  We're getting people to go through this because the levels of, of money, you know, compensation that was due to this person. One hundred percent and three times that should have been given to his surviving widow. Uh, cause he actually died during the, that, I remember it's under a year, but it was nearly a year of, of dealing with this. And I remember at the point where me and my brother had finally kind of just found a portion of the policy number or we found enough to say. We know it's you, right? And uh they literally over one phone call said, okay. Leave this with us. It's no longer your business, you know, and if we had had, if that had gone to arbitrary.

• 2:17:28Speaker 02

  And it would definitely have been ruled in favour of mesothelioma cases and I absolutely am complete supporter of that, right? You know, what's the point in looking back through time and going, did you have? Access to safety equipment or not, you know, extraordinary thing to, to try and address when you're doing that. The concept was, we knew insurance was in place. It was a responsible business. You know, so we inherited a lot of that and it was, I remember at the time it was really, really stressful. Really stressful and doing all our jobs all the time, but fun, you, you know, you instinctively pick your way through it. You know, and um I do remember in the time chat with my brother and, you know, if we'd had to kind of sort of find the money for that mesothelioma case, we'd both lost our houses.

• 2:18:13Speaker 02

  No, and lots of people around us would have been hugely impacted by that. Um, so there were real, real challenges that I even have to just sort of remind myself of now. Of what was going on and what were the consequences of those untimely deaths. You know, and everyone looks in their lives and they think they can picture when they'll die. They think they can get ready for it and make good plans. And very, very often, it doesn't work out like that at all.

• 2:18:48Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 2:18:51Shawn Ryan?

  What a tough, what a tough girl, man.

• 2:18:54Speaker 02

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

• 2:19:34Speaker 02

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

• 2:20:19Speaker 02

  Uh, of my life, you know, my life does not make sense if I can't explain that. You know, and I read through those reports, you know, and you look at it and you just think, oh my goodness, you know, but then I've worked as a medic. And I've seen this happen to people's families. And I've seen the consequences of it. And I've, you know, I've got friends who, emergency responders in the UK. Uh, one's um. A cardiac specialist, you know, CPR and recovery, people from heart attacks. Um, and it happens in the street, and no one's present to pronounce death. And um, I can't, I don't like, understand their particular mechanism. She said, one of these sort of quirks with Covid.

• 2:21:03Speaker 02

  Is people go into cardiac arrest, they neither go down, or nor do they, and you know, as an expert, they're never coming back. So they're stuck and, you know, all too often they're surrounded by their families and they're witnessing this tremendously traumatic event. And this person is having to manage this and doing it day after day after day, you know, and internally they have to manage the reality. The knowledge that they know this is already a death. Yeah. But these people surrounding them, they are watching it. And they are hoping that it's a life.

• 2:21:37Speaker 02

  And um, I think this is an intricate pattern in life, in life that we have to kind of sort of accept. Right, these things do happen and we all hope that our loved ones are going to be safe and secure. But you know, and again, I'll remind it, I had an interesting chat just recently, as you could go into any doctors tomorrow. And find out about a diagnosis, they'll bring your life to an end tomorrow. Something's been lurking within, you've not detected, it's not anything you've done wrong. No, and you'll try and make sense of it, but it won't. And so my mum very much sits in that bracket. Now, there's actually no reason to try and make sense of it. No, it's a particular story, the fact that that lady knew her.

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  She used to buy eggs from her. Now, that is, if you can't get a story about how life can be. That is as stark as that. No, and it's really interesting, you know, because when I was speaking to my father about it, you know, I was saying, this lady's eighty. I think she was eighty at the time. Right, it's ruined her life irreversibly. Like, this is a tragic, tragic accident. Um, so, you know, managing it was very, very tough. I came back with alopecia. It's like. But it's still there, it's never gone. I can see it's like a little radar now to when

• 2:23:07Speaker 02

  life is becoming quite tight and complicated and always it comes back. Um, it doesn't bother me, but it's a mark that you'll wear seemingly for the rest of my life. Mm hmm. Um, you know, so and again, when that's put against and overloaded with a related professional stress, I used to call some elements of what we do pages syndrome, you know, you're always on call in some way or form. When you're out on operations, you're constantly re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling, re-rolling. As soon as you're back, I talked about that story about supporting a team out in Ramadi, immediately backing out again. And I don't think that was unique in us, you know, lots of other units did

• 2:23:51Speaker 02

  it as well. But the tempo was extraordinary at times, you know, a hundred and eighty two operations on the third tour in six months. It's just extraordinary. Um, in all of these times, they're complex operations, you know, you don't know what you're going on half the time. You've got a good idea of the broad structure of the intelligence, but the buildings change. There's aspects that you haven't seen, you know, it's the ultimate in adaptability that you need to have in order to do that. When things aren't going to work out the way you want them, you have to just take a deep breath and accept they aren't the way you want them. Yeah. Um, when you're sitting on the back end of a charge because you can't get around the corner and you've run out of detonators with a particular length, you know, it's

• 2:24:36Speaker 02

  that deep breath, you know, it's gonna hurt. And in that particular instance, one of my friends um got uh hurt in his groin and had to uh be evacuated for that, you know, and you kind of in that situation, you're just looking at it, you know, you're gonna set that thing off and it's gonna hurt. Right, uh.

• 2:24:58Shawn Ryan?

  So did you go up back to Bad Dad after your father passed?

• 2:25:02Speaker 02

  Yes, so yes, I mean, it just. And again, and I didn't miss any operational days, maybe five days at the beginning, who I cannot remember. But I did not miss an operational tour or consciously any days, right? But I was being extraordinarily well managed. You know, it wasn't like people were telling me to be there. They were saying, you tell us what you can do. Now, my compass point was. If I, unless I've got an extraordinarily good reason not to be, I will, I will be there.

• 2:25:37Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like you went to work early just to.

• 2:25:43Shawn Ryan?

  Put yourself back in that environment so that you didn't think about the passing?

• 2:25:47Speaker 02

  I don't think I did that, as in I didn't use it in that way. But I didn't see a good enough reason not to be there. And that was because I was talking to my brother. We believed that there was no changeable outcome for my dad, you know, that it would find its way, whatever. The fact that we could be in the house more, you know, we had made a conscious decision to, to stay in our jobs.

• 2:26:12Speaker 02

  Standing out of our job, we couldn't afford to do that. You know, it wasn't a viable alternative to it, and I don't think the support would have made any difference. So it wasn't like our sort of finding solace in work. Um, it'd be an extraordinary place to look for solace in work with that level of overloaded professional stress that comes with it. But I think I was quite young and I was really sort of tuned into the fact that, you know, I looked at each one. And I said, you know, do I need to miss it? No, I don't. And so I did, I turned up and continued to do it. And I wasn't wrong, you know, I was reported on all the way through that.

• 2:26:51Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I'd make a comment about decorations and commendations, people, you know, I've seen people do extraordinary. Um, brave things that they've never been written up for, but in those periods of time, you've done nineteen operations. Obviously, you're going to get written up for certain actions. If you haven't come across something extraordinary at a certain time. Then you would be in a highly unusual position for that operational exposure. So. You do get written up for stuff and I receive commendations for stuff I was doing on those tours. Um. Which is all that all that is to me is a validation that I was doing my job. So it wasn't like I was sort of running at a deficit.

• 2:27:32Speaker 02

  But what, you know, I was really, really conscious of is that was building up inside me, right? And that stress was starting to load up and load up and load up and load up. It doesn't necessarily happen when you're there, but it will come in the future.

• 2:27:45Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. What are some of the, what are some of the operations that you were a part of that really stuck out in your career?

• 2:27:54Speaker 02

  So.

• 2:27:58Speaker 02

  I mean, it's the stuff on the front line, because they were different. You know, when we were re-rolling and going on to compounds and constantly, constantly, constantly. And none of that stuck out as abnormal, you know, every so often there was an engagement here in a corridor, whatever. None of it really, really sort of resonated particularly with me. Living on a front line um in a small team really, really stuck out. There is a operation I was involved in, I can't say the place of it, but um a large device was set off in an engagement in the breach point, or when they didn't use an explosive charge in the end, but it set off a very large triasteen triperoxide device

• 2:28:40Speaker 02

  that ended up with the house falling on the injured who'd been used in the engagement. These are, I mean, I mean, that's a good one to talk about, the numbers in that, you know, twenty eight people went out the door. As I remember it, there were thirteen left standing by the end of it. When these special forces operations get complex, they get extremely complex.

• 2:28:59Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty eight of you guys went out and thirteen?

• 2:29:01Speaker 02

  No, so this was a partner force that we were supporting. So I was about twenty five foot away from the triasteen triperoxide device, but around two corners and up some stairs. So all I did was get covered in dust. But it uh uh two people had been shot in the head in the initial engagement. And a number had picked up other injuries from the device going off. But essentially, we were still trying to work out how we were to extricate them eh from that breach point position. Without exposing ourselves to further fire from this, this, this um building that was two story. And they'd survived in uh the second story because I was twenty five foot away, no reason they hadn't.

• 2:29:44Speaker 02

  And actually the fire went on for over two hours after that. Um but essentially four stories of half the house fell on top of the wounded. Bearing it and some of the injuries were like earthquake injuries when we did finally recover them. And the trouble is, and I've done a lot of sort of days in uh urban areas that have been partially destroyed. And what wouldn't be immediately obvious to people is when you're operating in an area where buildings have fallen down, it acts like um camouflage material. Right, there's nothing ordered or patterned in which your eye can make sense of. So you don't know where you're gonna get shot at from next. And actually, when it's a doorway or where it's a window, you can see, see when something breaks it.

• 2:30:26Speaker 02

  You know, and you can take a position or you could be much more safe in how you're going about it. And for the next few hours, we had to try and stop these people from breaking out. The situation was gonna get a lot, lot worse. They're heavily armed with um uh PKM type machine guns, uh one had a Minimi. Uh and they had a large store of explosive devices that we found out later. Um but somehow we had to extricate and um another badge member that I was with. He went and rescued someone from the access point at breach point, which is incredibly brave thing to do. And uh the person they rescued, I took a bit of frag through, it partially severed their spinal column. So he had to learn to walk again.

• 2:31:10Speaker 02

  Um but he, and so the people we could get out, we could get out. There was one personal member. I kept going down and listening over the wall and obviously he'd been buried just right by the breach point. And he was screaming, but we couldn't, you know, we were trying to access it together to say, how, how are we gonna get this guy out, you know, he's completely buried.

• 2:31:32Speaker 02

  Without exposing ourselves to the fire that is coming out there, it's pretty random at that point. We weren't on for two hours after that. And essentially, he stopped screaming at a certain point. And we made a decision to say, okay, well, you know, this outcome is really, really tough. We don't think it's worth taking the risk anymore. We completely overloaded the medevac chain. You know, people were treating themselves in the street. Um, you know, we, I put out, um, um, you know, edicts as such, they weren't orders, you know, I wasn't in command this, but we were helping support them in this very, very complex situation.

• 2:32:16Speaker 02

  And I'd said to them, you're not to take any more casualties, you know, must, must not take any more casualties. And there are people that are just tremendously brave, remember one that had been shot in the chest, no one really realised. And it was some time later until he just fell over backwards. And you're just like, wow, you didn't, no one even picked up on the fact he'd been shot. And some of the injuries these people would take on, incredibly, incredibly brave people. And the people, the person we left buried. And we made a conscious decision to not try and get him out because he was completely buried and risk more casualties. Um, he turned out to be alive, you know, it's about three or four hours later. And it took forty minutes to dig him out.

• 2:33:01Speaker 02

  Um, but when they did get him out, he was alive, but he had absolutely horrible, um, injuries. He'd already had horrible injuries, but you know, they were also quite crush injuries. Injuries associated to earthquake type injuries. And it's sort of jobs like that, they come up. And I remember thinking at the time when the large explosion went off, you're like, okay, we're still in this. But as soon as the house falls down, it's like the aircraft gets shot out of the sky. It's unbelievable complexity has attached to it. I think, you know, remembering the centre point of just saying, okay, well, this is going to take a long time to get out of now. We have to control the situation, you know, it's not like you can just get up and leave.

• 2:33:44Speaker 02

  You have to control it, you have to contain everyone to the house, the threat isn't gonna get worse and bit by bit unpick it. What you're left with is a ton of decisions you could question afterwards. So should we, if shouldn't we? But that's not the right process to go along. Because how you went about it was bit by bit, step by down the path, finding a way through that complexity. That, in that particular instance, it's how on earth do we guarantee there's no more threat from that building? By assuring those people, they were injured themselves by the explosive blast going off. You know, and trying to clear into a destroyed building is very, very difficult, you know.

• 2:34:28Speaker 02

  Um, and so we were trying to make good, conscious, professional decisions based upon what we needed to do. And trying to implore, you know, the people that are injured, trying to implore them, that were close friends of them, you know, they, they, these are people that we looked after and mentored. Uh, incredibly closely and trying to get them not to take massive risks, like stupid risks in order to do something that we, we, we. Looked at and said, it's not gonna be successful, you will not get them out. And it's, you know, a testament to, like, when things get that tough, you know, people step up. The training is important, but you see the bravery and the strength of these people and how they step up.

• 2:35:13Speaker 02

  Um, so, you know, it's, it's, it's operations like that that really, really stick with me. And in that particular instance, you know, I came off the ground.

• 2:35:24Speaker 02

  It's dark, really early morning, and we'd been there, we'd gone on to the ground about sort of twelve o'clock. The, the previous day. Implored for night time, but for some reason, we weren't given the reasons why, they said, look, please can you do it during the day, you can't wait. Obviously, there was, uh, ongoing threat from these people, uh, they'd already committed attack against, um, some police.

• 2:35:50Speaker 02

  And I remember going home and sitting in my flat and just staring out, just the exhaustion you feel, you know, and I've felt it so many times, I mean, you've been explosive, loads of explosive blasts, you've been run out of water, you know, things that you thought were gonna take a day have took two days, you know, there's all sorts of reasons you get back, you feel completely hollowed out, you know, you literally are just sitting there taking it all in. And I always found I'd just sort of press play on the music. In that particular instance, I had to write someone a letter to explain. Oh, man. Don't listen to the noise, this is what happened, and you can be proud of these people.

• 2:36:32Speaker 02

  So I did, I'm unbelievably brave. And then as soon as I had a plan to deliver that letter, I went straight to the hospital and I seen the guys. And everyone involved in that would question, what did I do? Did I do the right thing? Could I have done that? As soon as I walked into the hospital and I saw their faces, it was like a friend has come to see them, like made the effort to go there. And it is hard when you're facing up with people, you know, you're like, you're looking at them, you're like, wow, you know, you got injured. And now, some of them very, very seriously, some of the breaks, uh, there was, uh, one

• 2:37:14Speaker 02

  guy stood by the wall when the blood, the wall blew out and a block went straight into his, his laryphema and the break was just astonishing. It was like, I remember looking at it and just going, wow. When you see these people and are very, very badly injured, he's never gonna walk properly again. There's no way you can fix a fracture that big sensibly.

• 2:37:35Speaker 02

  Um, you know, and they're still pleased to see you. It's just like, wow, okay, we are in this together, you know, and people won't judge you overly as long as you are.

• 2:37:48Speaker 02

  All the time putting the effort, the attention and the support into people when they need it. And it's exactly what happened to me. If you think about what happened around my mum, people give me the support and my absolute hour need. And I didn't even know how like critical that need was. In that particular position, you just had to find a way out for these people. Yeah. Which meant handing off that, trying to persuade them that they weren't gonna get the job done at that point. You know, hand it off. And you know, a lot of the young soldiers, they're very much driven by a sense of duty, sense of proof.

• 2:38:29Speaker 02

  And trying to sort of really explain to them, you've already done your job here. And you've done an immense job. Like, we've suffered and as has happened, these devices do go off. We don't plan to be here when they do. You know, in that respect, our advice has always been do this at night. You know, we always like surprise, we always like to be quiet in what we do. It's inbuilt into us. But when you're forced to go, you're forced to go, right? You know, and you may not know the full picture, in which case we didn't.

• 2:39:07Speaker 02

  You know, and I found out later about that particular incident, that they had planned to further very, very large attacks. All against kind of sort of key aspects of the institution. And they had large stores of IEDs that were uncovered as well. And so, you know, and I come across a lot of these people and they're very, very dangerous. You know, when they're turned, they're extremely dangerous. And some of those countries in the Middle East have got very, very complex counter-terrorism threats domestically. And you know, you have a certain pride of serving alongside them.

• 2:39:46Speaker 02

  Because actually, when I look at people, we're all human beings faced with different, but relatively the same aspects of problems. Safety is not the same as security. You know, to keep security, you have to be prepared to leave. You know, and if you hug, you hold on to safety too much. The security goes, you know, these institutions, these units, these services that do this job are extremely important, extremely precious. And they protect security, not safety.

• 2:40:27Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, nineteen deployments.

• 2:40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:32Shawn Ryan?

  You saw a lot.

• 2:40:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the exposure is massive, right? And it's hugely varied. Um, I was a breacher for three of them. And I used to. It's, yeah, it's, it's a lot. But that's because of the roles I took. It's a lot of the time, you know, I got trained as a JTAC, uh, early. And a lot of those deployments were trained as a JTAC or because I had a specialist. Specialisation in airspace management, understanding of assets and weaponry. I'll go and support other people in what they did. You know, so a lot of, a lot of the time, and again, it's what's great about being in the unit is you spend a lot of the time.

• 2:41:18Speaker 02

  On your own or supporting or going towards a country to kind of try and understand a hostage rescue. Um, some of the key, key areas of what I did were unsupported. And actually, we were just sent to understand the situation. Because lots of people scream genocide very quickly. Right, it's one of the fastest ways to attract, um, countries to come and, you know. Take control, so you have to understand it. And when situations are so, so unsettled, so insecure. Um, you know, often we're asked to go in and understand situations, just to say, look, you know, this, yes, this is, this is really grievous, or no, you know, the threats to national interests are this.

• 2:42:02Speaker 02

  No, we, we do not see evidence of there being a genocide or a risk of mass killings of such sorts. And in those particular situations, they've probably been the most risky of all. You know, and in those situations, you're largely unsupported. You're surrounded by people you don't, you know, don't trust or understand particularly. Have a huge amount of faith, judgment as well. And in that particular instance, we're washing in saltwater for about six weeks, running out of food regularly. You know, and open battles were going on constantly, you know, recallless rifles like

• 2:42:44Speaker 02

  fifteen foot away from you, shooting out tank barrels, you know, these people who weren't even trained to use tanks. Just blasting away with tanks and it's just massively, you get no sleep. You know, it's, um, I mean, it'd be lucky if you got two hours in twenty four. Like racing against margins, sleeping in locked rooms. Cause you fear for everyone around you being warned there's plots to kidnap you. You know, it's, it's, it's really, really, uh, very, very tough environment to remain steady and you know, we've got to maintain our position here, but to understand what's going on and give an accurate thing so people know what to do in these situations. It's probably those periods of time

• 2:43:29Speaker 02

  that have left the biggest mark. You know, my time in the squadron, uh, it was quite comfortable. You know, it's like, actually, I did a, a series of years of different operations connected all up. And um much of the time spent on my own, and much of the time spent in small teams and bringing people together, you know, when we needed to do something.

• 2:43:54Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever done a, have you ever done a hostage rescue?

• 2:43:58Speaker 02

  I haven't done a hostage rescue. I've moved forwards to prepare the ground for one. Um I've not done one myself. I've probably done some in Iraq, you know, which were kind of sort of, they're not the hostage rescues I think about. Hostage rescues, I think about those really, really highly critical ones done. The insertion is extremely complicated, um it's zero sum game. So I've gone forward and prepared the ground for those uh particular operations. I've took part in planning of numerous, um but you know, uh uh and again, hostage rescues do not, thankfully do not happen very often, um because they're a very, very difficult operation to to pull off.

• 2:44:39Shawn Ryan?

  Downstairs, you had mentioned that you'd uh worked with Delta.

• 2:44:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:44Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys doing?

• 2:44:46Speaker 02

  So it was essentially, you know, we used to to share lessons and TTPs, techniques, tactics and procedures when we were mitigating a risk. So if something had happened on the ground, and essentially I was going over to learn uh an element of how they do their operations. And that particular operation uh was expected to be a very, very tough operation. I would have been seen in the development of the target, multiple weapons. The activities around the target were were pretty horrible. And so there was an expectancy, it was going to be hostile, um but it ended up

• 2:45:24Speaker 02

  um with a a very large um firefight that went on for hours and hours and hours, five casualties in the first window, trapped in a street with houses overlooking one another, they could fire down onto the roofs and the street. And um and essentially in the first period, as I remember it, you know, and as people are taking positions and an adaptive mortar bomb was thrown off the roof, and it hit the the team forward enough. So essentially then a very, very large weight of fire came down from three wider firing points.

• 2:46:01Speaker 02

  And because it was an urban target, it was very, very difficult to deal with, you know, you're not allowed to use the things that you would use. If you're deployed into rural areas or in more safe areas. And there were certain sensitivities about the area, people living there that made it even more difficult to bring to bear the things that you would usually do. And again, you know, I mean, I just tremendously admired the people that I worked alongside. They were really, really professional. And I served, um, I think we, we were pretty much out for about eight hours. Um, and essentially as we approached this target. One, and remembering this wasn't my target. I don't know the details of it, you know, the development of, I just know we expected it to be complicated.

• 2:46:45Speaker 02

  And, um, and, uh, and go noisy. But essentially as we come towards the target, about one K out, came through a checkpoint, there was a massive burst of gunfire in the air, which wasn't unusual, let's face it. Kind of, you, you expect that.

• 2:47:02Speaker 02

  And so everyone was infiltrating on, and that was actually a warning to the target that people were coming. Um, so they were waiting in, in effectively a free lane ambush. Um, and that was, you know, problematic to get out. And that was in, uh, two thousand and six, a very, very kinetic tour. And, uh, and actually about two years after that, I was given an accommodation, which I've always been hugely grateful for. It takes a lot of time to write people up. Um, and, um, um, for that night, but it was also a. What did you get the accommodation for? Sorry? What did you get the accommodation for? It was essentially, so sort of approaching, um, and dealing with an armed.

• 2:47:46Speaker 02

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

• 2:48:23Speaker 02

  Done anything that I think sticks out in an extraordinarily professional way. I've seen people equally across the length of time we've done it on different operations and different nights do extraordinarily brave things. Sometimes they have to. And sometimes they're rescuing people. It's incredibly brave. Many of the times they're not recognised for it. And I'm not hung up on commendations and recognition at all. But when people do and they make the effort to do it, you know, it's, to me, it's notable. They've gone to a lot of effort to do that. But essentially, you know, in particular through Iraq, we're working very closely aligned with US forces.

• 2:49:06Speaker 02

  And whilst we're, you know, cultured very differently, we very much share this unity in, you know, some missions and aims. It really, really highlighted the closeness of us all. And, you know, I was telling a story before about a really great friend of mine, Duncan Slater, he's a WAMT, and he got injured in Afghanistan. But we both used to work for a company, satellite company, actually. We've sat together having a wine at night and, you know, we talked about sort of the time there was a breach point. I wasn't on this operation, for instance, but my neighbour was very badly shot.

• 2:49:45Speaker 02

  Hit three times. One when his Semvagian bounced off, head, helmet bounced off, but the other one hit his weapon and tracked up his arm and left him with a really horrible. Everything's locked up, so it's incredibly painful. It was my neighbour. So when I used to come out, I used to sit down and have a coffee with him. And at the point where he's wounded, he, you know, wanted to walk to a helicopter, losing a huge amount of blood. And we were just talking in general about, you know, experiences with Duncan. And I didn't realise, you know, because this, this person, my neighbour was, he didn't want to get on the stretcher, but you could see how much blood he was losing. He was not going to make it to the helicopter.

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  So instead of like having a sort of, you must get on the stretcher or trying to force him on the stretcher, he just gently put underneath his arm and took the weight off him just so he could walk to the helicopter. And there's those moments of compassion and understanding, humanity that really sort of sit with me. And Duncan's story is, is pretty incredible in itself. He's a very special person long before he got injured, right? And he's incredible guy.

• 2:50:55Speaker 02

  But the point of injury, he got injured in a complex ambush in Afghanistan, uh, in driving a jackal. Uh, so jackal, obviously, the problem is the wheels are back, so you sit forward of the wheels. And the command wire ID got set off. Um, and essentially his rifle went straight through, the rifle's held right there, went straight through his arm. And his legs took an enormous amount of damage. It got thrown out the vehicle. Um, and it was like, say, the ambush was still ongoing, there's shooting and, you know, it had all the, you know, what we called a the shooting ports all the way through the compound walls.

• 2:51:31Speaker 02

  And essentially they're trying to call a medevac in nine liner. And the UK asset couldn't, couldn't respond. Um, for whatever reasons, and a dust off call sign was on its last day of operations. Uh, of its particular tenure and overheard the nine liner, overheard that they couldn't respond. And they went and picked up Duncan and saved his life. Wow. So Duncan. Got to come back to the UK. His legs were so badly damaged, so they amputated. Uh, he's got an incredible story about, I'll talk about it. I saw him just before I came out here, actually, and, um, he's involved in some of the things I'm involved in now.

• 2:52:15Speaker 02

  Essentially, he was up at Balmoral a little bit later. And he knew he'd been evacuated, medevaced by one of the dust off call signs. And, uh, he was doing a speaking and there was a running event around Balmoral up in Scotland. He saw a lieutenant colonel from the US Air Force. So he went up to him and said, look, you know, I got medevaced. Would you find out who it was? And, uh, so they swapped details and Duncan thought nothing of it. And then he got an email from the crew chief of one of the dust off crews. They said, look, you know, we were dust off about that time, one of the dust off call signs.

• 2:52:55Speaker 02

  I kept a book of the things we did, so we'll know immediately. I said, so who else was on the helicopter? And Duncan was like, I was alone. And he was like, oh, this can't be, can't be it, can't be it. And obviously Duncan, very horribly injured, his incredibly complex injuries that he had.

• 2:53:17Speaker 02

  So then it really perplexed Duncan because he knew the exact time, the exact date. So he went back to his unit, which was um one of the other special forces units. And said, look, what happened when I got medevac, was there other people on the on the helicopter? They said, yeah, there was, I think there was two more lesser wounded people. They chose to get them out. And the reason this definitely saved Duncan's lives is to try and move back even by vehicle would have took over two hours from where they were. Where where they had the ambush.

• 2:53:49Speaker 02

  So um he phoned uh back to the crew chief and said, look, I was wrong. I was, there were two other people uh in the the in the cab with me. And what's more, I was singing. Because he was told with, why, when they put him on a helicopter, they put ketamine into him really quickly. And because he's Scottish, very, very volubly Scottish, he started singing in Scottish. And apparently the pilot looked back at this Scottish singing, coming from the back of his cab. This relatively mortally wounded person, and it really was really quite sort of. You know, things were very, very complicated. So that was the confirmatory.

• 2:54:33Speaker 02

  That it was that dust off call sign is we cannot forget this person who was singing Scottish songs. In the in the back of the thing. And I just thought it was an absolute, but. Point being, it's like Duncan went back and he's met those dust off call signs, you know, and he said to them. You know, he's thanked them. And I think it's a, you know, just yet another example of how closely. Aligned these forces have been and how many lives have been both sides, you know, but, you know, deeply thankful. For support like dust off when they come and pull you out of a situation like that, which is essentially still an ongoing ambush. It's an incredibly brave thing to do. And I know what the last day of tour feels like, right?

• 2:55:19Speaker 02

  It's like Friday the 4th over and over again. You always think, you know, Christmas is another one. Big things seem to happen at Christmas. And I've always wondered about this, right? You know, we we seem to have some of the biggest, complex periods of work. Loss of helicopters, you know, big problematic problems on target.

• 2:55:42Speaker 02

  Um, around Christmas time, I thought, well, you know, actually, there's a reason for this. There's longer darker hours. The, given the heat is complicated for aircraft, but also the winter is very complicated for aircraft as well. And I think the margins for error go up a lot more in those winter tours. And predominantly through the rotation, we were doing to winter tours a lot. Um, so, you know.

• 2:56:11Speaker 02

  I'll do, you know, there's, there's rhyme and reason in everything. If you sort of pin it to a, pin, pin, pin it to, to what is the reason why? Why did this happen more at this point in time? Well, you know, people are in their houses for longer periods of time during those winter months when it's dark and it's wet. And it's the infiltration targets can be very, very complicated, right? Um, so I guess that sort of defines me as a person. I always sort of wondered why, and I like to make sense of things.

• 2:56:42Shawn Ryan?

  In nineteen deployments in twenty years at the unit, have you ever had to kill anybody?

• 2:56:51Speaker 02

  I wouldn't answer that.

• 2:56:52Shawn Ryan?

  You wouldn't answer that?

• 2:56:56Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any idea how many missions you've been on?

• 2:56:59Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I cannot add it up, right? So the different variations of types of missions, but on the third tour, we did a hundred and eighty two. And that was at a particular time when the governance was really, really contested in Iraq. It was like, it, you know, it was, I, I think at the time it was General McChrystal who was leading the task force. And it was absolutely critical. You know, it was at that point where people really believed that country could go into a full civil war. There were bombs getting driven into markets that were killing hundreds at the time. And there's, you could not go out during the day, the threat was so, so high. And the rotation was just on, on, on, circle, circle, circle.

• 2:57:40Speaker 02

  Um, and you know, that's most pronounced on a lot of the others, maybe thirty, some seventy. So if you add it all up, it's a huge array.

• 2:57:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:52Speaker 02

  But I've also spent extended periods on front lines, you know, and that's one. But it's lasted for weeks.

• 2:58:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:00Speaker 02

  When I'm on that front line, we are the top target.

• 2:58:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:05Speaker 02

  They're trying to, and you know, we've, we've had some fun and games with particular brilliant snipers and mortar teams before, you know, being pinned, pinned down by a very, very good sniper who remained a problem. We never found a solution for him, but he kept on being effective.

• 2:58:22Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:58:22Speaker 02

  You know, and another one was a mortar team that seemed specifically, if we wanted to, towards us and um, one evening, we're just down there monitoring and seeing where the threat's building up. And ensuring that that front line can't be broke, you know, it's like, it's constant, constant, where's it gonna happen next? And uh, we had a particular member in our, in our team who used to be three pound mortars. And he used to be like a walking human mortar radar. He could literally, it's absolutely astonishing. And I was sat there and I was on the radio talking to the air. And uh, and uh, we, usually it's that ubiquitous white truck, right?

• 2:59:05Speaker 02

  And we could kind of pick it out from its movement. We'd all be like, is that mortar team? Is that that mortar team? Okay, fine. So anyway, whatever, didn't really see the truck that time, perhaps concentrating somewhere else. We heard the mortar report and this member of the team was like that.

• 2:59:23Speaker 02

  That's over there. And the round landed about a K short further down the hill. And he turned around and said, that's, that's for us. And we all looked at him a bit like, and I just continued talking on the radio. And the next one landed at a hundred and eighty foot away, further down this ridge line. We've got like a bunk, we've got like a position that's all pushed up dirt and it's about probably at the base.

• 2:59:52Speaker 02

  Three to five metres wide. Yeah, and it comes up this, you know, when they push it all up into a berm. And it's got like sand, sandbagged positions, but it's all really sort of not very well constructed. The next one. Uh, landed about a hundred and eighty foot away. And I remember looking up and looking over at the plume. Coming out and I just heard down and then nothing. And it was black. And it's like, and one had landed, they'd just done two. Very, very good, very accurate. Mm hmm. And one had landed, literally coming to the other side of the berm. Wow. But cause these uh mortars are not very well fused, right?

• 3:00:33Speaker 02

  It buried itself in the ground, gone off and just covered us in dirt. I was talking to the air. And I remember just sort of coming back into sort of like realisation that that was awful. That would have took the whole team out. We were all. In a vicinity of the radio. Thankfully, most of them up against that side of the berm. I was the only one standing up. And it's just that realisation that had gone in the other side of the berm. The fusing's really bad, isn't it? That's really what saved us. And it had gone and buried itself before it had gone off. And I remember looking down at one of our uh partners, Northern Iraqi partners, and it's dusting like dust off all of us.

• 3:01:19Speaker 02

  And um, and I just remember looking down. And we had a house not far back. And I just looked at the team, I was like, and bearing in mind, they were still there. We had a choice to try and work out where they were. And try and get some air onto it. We're just like, do you wanna call it a night? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, you know, that was what life was like on the front line, you know, it's kind of sticked out to me a little bit more. Especially when the clouds coming in, right? And you, you know, the air's not gonna come and help you then. And there's constant attempts to find out where you were. Constant wonder, like, who's up? What's happening? Tunneling, whatever it was, there was something going on.

• 3:02:05Speaker 02

  And it was a real sort of realisation, and when you woke up, you'd see like the sun come up. And we had our times and, you know, our partner force would run out of food quite often. And they'd come and bring you a dish of fried aubergine, which is not the most nutritious thing I've ever been fed. And often they'd run out of ammunition. Not often, but worryingly enough, they wouldn't have ammunition. You're just looking at it like, wow. You know, you're just trying to hold it together, ensure that the situation is not going to break. No one's going to come through that front line. Because when they did, the attacks were absolutely awful. You know, the consequences to the villages behind them. And these were um Kurdish forces, a lot of them there, you know, different factions of the Kurdish.

• 3:02:48Speaker 02

  Um, and um, you know, when, when, when they managed to infiltrate through, because there was lots and lots of people talking to them on the other side. Um, you know, and they were constantly attempting to do that. And it was quite extraordinary, the level of effect and training some of these people had, you know. And I think that's sort of, that's migration. There's always been, it's always struck me when I've been on operations, there's been a certain pattern we've had. There's certain groups that kind of sort of share the ethnic identity, religion, whatever, they're part of the population. Um, and then you've got this element of foreign fighters that come in. And they're either full of fervour, but they've got no baseline support. Or they're extremely well trained.

• 3:03:34Speaker 02

  And I've always detected the level of state help that these groups have got. So whilst you're operating against known terrorist organisations, they're prescribed organisations, they're recognised. They have always been receiving facilitation, support. And people are looking at the whole situation and trying to find gaps in the strategy and go against it. And, you know, pick those vulnerabilities. And it's not these people you're facing that necessarily the people that are orchestrating all the finance and all the facilitation that gives them the ability to operate in the way they do. And that's the enormous complexity of going up against these groups.

• 3:04:16Speaker 02

  And almost the frontline was quite refreshing, because the frontline was set. And you had this period of ground, which everyone was trying to sort of find the gaps in and get. You did get infiltration a lot, but when it happened, it was much more understandable. And it wasn't the same as some of the other situations I've been in. Um, so, you know, the, the frontline was really, really interesting. Done over ranges and distances, uh, you know, unless they got close and they rarely, rarely, rarely ever did that. Um, all of the ranges, we had to look at our weapon systems and go, okay, all these things that we're carrying on, much good for this. So let's swap them out. So I swapped to a, um, a four one seven is five five six version of HK, isn't it?

• 3:04:59Speaker 02

  So I swapped to a four one seven with a tripod. And, um, so you, you saw different choices getting made, but we were sleeping outside on the frontline a lot of time, very, very exposed. Um, but it was, you know, quite, um, an interesting period of operations for me. Um, learned a lot about human beings, learned a huge amount about trust, especially with traditional cultures. That don't understand about advanced weaponry and when one fails and you get finlock. And I'm trying to explain that and they're just saying, can you make sure it doesn't come near us? And you're like, look, you know, this, this is not, not how you think it. And understanding about how you deal with people as well, you know, I always used to carry a covert weapon on me.

• 3:05:43Speaker 02

  I used to carry two Glocks because as you're going into meetings, it's a level of trust. Uh, a lot of them have very, very traditional cultures, but you can never be one hundred percent sure that you knew who everyone was or what he had. So I'd make a very visible display of putting that weapon down on the table and talking. But I'd always have something on me and, um, thankfully, you know, I've nearly been caught out once, um, really badly and that was not trusting my instinct. Um, but otherwise, you know, it's, it's pretty much held up, reading people, judging who they are, what they want. Uh, has really kind of sort of held up in that respect when you're dealing with partners.

• 3:06:27Speaker 02

  And as you know, you, you're never sure of who is talking to who and who is doing what, you know, there's, there's risk and uncertainty everywhere. But to get the job done, you have to at least look like you're a simple person to deal with. You know, and sometimes you haven't got the resources to check everyone out, you know, you just simply won't be able to. So getting trusted partners, you know, who can say, you know, this is my place, you know, people are fixers, translators, people are able to say to you that this doesn't fit are just invaluable.

• 3:07:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, John, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into your retirement and what you're doing now.

• 3:07:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:07:10Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 3:07:14Shawn Ryan?

  I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month live Zoom calls with me, exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com/vigilanceelite. That's patreon.com/vigilanceelite.

• 3:07:55Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 3:08:16Shawn Ryan?

  All right, John, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into retirement, but before that, you had some, you had some other issues.

• 3:08:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and these are the things that have dawned on me, you know, the intensive nature of deployments, you know, I've had an intensive operational career, as have others. It's a period of time, you know, may or may not be repeated in that same sort of similar vein. But for me, you know, there was two certain points, you know, and again, I didn't flag it or report it, you know, I'd noticed it in time. I think it was intuition that told me, but I had two distinct periods in a change of behavior, which is probably the best indicator for me that things were getting very, very tough to hold together.

• 3:09:08Speaker 02

  Um. Now notably, I never didn't work, and I didn't necessarily flagged them up. So I don't think they'd come to a point where they were a particular risk or danger to others. But they were significant, you know, there was those periods of time where you're like, this is not me. Now, why am I thinking like this? Why am I behaving like this? To other team members, it was like, why are you being so hyper security aware, right? Can you stop going on about a roof door? We don't need to put a guard on it, you know, la la la. And I think that was like symptomatic of the overloading professional stress that's just laid and laid on top. The personal aspects of stress, allostatic load as such.

• 3:09:50Speaker 02

  And in one particular time, I'd had a really intensive period of operations, really intensive. And some of them were those unsupported operations that I alluded to earlier. Again, no food, no drink, couldn't trust people around you, you know, running out, washing in salt water. Um. And when I, I noticed it, I was on a period of domestic support and training. And we're running some stuff in London, and I became quite sort of malaligned, quite sort of distrusting. Uh. And, you know, really kind of quite neurotic about who was watching and.

• 3:10:26Shawn Ryan?

  Like paranoia.

• 3:10:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, you know, that's not me, right? I'm actually really kind of sort of measured, trusting person, you know, and that's a good way to be in life, you know, be advised. And be, you know, use your judgment well, but essentially I, I believe in trusting people. And I do believe that people are essentially good. And so I was, you know, it was really, really sort of quite sort of something that caught me. Uh. And in a particular time shortly afterwards, I was having these sort of mini seizures as well. And I think this is just the nature of the intensive training we're doing around explosives at the time. So if you added all of it up, you know, the uncontrollable spaces where you're very

• 3:11:09Speaker 02

  near to recall us rifles and, you know, mortars and everything else and not necessarily with the best equipment, um, whatever it was that led to those things, they happened over a concentrated period of time. I never flagged it at the time because they used to go away, used to happen in the morning, um, a little bit, uh, in particular I was sitting down and it was just sort of like, sort of fixed up and my leg used to lift a bit. So the changes in behaviour, you know, thinking, real negative thought patterns creeping, creeping in, um, was enough of an indicator to be like, I've got to get a grip of this somehow, you know, and I've got to, and I did find my way through. If I remember and nothing's sort of like, oh, it was until this day, or like, I didn't

• 3:11:51Speaker 02

  go and see someone about it. Um, but it took a couple of years to re-level. Um, I was still working operationally, the nature of the work changed because I'd moved into the wider sphere of operations. So there's a lot of deployed but living and advising. Um, and I think that was enough space to sort of take it back under control. But I used to remember, you know, a lot of these space, the places we go aren't that dangerous, you know, and you can go walking around and I used to walk around a lot and do a lot of thinking, a lot of wondering. And I think it's that space plus the training and plus the realisation, you know, these thoughts are not me. You know, they're kind of sort

• 3:12:33Speaker 02

  of this paranoia about, you know, who's doing what and, you know, I always sort of make jokes around the Looney Tunes, it's like sort of Tweet Bird shower and what's going on behind me sort of thing. That's just, just not me, right? So, and I think this is my first realisation that professionally induced stress and personal, and the bigger, bigger part actually, I believe is in the personal things that you will face in your life. And the medical pillars of bereavement, financial stress, uh, exposure to trauma and separation. And I like to add, separation doesn't mean a divorce necessarily. It can mean separation from your loved ones whilst you're doing a profession.

• 3:13:16Speaker 02

  Where they're they're they're wearing even more stress than you.

• 3:13:19Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:13:20Speaker 02

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

• 3:13:46Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just curious, though, I mean, you're talking about nineteen deployments, twenty years with the SAS. I mean, that also builds your

• 3:13:59Shawn Ryan?

  psyche, that builds your, I mean, that that's who you are.

• 3:14:05Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 3:14:05Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean, it it it's something you did, but it forms you through the time that you spend in that type of environment. And so, you know, paranoia, wondering what people are doing behind you, always looking in the rearview mirror to see if you're being followed, never sitting with your back against the door or the entrance. I mean, that stuff that

• 3:14:31Shawn Ryan?

  that stuff that I deal with, that stuff that I think that anybody who's operated at that type of a level experiences that. And it just,

• 3:14:42Shawn Ryan?

  maybe you're different, but for for me and and everybody I know that you will carry that with you likely until for the rest of your life.

• 3:14:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14:54Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have you managed to take that paranoia and?

• 3:14:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have, you know, to a certain extent, but I'm really, really conscious that, you know, I don't want to be that paranoid person. I want to be that trusting person. That's deeply me.

• 3:15:10Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:15:10Speaker 02

  Right. And so I actively refute it. But what I've noticed, and I think you're absolutely right, is having been exposed in those professional terms and as a consequence of things that can happen in your personal life as well. The the move through to normal and stable, through to, you know, chaotic and, you know, like hyper aware is much, much quicker.

• 3:15:39Shawn Ryan?

  I I want to rephrase what I was saying too. I've been. Because I think that there is a, well, I don't think, I know there's an element that comes from operating in a level like that where your ego gets involved and that becomes who you are. And that's not what I'm talking about, you know, being in S A, in SAS operative or operator, you know, that's not who you are today.

• 3:16:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:16:05Shawn Ryan?

  And a lot of people can't set that down and move on and find the next thing. I think that's, it's a, it's a very challenging time in our lives is to, is to find your new identity. But what I'm, what I'm talking about is the experiences that you amassed through your lifetime and the, in the experiences that you've, that you've had in that type of an occupation form who you are. Does that make sense?

• 3:16:37Speaker 02

  Yes, it does.

• 3:16:38Shawn Ryan?

  Because you've experienced things, a lot of things that ninety-nine percent of the population will never, will never even come close to those type of experiences.

• 3:16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Right. So this is a job, a profession.

• 3:16:57Shawn Ryan?

  And so what I'm saying is for those type, for those people, that ninety-nine percentile that, that never experienced what you've experienced or what I've experienced, or a lot of other people that sit across from me in this room experiences, I mean, they just, people that have not experienced that, they don't, it doesn't register what could happen. It doesn't register, they, they, they have not, they have no, they have no database to understand the potential threats and, and, and, and, and to formulate a new way of

• 3:17:38Shawn Ryan?

  thinking, which I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's a better way. I'm just saying that.

• 3:17:45Shawn Ryan?

  I don't necessarily know if it's from trauma. I think it's just from experiencing threats that most people never have to experience. Does that make any sense?

• 3:17:58Speaker 02

  It makes absolute sense, right? So, and I deeply feel that it's not trauma that leads to these these issues, you know, and this is a job, remember, where you will go back and sit in your location covering someone else's blood, right? It is tough, tough times sometimes. You go back so tired. Your brain doesn't function. It's like an out of body experience and you wake up the next morning. But your body's actually very resilient in recuperating from that and the exposures to trauma. And I've always reminded myself that, you know, these are volunteers, they're professional soldiers that do this.

• 3:18:39Speaker 02

  And they they live in an extraordinary environment where threat is all around them all the time. You know, you have to make judgments and calculations all the time. I used to call like pager syndrome. Operator syndrome is something different. A pager syndrome is always on call, always on call. And if you don't turn up, you haven't done your job. And rightly, you should be disciplined or get a sat, you know, these are pager syndrome. Got to spit out on time. All of that loads and loads up on you. And I think you're conditioned to deal with it almost throughout. I don't think trauma is responsible for the neurological deficit that builds up. You know, that's the thing I'm talking about.

• 3:19:19Speaker 02

  You know, I'm really, really conscious. The outcome for me has been pretty good. I do feel stable, happy. I know in my relationships with people, they're fulfilled and good. You know, and I I don't struggle in that sense, but I'm very, very conscious how quickly things can change. And I think a deficit is built up. And I think it's your exposure to extraordinary conditions. It builds up over time. Your physiology isn't set. It learns. And it can go way out of queue. And if you've got problems within your physiology, you will become paranoid, anxious.

• 3:20:00Speaker 02

  You know, the whole thing is out of queue and it will change your behaviours and all the things they give a PTSD diagnosis for, I believe that a lot of people are given PTSD diagnoses. It's an entirely subjective diagnosis in my eyes, you know, and actually they're more down to the physical conditions that these people have been enduring that ultimately challenge human biology, right? And ultimately, over the years, you will go out of queue. It's like getting a weapon site, moving it through a different temperature, banging it around in a box in transit, you know, you need to go back and re-zero it. And then if you're not re-zeroed, the thing will slide and that's what I put my changes of behaviour down to. I put like the mini events I was having, seizure, whatever it was, down to

• 3:20:45Speaker 02

  intensive periods of explosives, that's when they happened. You know, so I look for the simplest causes every single time. And for periods of time, I was getting no sleep. I was just intensively involved in operations and I think that has resulted in that that period of change in behaviour.

• 3:21:05Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:21:06Speaker 02

  But more significantly, and something I'm really sort of grateful for, is through, I think, intuition. Because I never sat down, when I left the army, I did something else and that was for different reasons, but I never sat down with any experts, said, what's going on? And I deliberately didn't declare losses of balance, uh, lost, you know, certain seizure type event, I can't even describe them. I described to a neurologist like a trans transient ischemia, and just, no, it can't be, because that's like blood going wrong. You know, so I don't know what they were, but they were happening and I know when they were happening. And they were happening because I was very, very close and intensively training on explosive devices time and time and time again. And, you know, and that's

• 3:21:51Speaker 02

  what's led to my fascination in not just, you know, the the consequences of operator syndrome, which I think to a relative degree, everyone will end up with at some, some, in some degree.

• 3:22:01Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:22:02Speaker 02

  And this is a job that leaves a legacy, right? It does leave a legacy. And I think, you know, you know, I used to say it to everyone, no one wins if you break. Like you've really, really got to stay on top of this. If you're seeing indications in behaviour, defensiveness. Now, all of this sort of stuff, these are the first indications. These people are very, very well trained. They're volunteers doing, you know, something that they have given up so much to do. Mm hmm. It takes more than just trauma to get these people completely out of queue. The normal response to trauma is two weeks to four weeks, suffering acute stressor. You process it through and it will really just start fading in two to four weeks.

• 3:22:46Speaker 02

  The trouble is, and again, if you've got people who are demonstrating really concerning behaviours internally to themselves. Someone sits inside them and recalls the last thing that may have happened. There's this kind of self-expectation of trauma now, not just in these really hard professions, I think in wider society now. It is becoming unhelpful in working out the real problems. I'm not saying people don't get PTSD. But it's not always the reason. When you're looking at these people that have been using explosives. They've been in conditions where they don't get fed properly for a while, they don't sleep, or they've lacked a pattern of sleep.

• 3:23:25Speaker 02

  Um, then for me, they're much more compelling reasons for your body to be completely out of queue. I mean, I sit here with alopecia, it happened after my mum's death. Mm hmm. Right, that's an informational autoimmune response. For me, that's simple. Yeah, yeah. It's directly due to that. Doesn't surprise me. Now, partly art, I think, of this and coming out of this. And again, you know, I left in twenty one. And that was a part of a forty, forty-five, fifty-year professional career. A very, very formative part, a part I was extremely proud of. Now, I'm proud of my service. It's one of the, you know, I served for twenty-three years, you know, we sign an oath.

• 3:24:09Speaker 02

  You know, that's something I'm incredibly proud of, but it doesn't have to be my defining thing for the rest of my career. And I've actively sort of switched and moved on. Good for you. And you're right, the, the transition period, right, is, you know, for, for, for my own. Belief is, if you hold on too much to that, it actually makes making the step more complicated. But this step is years. I think the first step is four years. To even start shaping your behaviours, you know, when I went to go and speak to people about what made me valuable for for them for employment, I used to say, oh, you know, I can be at an airport within three hours of notice. You don't have to tell me when I'm coming back.

• 3:24:50Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I'm not asking for like months away, but if you have weeks and you have a problem that needs solving, I could do it. And it sounds mad, right? And these people don't need people like that. But, you know, that was the way I was sort of hardwired to think, you know, that's what, you know, uh, on a call, I can go somewhere. And, uh, you know, gradually I've sort of learnt to sort of talk a different language, a more recognisable language for me, you know, because the further away you get from it, the more you you deal. But, you know, there there's some real challenges in transition. And I think they're further, further complicated with these unhelpful diagnoses in people, you know, and, um,

• 3:25:29Speaker 02

  there's an over reliance on medication and very simple approaches to complex problems, complex diagnoses. But you can actually see the risk factors, the exposures there within the profession.

• 3:25:41Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:25:41Speaker 02

  And I've noted a lot, you know, I I take a lot of notice about the SEAL teams, you know, and, uh, uh, you know, water, for instance. When you're travelling fast in a boat and it's constantly, constantly banging. And, you know, professional boat drivers in the in the Marines, you know, really interesting group to look at. There's all sorts of mechanisms through that profession that are very, very challenging for you. And a significant minority, and I make the really important point, right? Because service is really great, you know, and service, you know, it doesn't mean your outcomes are going to be bad. The majority emerge and find a space to be happy and successful later on in a second career.

• 3:26:22Speaker 02

  But it doesn't happen by magic. It's very, very tough getting there. But there is a very significant minority where the outcomes are really, really tough and they're tough for them. But also difficult to watch. Because for me, there must be solutions to it. Right? There's it's not good enough to be like you're traumatised the rest of your life.

• 3:26:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:44Speaker 02

  Go back to my mum. I'm sad about it, it's tragic. Not like I was traumatized, I probably wasn't traumatized after about two years from that. You know, and that's something that's really, really, really significant because it impacts you so much. You know, when you're kind of sort of desperately thinking, I've got some really interesting stories about looking after cows. A small herd, but they're woodland cattle, so quite spirited. We had a bull called Formidable. I made the mistake of not feeding them, so before we could get a farmer in to look, and he had, he just added that small contingent of cattle to his herd. I didn't, I didn't feed them, fed them too late.

• 3:27:25Speaker 02

  And one had, the cow had stuck their head um through to try and get one of the big half-ton hay bales. And it was laid there and because of its heavy head, it was, stuck it through the, the, the uh metal um gates that they were had. And as it got more tired, it's pressing down on its windpipe. And I don't know what, you know, this is post my mum. I don't know what told me, check on the cattle. But I went in there and it's pandemonium, as they're not, they're, I think I'd given them too little food. So it stayed hungry. And they're trying to get this head, I don't know how the head, the cow managed to get its head through this really small space in the first place.

• 3:28:04Speaker 02

  But it did. And um, and it was incredibly uh difficult pushing this cow's head back through.

• 3:28:13Speaker 02

  And um, you know, um, those sorts of experiences, you can easily turn around and be like, how on earth did I get here? This is just, in that case, I ended up covered in the cow's blood because they're all de-horns, they're all depold cattle. Um, but I don't know how it wiggled its head through. But in the end, the solution was to kind of sort of just flatten out the pole of the cattle to just change, because it's fibrous, the horn of the cow. And somehow, and the cow was sort of quite furious at me because I was kind of sort of flattening out its horns, so I could just wiggle its head through. And it actually sort of pushed against the gate and it just had enough purchase to push me up again, this half-ton bale.

• 3:28:55Speaker 02

  It was um, you know, you could hear your ribs like, and I, but eventually the cow seemed to just figure out I was trying to help it and then wiggled its head back through itself. Brilliant. But anyway, you know, and it's at those periods of time when you've been exposed to these really, really impactful events, when you could be like, do you know what, why, why I'm in this situation? And I've really kind of sort of been disciplined to not go that way. There's no solution there, there's no recourse, you know, what's the use in it? And I think that's a very good indication of whether you're traumatized by something

• 3:29:35Speaker 02

  further, is how much you can just center yourself back to what's important. Um, and, um, you know, and, uh, you know, to a great extent, people I served alongside, they're, they're remarkable people, they've all passed the same course I did.

• 3:29:51Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:29:52Speaker 02

  You know, they're volunteers, uh, they're very duty-led, you know, and, um, you know, I'd expect them to not be so susceptible to trauma, although the exposure is massive, right? You do turn up at events and see a lot of trauma, you know, it's like, um, uh, in certain circumstances, it can be overwhelming, like plane crashes.

• 3:30:13Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:30:14Speaker 02

  But you quickly move on and you recourse and, you know, and some of the most recent work I'm doing with experts say that's right, you know, your physiology is actually more powerful than you'd ever believe in ensuring that your, yourself, your body makes it through, read apps.

• 3:30:33Shawn Ryan?

  And this led into what you're doing now, today?

• 3:30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm, I've got lots of interesting experiences, mostly funny, about how I, so I left the military very quickly, we do have a certain way of going, and I left in three months, uh, which is not necessarily what, um, but essentially, um, uh, I separated from the children to my mum, which was all done without lawyers, it was all done very, um, well, in that, you know, the whole thing is very uncertain for both, it costs a lot of money to do it, to try and find individual decision-making positions, but essentially we never had to resort to a contest, we never had to use legal people, which costs a lot

• 3:31:17Speaker 02

  of money, money we did not have, and so we used the money to kind of shore up everyone's existence, and the biggest thing was ensure that people didn't leave that with a ton of regret they weren't going to come back from.

• 3:31:31Speaker 02

  Um. So that's one of the reasons I've kind of left the military quite quickly. I've come to the end of my contract as on extension. Essentially, I knew I wasn't gonna be operational anymore. Uh. So I chose to move on. Uh. Before I went, I sat down with the psychiatric nurse. Uh. It's no, no harm to check inside, right? I thought, you know, I know, you know, in, in the course of my career, I know the things that have challenged me, plane crashes, you know, being in situations where you had no control whatsoever, right? Uh. Those are the things that I've remarked upon and I've largely dealt with them. I had my change of behaviour around twenty fourteen, so I'm not. But it was a good thing to do to sit down and do the seven hour um course.

• 3:32:16Speaker 02

  Uh. The other two reasons I did that is to reassure the people I've been working with so long that when I was going, I was in a fairly stable state because obviously people worry about you. Not me personally, but generally, you know, they worry about you're just about to go into a sea of change. Really fast moving change and people don't realise the challenges that are presented. Personally, the sleepless nights you'll have and that can quickly revert you back into something, somebody that's concerning, right? You know, your behaviour is testing, whatever. So I did it to reassure people and I did it so when I go and sit in front of these same people, I promised to be at the airport within three hours if they needed me to.

• 3:33:01Speaker 02

  That I was perfectly fine, right? You know, I, yeah, I'm gonna say, look, you're never gonna get to see it. But I've done that file. I am not that stereotype. I've not got PTSD. And I'm not also not making that up because you'll also think, oh, I'm just saying that. And I absolutely haven't. I've checked. I'm good. Just need to work out work, which is gonna be messy, I get. Um. So I did that, uh, and then I left. And in the course of doing that, I thought I could set, it was at the back end of Covid. And obviously, everyone had been sort of confined to their houses and moving out a lot less. So I made a, an assessment. That everyone would want to train outside in the parks.

• 3:33:45Speaker 02

  And this was still in the course of me leaving. So I set up three areas that I could sort of train people. And the assessment couldn't have been more wrong, right? People had been confined to their houses. Tested mentally to a severe degree, and the last thing they wanted to do was go and do physical training in parks. So, okay, I was wrong. Uh, I detected I was wrong. But when I was, uh, I was running three areas, I was getting up at like five o'clock in the morning and doing these physical training sessions for what should have been twenty in a class, and it was like ones and twos, if anyone turned up at all. And so I was having a ferocious schedule of honouring my things, so I didn't have any money to bring on further instructors.

• 3:34:28Speaker 02

  The end game with that was like to set up something that was fairly stable, that I could get local management to overlook. So I could then quickly move on. And again, this is part of the naivety of, kind of, you know, I've got no pedigree in business, I don't understand how marketing works. And so I've kind of sort of bumped off all the things, but quite hilariously. I was messing around doing, I trained calisthenics quite a bit, or at least sort of in a very amateurish way, right? And something called plants that you do, and I was sort of binding my time waiting for these people to turn up that probably wouldn't anyway. And I saw like a beam in a car park, so I was like, I'll just try plants on that if that was a really good idea. And the beam wasn't fixed, right? So it tipped forward.

• 3:35:10Speaker 02

  And as it tipped forward, I had to quickly kick my legs through. And as I did, I had the old crisp packet. Sheet white. I was with a friend actually, he was coming to help me out. I know I broke my arm. And I was waiting to have a medical discharge, right, and I'm desperate to move on. And so it was like, in in the way I was thinking at the time, based in the mind that I was in the middle of a separation. I was leaving the army, so probably my decision making probably looked very, very different from what you would naturally be doing if you're sitting around the kitchen table after dinner and going, you know, it's like, go on holiday.

• 3:35:51Speaker 02

  Um, so when I broke my arm, my first thought is I can't get plaster. Because then they won't give me a medical discharge, because they'll see that I'm injured. And I suspect militaries won't let you go until you're absolutely fully fit. Um, so I decided not to have a cast. I was fairly happy it was stable and I've got pictures on my phone of what this looked like. And it was like a spiral fracture of the outer layer of the arm. And at this point, I was sleeping on a camp cot, a metal framed camp cot, right? So, and again, you know, the, um, I was I was implored to go and get a plaster on it, you know.

• 3:36:34Speaker 02

  So I said, what's the point? It's stable. You can see it's stable, right? You know, it'll heal quick enough.

• 3:36:41Speaker 02

  It was really disgusting colour and I was doing fitness training sessions. So I think it was like the next day I was like throwing up in bushes because every time it sort of clacked again. Obviously, I'd have this sort of immediate shock response, like throw up in a bush, utterly mad, right? If you look back on it, it's like, what did they think, the people that I was taking for fitness? So anyway, I've sort of, in the end, I I found something on internet, you know, the buckets, a gravity that pushed their ice water. Into, I bought one of those and that acted as a really, really good cast. So I used to sort of, obviously, going around with my bucket.

• 3:37:24Speaker 02

  So anyway, I turn up to do my final discharge stuff. And you'd go around and they say, where's this jacket? You give back the jacket, all that sort of stuff. The last thing is this medical discharge. And I walk into the medical um unit and who are all amazingly lovely people, brilliant people as well, you know, all knows all about that. And I've said, I'm coming for my discharge and um uh the lady at the desk is like that. Oh, no, they go on on the phone since Covid. So I'd gone to these extreme limits to not have a cast on my on my arm in order to be present.

• 3:38:04Speaker 02

  A discharge that I never needed to be present for. So there was plenty of those sorts of experiences that would just pick you pick yourself up and find the next problem. Don't try and find it, you'll trip over it anyway. And uh but that all healed nicely. I was absolutely right. You know, actually, there was no reason for a cast. Once I've worked out that thing, it was brilliant. You know, it was just like funny. Um but if you just picture sleeping on a camp cot with its metal frame, waking up in the night, you've rolled onto it. And it's extraordinarily painful. So that was the immediate process of sort of breaking free as such. And then I did some work as a sort of consultant, but it's really, really low pay, right?

• 3:38:46Speaker 02

  And you know, I've got sort of fairly, it it was never going to be enough. And also, it wasn't the right type of work, but it was in performance.

• 3:38:56Speaker 02

  Then I got offered a job as a C P O in a fully employed role, and it was extremely well played. Um it was actually working in a pretty decent rotation.

• 3:39:10Speaker 02

  It came with full, full, full medical package. It's working for someone who did a huge amount of travel. So the days you were on, you know, very, very, very long days, like eighteen, twenty hour days. But essentially, the atmosphere was was not good. You know, and I I did, I just wasn't in tune with it and I knew I wasn't in tune with it. Um and then I got offered a job by a company as satellite connectivity.

• 3:39:41Speaker 02

  And I worked for them for a period of time and they wanted to break into new markets and they're assessing Ukraine for its, you know, its needs for energy resilience, that sort of stuff. And so building up connectivity. So I went for a period of that and actually it was quite enjoyable. I was in and out of Ukraine quite a lot. And very visibly connected with the business, but actually, you know, you could see beyond the valuable work I got done, which was the forward led work of that, but it was nothing to do with business, right? And when it comes to the business piece, it was all too uncertain. And through that period, that's when the kind of the reflection came on me is like, hang on a minute. You know, in these employed roles, people are having to justify my existence.

• 3:40:26Speaker 02

  You know, and when they can justify the existence, it's all for these exceptional move into a new market. It's not for the normal everyday functioning of the business and that's where people sit comfortably.

• 3:40:38Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:40:39Speaker 02

  If you try and move into the new market with a business, eh eh, you know, eh eh, it happens very rarely. That people will usually test it and then come back. So I think the employment opportunities that people um eh from special forces background, need to be really, really carefully looked at because it's not about getting support. You know, it's not getting um, you know, people to to bring into companies and employed, having felt that they want to give you a chance because you're on a ticking clock, you know, actually. And the skills that you have are very, very effective. I've proved that. I'm a very, very supportive person.

• 3:41:21Speaker 02

  And I love doing it. I love seeing something and I sort of call myself a very effective minion. You know, so I get involved in people where things are going on and I'm very, very happy to do it. Just because of time, just because I believe in it. I've got lots of examples coming up.

• 3:41:39Speaker 02

  Um. But essentially, if it's an employed role, people are struggling to explain what your role is in certain sectors. And in the, in the security sector, from my brief interlude in that, and I do draw a distinction between the US market and the UK market, very, very, very different. You know, the US market has got a massive area where people from ex-military backgrounds, and it's especially pronounced in SF backgrounds, actually, not military, slightly better. Um, whereas you don't have that in the UK. Mm hmm. So I bumped through, I got my redundant uh in May last year, and I was expecting contract work to come in.

• 3:42:22Speaker 02

  In the background, I've been trained as a speaker. Um. So that's led to sort of two things. One, I did a, you know, define it as professional speaking, although that sounds sort of quite sort of

• 3:42:37Speaker 02

  sort of high up there. But it's speaking where you've studied it for a course, and I did a course called With the Bespoke Elite Speaking Training. It's an ex-professional rugby player um called Leon Lloyd, is actually very, is, is quite involved in transition of veterans. And um so from having done that course, I thought I would get enough of a programme of speaking events to be able to kind of stay positioned, ready to take this contract work and ready to be where the main things I was involved in do break. But actually, that's again, it's quite naive, you know, if you think about how I do my speaking, and I love doing it, really, really passionate about it.

• 3:43:19Speaker 02

  Uh. I just did one for the London Fire Brigade, eight different sessions, and it was absolutely brilliant, you know, not an easy set of people to talk to as well. It's, it's, you know, it's really great, you know, it's, I like being on my toes sometimes, right? And it's uh, it's, it's really develops you as well. You have to study what does the audience need? And there's absolutely got to be an element of performance in there, which is where this course came very important. You're working with professional comedians, you're working with people who worked in sort of stage shows in this course. And the course itself was very valuable to do, but it didn't necessarily lead to more work. And the speaking I do is always in person. You know, it's always going to be specifically impactful. I can do behavioural adaptation. I've got a programme for that.

• 3:44:04Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I can do any type of speaking and I've proved that, you know, from speaking at cadets dinners, which I absolutely love, through to speaking to defence primes. And actually, the thing I've probably cherished the most is I did one for a scaffolding company, which is absolutely brilliant, big scaffolding company in, in, in Wales. And, and a roofing company. So it's almost sort of going back to my heart. And but they were brilliant and, uh, you know, doing something for the services like London Farmagade. And sort of getting across those experiences. But again, it's just reassuring people that you're like, sometimes ignore the clamour and the noise.

• 3:44:42Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:44:43Speaker 02

  Society's become very noisy and it's got real high expectations. And actually concentrate on what you've delivered. Because every single time you turn up and you're doing your job to exceptional standards. And just focus on that, you know. And some of it, and I, it was quite interesting because I asked some people, you know, what do you worry about? They would say, oh, you know, it's the opinion of this. Or this, you know, has been seen as a, an incident where it should have been betterly managed. You know, but really is that your job to worry about that? Actually, there's a person over there who's paid to deal with that.

• 3:45:26Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:45:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And again, it's all around this sort of slight sort of, um, shouldering of stress and responsibility.

• 3:45:35Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:45:35Speaker 02

  It all comes from listening to the noise, right? And I say to people, you know, protect and preserve your own perspective. Your own perspective, you own that, right? Doesn't matter how hard you've got to sort of close off the clamour sometimes. If you've got to get into that, you know, in their case, their fire engines and go and respond to a job. You turn up and you do it every time. And it's remarkable, the standards expected.

• 3:46:00Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:46:01Speaker 02

  Of all of these things. So I've really enjoyed that bit of work. Yeah, I'm ambassador to a performance company. So this is a company called Planet K2. This is quite new, so one of the first things I did, I was put in touch with a guy called Keith Hatter. And goodness knows what I sounded like when I had my first conversation with him, because I was still speaking in a language that people really didn't understand, you know, I was struggling to explain my skills. And in sort of words where they're just like, well, okay. But, so slightly after that, you know, Keith Hatter asked me to do, they have something called Performance Fest. And it's run at Soho Hotel, and he asked me to be a speaker as a number of four.

• 3:46:46Speaker 02

  And the title was Using Data for High Performance. And, you know, I said, I'm not a nominal data expert. I've got a lot of experience with data and everything else. And the other people on the course was a very high up person in IBM for energy. The head of EMEA marketing possibly for Meta. And the chief analyst at Guste, chief analyst of distribution at Guste. So it's quite a sort of considerable, kind of a professional experience there. So it was one of the first sort of speaking events where I sat down, really tried to apply myself. And it seemed to go very, very well.

• 3:47:31Speaker 02

  And it proved I could do it, you know, alongside. And more latterly, and a few years went by, and I talked to Keith every so often, you know, he's an extremely experienced person. And sometimes just talking to people, you get the best bit of advice that they never intended to give. And some of my interactions are very lucky, I've got really great friends. When I talk to them, it just sort of reminds you, keep on your centre point, things are good, they're holding together, they may not look pretty, pretty. But Keith, in the end, has asked me to come ambassador to Planet K2. And there's a different type of performance we're talking about, and a couple of speaking events for him.

• 3:48:13Speaker 02

  And I think they're sort of increasingly looking at, um, hopefully a growing relationship where I'm included in their offers. Um, and they do performance as a culture. So they have twenty one rules that they stick by. And so it's not immediately something. I have something to add to their offer, but I also have to learn. Their offer and their culture and they've got two, two decades of experience of delivering this. So through these types of interactions, I've learned a great deal and developed very fast, right? Because if someone asks you to sit on a stage, you, you, you take it seriously, you go and learn, you educate, you develop. That's been absolutely fundamental to, to keep, keeping my progress going.

• 3:48:57Speaker 02

  But the speaking is really yet to take shape. And I've got a strong suspicion that speaking comes from doing, becoming involved in other very important things. So I hope that in time, but the last thing you want to do is rely on people, unless it's their pattern of business that allows you the opportunity to join in. You can't immediately sort of turn and say, things are getting really, really tough. I really, really need more work. You know, you've got to let them develop at their own pace and it may not necessarily suit you.

• 3:49:30Speaker 02

  So I've had, had other, you know, extraordinary asks, you know, I tend to like to support people and, you know, friends. A friend's father came to me and said, a very, very high net worth person was getting threatened. You know, I went and sat for quite a long time with her. Looked at the messages they were receiving. Essentially it was down to what do these threats constitute? Are they real or perceived? I said, well, you know, written that, in my view, it's perceived, but you can never rule out real. Yeah. So, but instead of hiring huge arrays of security, just because of the possibility of real. You just need to understand how to control the communication, the means of communication of these threats, right?

• 3:50:14Speaker 02

  And understand where that is located. And so in my view, right, that's a threat that you can report.

• 3:50:22Speaker 02

  So it was actually a no money solution. And it was worthwhile in terms of one, you know, one of the key ones is, you know, reassuring these people. So they're not walking around feeling threatened by everything and everyone. But essentially, again, it's taught to me when I look at the solutions to things, they don't fit what people want to say. You know, it's like these days when you say, I need a, you know, what shall I do about my CCTV? We're like, well, get a machine learning program. These two people don't need to be sat here. Right. So it's not necessarily the solutions that other people want to see as well. Yeah. But I have had sort of interesting interactions. There's a company called Cocoon, excellent in digital privacy. I hope that this sort of grows, but who knows where it will, you know?

• 3:51:06Speaker 02

  Consultancy, I think, is going to be something I'm going to have to push really, really hard for when I get home. Speaking is definitely not something I can massively rely on, but I absolutely love. And I think it will become big.

• 3:51:20Speaker 02

  But quite early on, and I was looking to get on a course at Imperial College. Bearing on my last time I did proper study, I do have a certificate in international relationships, international security. So PG, PG seven as such qualification fell short of a masters. But otherwise it's A levels. And, you know, I went to Imperial College to try and understand whether there was a course in coding I could do or some element around sort of cyber or, or that, that side of things. And they did up in the end offered me a place on a masters in resilience and security. But on our walk around, a guy called Professor Deep Chana, who's the head of the security science and technology at the Imperial College, so really, really significant.

• 3:52:05Speaker 02

  Imperial College is an incredible institution. In the walk around of the innovation hub, I was introduced to a guy called Richard Statham. And he eight years ago met, I don't know how long he'd known Vincent Tellenback, he's an engineer before. But Vincent Tellenback had been writing waveforms. And he did it in cooperation, coordination, John Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger Institute. John Hopkins University, sort of medical grade waveforms when they were written to deal with

• 3:52:42Speaker 02

  pediatrics, neurological conditions, very, very challenging ones. And in some cases, it's sort of nothing to lose type stuff to sort of affect neurology. So Richard Staefum started a company called what's now called NMEZ Groups, a neuromuscular electrostimulation group. And over the next eight years, um, through a process of engineering, so none of this is brand new, in terms of it's a trusted technology, it's an EMS background, that they've found a way of making a superconducting membrane that can be rendered into clothes, uh, and therefore the platform you can put it in are endless. Right, so, and these are

• 3:53:24Speaker 02

  trusted technologies that have already been used, same value as TENS, although TENS is just for pain reduction.

• 3:53:29Shawn Ryan?

  Is that what you have here?

• 3:53:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:53:31Shawn Ryan?

  Let's see it.

• 3:53:32Speaker 02

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

• 3:54:17Speaker 02

  it's all about the person that creates these waveforms, that signal into your motor neuron points. And then you've got something called a stim, which is a gateway. It just clicks on. And you press that button, and it connects to an app on my phone. And there's banks of programs of waveforms in my phone. They're all different, and they all communicate into that motor neuron point, the neuromuscular junction. And they get the action potential in the muscle to contract. So it's a hundred percent recruitment of the muscle. But the key point in this, and again, when I, Richard said, why don't you come in for a demonstration? I said immediately, yes, because they knew my provenance as a SES trooper. Clearly, they

• 3:55:02Speaker 02

  turned it all up to about seventy. And had me running through like samurai things. And I think one of them, the sort of gaming side of things, I was sort of making my way to a nuclear core and it's just getting hit and hit further and further. Uh. And essentially then you've got outward looking sensors that can simulate gunshot. So I can contract the muscles they. Wow. So it's it's really cool, right? It's like the key point is your neuromuscular junction. So what is this doing? So this is affecting, sending a signal into your neuromuscular junction in any different muscle group. And if you look, you know, in in the suit I was wearing this morning, there was no lower back panel. Whereas in this, there's a lower back panel.

• 3:55:48Speaker 02

  Um. Now, I've only got three stims in me. I should have four. I usually use four. Because I picked up the heart rate one that I don't use uh instead of the fourth. And I left a little bit karkly from the UK. But essentially, you know, you just adapt your stimming to the muscle groups that you want to um. Uh. To have a have an effect over.

• 3:56:12Speaker 02

  And um and you can put as many on as you like. Right. So I generally, they use four. The stims can go up six, eight, whatever, but this suit, and it absolutely unique. Right. There is nothing in the world. Other suits have got straps on their wire. Uh. Sorry, they've got wires, they've got programmed stations. Generally, gel pads are used to communicate a waveform. There's three different membranes already tested that are even more stretchy and conductive. So when you take this to a racing driver. And say, look, you know, we can give a beneficial waveform into your physiology. That not only conditions you to be stronger, fit faster in your performance.

• 3:56:53Speaker 02

  But we can actually generate beneficial enhancements in your overall physiology. And I'll come into somebody, um, I'll come into some of the case studies we've, you know, I've been involved in.

• 3:57:05Speaker 02

  Um. Then, but the art is not to say that really, really expensive racing suit you've got. Well, you've got to wear that underneath. No, it's to engineer it into that suit. And that's what's quite incredible. So the adaptability of this platform.

• 3:57:21Speaker 02

  And the applicability to all of the different, so the segments would be specialist professions. And I'd find specialist professions by any profession that challenges human biology. Right, and the astronauts are the epitome of it. The special forces communities are really interesting set of people that have got explosive blast going on. Everything but astronauts going to an atmosphere with no gravity. Mm hmm. So immediately it's compromising your ability to regenerate all of your physiological functions, your neuroendocrine functions. Like your brain health is immediately affected, neuro- neurology across your body and your system is. You're getting interference from radiation at a cellular level.

• 3:58:04Speaker 02

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

• 3:58:48Speaker 02

  And um uh so that's specialist professions. Um you've got what we call um recreational fitness and sport. So elite sport is in specialist professions. Right, so it's a real key definition to have. Rugby players, boxers, NFL players are quite interesting. So high performance type occupation. High performance, you're getting paid, right? Totally different approach, it's not health, you know, you're trying to protect health, you're trying to condition. Whereas in recreational sports and fitness, a lot of it might be aesthetics, but essentially it's underpinning health. So uh recreational sports and fitness, you know, I can see this belonging to health clubs on subscriptions. And we've been talked to quite a few already.

• 3:59:31Speaker 02

  Now, they're, these are the sorts of things that will enhance. Gaming is a really, really interesting one, right? You know, like FIFA twenty four, I I I name it making gaming healthy. So you're a teenager and you're playing your FIFA twenty four and I'm a big advocate of gaming. Gaming's brilliant, right? It improves acuity. It's like they've found the beneficial mental aspects to gaming, like as elder as a lost world, you know. The children can get lost in this world and it's actually not that bad for them. And the aspects around social media are totally different from what gaming is. Gaming communities are pretty decent communities to be involved in. But you imagine if you're playing FIFA twenty four, the soccer game, someone sort of comes in, tackles you from the right

• 4:00:14Speaker 02

  and you get a beneficial stimulus into your quad and motor neuron. You're actually generating a physiological function that's benefiting. Interesting. Your brain health, right? So and I'll go into the mechanics of how this works in a minute and the key aspects of neuromuscular fun uh junctions in a in a minute. But essentially, if you think that you can take make sleeves, you can make bands, you know, really, really cheap bands. You can adapt it to all the the different markets. And the last one is medical therapeutic. And this is, I've got great friends who've who've got Parkinson's. I and I always have wondered, you know, what what led to these neurological conditions?

• 4:00:53Speaker 02

  At some point, there was inflammation caused by stress or caused by some environmental factor you're exposed to. Now genetic preconditions are different. I mean, let's face it, they're only percentage points, subjective, whether that was ever, you know, people who end up with cancer. A lot of it is down to pure bad luck. But you can adjust the probabilities of your exposure, but doesn't precondition you not to get it. This is really fascinating in biology because I think if you look at pharmaceuticals, they cannot, you know, I believe in the power of pharmaceuticals and what they're doing. And interesting, a lot of the new drugs are communicating into your own systems to say, go and tell us T cells to do this.

• 4:01:35Speaker 02

  You know, CAR T therapies, you know, get that receptor to go and enhance that, inhibit that, express that rather than interfering in the way they have done before. But what I've always remarked about pharmaceuticals is actually because we're individualized in our whole physiology and biology.

• 4:01:53Speaker 02

  We can never be sure what that drug is doing to you. You can't be sure. You you're basically looking at um what comes out on a conscious side. You you there are some tests probably you can do. Whereas if you look at your own physiology and see where that can be empowered. And you use applied, there's a family of technologies and I've not come across a lot. That apply in a non invasive way. Essentially, it's like cleaning a spark plug. It's like enhancing, putting better fuel in. And what they're doing is in in this particular technology, it's enhancing your motor neuron points. It is at a local level contracting the muscle. You will see if you want twenty percent better cross sectional muscle mass, you'll get that.

• 4:02:36Speaker 02

  You know, and I I remark on it, is big muscles don't mean strong muscles. And they certainly don't mean healthy muscles. What healthy muscles are is the interaction between your neuron point and the motor point. And this is what is absolutely critical to your nervous system. And the neuronal pathways that are created. And you know, I've always thought, and again, it it's a confusing concept for me. I've like sat down with a piece of paper and gone, you know, go back to the work I do with the breathing physiology. It's probably the last aspect I'll come on to um is. How do you get people to understand that the power of your conscious mind

• 4:03:20Speaker 02

  is in no way any anywhere near the power of your physiology itself and your brain and your brain stem. Cause it takes over and it's trying to protect you. You're built for survival, right?

• 4:03:37Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 4:03:37Speaker 02

  So when you have a shock, you're actually better off handing control back to your kind of sort of unconscious. For human evolutionary biology, it's become highly, highly tuned. And your brain is locked up in a dark cavern. And it's receiving senses and signals that build up neuronal pathways and patterns that become preferential. Right? So when you are looking at what's important when you get under stress. Uh. So what what what is the fractions? How do you put this in figures? Your conscious mind, everything that we spend so much time concentrating on, affirmations, whatever. You know, and your unconscious area.

• 4:04:21Speaker 02

  That is driving your physiology and ensuring it remains harmonious, right? And the figures might as well not worth be quoting, apart from the size of them. Because I came across it quite recently in a in a news article. And it gave gave the answer, right, is the the thought, the the um level of information you can process per second consciously is ten bits per minute. Per per second.

• 4:04:51Speaker 02

  I've seen the highest level of estimation of processing thought consciously, that ability to pick up that. You know, I want to do that, it's becoming important, is forty to fifty bits per second. The level of sensing of information that is going into your brain. That is getting processed and either being flagged up as priority or not at all. Is a hundred million bits per second. Wow. And to describe what that, and you know, I've I've wondered about it and I've gone, how would you describe this to people? How, you know, by doing the wrong breathing technique, you are undermining your physiology. And if it's so long as it's zeroed and it's functioning properly, you're far better off handing control to that.

• 4:05:36Speaker 02

  Right? And to describe what that means, you know, that. Uh. I don't know, it's an air conditioner, isn't it? It's been going on all along. I've taken that in every different texture, every pattern in this room I've taken in. My brain has been processing information on a subconscious level in a massive.

• 4:06:00Speaker 02

  Volume. But consciously, I've been doing an umpteenth of them out. I thought in visual terms, what does this look like? Is this a surface ocean via the volume of it? I mean, it's an absolutely extraordinary fraction to look at.

• 4:06:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:06:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely extraordinary. And this is where I've become absolutely sort of firmly planted in non-invasive technologies. And technologies are involved in this is really two. I'm a data subject for one and highly involved in this one. It's because I believe they can be used very effectively.

• 4:06:32Shawn Ryan?

  So what um what does it do? What does the suit do?

• 4:06:36Speaker 02

  So if you put the suit on, you know, and again, it depends what you want to do with it. So are you training for, you know, a performance related thing? The suit, you you put the stems on to the necessary muscle point. Put the suit on, as I say, this is brand new, sent over from Taiwan by a company called Macalot. Um, who are um, leading investors in EMS technology and making conductive membranes. They, the company has had a relationship with them very, very whole on.

• 4:07:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:07:07Speaker 02

  And they have, you know, they're really, they're quite remarkable people, actually.

• 4:07:11Shawn Ryan?

  So you you isolate muscles?

• 4:07:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in each, each, each point in your muscle. So say for instance, that's your chest. So you put a stem on there, turn it on. There's the other stem and connect it.

• 4:07:37Speaker 02

  Turn both on, connect it through. And it goes into your motor neuron points of that muscle mass and communicates a signal. It puts like a signal all the way through the membrane that releases the action potential down the muscle fibre. The bits that I'm not interested in stronger, fit, faster. So when I had my demonstration, I was immediately, I'm conscious that neurological deficit. That is there. I'm never complacent about. I don't know what my outcome is at the moment. I've got a lot to be thankful for, but that doesn't mean it's good in the future. I look, I know people with like neurological conditions that are very, very complicated for the people around them. I'm not complacent about this. Doesn't mean that I believe that the outcome.

• 4:08:19Speaker 02

  So when I put this suit on, I was like, this is key, like driver of your physiology, your new muscular junctions are the most powerful element I know of. You know, that can drive brain derived neurotrophic factors. There's another family called Glial cell lined neurotrophic factors. There's one I've even just learnt about that was only found in two thousand and ten, I think. Hmm. Called a cerebral dopaminergic neurotrophic factors. And all of these factors are responsible for removing proteins and macrophage in your brain. Okay. So what happens is when that stimulus goes off, your neuromuscular junction prompts your muscles to release these factors. Into your blood.

• 4:09:04Speaker 02

  And obviously through your blood brain barrier, that's the individualized bit that lets a pharmaceutical win or not. And we have very individualized pathology, including our brain barriers can be very fussy. So the original principle I'm looking at all of this technology is being able to press on the factors within your own system. Okay. Your body will work out the harm and they need to happen. Wow. Whatever's gonna be happening is gonna be beneficial. Now, we can't say to what extent we'll be successful in treating a condition. But say for instance, stroke, stroke is a brilliant example of how incredibly resilient human beings are. Can have people with critical strokes.

• 4:09:50Speaker 02

  So Ellie Steffavah had a very bad stroke, had to learn to write again, had to learn to read again. Now lives a happy life and all that he has is a slight deficit movement down his right hand side. That's an incredible example of what your body comes back from. Mm hmm. And someone approached the company and the neurologist physiotherapist at the time, she's currently stepped away from the company and studying extreme med, which is again very exciting area. Um. Worked with the engineer Vincent Tellenbach, who's the original author of the the medical grade waveforms. And they were approached by someone who had a very, very bad stroke and had drop foot.

• 4:10:30Speaker 02

  So drop foot is when you don't get clearance off the off the floor very well. And of course, the key risk is not necessarily anything other than fall. So what follows not being able to clear things off foot is you have really bad falls and you injure yourself. So the the neuron point fires the foot, and I'll show you the video on my phone of this actually happening in purpose. So the company put uh motion detecting sensors around the gate and pressure sensors to analyse the gate. And then worked out the timing at which to fire the neuron using uh a stim and a band of membrane.

• 4:11:12Speaker 02

  No one quite knew what would happen. And uh it came back to a ninety percent uh reaction, and that's purely because the signal reminded the peripheral nervous system and rebuilt the neuronal pathway in the central nervous and say, this must happen, and it's happening now. And incredibly, it only took a few weeks of using that stimulus, a very simple thing. It's just sort of signaling and saying, far now.

• 4:11:39Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 4:11:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it works both ways. There isn't like a link between your brain, your body, your endocrine function, your nervous system, and it works in in unison and harmony. Right, and what's more, they're they're safe, because when you're pressing from the outside, everything's harmonising on the inside. If your blood pressure has to change, we'll come on to breathing physiology in a minute, but remember the Tachycardia cardiomyopathy, slight um change in the integrity at heart changes elements of your blood pressure, changes all sorts of things, heart rate variables, changes all sorts of factors that have to remain in harmony within your physiology for things to remain stable and set. It's absolutely in tune with one another.

• 4:12:23Speaker 02

  And when something changes, like there's a factor that comes in, it rebalances really, really effectively and really well. And when those factors are going and going up into your brain and clearing out synuclein proteins. And um beta amyloid, so beta amyloid being Alzheimer's, synuclein being Parkinson's. I'm not sitting here and saying this is a solution. Mm hmm. To Parkinson's, right? But I do know putting deep um implants into the brain, whilst it's absolutely exceptionally brilliant work. It's still like playing the piano with a malick, right? You're introducing a foreign body into it. When you have to do that, you must. But my key question is, how much more could we be doing a lot, lot earlier?

• 4:13:06Speaker 02

  Twenty years usually is the lead time. Now, there's a ton of people out there that exhibiting operator syndrome type symptoms. That have neurological elements to what they're doing. And what would happen if we can boost their physiological functions, not only whilst they're serving? But you, you, you encourage it. And to put this in, in words, I went to, I was getting on a train to London. And I bumped into someone I knew well, because he was a quite famous rugby player. Um but he didn't know me, I was just from a local club.

• 4:13:42Speaker 02

  And I didn't say hello to him, because I, I just was like, he gets it all the time. But then I saw the train was delayed and I was walking past the window and saw him sitting down and I said, okay, well. I've been stupid, let's at least go and say good morning. And I got chatting to him and he started talking about his sister. His sister had a syndrome called Guillain-Barre syndrome. It's where, and no one really knows what kicks it off, but the immune system starts kind of interfering with the peripheral nervous system and it starts resulting in a breakdown in motor control.

• 4:14:18Speaker 02

  This syndrome can end up in locked in syndrome, full paralysis, right, at its worst. Sometimes it reverses itself and sometimes it ends with lasting consequences, deficits in in motor. It's usually treated because it's essentially an autoimmune system first by blood transfusion. But as it happened, his sister was pretty much immobile on the sofa and losing mobility fast. She is presenting to a neurological consultant in a wheelchair and that was on about September the twenty third. I heard of it and phoned M M S, the company and said, hey, could we provide some products to this?

• 4:15:01Speaker 02

  It happened there were a load of prototypes lying about on the neurologist physiotherapist floor. So I said, can you send them over to me? I can drive around this person's house. We can give her a quick coaching course in the simplicity of using this, which is put it on, press the button, trust in it. And you can do an assessment on where she sits and I, you know, I drove around the house, took around. Um, so, um, took around the prototypes, uh, took around, download the app and explained exactly how the technology works. It communicates waveforms into your own points. It cannot do any harm, the risks are very well defined and it can only do benefit.

• 4:15:41Speaker 02

  Then, um, Vicky, so Dr Victoria Sparks, neurologist physiotherapist at the time, did a connected on signal and did a full assessment of her and then the prognosis was really quite sort of, really, you know, it's like the her own neurological consultant was saying, this is really, really concerning. And we left her to it. So look, you know, you can contact us anytime, but get on with it. And, uh, she started using it and within a week she could get up off the sofa unassisted. Wow. And within two weeks she was sending videos of her walking to the pub with her family. But most significantly, in four weeks, her neuro, neurological consultant and her neurophysio team signed her off to drive and go back to work.

• 4:16:25Speaker 02

  Now roughly at the time when we introduced the technology to try and help, she had a second blood transfusion. The first blood transfusion hadn't worked for whatever reasons. Whatever it was, a combination of the blood transfusion and the helpful beneficial stimulus, acting as a catalyst or a solution, we're not sure, right? Her neurological consultant, a neurophysio, was off to meet us. They described their recovery, which was a month. So a month to get signed off back to work.

• 4:16:57Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 4:16:58Speaker 02

  She's an incredible woman.

• 4:16:59Shawn Ryan?

  How often did she have to, how long did she have to?

• 4:17:00Speaker 02

  She, we, you know, so this lady is, and this is an important point as well. So I think she was using it every day and just went for it, right?

• 4:17:08Shawn Ryan?

  Every day for how long?

• 4:17:09Speaker 02

  We gave her bands and, you know, for a month and she kept on using it. And she describes herself as back to ninety five percent.

• 4:17:16Shawn Ryan?

  What I'm asking is how many, how long does she wear, does she wear it all day? Does she wear it for an hour in the morning?

• 4:17:22Speaker 02

  I'd have to explore that. I think she wore it for hours at the time, like one hour at a time. When she was immobilized on the sofa, she really had nothing else to do. And so constantly, constantly waking it all back up, reminding it to communicate. Um, so it interchanges. The beauty of technology will work with you, right? So it's just gonna do whatever you do. Uh, we have experts. So Owen Laces is the program development expert. He's a leading coach in the R R S um, Sports Institute. Quite a famous um, sports, sports performance, well, performance expert. He's got his own sort of, sort of studies and caseworks. So he formats, formulates the program development. So you can just do programs. So I've got eighty minute programs, thirty five minute programs, all different waveforms.

• 4:18:07Speaker 02

  This morning, I was on capilarization because it's quite nice massaging. And I didn't want to absolutely wear myself out for this. So I, it's real, I'll come on to how I've sort of lined up for this as well. Because this is part, a very, very important part of this. So it really kind of sort of just works with you. And interestingly, I'm testing hypothesis in my head because your body only regenerates from repairs when you're asleep. So is there a waveform we can write where you just wear a set of pyjamas and just buzzes away very, very nicely for you because if it's generating beneficial factors, you know, is there a further repair element? I have to talk to Vincent, you know, I'm not a biologist. Very interesting. I'm just quite perceptive and I've done all this by reading books. What have you noticed?

• 4:18:51Speaker 02

  So I mean, I've, and I don't use it all the time. I have weeks off without using it and then I'll use it for concentrated periods and I've used, used it in the days I've arrived since Nashville because I don't wanna, I wanna tune out of the, the weariness of travel. I've also tested it very, very hard, you know, because I'm very, very interested and as I say, I'm like this really, the way I am valued is by supporting other people's casework and I'm a good minion to use. I've got an understandable about history that comes with some exposure, well, irrefutable exposure and expected challenges. And this is why the people I'm coming on to, I'll come to. Um, so the, the, the data is quite precious, but I've gone out myself, you know, I'll

• 4:19:35Speaker 02

  go running in it and I just tune it in and a lot of time I just leave it off. And like this suit has just arrived from Taiwan, as I've said, made handmade by McLaughlin's team. Um, and you know, they, they're an incredible team, you know, they're experts in conductive membranes and they've made this beautifully, when it's, this is the next generation up from the one, so I'm super excited to turn it on. I reckon this is like a bit of a sewing machine. Yeah. Do you imagine if this, if you made this all informed and you say, gave it to people exposed to certain environmental factors that are going to challenge them, you just have beneficial stimulus as keying off outward looking sensors. You imagine the, the benefit for training simulation?

• 4:20:19Speaker 02

  The proximity were to a blast and you get a contract in, you know, it's it it the the applications are really very, very broad. If you think about them, they're applicable to all human beings, but particularly ones who are mobile. So if you've got people who are mobile and waiting for an operation, you need to drop their weight, you need to do whatever. Okay, what's the waveform for that? I'm not saying this technology is a panacea, but you start combining these families of technologies up. They start becoming uni- in unison, quite powerful. And the casework we've got, and I can I can go into lots. There's a NASCAR racing driver who's still racing because of the use of the technology. Wow.

• 4:20:59Speaker 02

  And she is offered to do a like, she she's done like a run of a recording of her particular case. Now, there's lots and lots of casework now. What's the name of the company? So M. Mez Group A B is this company. Now, they're a Swedish company by heart, but they're kind of sort of mixed in everywhere. Vincent Telenbak is an amazing engineer, incredible. He's got thirty years, just under thirty years' experience writing these waveforms. Wow. And works incredibly closely with Imperial College. So these waveforms alongside other types of signaling, because your body's all told electric, right? And so these waveforms, if you pick the right ones, you can initiate some really, really clever changes. How powerful

• 4:21:44Speaker 02

  they'll be are actually up to your individualized biology. It's guesswork from the outside, but it's going to be beneficial. My original hypothesis, and it probably starts in the fact that I've got close friends with Parkinson's, and you see the conditions that they face on bad days, you know, days when the weather's not good. And somehow finding something that can happen before you have to resort to the invasive procedures is only going to be good. And it has to be, you know, for me, a technology has to be accessible. In order to be accessible, it has to be affordable, and it needs to be made available to those that will benefit

• 4:22:25Speaker 02

  from it. Talk about this technology. This will be quite expensive, but it's the preserve of specialists and people who want to spend a lot of money on their sports recreational fitness. How much does one of those cost? Well, it's previously on the market, and you remember that. You've got this that can actually be made for, you've upscale the production of this, this actually can be made extremely cheaply. But the overall product involves an app, involves potentially a subscription. It depends what you're asking for, is it a banker programs or expertly written. But when it comes down to providing it for medical use case, the therapeutic cases, it can be made to be really cheap.

• 4:23:05Speaker 02

  Now, once you get into the scaling up of this, you can make accessories, the box of accessories I've used. And I, you know, I'll show you some videos afterwards of some of the stuff we've took into Ukraine to help with a war injured there. And they're just simple pads. They're, you know, they're not unique to the company. There's only a few companies that do do it. Now, I've got a, an app on my phone and they've got banks of programs. So is it a licensing fee for some customers, you know, the good thing about the product is it's built up over. You know, you look at the, the number of touch points, right? If you just need the membrane because you want to do an incredible line in sports.

• 4:23:46Speaker 02

  But it's a little bit more expensive, an elite running range, just need the membrane.

• 4:23:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:23:53Speaker 02

  Put it in your own, you know, and, you know, I have not yet come across a garment that has an active technology in it. There's lots that in form, you know, I've done biofeedback assessments now with various bits that get pinned on to you. I have not yet come across a viable garment that has an active technology in it that can act on you. You know, so I think this is very much the start of looking at these non-invasive technologies. All of which risks can be defined. They're really quite, they're very safe and they're, they're born out of medical markets with the EMS family tens. Now, actually, there shouldn't be like.

• 4:24:35Speaker 02

  Put under the same sort of discretions under sort of FDA certification as other things. Because they are enacting on your own biology and physiology. And I noted in one of the previous podcasts, you know, I think it's an executive order or something about make your own mind up. You know, it's about medical things that people can opt for. I might be getting this slightly wrong. But, you know, it's people's own choice to get involved with certain technologies. Now, if you've got Will and Barry syndrome. Got neurological condition where you think, do you know what, there's nothing to lose in getting on with this. Go ahead with it. Go ahead with it because it's non-invasive and the risk can be very, very well defined.

• 4:25:15Speaker 02

  You know, and if it does, small amounts of good, so be it.

• 4:25:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:25:21Speaker 02

  But in the cases we've used and we can see, it actually is quite powerful. And especially in combination with other things as well.

• 4:25:30Shawn Ryan?

  Very interesting.

• 4:25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's that key thing, right?

• 4:25:33Shawn Ryan?

  How do people find it?

• 4:25:35Speaker 02

  So at the moment, the Gen one that I've got here, we've taken that off. Now we're consolidating that and we're making it as a preserve to support war injured at the moment. The garment itself is nowhere near as good as this one.

• 4:25:51Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:25:52Speaker 02

  So I think at the moment, the strategy will be to work business to business and work with special, specific.

• 4:25:58Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so this would go to, this would, this would go, an individual cannot purchase us. This would go to?

• 4:26:05Speaker 02

  Not right now. And I could have done the older one, but actually we're in a much, much better spot. So this company, I've been, you know, I've been involved in the company unpaid for three years. I absolutely loved it, right? You know, at the end of the day, I really, really believe in this. Human form and health and technology is something I would, a pleasure to be involved in it for the next 10, 20 years, right? Could be that thing, you know, come through the risk, these sorts of companies do sell through. But in this particular case, I've witnessed what they're prepared to do over the last eight years. And all of the finance has gone back into developing the product and they're actually in a really, really prime position. To enact this on certain markets.

• 4:26:46Speaker 02

  And the more difficult markets like specialist professions and medical therapeutic, they're going to take more time. You need certifications for medical therapeutic to use it to its sort of more heightened abilities. Principles of it couldn't be more simple, as we've talked about, it's an acting on your innovative muscle.

• 4:27:04Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:27:05Speaker 02

  And it's promoting physiological harmony as well as helping you train and be strong or whatever you want to do. Create lean muscle mass, lose, improve cardio respi- whatever it is, there's a program that can be formed with waveform where that can play a part.

• 4:27:22Shawn Ryan?

  So is there any, for somebody that wants to use this, how would they get their hands on one?

• 4:27:28Speaker 02

  So I think that comes quite quickly, hopefully in the next few months. The company is in a position where it can scale up. A new set of these have been made for trials and testing certain sort of people at the moment. We're talking to a company about potentially an agreement where, you know, this would be made available to their customers. Because what you're looking at is the first instance of an integrative tech- technology being part of a garment, which is quite an exciting thing. And you can see where this can sort of really be very, very effective.

• 4:28:03Shawn Ryan?

  Very interesting.

• 4:28:04Speaker 02

  You know, when it comes to sports recreational fitness, you can sell it to individuals, but actually it's probably better done through professional sports and health clubs.

• 4:28:14Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:28:14Speaker 02

  You know, first as a subscription model, whatever, then there'll be some instruction. You know, you don't need instruction, you can just put this on and use it. And the programs are set with protocols in it, which ensure that you can't really mess it up. Although, guess what, your body does a really good job of protecting itself anyway. So if you choose to kind of, sort of choose to sort of really sort of go offline with it, you can't really do it. Because your body will say, no, no, I don't, don't really like that. But, you know, some education and some built in protocols are necessary in any uh uh technology. Especially when you can never compensate for, you know, the random choices that people can make.

• 4:28:53Speaker 02

  Um but essentially the risks are rhabdomyolysis and I've looked in all of these different cases and you can give it from training. So you can do it from negative reps. It's uh it's it's not very often at all. And certainly in my view, not made more likely because of the use of technology. But it's a declared use. So if you do incredibly hard negative reps in um CrossFit movements, for instance, you can overwork your muscles. Mm hmm. So all of those protocols are built into the programs already. Interesting. introductory use, but that's actually, you know, for programs like this. But once, you know, and this is what we hope to do is is transform it into a number of markets.

• 4:29:37Speaker 02

  But really the true value is in the medical and therapeutic world. You know, and that is going to be a a longer piece of work, but it's already been happening already. You know, Vincent Tellenback is the incredible person really behind the design and engineering of all of this. You know, the company is now taking it on to make it something that can be made accessible and available to people. Incredible companies like McElot are able to make garments like this. The next one is incredibly well engineered. It's got like lymphatic drainage built into textiles and stuff. I mean, it's almost unnecessary, over engineered. I think it's going to be to kind of kind of prove a point. This is the generation that could, you know, fly.

• 4:30:21Speaker 02

  It's got a more conductive membrane than the one I use. And I haven't used this yet, so I'm going to enjoy seeing what that that feels like and looks like. Um but again, you know, it's um the the key one is to to to. Technology is useful if it's available to people. And in order to do that, you have to be have to be an adaptable product that can be made, you know, affordable to people in whatever markets you're moving into. And, you know, you can have a massively engineered thing because your needs and requirements around a profession. You can have a very, very simple thing that has a membrane that delivers something much less complicated in terms of waveform, but it's generating what you need. Yeah. Underpinning health. Man. This is hand in hand then um with um sauna.

• 4:31:08Speaker 02

  I went down to Snowdonia there as an ex former colleague is actually from from the S B S called Gary Bamford. And he formed a company called Giratus and he asked me to come and speak to his, the people that were on a walk around Snowdonia. And during that walk around, I met a gentleman called Dylan McKay. Now Dylan McKay is an ex performance expert from New Zealand. But at heart, he's Army Technicians Officer, Arms Weapons Technicians Officer, E O D disposal. And he's become central in breathing physiology. And when, when I met him, you know, immediately, you know, when you can tell that someone's really, really interesting.

• 4:31:50Speaker 02

  And not only really well centered, but there's expert knowledge there. And I started talking to him, he said, you know, are you willing to become a data subject for us? And I said, well, you know, why were you interested? And he said, because you, you, you know, we know your background, but you present very normally. And so we wouldn't mind seeing your physiology, you know, through breathing capnography, which measures the acidosis, the chemical axis levels in your tissues through breathing. It checks whether you're hypercapnic, so low CO2 levels, so it affects your oxygen uptake or not.

• 4:32:30Speaker 02

  So I obviously willingly agreed, it sounds like an amazing opportunity to me. One thing I've learned in this transition process is size up opportunity, as in why I'm being asked, because it makes sense to take it. And it's by what, like having that attitude towards these, I've become involved in these technologies. So I started building up a baseline in technology, in understanding of my own breathing physiology with Dylan McKay, he looks at all my data and goes, you know, and I've started then finding out what resonance breathing frequency is, and are you aware of resonance breathing frequency? So resonance breathing frequency is essentially what people are trying to achieve by box breathing. Oh, good. But it's very individualized to you.

• 4:33:11Speaker 02

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

• 4:33:59Speaker 02

  And it's a clever box that, again, I used this morning. Um, and I don't do, you know, I'm basically giving enough sessions to inform, uh, Dylan McKay's work. But also I'm benefiting from all the expert knowledge that is coming back. Essentially, it's a, you wear a heart rate monitor, uh, you put the nasal cannula in. And this clever box here, uh, measures the astosis levels and your breathing rates to see what your end tidal CO2 is. And obviously, if it's too low, then you will be out of kilter. And this is where some of the behaviors, so they're very involved with, uh, operator syndrome.

• 4:34:41Speaker 02

  I think they've been quite involved with, um, I think it's Dr Chris Fru's work. And, uh, they're quite well advanced and breathing physiology, anyone who uses breathing apparatus like some divers, bar brigade. Should, this, this should be absolutely baked into their sort of rekey process. Yeah. But actually, it's very fundamental to a lot of other people as well. So again, I'm working very hard with them and through that process and Dylan McKay is utterly fascinating. It's almost like my therapy going on to a certain, and that's where we worked out, right? Yeah, look at that.

• 4:35:18Speaker 02

  Yes, please, there's the, uh, nasal cannon, uh, the pulsar that we were, and I never realized the complication of each breath processes. And, uh, and you get a graph, so I plugged this in and split that little, um, uh. Thumb drive. Yeah, thumb drive into a laptop. You know, I was doing it this morning in the gym because I did one of Scott Sonnen's regimes. Um, in order to prepare myself, you know, you know, I'm interested in seeing, you know, the, the, the certain different types of workouts. Prepare yourself in certain ways and I had quite an interesting experience doing this. Um, but in all of this, I'm measuring my breathing physiology and giving Dylan that data.

• 4:36:00Speaker 02

  And he's able to see one, he's said, right, you know, you know, your physiology is centered, right? So you're not traumatized by anything. We know that. You know, you're, you, although you're laden with the normal stresses of life, you're not out of kilter. Right? So that's, that's an important thing to know because if people are, and I think this originally started a long, long time ago with Dr. Peter Litchfield. Identifying that dysfunctional breathing behaviors had an association to epilepsy. Yeah. And it's like, so unregulated neurotransmission. So again, it's all, it's all has relevance in any of those environmental factors, explosive blast, exposure, you know, stress loads.

• 4:36:43Speaker 02

  Absolute, um, direct relevance. Yeah. To all of this, to re-zero. It's like, again, that analogy with aside. Your body physiology is your most powerful aspect of how you remain good and centered. It's all of your, all of your behaviors. But essentially, you know, martial artists used to do meditation. And that was their way of studying it and getting this centrality around physiology. Well, now we have a technology. And plug it into a laptop, you can see. And like last night, I went on my breathing resonance frequency, which have made amplitude for my physiology. So if I was gonna sleep well, I'd definitely hear it was saying, no, I didn't sleep. Well, I did sleep well. I just didn't sleep very long, which happens.

• 4:37:27Speaker 02

  Um, so, uh, but you know, that, that in, in itself is a reassurance, you know, I'm in tune, right? I'm in tune, so ready for this. What becomes even more exciting is, you know, I've just done their bio feedback. They use something called Splendo Health, which is a platform. For testing your cardio, cardio, cardio respiratory fitness, but also your cognitive abilities. And so I, I drove down to Dylan's house and we went on their salt bike, did a series of cognitive tests, don't take very long, but I was fitted with um, um, monitors to measure oxidation in my tissues, so my quad and in my um, prefrontal cortex. I measured the heart rate variables, measure all sorts of stuff and buy a feedback and

• 4:38:10Speaker 02

  I've got a report back. And remember, and this is not to prove I'm some sort of superhuman athlete, because I'm not. And you know, I live life in a very kind of balanced and natural way. I don't make deliberately unhealthy choices. But I think part of life is making realistic propositions to people that can fit around how they need to live. Yeah. No, no one could be in the gym at four o'clock every morning. Yeah. And if you do, you're probably cancelling out a relationship you really cared about as well. And there's nothing more annoying, you know, one of the speaking things I do is like, high performance, not high maintenance. No one wants to know you've had an ice bath. Yeah. Like this morning, or if you didn't sleep well, how you won't be able to work effectively.

• 4:38:52Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, you become awful. And like going on to ice baths, cold water therapy works, right, initiates metabolic change. This all stands up. People live in thermo-neutral environments too much. But why you need to go out and buy a four hundred dollar ice bath? And I implore people not to jump in ice baths, you know, it shocks your system. Eighteen autonomic sets of muscles around your heart. Now, if you want to have cold water therapy, best way to do it is, one, you have a bath in your house usually, but even in the shower, have a normal shower, and then just gently turn the cold water down. And that's why you, you're not setting your sympathetic nervous system off against your parasympathetic. It's quite a dangerous thing to do, because your physiology is trying

• 4:39:36Speaker 02

  to take over. And if you dunk yourself into very cold ice water, elite athletes do this to do something else with their muscles. Unless you're training for an elite competition, you just want to initiate healthy metabolic change at a cellular level. So all of these sort of lifestyle theories that are pushed, and all become almost cult-like in their kind of sort of way of commercialisation. You must be one of these and this is the result. No, it's a mixture. And they don't have to be severe. And some of the advice that's given down at sort of local level, local gym level in small towns is really quite sort of horribly inaccurate. I don't think it's intentional.

• 4:40:17Speaker 02

  Now, so these breathing techniques, you know, the first thing to ask of the breathing technique is how do you know if it's in tune with your individualized breathing? Because you don't know your resonance breathing frequency. You can, these days, you can plug yourself into a technology.

• 4:40:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:40:30Speaker 02

  And have an expert look at it over the cloud. And they say, yeah, you're in tune. I reckon it's four point five. Tweak it, tweak it, tweak it. Um. So I, it's a fascinating area of work. Now, Dylan McKay, so going back to what I'm really, really interested in is how do I now train and activate my physiology to protect myself from neurological deficit that may or may not be there? Probably is there, right? You've had lots of exposure. So Dylan McKay works very closely with Scott Sonnen. And I didn't know much about Scott Sonnen first, but I've looked a little bit into his history, which is utterly incredible, to be honest, you know, he's got a lifetime history that people understand.

• 4:41:10Speaker 02

  Um. And, you know, he's been a professional fighter, he's a master of sport, but he works closely with Dr. Peter Lichfield on breathing physiology also. And works in close partnership with Dylan McKay, actually been invited to be a demonstration model on one of their webinars. But, so I looked in, the first thing Dylan McKay sent me was a, a program uh of Scott Sonnen's theory on how to adapt exercise to tune yourself in for, for instance, creative thinking and thought, but gives the reasons why. And this is exactly, you know, when you come across someone who's an expert and all of a sudden the jigsaw puzzle keeps coming, starts patterning together.

• 4:41:55Speaker 02

  So all of, a lot of the research work I've done, you know, has been AI models asking them more and more precise search words to paint dots together, but essentially you're sort of passionate together with interaction with experts, books and um online learning. You know, because I, I, you know, I can't go to university. Actually, I don't think I'd have this approach for them.

• 4:42:17Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:42:18Speaker 02

  And Scott Sonnen's work.

• 4:42:21Speaker 02

  Really, really underpinned it because what Scott Sonnen's work is, is how to modulate exercise. First of all, address exercise. Exercise is actually some sort of proxy in human evolutionary biology for exertion. You need to exert yourself in one way or another, challenge and perform movements through your neuromuscular junctions that keep your, your body, your brain being part of your body, healthy and safe. And your physiology is intuitive and adapts to that. And what Scott Sonnen's programs is looking directly at that. And it's fascinating. And there's something called the Goldilocks zone of moderate to high intensity sessions. So some are 20 minutes, some are 10 minutes.

• 4:43:06Speaker 02

  So Dylan's been setting mid ease because I'm actually really interested. How creative am I? So I've been tuning in for this. I don't know how creative, waiting for some, I don't know, some, some, some confirmation or not, right? I did three sessions running up to this and I got one completely wrong. And I overexerted and went into stress and I could feel that my body is quite stressed. I added weight into it, which they're usually body weight. But the core concept is complex movement. So movement is described as complex if it moves through four sets of different muscles, neuromuscular junctions. And your central nervous system will then recognize this as a pattern that is beneficial and

• 4:43:51Speaker 02

  generate these factors that I've alluded to, these family of glial cells that will move through your vascular system up into your blood brain and activate in order to create stronger neuronal pathways. And your brain is, everyone talks about brain plasticity. You've got neurology plasticity throughout your system and it consciously adapts and changes to everything you've done. So you can programmatically strengthen pathways in a conscious way. And this really, really started interesting me because you end up asking any question, you go back to the original solutions with your physiology, right? You need to just need to know how to empower it. And what, and Scott Sonnen's work does

• 4:44:32Speaker 02

  this. And if you do patterns of complex movement, so I do every minute on the minute sessions for 20 minutes. I did one of those today and it's just a complex movement that enacts those systems, then not only is your brain far more creative.

• 4:44:49Speaker 02

  For periods of time, um, and the benefits of doing it are huge. But the family of glial cells is astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and glial cells themselves, of which then they're further defined, and they all have slightly different roles. So astrocytes do lots of stuff, but essentially keep the dendritic, the forest of sort of dendritic connections that can form up into new neural connections. Axons what join those synapses, those dendritic ends together. What happens in Scott Sonnen's particular regime for Goldilocks zone, for instance, is it keyly activates oligodendrocytes that create mylineation of the axon.

• 4:45:33Speaker 02

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

• 4:46:16Speaker 02

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

• 4:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:46:59Speaker 02

  But there's a set of them, and they all signal in and key off your own biological function. So go back to the lady who had Guillain-Barre syndrome. Expert knowledge is fundamental and key. Came from the neurology consultant neurophysiology team and Victoria Sparks. And she did the assessment, said this is how I use technology. But I would suggest that the most powerful element of that was that willing mindset. And that enacted on her system itself. And the applied technology gave it a real kickstart, like a jumpstart. And once it gets that message, it repatons that neuronal pathway very, very quick. So going back to Duncan Slater, right?

• 4:47:43Speaker 02

  Duncan Slater, the W M T I met, I mentioned earlier. He's had some problems with his injuries previously and he's got some vascular shutdown that's happening. Um, so I introduced Duncan to Emes Group as a company.

• 4:48:02Speaker 02

  And really just, you know, see if technology, the complexities around the injuries are really quite considerable. And, you know, and I'll come on to the Unbroken Foundation in a minute. Once people become, have limbs amputated. You know, the, the trauma around the thing, I think we've covered, right? That's going to be a deeply traumatic experience, but humans will get beyond that, right? The complexities around the injury are far more consequential. Because you're at biomechanical disadvantage, driving your own physiology. And if you think if it's one leg, the amount of movement you depend upon. And how much that's enacting on your overall system. So you have to find mitigations.

• 4:48:46Speaker 02

  So Duncan Slater, he's an incredible person, he's a speaker as well, a huge, huge character. And he's the only amputator who ever done a marathon des arts. And he's done it three times and he finished it once. And uh, yeah, exactly. He's absolutely brilliant. And uh, he, he got his stumps made, uh, sorry, his prosthetics made for himself. Because the ones he got given are melted and debrided his whole area of his stumps. Damn. First attempt because of the heat, right? And uh, you know, I won't speak too much on behalf of him. He is just an incredible person. So he's now getting a bespoke suit made for him by the same people that have made this. Oh, cool.

• 4:49:30Speaker 02

  Um, because in the use of the technology, we've seen his vascular system open back up. But also, if you think about phantom pain, in that cavern that's in there getting fed a hundred million bits of information per second, when something crisis happens, your consciousness isn't powerful enough to get that to make sense. Yeah. Right? If you put signals through neuronal pathways in a localized area, it remaps them. Wow. Therefore you can deal with phantom pain. Wow. And he's, has he tried this yet? So he's, he's got, at the moment, he's got padstels, straps, he's used it quite a lot. Soben.

• 4:50:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, you know, at the end of the day, he's got this problem because they went to see a consultant about this vascular shutdown and, you know, these consultants used to dealing with people eight year, eight year old hearts. And he said, well, it sounds like we're gonna have to cut more off. Mm hmm. And Duncan was like, he, he, he may as well throw the prosthetics in the bin.

• 4:50:36Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, Duncan's in, he, a single gentleman in Italian shed made his prosthetics, which he then went and completed the marathon des arblons. And I say, we're gonna do a lot of casework now around Duncan. Uh, to ensure that, you know, the technology will make a massive amount. Yeah. Remap pathways, building vascular um access back. Already doing a really good job in a very simplified form. So if you make it powerful as this sort of thing. Now, the coverage of the membrane is much, much bigger. And because it's so effective, the membrane, the waveforms are so intuitive.

• 4:51:17Speaker 02

  It's like a sewing machine, you know, if you compare some of the EMS products, they're like comfort gel pads, it's like getting. Not a hit of that. Yeah. You know, and I, you know, again, that's how some of them been built, you know, they're like suits of armour with big straps and all the rest of it. This thing is, is, is much, much more intuitive. Yeah. And the aim is to get this sewing machine to turn into a three D printer at some point, right? In concert with all of the others. So now what we're excited about with Dylan McKay is I'm going to start introducing other technologies. EMS being very central one, because I'm very, very familiar with it, but not ruling out others. And going and doing this biofeedback platforms and mapping the physiological adaptations. You know, this is really exciting case studies that we can do. Yeah.

• 4:52:01Speaker 02

  We can do them quite simply. It's got willing human beings that want to be involved. There's plenty of research that shows neuromuscular electro-stimulation builds back axonal regeneration. Some of the consequences being too near to explosive blast, to which the mechanism is there's lots of water in your head. And uh, as the wave hits your skull and goes through, the water cannot move out of the way. And it creates a turbulence, uh, it makes a shearian mechanism between the grey and white matters, right? And it creates axonal legioning amongst other things, right? And your brain is extremely good at regenerating itself. And I think when the winds are fair, people keep up with that deficit. Mm hmm.

• 4:52:45Speaker 02

  But when they're not so fair, so they do less exertion. They're in a better, a worse place, it can catch, it's like a bow wave catching up. Yeah. And it's not a precondition, right? So there's plenty of research, mainly from the medical world, that shows that neuromuscular electrostimulation, electrostimulation around the base of your CNS can reverse an episode of depression on the dot. Wow. Because it just promotes factors, right, that you rely on every day. And this is, you know, these simple things can act in concert with all of the incredibly advanced things that are happening on. Yeah.

• 4:53:24Speaker 02

  Um, so, you know, and, um, so I'll come on to Ukraine, you know, so again, I was introduced to a person called Liam Sullivan, he has a charity page called Tackling Matters, it's quite a new one. Essentially, he's been going in Ukraine for a long period of time, he's quite famous for providing a hundred and forty pairs of socks to a frontline unit during winter, I mean, it's a pretty tough room. And I got a, just a call, because people knew I was in and out of Kiev quite a lot, um, saying, you know, if this guy needs help, or would you be welcome to meet, since meeting him, um, I've realised that he's very involved with, um, putting in football pitches and creating a football tournament in concert

• 4:54:07Speaker 02

  with Champions League clubs and Premiership clubs, because a lot of the Premiership clubs have amputee teams and Parkinson's teams as well, you know, they have community hubs that are very, very powerful. So I came into contact with him, and obviously, as you look at this, the relevant technologies, this is extremely important when you're rehab, this type of technology is extremely important when you're rehabilitating conflict injured, and Ukraine has a problem, right, has a problem in complexity of its injuries and volume of its injuries, right, a lot of them are amputations, and almost all have some sort of neurological conditions. So when we last visited, um, Unbroken Foundation, we took them some bare elements, you know, and

• 4:54:50Speaker 02

  obviously, a lot of these people were amputees and were turning up with suits with arms and legs on them, you know, they kind of looked at us quite quizzically. Yeah. We gave them accessories instead, and they're using the accessories, and again, I'll share some videos with you. The accessories are incredibly good and powerful, because again, at the end of these traumatic amputation sites.

• 4:55:12Speaker 02

  Um. They are using them to reactivate muscles and, you know, again, a lot of these people have got some very, very. This is working for them. Sorry. This is. Yes, yeah, so the initial sort of feedback we had is is really, really overwhelming. I think it's probably because it's so accessible. It's very, very easy to use, not complicated. They're treating like, I forget the numbers, but they're treating a huge volume of patients. But this also has an association. They're using a lot of, you know, I saw some of the pictures. They they call it bringing it back to colour. And get these people, some have been held captive, a lot of them traumatically injured, and they do this exercise of getting them to do art. And it's been incredible insight into how they treat uh these people.

• 4:55:58Speaker 02

  Try them, get them back to a stable life. And, you know, for instance, in week one, they'll only use red and black. And that's a picture into how your mind's working, but when they start using colour, you're seeing things. So they're very, very developed in how they're kind of sort of treating therapeutically and and injury wise these people. And sport is a a key part to it. So Liam has started up this amputee football tournament. Uh. The first one was in Arsenal training facilities. The second one has just happened. And it's in, uh, it's been, it was held at Sandhurst. Oh, cool. Yeah, it was very cool. And we had some quite, so I I I've got to emphasise, I'm a friend of Liam's, right?

• 4:56:39Speaker 02

  You know, I support him wherever I possibly can, but it's his thing. The the the football tournament is him and he does some other incredible work, uh in particular with associations like Unbroken. That's really cool. Yeah, so and it's it's a powerful message, right? You know, it's like conflict is an inevitability in life. It's gonna happen. Yeah. And in some cases, the outcomes are pretty testing. Yeah. But watching these amputees, and they are athletes, right? They're treated as athletes. And football tournaments, you know, looking at some of the processes that they're having and some of the innovative machine learning that's happening around. I I saw, uh, you know, a person picking up a paper cut and teaching. Wow.

• 4:57:24Speaker 02

  It's absolutely brilliant. You know, you're looking at these people and there's no element of feeling, sorry. You know, you're like, wow. You know, you need some support. Yeah. You need, if you can get made available technologies and a digital platform for support, you can go take this home. You're already just, you know, the, the, the powerful messages getting these people regardless the consequences of the participation in the conflict is incredibly important. And it should be celebrated as well when it's successful and these are complicated programmes, but they're all important ones and accessible. So the role these types of technologies will play in that are very fundamental and key,

• 4:58:04Speaker 02

  especially when paucity around treatment and resources are very, they're quite a few. Yeah. And I can't remember the figures that Ukraine are looking at. They've got a big volume of war injured. But I think, you know, it's something like, you know, in a developed nation, you've got fifteen per hundred thousand physios, whereas they have less than naught point eight. Wow. So, but what they are is gaining an extremely advanced insight into how to treat these, um, treat these things. That's what I call. Yeah, and I just hope that, you know, that comes to a close and people can concentrate on football tournaments and building these pitches.

• 4:58:44Speaker 02

  I think Liam's putting forty seven astrophysicists into the country since, since that football tournament. But I really did sort of take note like that in the incredible role that technology can play with applied a- applications.

• 4:59:01Speaker 02

  So, you know, I hope that this all transforms into something that moves. Um, you know, we, we, we've locked into it. I've looked, looked at how the company behaves. They, you know, spending money on back into development. They're in an absolutely superb position and I have every faith that we'll, we'll kind of see this through. I think the next few months are going to be pretty, pretty sort of tight testing. Yeah. But it, it is definitely an area of considerable value and purpose. And so in the central point in where I got involved in this, it's sort of made its way through to making some sense. And that's been participating alongside people like Dylan McKay. And it's been good for me. I've learned a huge amount and, you know, go back to what's a successful transition look like?

• 4:59:45Speaker 02

  Well, I'm definitely not an example of it right now. But if you learn, you develop and essentially you support other people's really credible work. I think there's pathways there at least. Well, John.

• 5:00:02Shawn Ryan?

  I love what you're doing, man, and this has been a fascinating conversation. And where can people find you?

• 5:00:08Speaker 02

  So I have a LinkedIn site, which is my main site. You know, from previous profession, there's not much before that. I also have an Instagram site, and I'll be very, very happy to share. And, you know, I'll be contactable through those mediums. And be very, very happy to help anyone.

• 5:00:29Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we'll link those below, and I just want to say thank you again for coming.

• 5:00:33Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 5:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  No pleasure.

• 5:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:00:35Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.