Inside the SAS w/ SAS Operator Jay Morton

Jay Morton discusses his career in the British Parachute Regiment and the Special Air Service (SAS), including deployments to Afghanistan, the challenges of SAS selection, and the realities of life in one of the world's premier special operations units. He also reflects on his transition to civilian life, climbing Mount Everest, and the lessons he's carried with him since leaving the military. https://www.instagram.com/jay__morton/?hl=en https://www.deltathreeoscar.com/ Today's Sponsors: GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! Blue Chew ⬇️ https://bluechew.com/ Get 1 month free when you buy 2 of BlueChew Gold with code "HOUSECALL" For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 - Start 01:32 - Why He Joined the British Parachute Regiment 05:00 - Inside British Paratrooper Selection 10:20 - First Deployment to Afghanistan 14:17 - First Major Firefight 17:42 - Surviving Sangin Valley 22:39 - How Combat Changes You 25:19 - Coming Home from War 31:01 - The Hidden Cost of Special Operations 35:04 - Deciding to Attempt SAS Selection 37:25 - The Brutal SAS Selection Process 44:01 - Breaking His Back During Selection 48:47 - Escape & Evasion & Interrogation 52:14 - Becoming an SAS Operator 59:12 - Life Inside the SAS 1:01:24 - Hunting Taliban IED Networks 1:04:13 - HALO Jumps into Afghanistan 1:10:48 - Hunting High-Value Targets 1:13:01 - Was the Afghanistan War Worth It? 1:17:55 - Covert Deployments Around the World 1:24:30 - Leaving the SAS Behind 1:32:01 - Building a New Life After the Military 1:37:43 - Climbing Mount Everest 1:43:43 - The World's Greatest Mountains Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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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• 0:30Speaker 01

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings. 911 Nashville returns.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 0:42Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  All sins swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 0:50Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:00Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with today's guest, Jay Morton. Jay served in the British parachute regiment and then in the special air service, multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And today he's an ambassador for Delta three Oscar, which we'll get into. Jay, thank you for joining us on the show today.

• 1:22Speaker 05

  Awesome. Thank you for having me, Jack. Whereabouts in the, in the world are you?

• 1:25Jack Murphy?

  We're in Brooklyn.

• 1:27Speaker 05

  Amazing. I've never been to New York, never been to Brooklyn's New York, right?

• 1:31Jack Murphy?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, come visit, man. Be happy to have you here.

• 1:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I love the U.S. I was recently out in Montana in Whitefish.

• 1:45Jack Murphy?

  Oh, yeah, it's beautiful out there.

• 1:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, San Diego, California. I was there for the NASCAR race and then spent some time in Laguna Beach, but I'm going back out in August. So, um, yeah, I'm potentially gonna stay over there for the three months on my Ester during winter because our winters are pretty, pretty rainy and wet over here in the UK.

• 2:09Jack Murphy?

  But it looks pretty nice where you are now.

• 2:12Speaker 05

  Oh, it's beautiful. We're in, we're midsummer and I live in a place called Bournemouth, which is on the coast. So my apartment's pretty much opposite the beach, which is good stuff.

• 2:23Jack Murphy?

  That's great.

• 2:25Jack Murphy?

  So Jay, I guess we'll, we'll start at the beginning, right? I usually ask our guests what their origin story is. If you tell us a little bit about, you know, what your upbringing was like.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course. So British born, I grew up in a town called Preston, which if anyone knows the football team, Manchester United, it's probably about an hour north from, from Manchester United. Just a small working class city. Grew up with, with normal parents, mother and father, older brother, and went to school, loved playing sport, hated school. So there was a, I think I'd always wanted to go into the military at some stage. I wanted to join the Royal Marines growing up or before that I wanted to be a fireman, I think as a kid, full of testosterone.

• 3:19Speaker 05

  I was always driven, driven or drawn to kind of dangerous jobs. And yeah, at the time there was a mate of mine at school that we were like two of the fittest guys in school and we were always kind of competing and battling in sports. And he actually joined the parachute regiment when he left and went and joined three para, which is one of the battalions. And he'd come back on leave and always tell me these stories about what he was up to. And it was mainly around shooting guns and, and going out and getting pissed with the boys. But weirdly you're kind of drawn to that. And I think looking back retrospectively, it's, it's more about the teamwork and the

• 4:03Speaker 05

  camaraderie ship and being part of a, you know, a shared purpose and a shared goal that you're more drawn to. But as a, as an 18 year old, 19 year old lad, hearing stories about fighting in the town and like getting pissed and all that kind of stuff is, is what it's kind of masked as. So yeah, I, I ended up joining the parachute regiment age 19, which was a massive shock to the system. It was probably the first time I've been away from my hometown and traveled and went to live in a different place in the UK and they're based in Essex in Colchester.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  And yeah, shortly after, obviously we deployed to, it was kind of the back end of the second Gulf War. And we deployed out to Iraq for, for three months on a, on a short deployment. And it was the back end of that tour that obviously you guys over across the pond were talking about going over into Afghanistan and we literally came back from that short deployment. We all got pulled into a tent just before we flew back and got told that the U.S. are looking at going into Afghanistan and there's a potential that our battle group and battalion were going to be the first ones to go in in 2006.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  And we flew back, had a short period of, of leave and then I think we had, you know, three or four weeks leave. We got pulled back in, flown out to Oman for six, for a six week training package. Had like a couple of weeks leave and then deployed out to Afghanistan and that kind of kicked off the Afghanistan deployment specifically for, for the UK and for you guys as well.

• 5:49Jack Murphy?

  Just to back up a little bit, um, what was the sort of selection process like to get into the paras?

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we run a selection process. It's a, in total, the, the training block is six months long. So we call that basic training. I don't know what you guys call it. And so, yeah, it's, it's a six month long period to take you from being a civilian, you know, an 18 year old scrote, all the way to, to be in a, well, to, to join in a professional soldier in unit, whether you can call yourself a professional soldier at the end of six months is, is debatable. And yeah, I mean, the first six weeks, it's pretty much a shock of capture, shave your

• 6:39Speaker 05

  head, give you a, a set uniform that, that you have to wear every day, even when you're not in military uniform, when you're out of military uniform, it's a set of like blue Ron Hill joggers. So the kind of leggings that, that runners used to wear in like the seventies and a maroon, maroon jumper. And then the kind of selection process for it is called P company. So that's a week long selection process and it's pass and pass or fail. And it consists of a series of tests. So we've got the, the 10 miler, which is done. I think, I think it's one hour and 50. I'm not quite sure.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  We have a 20 miler. We have a steeple chase, a, a log race and a stretcher race. And there's, there's other things like the trinazion, which is an assault course. And yeah, you're not allowed to fail or come off one of those. And to be honest, being 19 years old, it was, it was pretty fucking hard. I played amateur rugby growing up. I played rugby league, I played football, I played volleyball and kind of nothing prepares you for, for military basic training and specifically P company.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  You know, I wouldn't class myself as being one of the, the fittest people there. I definitely wasn't the, the weakest. I think personally I have like an ability to just be able to hang on and not be the person that comes in first every time, but never fall off anything. And I think as a, as a soldier in the parachute regiment, we're kind of looking for that. Those people that not only can do 10 miles or 20 miles, but those people that can continuously push for 40, 50 miles, you know, with limited amount of sleep, water, food, all that kind of stuff. So, um, yeah, so I, I got through first time and, and, but yeah, it was, was pretty hard.

• 8:50Jack Murphy?

  And for our American listeners, if you could explain a little bit about the history of the British paras and sort of what their mission is, how it differs from some of the other units like the Royal Marines.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, so our powers are the equivalent of your airborne.

• 9:11Speaker 05

  And I'll get the dates completely wrong, but we were formed in World War Two. I'm gonna say nineteen forty-two, nineteen forty-four, but I'll probably get that completely wrong. And yeah, we were formed as a airborne unit that was designed to be dropped behind enemy lines in World War Two and cause absolute havoc. So yeah, you know, the kind of missions that were done back then, we did just that, you know, because an infantry unit or a mechanized unit could be seen coming from so far out

• 9:49Speaker 05

  in terms of ground sign and movement and all that kind of stuff, they could be picked up by aircraft. An airborne unit was simply designed to just drop either behind enemy lines or close to and just go straight into combat. Obviously, it's not used as frequently now, but I think the kind of ethos of the parachute regiment is still there in terms of we train to be able to deliver the fight at any moment's time. So even though we're not getting dropped behind enemy lines, we still carry that tenacity as a fighting unit into anything that we do. Hence why, you know, we were the first unit that got picked out into Afghanistan in two thousand and six.

• 10:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I will also get the dates and names completely wrong, but as I recall, our American airborne got our berets from you guys. It was during World War Two, and I think it was the British commander's wife, who was a poet, thought the boys would look very sharp wearing maroon berets. And so we got the maroon beret from you guys.

• 10:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, awesome. Yeah, you guys also have it as well, I noticed.

• 11:02Jack Murphy?

  Yep, yep. And so, fast forward a little bit, back to that first deployment to Afghanistan. You said it was two thousand and six?

• 11:13Speaker 05

  Correct, two thousand and six.

• 11:15Jack Murphy?

  And so, we talk about like the unit carrying that tenacity with it into combat. What was that mission set and where were you guys deployed to in Afghanistan?

• 11:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, initially Afghanistan was looked at from a peacekeeping operation. And I don't think anyone knew that Afghanistan was going to turn into what it turned into. And specifically, you know, pre-deployment, I was a private soldier and, you know, twenty years old. And you didn't really have an idea of strategic positioning of why we were going in.

• 11:59Speaker 05

  You know, from my eyes, it looked like you guys were going in for whatever reasons and we were just backing you up as allies across the pond.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  And initially, when we deployed, it was, there was obviously no fighting. We, so the UK built a huge military base called Bastion. So the US main one was Kandahar Airfield, and then we built one called Bastion. At the time, Bastion hadn't been complete, it was still under construction. And we were living in those Green Army six by nine or whatever they're called tents, the canvas ones that had been in the...

• 12:41Jack Murphy?

  GPMG.

• 12:43Speaker 05

  Pretty much since nineteen forty-two.

• 12:47Speaker 05

  So we were living in those, sleeping on campcocks, eating ten-man rations, there weren't established kitchens. And they were constructing this camp Bastion. And I remember the first kind of week we were out there, we were just going out for some acclimatization runs because the heat was, we were out there in the summer, so the heat was, you know, forty, fifty degrees. But I always remember there was this fine dust everywhere and almost like cement. And we'd be out on runs, just running through this cement dust whilst these diggers were like building walls and HESCO Bastion walls. And yeah, we were just inhaling it like dumb twenty-year-olds.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  But yeah, it was, it was soft posture and we'd, we actually took two CH-47s into a town called Gharashk

• 13:38Speaker 05

  and landed just outside. And we put a patrol in through the town and nothing happened. It was reasonably pleasant and friendly. I actually remember there was an old man that was selling ice cream on the side of the street and he actually made me a Mr. Whippy and I was stood on one knee with my GPMG facing all arcs, making sure the bad guys didn't come. And he just walked up to me and passed me this ice cream.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  I was like, I was like, so lads, you think I should eat this or is this like poisoned or what? And I ate it in the end. But yeah, I mean, that goes back to Afghanistan, you know, it's like, I think, deep down, probably, you know, regardless of what happens there, I'm sure there are a friendly, welcoming group of people with a solid culture. I mean, they're stone women as well, but I'm sure there's other good sides to their culture. And then, yeah, we were in Gharash for a week or two weeks and then we got deployed. In fact, we were, our role was CQB, not CQB, QRF, so Quick Reaction Force.

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Whilst we were in the camp, and at this stage, we'd moved to proper accommodation, I think. No, we hadn't, we're still in the tents. And our patrols unit were out, so our kind of brigade or our battalion recce force were out in vehicles. The old school Wimics, so the old Land Rover Defenders that had a fifty-caliber, a GPMG on the back and a GPMG on the front. And they'd been hitting a contact.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  And one of the vehicles had been hit by an RPG and they'd extracted from the vehicle and were, you know, seeking cover somewhere. And they put a call out to the Quick Reaction Force and it was myself and my company, so A Company, we got tasked for the job, jumped on two CH-47 lifters and landed in the middle of this farmer's field in Nowzad. And this is probably about three weeks into being in theatre. And we all ran off the back of this heli and ran towards this wall. And I literally remember as the helis were lifting, you could hear the crack and thump of rounds flying over our head. And obviously, that got louder as the heli lifted.

• 16:03Speaker 05

  And I remember just looking to the lads to the left and right, I mean, we all just burst out in laughter with that kind of, you know, that laughing in the face of adversity kind of thing. We had no intention or idea that this operation was going to go noisy, let alone Afghanistan was going to go noisy.

• 16:24Speaker 05

  And yeah, that turned into a, probably a seven to nine-hour contact of, I was trying to fight forward to get to this Wimic. At one stage, one of the, one of the sections in my platoon went left flanking on a position, on a compound. And I always remember Prig Paul was the section commander. And he literally turned around to his team and went, if you've got wife or kids, stay here, the rest of you come with me. And he took the guys left flanking and yeah, they, they obviously went round, engaged in,

• 17:08Speaker 05

  with the threat where needed. And yeah, it was, it was an interesting one, it was a long day, there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears. And we flew back in and that was pretty much it. That kind of launched into, into that Afghanistan two thousand and six conflict of a lot of those style firefights.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  You know, it was pre-IED era, so it was pretty much going out and just getting into scraps every day.

• 17:40Jack Murphy?

  This is like one of those firefights where the Taliban are just sort of like trying to encircle you, going around hedgerows and things like that and sporadic fire all day.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  You'll know yourself, Jack, it's like, you know, ninety-five percent of the time, you don't even see the enemy. You just hear them. You very rarely see them. I'd imagine it's the same as if an enemy force came from a different country to my hometown. It's like, I know all the ins and outs, the nooks and crannies, the ditches, the back alleys, you know, everything. You're not, you're not trying to close with and kill these people that are in your town. It's like you're just trying to get them out.

• 18:17Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 18:20Jack Murphy?

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• 19:36Jack Murphy?

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• 21:15Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency?

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Oh, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Bryant-Philippi, 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 21:44Jack Murphy?

  That was kind of like winding down the tail end of that deployment.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, I mean, that was, that was a pretty wild time. It was after that, we went to Sangin Valley.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  And I mean, for anyone listening that deployed and went to Sangin Valley, um, we landed to, so the FOB Jackson, which was actually one of our boys, Damian Jackson.

• 22:17Speaker 05

  We'd actually been tasked to go out to the governor's building to support the governor because he was getting death threats from the Taliban, I seem to remember, about him sexually abusing kids. Probably true, but at that time, you obviously, you have to support the government. So we went out and set up shop in the governor's house, which is now, well, obviously not now, but turned into FOB Jackson.

• 22:51Speaker 05

  And at the time, it was this, this building and next to it was this orchard with this other kind of weird building. And we were there for about three or four days and there was a river that went down the middle of it and we used to wash in the river. And we put like positions all around the area. So we had 360, 360 degree defense. And yeah, I always remember kind of probably about four or five days into it. So we were actually, it was wild. Were you and Afghani started at the same time?

• 23:24Jack Murphy?

  I was there 2004 into 2005, that winter.

• 23:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, they were wild times, weren't they? I sometimes, I'm like jogging the memory.

• 23:35Jack Murphy?

  It's surreal, yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were, we dug like a shell scrape in this orchard and our position just looked onto a wall and it was like a, I guess, six foot wall, maybe a little bit less, you know, like the thick mud walls. And I always remember because the ICOM chatter and the J2 would suggest that they were going to attack from this, this wall one night and they, they said they were just going to flood the place with fighters and send them over this, um, send them over this six foot wall. And like all night, we were literally probably 15 meters away from this wall, maybe less. And we just sat in this shell scrape staring at this wall like eyes, eyes on store, like

• 24:19Speaker 05

  literally matchsticks in our eyes, just, I remember like a couple of the lads smoked cigarettes and like, I was like, give me one of those cigarettes. I need to, I need to smoke. None of us slept the whole night thinking that we were just going to get flooded with Taliban.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  But nothing happened, but probably around four or five days into it, we, we built like the positions up a little bit more and we'd ran out of sandbags to build the positions up. So we were building them up with big cardboard boxes and just filling it with dirt and dust and hoping that that would catch around. And I was actually on top of this rooftop looking out onto, if anyone's been there that's listening. So it was, trying to think where it was, it kind of looked, so it was, I'm trying to remember the cardinal, I don't think I can, I think it's to the south of the west, kind of looked away from the bazaar and the town area and into kind of the bush.

• 25:17Speaker 05

  And I was on the side that was on the opposite side to the governor's building with the, the river running down it. And I always remember this car drove past and it had like three or four heavies in it and they had the, the windows down and they were just staring up at this position. And I was, I just remember thinking that's, that's not, you know, they're not friendly. And probably about an hour later, we literally got hit 360 degrees, like all around the FOB. Machine gun, AK, RPG, wombat shells. And that kind of, that was it then. It kind of kicked off in, in Sangin and we pretty much stayed in Sangin for the, for the duration of the, the six month tour that we did.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  And yeah, I mean, there's a million stories to come out of just that one, that one, that one location, I'm sure for a lot of people that served in Sangin listening, it was, it was a hellhole and you would go out most days and most days you'd end up in a scrap and you'd be calling A-10s, you know, your guys A-10s, which were phenomenal. And we had Apache helicopters from the UK and from the US as well, which were also, you know, a godsend if you heard that thing in the sky. You were pretty much free to roam wherever you wanted to go, but as soon as it went off station, just all hell broke loose. But yeah, it was, it was an interesting time being 20 years old. I turned 21 over there.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  And yeah, it was, yeah, I mean, we could probably talk on podcasts just about being in Sangin if I'm being honest, Joe.

• 26:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's one of those, sounds like one of those formative experiences. Like you were also learning your job as you went, you know, like actually becoming a professional soldier, I think.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, a hundred percent. It's becoming a man as well, right? It's, you cross that path of, of boy to manhood and specifically, yeah, becoming a professional soldier, like you said, it's, you get into to prove yourself in, in combat, whether you like that or not, it's the arena that you chose to show up in.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  And also, I always look back at it with, with, with good memories. I think you learn a lot in those type of situations. You develop a lot. It's a bigger growth than any, any state university would, would get you. And it also, it's something that you'll never take away, you know, that I think as men personally, and I don't know what your views are on this, but I think as men, we're, we've been at war since the moment that we've walked out of caves. I think it's so inherent for us and we can, we can imagine all we want, that we're going to live in this super peaceful world, but we can see by modern press that that's just, that's never going to happen.

• 28:11Speaker 05

  It's a, it's a dream to think that the human race is going to get on with, with, with its, with each other on earth. So it's like for, for you to go out and actually do that as a man, I think there's something, there's something in that that's quite, quite special.

• 28:27Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's also crossing over that threshold where you're doing something now that could get you killed. And also if you don't do your job, you could get somebody else killed. And, and I think that tends to mature people very quickly.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and actually like how amazing it is, is it that you've worked in a team that, that does that, that you have to, you know, whether you're a medic, whether you're a shooter or whatever, it's like you've been part of an integral team and a key part of that small team that, you know, if something doesn't go right, or if you make a mistake, not only may you die, the consequences are that real that not only you may, may you die, but someone else may die. And that person's a, could be a father, that person could be a husband or, or whatever it's, with those real consequences become kind of, and those real responsibility comes a lot of like self-growth and self-actualization.

• 29:27Jack Murphy?

  And what was it like coming off of that deployment and redeploying back home?

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Um, so we, I mean, we'd, uh, we'd gone to Cyprus for a period of decompression. And so it was three days decompression. Um, they fueled it with alcohol, which, um.

• 29:51Jack Murphy?

  Not a great idea.

• 29:53Speaker 05

  It's a good thing and a bad thing because we got to decompress, but, um, it's actually a funny story. Cause so literally, I think the first night you get there, you, you get, they stick a barbecue on for you. And, um, it was like unlimited booze. They, they make this, this barbecue's insane. And it was the first one that the British Army had done. So I think they just thought that booze was the answer. Everyone got absolutely battered. And, um, I remember we'd had the barbecue, desserts were out. And there'd been like a couple of like drinks, uh, nothing heavy. And, uh, like a couple of cans had flown over. Some people had got hit in the face.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  I remember being stood at the dessert section, helping myself to a army issued black currant cheesecake. And, uh, I just remember turning around and there was like fucking cans flying, drinks flying, food flying like left. And I was like, where the fuck has this come from? I remember just grabbing like handfuls of dessert and like launching it into the crowd. And the next minute I picked the dessert and so and throwing it. And the next minute people are grabbing tables and chairs. And like, it was absolute carnage, like literally erupted. I remember it being on, it was on YouTube in the early days. Um, and like one of the lads is like naked, wrapped around with like the St. George's flag.

• 31:21Speaker 05

  There's Union Jacks everywhere. And it was fucking carnage, mate. And like the med center where the doctor was, the doc, I think the doctor was also hammered. There was a queue of about 11 blokes outside with like eyes hanging off and like broken noses, teeth hanging out. It was, so, um, yeah, I think we, we fully got to decompress. And the next day they just put like water squats on and, um, but, um, yeah. I mean, like to get to the serious point of coming back from, from, from a theater like that.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  Um, I mean, personally, like I, I mean, I, I felt fine. I mean, I was probably, you know, there was definitely. I mean, PTSD and, and stuff like that was never spoken about back then, even kind of, um, exposure to trauma and what that, that can do. Um, and I, you know, personally for me, you know, I was, um,

• 32:23Speaker 05

  um, I, I, I didn't suffer with it coming back from that, that deployment. But, um, I always remember the guys got back into Colchester and, um, um, I actually had a girlfriend at the time. So I jumped on a train and, and went straight back to see her. And the lads stayed in, uh, the block. I don't know if you call it the block, but the army camp and obviously got on the booze again. And, um, I spoke to them the next day and literally every window in the block got smashed.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  And like you talk about, you know, like equally the, the next day that the sergeant major just said, lads, as long as you replace all the windows, nothing will be said. Like, don't stress it. Um, because equally, I think there's a, there's a, there's a, what's the word?

• 33:14Speaker 05

  There's a way that our body processes what we've just been through and done. And whether that's anger, aggression, whether that's, and, and to do that with your whole team in that kind of setting, whether it's throwing cans at each other or cake or like smashing windows. I think there's a process that your body goes through to, to release or whatever it is that it's, that it's storing. Um, and that's how it came out. Um, now obviously you, you see the obvious and you, and you probably saw this as well, Jack. Um, you, you know, lads go straight on, on self-destruct mode and they stay on the piss, the whole, the whole leave and, and get into fights and, and all that kind of stuff.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  And in fact, on the two weeks off that we got from, um, the six month deployment in the middle of it. Um, I'd actually come back and ended up getting arrested whilst I was, I was drunk. Um, just for being a complete idiot, if I'm being honest. But I think there's this like, whether it's an anger inside or like, uh, we've been doing this and do you know what I mean? It's like, there's a, there's a feeling inside that unless you've kind of experienced that level of combat, you, you'll never kind of be able to, um, relate to. But we, we'd come back and ended up again alcohol fueled. But, um, yeah, just we were shouting and all sorts of stuff.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  And my, my friend got like CS gassed in the face and he just got thrown in the, the cell for a night. But, um, but yeah, I, apart from that, like everything was great. I came back.

• 34:49Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard to turn it off, isn't it? I mean, you, you're going a hundred miles an hour and then suddenly you're back home. You're in the UK in this case. And it sounds like you probably hadn't gone into like even a training cycle yet. You're just sort of like refitting, getting ready for the next thing. And so the guys are sitting in the barracks, bored out of their minds. And yeah, they get into the booze and this is, this is what ends up happening.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's completely that. And it's, you know, I, I've had, uh, times where I've struggled in the past. Um, more so during, during my special forces career, coming back off operations. Um, and you, you can logically, when you're out of it, you can logically look at it and see what happened. It, it was a very kinetic time. Um, we, we're working all hours. You, your body's stressed anyway, because you, you work in night shifts. But then, you know, the job that we were doing, we were going out on day operations and night operations. Plus we had to provide training for the Afghan force that we were, um, that we were training. Um, and it was just a busy kinetic period.

• 35:57Speaker 05

  Um, I didn't get any decompression. I literally told that I was gonna fly back, um, on a, a C seventeen and be back in the UK within 24 hours. And I went from being on the gra, being on the ground, on a, on a job, doing the handover to the next squadron, handing my weapon systems in, jumping on a plane and being back in the UK within 24 hours. And, and, and that's, that's where I struggled. Cause

• 36:21Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 05

  My, my body, brain, nervous system, whatever you want to call it, was just like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, like you're on a train, like, like what is, what is going on? Um, but again, you know, you, you don't realize when you're in it because the education's not there. The awareness wasn't there. We didn't really know what it was. Um, so you kind of just had to live with it.

• 36:46Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  And for, for me, it was, it was drinking, you know, I, I, um,

• 36:52Speaker 05

  albeit not, not a crazy amount. I mean, we all used to drink when we were younger. But it'd be the only thing that made me feel normal again. Um, within a very short period of time, it kind of dissipated within two weeks. But for those two weeks, you know, the, the feeling that I had inside was like this. I don't know. It's like an energy here or like a, you know, a feeling here. And it was, um, it was kind of hard to like settle back into normal life. But the only thing that, that could kind of normalize that was just drinking. So I just drank. Um, and then I just noticed the, the feeling lift and myself start to feel normal. Whatever you want to class as normal. Um, and in two weeks I was, I was just, I felt just like I usually do anyway.

• 37:39Jack Murphy?

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• 39:04Jack Murphy?

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• 39:14Jack Murphy?

  So you're back from deployment. Did you deploy again with the paras? Or like, when did the SAS start to come into your thought process?

• 39:22Speaker 05

  So I deployed again in 2008, back out to Afghanistan.

• 39:28Speaker 05

  It was a quieter deployment. The main battle group was two paras, so the second battalion of the parachute regiment.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  And they kind of took the brunt of the main kind of fighting battalion within that operation. Ourselves, we were based out of CAF, we just provided QRF and we did some other kind of jobs. It was quite an interesting, quite an interesting operation, but again, not as kinetic as the one that we had in 2006. And then it was towards the back end of that 2008 operation when I started thinking about joining the special forces. And you always get, you always get a few members that have been on selection and failed and

• 40:23Speaker 05

  found their way back to the battalion and would always talk about the stories about being on selection and what it's like. And if I'm being honest, I was around 23 years old. I thought I was too young, too inexperienced to go on selection. The average age was like 26, 27. And it was a platoon sergeant that I had at the time called Dan Jarvie, who was this Scottish jock from Dundee, who was hard as woodpecker's lips and yeah, just an excellent man and an amazing soldier.

• 41:03Speaker 05

  He was our platoon sergeant and I was his driver in the back end of that 2008 tour. And he just kept saying, you know, Jay, go on selection. And I just, you know, would say excuses like too young and maybe I'll go and join the brigade recce force and do that for some time. And then, then go on selection. And he just kept saying, just go on selection, go on selection. And so I applied to go on selection when I came back from that deployment. And then, yeah, it was 2009 in summer when I went on special forces selection. So 24 years, 24 years old.

• 41:48Speaker 05

  And yeah, that's six months, so a six month selection period. And yeah, broken into certain phases. So the hills phase would be the navigational testing phase, carrying big packs over,

• 42:06Speaker 05

  you know, retraining in the Welsh mountains. So it'd be over, over the Welsh mountains, big packs navigating through, you know, 20, 30 kilometers of ground per day. And then we go out to the jungles of Brunai and train out there for six weeks where we deploy for, fully tactical for four weeks. And that's considered the pinnacle of special forces selection where if you get the pass or the fail from that,

• 42:35Speaker 05

  to fail post jungle training or jungle phase is pretty, it's an anomaly. Once you pretty much get the tick in the box for the jungle, you're pretty much in, albeit you're not a badge SF operator at that time.

• 42:51Jack Murphy?

  The jungle is where you guys really like focus on the patrolling skills, right? And those like troop leading procedures and that sort of thing?

• 43:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, if you look at areas in the world that are difficult to operate, you've got the Arctic and the jungle is two of the most difficult places to operate as a soldier.

• 43:14Speaker 05

  If we just take the jungle, you know, simply just live in or operating or living, just doing the basics is, is pretty, pretty difficult. You've got 100% humidity and, you know, 30, 40 degree heat on a daily.

• 43:32Speaker 05

  You're wearing full kit, full belt kit with, you know, live ammo scales of, you know, you sell six mags of Bandolier.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  Plus, you know, water, you know, shovels, mess tins, five days rations. Think of the amount of water that you need to drink in a day. You're carrying probably around seven liters of water, that's seven kilograms. Or 16 pounds if you're in the US of water.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  And then all your patrol kit, so all your sleep kit, your sleeping bags, specialist patrol kit. We had a radio, which was just a massive block of wood, which was heavy and didn't actually transceiver or transmit.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  So yeah, I mean, you're, it's pretty, pretty difficult to do anything. I mean, you take navigation through the jungle. All the maps were produced 30 years ago, if that, produced on, you know, on a very basic thought process of what the ground looks like underneath the canopy. So it's a difficult thing to navigate through the jungle. You're kind of navigating on ridge lines only. And, you know, if you think the jungle's flat, think again, it's very, very kind of contoured. So you've got to stick to the ridge lines because it's the only thing that doesn't have a million trees and wildlife and fauna and flora,

• 45:13Speaker 05

  fauna and for whatever the word is on it.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  And then you're navigating on a map that's 30 years old with all that kit. So it's difficult, plus the fact that it's fully tactical from the moment that you go in the jungle to the moment that you leave. So if you want to go for a piss, you go in with a buddy buddy. If you want to go to the toilet, if you want to go and wash or fill your water bottle up, it's buddy buddy. If you're cooking, one of you cooks, the other stands there with his weapon, making sure you don't get attacked.

• 45:44Speaker 05

  And yeah, it's difficult.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  They're looking for if you've got what you've, you know, if you've got

• 45:56Speaker 05

  the skills and the resilience and the mindset and if your face fits within a special forces

• 46:05Speaker 05

  fighting squadron or a team. And you're tested on general soldiering, live firing, kind of receiving missions and carrying them out.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  And yeah, it's tough, but I actually enjoyed the jungle. It was, it was, I felt like it was just a good place to showcase soldiering skills. And I felt like I, I think away from all the noise of, you know what it's like, Jack, in a normal green army unit, there's a lot of noise of wanting to go on the piss, like girls or training or whatever it is, you know, without all that noise. And all you had to worry about every day was you, your buddies, eating, drinking, making sure your weapon's clean,

• 47:07Speaker 05

  making sure your parang was clean, showing up and doing the best that you could do every day. It's like when you simplify it to that, it's take all the noise of modern day life out. It's, I don't know about you, I tend to thrive in that.

• 47:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, this was what you signed up for, really?

• 47:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, completely. To be a professional soldier and to showcase what you can do and show if you're capable of being in the special forces was, yeah, it was fun.

• 47:39Jack Murphy?

  And then what were the additional phases that come after the jungle?

• 47:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, so straight after that, you come back and you get told whether you're pass or fail. And the majority of the people, so we start with around one hundred and fifty applicants at the start of selection. Hills phase might get rid of half, if not seventy percent of those. So on a, on a healthy selection, you want to be going into the jungle with around fifty applicants. Sometimes it could be thirty, just depends on, on what that year's been like. So you come out of the jungle and you've probably got anything from ten to twenty applicants. So huge attrition rates. And then you go into kind of the continuation phases of it.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  So there's a period called surveillance and reconnaissance, which is your kind of traditional surveillance and reconnaissance. So observation posts, so bush hides, subsurface observation posts. I think that lasts for about three weeks. There's probably a week of training and then, or a week and a half of training, then a deployment task. Where you break down into teams and go and put a subsurface or a bush hide in somewhere.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  And actually, at the time, at the back end of the jungle phase,

• 49:08Speaker 05

  literally on the final attack, I'd picked up the heaviest bloke that was on selection. An officer that went to serve in the SBS, an ex rugby player. He was a big old boy with a fat head. And he'd gone down as a, as a role play casualty on the final attack.

• 49:33Speaker 05

  Right next to me, so obviously I dropped everything, you know, not dropped everything, but ran straight towards him, grabbed him and proceeded to throw him onto my back and at which point my back popped. And, you know, having just spent five and a half, six weeks in the jungle carrying a massive Bergen, your back kind of arches like this as opposed to like that. And yeah, my back popped and damaged a disc and meant that, you know, in that stupidity moment of being a twenty-four-year-old, kind of thirsty parachute regiment soldier wanting to be in the special forces, I just disregarded any.

• 50:15Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  The fact I was in severe pain and just cracked on, not wanting to, not wanting to come off and wanted to complete selection with the lads that I was on it and not wanting to come off and go into medical rehab and come back on selection again. So I gritted my teeth and cracked on, which meant that surveillance and reconnaissance with a full-size OP Bergen with all your chicken wire and tools and camera kit, you know, huge two hundred or, no, six hundred lenses, the big bird spotting ones. And all that kit meant that I had a bigger rucksack for surveillance and reconnaissance than I did in the jungle.

• 50:58Speaker 05

  Plus the fact that it was in, in Hereford and it was probably around October time and pissing down with rain. So that trying to insert into a farmer's field to put a bush hide or a subsurface OP with all that kind of kit, you're slipping all over the place and probably causing your back more damage than good. And actually, we'd, we'd spent the whole night trying to get into this position and everyone wants to do a bush hide because obviously with a bush hide, all you do is you go into a big, thick bush. You cut it out and create, create an observation post or an OP in the bush. No one wants to dig a subsurface OP because it takes all night to dig a massive hole and then you live in it for the rest of the, the rest of the week. And the sun came up in the morning.

• 51:44Speaker 05

  We thought we had this amazing bush hide and one of the instructors, we call them directing staff.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  He was, he was a character and he stood over us and he's just like, what the fuck is this? And he looked around and it was like we're all soaking wet. We've all got all this camera kit, equipment out and we're literally just led, led in a load of like nettles and thorns.

• 52:10Speaker 05

  So he, he kind of gave us the, give us the, the day in daylight to dig a subsurface OP. So we dug this probably

• 52:24Speaker 05

  two foot by

• 52:27Speaker 05

  five foot hole in the ground, went down probably a metre, cammed it up and lived in it for the rest of the, for the rest of the week, seven days. And we had two guys observing the, the objective, which was an old farm building. We had one guy on rest or cooking and then one guy on rear entry. And needless to say that for the majority of the time, most of us were asleep.

• 52:58Speaker 05

  It kind of worked in our favour because like it kept the elements off us and it was pretty warm. But yeah, so you do, you do surveillance and reconnaissance and then you do counter-terrorism. So we train in, you know, CQB and global domestic counter-terrorism. That's, I think, four weeks and then

• 53:21Speaker 05

  escape and evasion, so resistance to interrogation, which is what it's called now or SEIA, where you go on the run for a week, you get twenty-four hours of food, so twenty-four hour rations, limited kit and equipment, limited navigational aids. And you have to get from, through a series of checkpoints

• 53:46Speaker 05

  until you reach the final checkpoint, at which point you are taken captive and interrogated for thirty-six hours.

• 53:55Speaker 05

  And I think at that point, you, you know, there's nothing really that they can throw at you that's going to pull you off selection. So you, you're kind of still trying to do the best, best you can, but

• 54:08Speaker 05

  your head's in it and albeit thirty-six hours of interrogation sounds pretty hellish.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  At that point, you're, you're just, you're getting through it and surviving it.

• 54:22Speaker 05

  And, you know, if anyone's done any kind of mock, mock interrogation serials, you've just got to ask for food and ask for warm clothes and ask for new shoes and pray that they don't beat you up and ask for coffee and stuff and the more you ask for, the more you get. So, yeah, so obviously you, you're pretty, pretty tired and knackered by the end of that. And in interrogation, if anyone doesn't know, you're either in a stressed position or being interrogated for that thirty-six hours. So standard two stress positions, everyone probably knows them, is stood leaning against a wall or sat cross-legged with your hands above your, hands on your head.

• 55:04Speaker 05

  So either you're doing that with, you know, some cultural music in the background being played or specific to whatever theatre you're operating in or you're having coffee thrown in your face or being asked where your parents live. So it was good to get that one out of the way and get some sleep. And then the, the final phase is, is parachuting. So just hey-ho parachuting to special forces standard. And at that level, you kind of come back and we'd done our parachuting out in the States. So we went over to California and trained at an airbase called El Centro.

• 55:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, you come back from that and, and pretty much you've got a week in camp just doing regular stuff. And you have a badging day parade, which is at the clock tower. You get your, your sandy colour beret and your blue stable belt. You take the picture and then the next day you turn up at the squadron as a, as a new, new blade.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  And then you kind of realise that selection was, was nothing. And, you know, that for the last six weeks, you thought you were an SAS soldier and you're at the bottom of the food chain and you go and pick up the bacon butties and the, the tea urns in the morning and do all the shit jobs as any new bloke does.

• 56:33Jack Murphy?

  What was it like being the new guy showing up at your squadron? And what were some of the other guys like that you were working with?

• 56:41Speaker 05

  It's interesting because my troop was was at the time a little bit older. So there's some guys in their late 30s. And there was one guy that had come up two years before me and then before that was probably about four or five years. So it was a senior senior team. And if I'm being honest, no one really gives a fuck as in. Um, everyone's just cracking on doing what they need to do. No one stops and. You know, people will be like, oh, you're right, mate, I'm whoever. But I think at the time, and it's probably changed now. There's there's no one really to just take you aside and go, you know, mate, this is the, this is what's going on like, you know, this is.

• 57:27Speaker 05

  You know, you got a room and the the TL at the time, the team leader was. He gave you a little bit of insight, but it was almost like you just turned up on day one and were expected to. To know what weapon system you you fire in how to to zero it and, you know, you just had to ask questions and. And kind of almost try and blend in and just copy what the lads were doing, albeit. I don't like to do that myself now. If there's a new guy, I like to take him under my wing and make sure that he feels welcome and. Introduce him to everyone and make sure that he knows what he's doing because. You know, I turned up, I was 24 years old. It's a pretty daunting place to.

• 58:04Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 58:05Speaker 05

  Turn up to a an SAS Sabre Squadron and then find out all your teammates are in their late 30s. Um, and also pretty like big units as well. Um. So, yeah, I I think it was just that era of, um, that that's how men did it, you know, you just turned up and and cracked on kind of thing. Um.

• 58:29Speaker 05

  So, yeah.

• 58:29Jack Murphy?

  And that that timeframe, I imagine a lot of these guys were pretty salty, like they'd been in Iraq doing raids and all kinds of counterterrorism work.

• 58:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, and and that's probably part of it, right? Is like, you turn up and at the time I'd done, you know, two Afghan tours that were that were pretty heavy. Um, but these lads have been out on, you know, on TF, uh, is it TF Knight or TF Black or whatever it was.

• 58:56Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  You know, they'd all seen some stuff and they're all bonded by that and teammates and all that kind of stuff. So you throw in some young 24 year old. And, um, yeah, they're not interested in you just at that moment. It's like you've you've got to earn your gravy and you've got to earn your. Your place in that team because you're surrounded by a bunch of alphas and they're not going to look at you until you prove why they should look at you.

• 59:21Jack Murphy?

  How did you go about that?

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Um, I mean, the same way you go about anything, right? Like I. I, uh, I like being a soldier and and all you've got to do is is do your best, you know.

• 59:40Speaker 05

  Luckily for me, like the the guy that had been in for two years prior to to me, he was kind of mates with all that side, but he was still trying to like.

• 59:51Speaker 05

  Come to like chat to me and stuff like that. And if I'm being honest, like the first six months, you're kind of on your own. It's like you're you're volunteering for everything. You know, if you get to the end of the brief and. All the lads live in town and you're going, you're going on the range that day, then you just go, right, I'll I'll grab the, I'm in the cookhouse in the morning. So I'll grab all the. All the lunches and and coffee and stuff. Um, and then you offer, you know, do you want a coffee whilst you're driving up? It's like. You just make, you just show that you're a valuable asset to that team in as many ways that you can. Um, and and if you do that, uh, and you don't, you avoid making any fuck ups. And you show them that, you know, you're a valuable asset and that you're capable of being in that that team, then.

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  You know, they all come around to it and, um, slowly but surely they all they all did. And it was actually, it's it's quite funny. I was, um. We deployed out to Norway because I went into mountain troops. So, um. Uh, extra extreme cold weather warfare was was part of our remit. And, um, one of the team members. I won't say any names, but, uh, he was a, he's a big old boy, like covered in tattoos, um. Involved in like football hooliganism and and all that kind of stuff. And I I got teamed up with him in as a as a tent buddy.

• 1:01:14Speaker 05

  Um, but yeah, it's interesting. He he he was, he was, he was sound. He ended up being our our TL and I I became really close with him in the end. But, um, it's like your first, you've your first, um. Trip away with with the lads in in Norway and it's just me and him in a tent at night trying to like. Trying to cook and stuff. And let's just say conversation was limited. I don't think he wanted to speak to me, but, uh. But, um, yeah, all that, as as soon as you kind of blend in with a team and and. They realize that you're you're a good asset, then all that changes. And then you replace them, right? You you become in that.

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  Position that you're now the senior person and, um.

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  And and you get a chance to do it differently. And for me, it was like all the the new lads that ever came up, even to this day, if someone's there, it's like. I think probably because I never had it like that. It's, uh, it's important to take them under your wing regardless of how. Good or shit they are as a soldier. It's, uh, it's imperative because. You know, you don't necessarily get a a soldier that turns up that's incredible, that can tick every box and that's that's amazing at what they do. It's like in the Special Forces, it's it's a diverse unit and every soldier's got a different background, a different upbringing, a different skill set. And that's the beauty of the Special Forces is that we train hard and and we become professional soldiers at what we do from that point on.

• 1:02:47Speaker 05

  But, you know, if someone's a medic, if someone's a an RMP, if someone's a. You know, a vehicle mechanic or whatever, it's like they bring a skill a skill set that's valuable to. To that unit and doesn't necessarily mean that day one, they're this perfect soldier. But there's a chance there that that person could be molded into a, you know, an amazing soldier in the future. And it's your job and. Responsibility to do that as a senior member of that team.

• 1:03:13Jack Murphy?

  And so lucky you, uh, getting to, uh, be assigned to a cold weather team, uh, which I'm sure was a lot of fun. Uh, what was sort of, um, did your troop have like a deployment schedule? Was there something that they were looking to kind of like work up to?

• 1:03:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. So so, uh, the Special Forces itself, um. Rotates on a two year schedule. So as a as a Sabre Squadron, you're generally on, um, either operations, um. You've got a a UK role, um, or you're on, you know, operations around the world. And if you're not on any of those, then in between is just training. Um, and then there's also training whilst you're in in that. But, um. Yeah, I mean, Afghanistan was still the flavor of the month when when I joined. So that was the deployment. Um, whilst I was in, um, and then, you know, it's it's a, it's a very busy life.

• 1:04:13Speaker 05

  Um, it's a, it's a lot of time away from home. Um, it's a lot of time out your bed. Um, it's a lot of time spent training and drilling and, um, different scenarios and different places and. Um, it was, you know, the the best thing I've ever done. Do you know what I mean? I genuinely had a an amazing career and, um. Being someone who joined when I was 24, I left when I was 34, like for those years, like to do that, it's like, I I wouldn't, if I had the choice, I'd. Do it all again in a heartbeat.

• 1:04:49Jack Murphy?

  And and you're still, uh, obviously a young guy, but you're also single, no kids, and I I'm sure that helped.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, 100%. I, you know, I, some people manage to, um, to form a relationship.

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• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  Relationship whilst they're serving, but it's, it's difficult. I always said I wouldn't want kids whilst I'm in because you just don't get to see them grow up. And I know by speaking to some of my, my friends that are still in or looking at getting out now that, you know, they missed out a massive chunk of their, their kids' lives growing up just because they're, they're away on six month deployment. They're away even whilst we're in the UK. It's like we're deployed to different parts of the UK around the world training and different roles. So, um, yeah, definitely being single and, and not married and no kids helps for sure.

• 1:07:51Jack Murphy?

  And so what was it like when you guys got to Afghanistan? I'm guessing this was like 2010 or so?

• 1:07:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, this would have been 2010, 20, 2010, 2012, might've even been 2011, 2013.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  Different, I think by that time, um, you'd definitely seen this phase change of, you know, like in 2006, we didn't see one IED. It was all, uh, I'll shoot guns at you, you shoot guns back at us. And then you definitely seen this, this shift now of advanced technology within IEDs or at least not advanced technology, but advanced tactics in terms of where they placed, placed them, how they funneled you into areas and, you know, you're starting to see these,

• 1:08:48Speaker 05

  um, IEDs that you couldn't pick up with metal detection and, and all that kind of stuff, reduced, um, metal or whatever they were called, I can't remember what they were called.

• 1:08:59Speaker 05

  Which, you know, I mean, it was a pretty dark side of Afghanistan, if I'm being honest, that, that whole IED warfare game. Um, I, I was pretty lucky to, to steer way away from that and never really experienced teammates, um, getting hit by them or, um, but obviously they're all around us at the time. And, um, in fact, um, during one of the deployments on, on, uh, whilst I was in the SAS, we, we literally specifically just went after a whole IED network and, and took it down whilst I was working there, which significantly reduced the amount of IED attacks that were being carried out on our own, Royal Marines that were, were based in the same area at

• 1:09:44Speaker 05

  the same time and probably had a knock on effect for US troops at the same time. So probably one of our prouder moments of, of, of operational deployment that we, that we were a part of. But, um, yeah, we, we, I mean, luckily our operations were mainly carried out in, in, in the darkness of night. Very limited day operations specifically because at nighttime we hold the upper hand. We have NVGs, we've got, um, you know, helicopters and different.

• 1:10:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say mostly helicopter insertions, I guess.

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, helicopters, a lot of walk-ins. So, yeah, I mean, uh, we, we trialed around with some parachute operations as well, which were, which were more kind of to prove, prove the point that we could do it and less, less about the, the actual objective.

• 1:10:35Jack Murphy?

  So like some, like some soft targets to show that this is possible.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, like strike to spike kind of stuff.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  But, uh, I mean, still, I mean, jumping into Afghanistan's a whole completely different from jumping into, uh, the west coast of America.

• 1:10:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I've heard stories, uh, where the American side, special ops guys have, they messed around with it or looked at it, but they're like, our squadron is going to get spread out over this whole valley because there's so much wind.

• 1:11:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. And like you, you've got to take in the, the human element of it as well. And albeit we were proficient in, in, in, in freefall and halo, hayo at that time.

• 1:11:19Speaker 05

  It was never like when we carried out the, the Afghan jumps, we weren't specifically, um, looking into it as, as, as, we weren't as specialist as we should have been for that level of jump. The air troop lads are always going to be, um, skilled enough to do it, but to then expect a full squadron to land, you know, on that, on that drop zone, um, you know, within a, a solid grouping is, is a big ask for, you know, 40, you know, 30 to 40 soldiers. Some of the lads don't even like it. Some of them aren't even good at it. Um, that's, that's just a given. You know, you get, we can't be good at everything. And, and that's kind of what those jumps proved.

• 1:12:04Speaker 05

  But actually at the time, we, we started to put non-air troop guys on, on, on the HAPC course. So we started to get them freefall trained. And myself, I was literally on, on that first course. So as a mountain troop.

• 1:12:22Jack Murphy?

  Interesting.

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  Operate, yeah, I was on the first course, the, the first, uh, halo, hayo course out in the, in the States.

• 1:12:31Speaker 05

  Which, which was great. And now, you know, I think every, every badged operator is, um, is freefall trained. But actually coming back from, uh, being qualified as, as, as halo, um, I'd literally just done the course and then we deployed out on that, on that job. And I got picked to jump in with the, the air troopers as the first stick, um, on the black light DZ to, to mark the, the DZ for the rest of the, the squadron. And, um, there was only six of us that jumped. And, uh, yeah, needless to say that that didn't go all too great. It was a complete red alume, so zero moon state. You struggled to see your hand in front of your face.

• 1:13:18Speaker 05

  And, yeah, we, we, we dropped out and had a bit of a split in the sky for whatever reason. And, um, I'd actually never jumped onto a, a DZ that was being marked by a strobe from, from the drone, from the Reaper.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  And we'd, I mean,

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  we, we kind of felt that there was a way stronger wind that pushed us back, um, that pushed us way beyond the, the drop zone.

• 1:13:52Speaker 05

  And by the time we'd realized that we, we were going up a little bit too fast and we'd gone past the, the strobe that was getting emitted from the, uh, the Reaper, the Predator, I can't remember which one. By the time we, we turned back into wind, we weren't really penetrating. So we ended up landing a K and a half, K and a half away from, from the designated drop zone.

• 1:14:14Speaker 05

  Mark the, the DZ and then brought the rest of the squadron in. But like I said, you know, you, you expect, you know, 30 to 40, you know, hayo qualified operators to, to land on a T in red alume state in, in Afghanistan. It's like you're, you're having a laugh.

• 1:14:35Speaker 05

  And like, especially with the conditions that we, we jumped in, it was tricky for us as, as trained freefall operators to, to land on the, in the right spot. And yeah, people landed, you know, not everyone, the majority of the lads landed within that, that area, but there was some that were all over this, all over the place. So, I mean, again, you know, you, you learn from, from these kind of situations. And I know, uh, that what that meant was obviously everyone getting trained in freefall and then specifically squadrons looked at how we get proficient at being, uh, freefall operators, considering looking at the, uh, looking at the operational theater that, that we're in or that we were going into.

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  You know, if helicopters aren't an option for certain weapon systems, parachuting in is still a very, you know, credible option. So, yeah, that's the kind of direction that it went.

• 1:15:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I was going to ask, so did, was the conclusion that airborne operations like this aren't really feasible in Afghanistan or more that like we need to elevate the level of training that we put the guys through to get more proficient at it?

• 1:15:47Speaker 05

  I think, um, I think airborne operations are totally feasible and just, um, I think the level of training needs to be increased, um, so that you minimize kind of the jump, um, compromise in the actual operation. So for example, for a hostage rescue, um, that's like a perfect method of infill, right? Because for obvious reasons, um. Uh, so yeah, I mean, that, that was the kind of the fallout of, of that piece was that we, we need to be way more skilled.

• 1:16:29Speaker 05

  Um, but again, a, a great one to run out and to test and see how it goes.

• 1:16:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, and another thing I want to ask, were you guys operating mostly around Helmand province at this time?

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, we, we, we actually operated, um, within all of Afghanistan. And so, yeah, so, uh, yeah, the, the whole, the whole of the area, I mean, there wasn't, there's no other UK. I mean, we had the SBS out there at the same time, but yeah, we were pretty much the whole of the, uh, the Afghan, uh, battle, uh, battle area. I mean, Helmand was the, the hotspot, um, but Kandahar as well, um, but yeah, all, all over pretty much.

• 1:17:14Jack Murphy?

  And you mentioned going after a IED network, um, where the other targets, uh, like high value targets getting called up, you know, kind of like around the entire country, it sounds like.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I mean, the, the main battle group or the main, uh, objective was, was HVTs, uh, so high value targets. Um, and then, yeah, you kind of had like a load of smaller, uh, teams that would work with, uh, Afghan National, uh, Special Forces units, smaller teams dotted up over around the AO that, um, would carry out like training, training roles, but also have an operational side to them where you, you're trying to hand over the responsibility to the, to the Afghans. You know, they can at some point take over and start doing detention operations within their, their own battle space.

• 1:18:07Jack Murphy?

  You guys were doing unilateral operations mostly, but you're, you're saying you had other elements that were doing what we call foreign internal defense.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, same thing. So, um, yeah, like an S, S triple T. Um, similar to that. So small team of three would go and embed themselves with a, a local strike team, um, and, and train them, develop them, fund them. Um, obviously the bigger picture would be that at, at some day we would, you know, give Afghanistan back to a, a, a government that would be able to stand up and provide some sort of democracy and, uh, freedom for the Afghan people. And, and these small training teams would stand up and be the, the special forces of the elite units of that,

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  providing protection and, um, all that kind of stuff to the, to the people. It obviously didn't go that way, but that was the objective.

• 1:19:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, you know, what was sort of your perception as, you know, you, you go on these deployments to Afghanistan? Um, of course, you know, yeah, rolling up an IED network is a tangible, uh, win for any unit. Uh, but did you have any thoughts or observations about how like the larger war was going in Afghanistan?

• 1:19:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was always in the back of your head, even like in those early days in 2006. It was almost like, I remember having those conversations with the lads and just going like, what are we actually here for? Like what's, what's the objective? Um, but, but again, look, it, it's hard. So, so a couple of things, it's like, it's hard for us to be able to, it's hard for us to, um, put today's thinking on something that happened 20 years ago. And I, I think this is like a flaw of modern society right now is, is we're trying to, we're trying to almost say, right, 200 years ago, when life was completely different.

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  And, you know, neighbors were probably killing each other over a loaf of bread or something like that. Let's put today's thinking on that. And just because, you know, that person said this or like had that or whatever. It's like, now we should, you know, completely disregard him out of, of human existence. It's like the same thing with, with Afghanistan. It's like we, we can quite easily fall into a trap now when we've got this free, like abundant world of like, you know, you want anything and you get it. And like, you know, we've all got money and we've all got like freedom to be able to have ideas and thoughts, to be able to, to say, right, going into Afghanistan was the wrong thing to do.

• 1:20:50Speaker 05

  That's like, you can retrospectively look at it and say, you know, maybe, you know, maybe we, we should have reconsidered going into Afghanistan. Maybe, you know, what were the real legitimate reasons for going into it? But like, um, I, you know, I don't think that anyone sat in any of those high political war rooms and went, you know, let's go in here for, for shits and giggles. You know what I mean? It was like, there was some serious reasons why we went in there in the first place. And as a soldier on the ground, you know, Afghanistan's a barbaric place. It's not a place where, um, pride flags can be flown or, um,

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  women have the same rights as, as what they do here. It's barbaric. Women still get stoned to death. Um, you know, women can't show any, any, any skin, right? Not even their eyes. And, um, not only that, right? But they can't even see a man that, you know, I remember going around to Af- uh, like Afghan houses. Um, I was doing some rogue stuff whilst I was in, I'd go around to like the houses with the interpreter and like all the women had like be stood at the door staring at you, but they're all covered, like their eyes are covered, everything, gloves on their hands, like nothing can be shown. And like, you know, tell me that that's not oppression. And, uh, not only that, but they can't see another human.

• 1:22:18Speaker 05

  And for that short space of time that we were deployed in Afghanistan, did you start to see universities, schools, Kabul became Western, you know? Women in Kabul went from being fully covered up to wearing, you know, uh, just a hijab or, or just the, the scarf. And, you know, you started to see early signs that Afghanistan was a more peaceful place to live. And if you ask the interpreters or people that live there, when it wasn't ruled by the Taliban, that, that, that's the case. Do you know what I mean? And, um, and, uh, now it, it's gone back to, to rule under the Taliban. It's gone back to, to, to the old school ways that, that was as well.

• 1:23:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I think also it's maybe worth pointing out that no one really expected or thought that we're going to be in Afghanistan for, what did it end up being? Like 22 years? Um, you know, I, I think one of the criticisms actually of the war is that every commander came in and thought we were eight months away from victory. And we did that over and over and over again. Um, especially after, after we killed bin Laden in 2011. I mean, who thought that we would be there for another decade? Uh, that's pretty crazy. You know, like now, again, in retrospect, as we sit here today, looking back on it, it's like, what were we doing?

• 1:23:43Speaker 05

  A hundred percent. If you look at, again, retrospectively, like the amount of money that we spent as two nations and what did we actually achieve within there? Like, if, if anything, we stirred the hornet's nest. But again, like, it, it's, it's just the way of the world and you learn the lessons from, you, you learn the biggest lessons from the, the, your biggest mistakes and, um, and we get now the, the privilege, because we still live in a free world, to, to decide what the next 20 or the next 40, the next 50 looks like.

• 1:24:20Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Uh, when I was, uh, reading through your bio, it mentioned you also got involved in like the clandestine side of the job as your career progressed.

• 1:24:32Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, that, what do you mean by clandestine? Sorry?

• 1:24:36Jack Murphy?

  Uh, I, I think you said, uh, it said that you did like two covert deployments.

• 1:24:42Speaker 05

  That's right. Yeah. Um, yeah, probably three. Um, and then, yeah, they're just obviously countries that you can't talk about that you deployed. But, um, yeah, again, like super interesting stuff, um, to see that, that part of, of, of the job. Um, and it was kind of about the time that, that Afghanistan had, had started coming to an end for us anyway. Um, and yeah, it, it's interesting. I mean, you look at the battle space now and in, in the world and how that shifted. And you've obviously got what's going on in, in Israel, Gaza, Palestine and, um,

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  and Iran, uh, and, and the wider countries, Lebanon and every involved country and, and state. And then you've got, you know, the Ukraine and Russia thing and how that looks. It's, it's an interesting space, uh, right now. And, and I think it brings a lot of, um, uncertainty just because there's, there's bigger powers at bay, there's, um, bigger nations at bay and no one really knows what the outcome's going to be.

• 1:25:50Jack Murphy?

  Uh, was that sort of your job on those deployments? Like confirm or deny, you know, a, a recce of a sorts to go out there and, you know, be the eyes and ears for the British government?

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  A little bit, yeah. A little, little bit of reporting. Um, a lot of it's a little bit of just like this, uh, this kind of military entrepreneurial ship of just go to a different place and, and set something up and just see what, see what's there. Whether, there's always going to be an element of reporting in everything that we do, but it's, it's a little bit of, little bit more of just, right, this is your job, this is the team. Go over there and just see what you can make happen. Like make some connections, build some stuff, find some people to train, um, and report back.

• 1:26:39Jack Murphy?

  And was that something that you enjoyed by comparison to, I imagine this is like a singleton mission, or maybe you go out in twos, but did you enjoy being away from your troop and doing this type of work?

• 1:26:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, don't get me wrong, being, being, being in the squadron's good, you've got a smaller role, not necessarily a smaller role, but you've got a more defined role.

• 1:27:03Speaker 05

  You know, your job that, that evening might be to be a sniper on, on the high ground, if that's your job, your job might be to be a ladder man, your job might be to just be a, in a team, it's, it's pretty, pretty linear and, and, and binary. I think when you go out on those smaller jobs and tasks, it's a little bit more creative, you don't have a specific role, you're working there as a team, trying to figure out what it is that, you know, where can you have an effect, or how can you, how can you make this situation better, or, do you know what I mean, it's, it's a way more interesting

• 1:27:47Speaker 05

  job role than just going to stick in a unit.

• 1:27:50Jack Murphy?

  It's, it's all, it's, it's on your shoulders and you have to come up with creative solutions.

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, some of that can be traditionally very boring, and it's not as exciting as what, what people see it as, and some of it can be, can be fun, and you can do some, you can get yourself into some wacky situations, and do stuff that no one, that no one, no one gets to do in the world, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting.

• 1:28:22Jack Murphy?

  Are, I know you can't mention any like places or dates or anything, but can you mention any of these wacky experiences?

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  I mean, less on an operational standpoint, but you know, you, you and a team are in the middle of like, I don't know, some country where there's a war happening, and living in a safe house, and, you know, you'd be going out and having fun, drinking beers, and, sometimes getting into a little bit of mischief and stuff, and it's like that kind of vibe.

• 1:29:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's like being on the set of Star Wars or something.

• 1:29:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, just, it's, it's good fun, you know, you like, work hard, you, you try and, you try and find things that you can do, or build things, and, you know, there's a, how should I, how should I put this? You know, without, obviously, when you've got the whole squadron, it's very formal, official, and then when you're in these small teams, it's, it's a lot more relaxed, you know, fires in the evening, sundowners, barbecues, like, you know, working with other agencies and working with other nationalities as well, and, yeah, driving around in places that

• 1:29:49Speaker 05

  you shouldn't be, and seeing some things that you shouldn't necessarily see, or being part of, and it's just, yeah, it's a very interesting side of, of the job, for sure. If you get the, if you get that, again, it can be very boring.

• 1:30:04Jack Murphy?

  And was, was that sort of like the tail end of your time at the SAS, or?

• 1:30:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, so kind of the last four years, and then, yeah, and then, I'd, I'd actually, we, we send guys away in the mountain troops to, we send two guys every four years, I think it is, to go and train in, in Germany to be a mountain guide, so I'd, I'd, I'd managed to get myself on that course, so you have to learn German, the, the whole course is, is done in German. And, and yeah, you, you go out to, to Bavaria, and live in the Alps for, for two years.

• 1:30:51Speaker 05

  So, so I'd, I'd done that, and, you know, it was kind of, being in the Alps for that period of time, and, you know, seeing something different that wasn't just soldiering, kind of like shifted my outlook on stuff, and, before I was very much specifically a green soldier, and wanted to stay in the special forces and all that kind of stuff, and progress my career, and having gone and done that, just opened my eyes to a completely different way of life, or a different way of living, and was actually when I come back from that

• 1:31:32Speaker 05

  tour, we, we deployed on, on one of those operations, and I deployed out, I'd actually spent three months in a, in an ops room somewhere, in the middle of summer, and I used to just come out of this ops room, I was, I was a, a team leader in the ops room, and you'd go in about five in the morning and come out at about seven thirty at night, and it was like sunny during the day, and I remember coming out, and I stood out, I stood somewhere, and one of the lads walked past me, and he's just like, Jay, you all right? I was just like staring at the sun, just trying to get some vitamin D, because I'd just been staring at screens for like the last eight hours or something, and then I

• 1:32:13Speaker 05

  deployed out, and the, the lads were just like, I think, I think I knew straight away at that point that my, my career was going to change, and, you know, it probably wasn't long before I had to, to leave the, the special forces and go and do, go and do what I wanted to do.

• 1:32:32Speaker 05

  So, yeah, it was pretty much four years from getting, getting back from that course, and then, there was a few reasons of why I decided to leave, it was mainly because of that, seeing a different way of life, and I think the longer you're in the special forces, it's like, the job can be quite monotonous, it's, you know, you're doing the same thing day in, day out, albeit there's variety, but it becomes very much, it becomes very, can be, can be very samey. And then, you know, I'd always joined, joined to be a soldier, and, and the longer that you stay in, the more you just end up sat behind a desk, which ultimately we all do at some stage, but I think at that time, I felt like I, if I left at the age of thirty

• 1:33:17Speaker 05

  four, then I'd still have a good run of life, or setting something up outside, and, yeah, there, there was a few things, there was a little bit of like structuring of the regiment, and people getting in charge in positions that potentially shouldn't be in those positions, that, there was, there was like a, a few funnels that kind of led me to just, to, to lead me to leave.

• 1:33:43Jack Murphy?

  And when it was that class you took in the Alps, was it like that you fell in love with mountaineering, or was it more like that you fell in love with way of life in, in the Alps, in the civilian, civilian life out there?

• 1:33:58Speaker 05

  Probably both.

• 1:33:59Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  Probably, probably first taste of freedom, Jack.

• 1:34:03Jack Murphy?

  Gotcha, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:05Speaker 05

  You know what I mean, like real freedom, like, I think not driving back to camp on a Sunday night for the tenth weekend in a row, but also, also the beauty and awe of mountaineering and the mountains, and something different, and adventure, and I think I'd always been hardwired for adventure, just the reason that I joined the military, it was, you know, it was, it was something that, that's always kind of been, something that I've always been drawn to, so, to do it in the Alps was amazing.

• 1:34:42Jack Murphy?

  And, I, I mean, it sounds like you were ready and, and made the right decision at the right time in your life, but was that transition out of the military still a challenge for you?

• 1:34:54Speaker 05

  Yes and no, I think, I think I, I, I had a, a plan when I left, and I started working for an outdoor, for a clothing brand that was set up by two SBS, Special Boat Squadron guys.

• 1:35:06Jack Murphy?

  Oh, are you talking about the, what is it, True Dark? Yeah, they're, they're great.

• 1:35:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, sick, yeah, they're, they're based down here, they're doing really well now, but I, I started working with those guys when I got out, when I, when I left, so, don't get me wrong, there was like periods where I'd left, and I was like sat in a flat in London, that's where I lived at the time, and, and you're just like, you're like day five into not really knowing what you're doing.

• 1:35:39Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:40Speaker 05

  I was like sat, sat in the flat, just like, okay, because at the time, True Dark, like the guys had just kicked it off, I mean, when I joined them, they, they just designed three garments, so it wasn't like there was loads of work to do, so you were kind of just like sat there thinking like, all right, what are we going to do today?

• 1:36:05Speaker 05

  But then, I, I think, I don't know about you, Jack, I, I think like, that whole getting out process, isn't just like within the first week, or two weeks, or three weeks, if you leave it, it's a process of years, of like this shedding of like the skin that you built up within the military to you like now becoming like a civilian, and like doing civilian things, and like softening up emotionally, and, and all those kind of things, it's, it's like a, a shift over, you, you, like every year, I noticed different things, I think

• 1:36:46Speaker 05

  when I first came out, I very much thought I was still Jay, the special forces soldier.

• 1:36:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:54Speaker 05

  And I probably did for like two or three years, and it was an ego thing, do you know what I mean, it was like, I'd be like, that fucking guy don't know who I am, in the, in the back of your head, that's what you, you were kind of thinking, and it took me a long time to, you know, to, to like shed that skin, and, and, you know, there's, it was an amazing career, and, you know, it's still such a, a big part of my life now in everything that I do, because you'll never be able to take away those fourteen years of, of military service, but it kind of doesn't define me now, so, so many other things do that.

• 1:37:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I mean, no, that's absolutely true, and, I mean, you spend your, your young adult life in the military, and it's normal to go with what you know, I guess you could say, until you learn a different way of life.

• 1:37:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, completely. And, you know, going back to the, the, the big, you know, two things, like the, the big thing that was, was, um, that drew me to leave, leave was, was freedom. Was having autonomy over your life and your decisions and, and all that kind of stuff. Um, and I can't remember the second thing that I was gonna say, but yeah, freedom.

• 1:38:18Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and so, I mean, that is pretty great that you got a, a job working with, uh, True Dark right out the gate. Um, what, what is kind of like your civilian life and career sort of progressed over the last couple of years? What, what does that look like?

• 1:38:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's been a lot of trial and error. Um, I, uh, I, I, I still like to keep my foot into the, the veteran community and, um, and the military community, like, uh, I think we spoke about before, like I, I work with this brand, uh, Delta Three Oscar, uh, helping them as an ambassador, but also, uh, developing their, their, their military, uh, line of, of, of product. Um, so for example, that, that they produce, uh, they've got this really cool patent that, so that, that their main company, D three O,

• 1:39:15Speaker 05

  um, has this, got this shock resistant or, or shock absorbing, um, product that's flexible. So you whack it with a hammer, it goes all hard. Um, and they're in kind of extreme sports, skiing, uh, motor biking, dirt biking,

• 1:39:31Speaker 05

  all that kind of stuff, mountain biking. And they've now got Delta Three Oscar, which is their military, uh, line of, of products. So they've got a, um, a plate that goes behind a ballistic plate that, if, if your ballistic plate gets hit, it reduces the chance of blunt, blunt force trauma, uh, dissipates the energy of the, the round and reduces the chance of, you know, broken bones and all that kind of stuff. Uh, they've got some pretty cool helmet mounts, um, uh, sorry, helmet, uh, pads that reduce the, the, the chance of, uh, shock and reduce the chances of, of TBIs and, and brain injuries. Um, so like I, I still like to keep my, uh, my foot into, into the military kind of side of things.

• 1:40:12Speaker 05

  I'm a, I work with a veterans organization, um, doing some stuff for those guys. And then my kind of day job is I've got a company that, um, runs premium adventure travel for, uh, mainly high net worth clients. Um, so pretty much anything, it doesn't have to be adventure travel. Um, for example, I just had a, a lady climb Mount Kenya and, um, go on safari in, in Kenya. Um, I'm, I'm flying out to Monaco to talk to someone about climbing Everest, um, next week. So it's, it's quite diverse. Um, and then I do, uh,

• 1:40:53Speaker 05

  so I work for a, a, or I'm, uh, a partner in a company called Who Dares Group, which, uh, provides special forces corporate training, uh, and experiences. So, um, uh, we have a lot of companies come to us, uh, for specific training, uh, to kind of, uh, make their, uh, teams better. Um, or it could just be a, a company that wants to, uh, run like a one or two day, uh, special forces style experience package. Um, so yeah, quite, quite diverse, but still kind of keeps the old, uh, skill set.

• 1:41:33Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You keep your hands in a lot of this stuff.

• 1:41:37Speaker 05

  Of course. I only started shooting guns again, uh, recently when I went out, went back out to the States. Cause, um, al- albeit we have guns in America, in, in the UK, um, we don't have them the same as you guys, um, which is unfortunate. Um, so it was good. When, when I was in Montana, we went down to a range there and got to shoot some ARs and, and, and Glocks.

• 1:41:57Jack Murphy?

  And, and you're still, uh, mountaineering? You're still working as a mountain guide?

• 1:42:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, still, still mountaineering loads. Um, out to the Alps, uh, this year out in September. Um, still doing a lot of that stuff. Still have a lot of projects that I'm working on for myself. Um, like out next year to Denali in Alaska, um, potentially K two in, in, in Pakistan. Um, and then, yeah, just still trying to do things that keep the old, uh, excitement.

• 1:42:32Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 05

  And then

• 1:42:34Jack Murphy?

  Absolutely. And tell people where they can go to find these different services that you offer, whether it's Delta, Delta Three Oscar, or the corporate training, or the, uh, adventure travel. Where can people go to find that stuff?

• 1:42:49Speaker 05

  I mean, Instagram is the, the main platform, like either on my page, J double underscore Morton. Um, Concept Expeditions is on Instagram. Um, you can email us if you're interested in doing anything, um, either one-on-one, um, group trips or experiences, and that's just info at ConceptExpeditions.com. Um, and then yeah, check out Delta Three Oscar, um, obviously their website, their, their social media, all that kind of stuff. Um, and yeah, it'd be, uh, be good to speak to some of the guys that listened and, uh, always keen for a chat.

• 1:43:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that's great. Uh, anything else that you'd like to talk about? Anything that, you know, I didn't ask during this interview that you'd really like to get into?

• 1:43:33Speaker 05

  Not that I can think of, Jack. I mean, I'd love to, um, read your book at some stage. I just see your background there.

• 1:43:38Jack Murphy?

  Oh yeah, the novel. Yeah, that came out in June. Um, yeah, it's a, a fun read, I hope.

• 1:43:46Speaker 05

  Good stuff. Good stuff.

• 1:43:48Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and likewise, uh, if you come through New York, uh, please let us know.

• 1:43:52Speaker 05

  Love to. Cigars and bourbon was the option.

• 1:43:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. We can't, uh, we don't, we don't really have, uh, the thing with guns. We sort of have that same problem here in New York City. Uh, you're not going to do too much shooting around here, but you might have to go upstate. Uh, you have something, Dee? Question, what was it like going, uh, summiting Everest?

• 1:44:16Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, uh, so first summit in two thousand and seventeen and it was, I mean, the journey to it was, we, we tried to climb the mountain before that called Manaslu, which is the eighth highest. It was the first time I'd ever climbed a high altitude mountain. Um, and

• 1:44:41Speaker 05

  I think being like a special forces soldier, you think you can do anything. Um, but altitude like has a different story in that. And you said, so to climb an eight thousand meter peak, you need three, uh, six weeks. Um, and I'd, I'd arranged to go out with this guy called John, um, who was a, an ex SAS soldier who is now older, been successful in business. Um, and last minute, John told me that he couldn't go out for the six weeks, but he could go and do three weeks. So I was like, mate, don't worry about it. It's a mountain. We'll crack it, whatever. And then, so I went off and, and, you know, uh, did whatever for three weeks. And then we met in, in Nepal.

• 1:45:25Speaker 05

  Um, obviously I, this was the first time that I'd ever been exposed to altitude at that, at that height. Um, and we skipped the normal base camp trek, which is 10 days for Manaslu, similar or probably less, about eight to nine days, similar to the Everest one. Um, and if, if you look at altitude, so, um, the body can adjust probably around every 500 meters. Um, and what happens is you go a little, little bit higher, triggers the body to produce more red blood cells. You can carry oxygen around the, the body, uh, more proficiently. Um, so we kind of rushed this mountain, um,

• 1:46:09Speaker 05

  and float, you know, John wanted to helicopter straight into base camp, um, and then we just had to go for the summit push. Um, we got stuck at Camp Two in a huge snowstorm. Uh, and it was probably around a foot of snow outside the tents and we got stuck in these tents with, with these German guys that I funnily enough knew from my time out in Germany. They were military guys from the, the KSK. And, uh, they, they were the only ones with tents because they funnily enough were trying to do like an unsupported expedition. And they were going up at, when everyone was coming off the mountain. Cause our tents were at a, a camp higher up and, uh, we're stuck in these tents with all these, these Germans. And like we, we, you know, we were running out of food and

• 1:46:53Speaker 05

  John looks like, like he's gonna die because he's probably got, you know, altitude sickness and he's, he's knocking on the door of cerebral edema. And then we, obviously the, the snow cleared and we, we cracked, we, we decided to crack onto the summit. And obviously a lot of fresh snow, cold temperatures, uh, slopes around, you know, thirty four to thirty seven degrees. It's like prime avalanche terrain. And, uh, anyway, we ended up just below Camp Four, just narrowly missing a, a huge slab avalanche. Um, which point we turned around, came back down and, um, both survived coming back down. So then when we went out to Everest, Everest seemed like a bit of a breeze. We, we gave ourselves

• 1:47:39Speaker 05

  the amount of time, so eight weeks, we acclimatized properly and, um, actually the, when we got up to Camp Four, which is the final camp, it's called the South. Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships and our sexual health. Every week it's me and Dr. Contessa.

• 1:48:03Speaker 06

  Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing. It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio on the iHeart

• 1:48:48Speaker 06

  Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 1:48:56Speaker 01

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• 1:49:28Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  We think they're murder hornets. 911 Nashville returns.

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:49:39Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:49:43Speaker 03

  Oh, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:49:57Speaker 05

  Coal, it's at 8,000 meters. There was a huge storm, like a windstorm that was whipping through the coal. And there was a load of teams turning around and coming back down. And there was teams that had stayed there 24 hours and they were considering going up that night or turning back around. And we decided to take a punt on it and went for the summit push. And the wind dropped down halfway up. And it was actually a beautiful day, clear, blue sky, perfect conditions. But because of the storm, no one else had gone for the summit push. There was probably, I passed probably four people on the way up. As I got to the summit, we had one Sherpa, two of them had turned around. The idea was John would climb with two, I'd climb with one.

• 1:50:42Speaker 05

  So John was climbing with a Sherpa, a little bit far, a little bit behind me. I was just on my own. And there was no one on the route, literally passed four people on the way up. And when I got to the summit, there was two Korean climbers getting a picture. And I rushed over to them and was like, guys, can you take a picture? Pulled out my squadron flag with the emblem on and they took a picture and got off the summit. And that was the only picture that I had of the squadron flag and it came out blurry. So I was literally stood on the summit of Everest on my own. No Sherpas, like no other climbers. And it was pretty surreal.

• 1:51:25Speaker 05

  I remember thinking, you know, how do you make the most of like being on, being the highest man in the world at this point? And I don't think there is a way. It's like you're just excited to be on there. John came up a little bit after and we got some, some good pictures and got off the mountain. But yeah, it's a pretty special mountain. Obviously it's changed over the years. Went up again in 2019 and you'd started to see the crowds build. I was up on there in 2023, but only up to Camp Three. But again, you see massive swaths of people now going there. I think, you know, everything's becoming more accessible and people want to push themselves

• 1:52:08Speaker 05

  more and get an Instagram picture and more wackier places than Everest is just one of those places.

• 1:52:16Jack Murphy?

  Everest is obviously the highest, but as a mountain guide, adventure travel guide, what are some like lesser known mountain ranges that are just as beautiful that you would recommend to people?

• 1:52:31Speaker 05

  I mean, I'd recommend the Himalayas.

• 1:52:33Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:34Speaker 05

  Everest is obviously super busy, but you can get up to, there's some pretty beautiful, like six and a half thousand meter, 6,500 meter peaks to climb. Nepal's beautiful. Like there's literally, the Himalayas is the biggest mountain range in the world. It's like phenomenal even just to go and see it and experience it. And even if you hike up to 5,000 meters on one of the passes, it's, it's a size and scale that you will never experience anywhere else in the world. Obviously the Alps on my doorstep, amazing, super busy though. You can get some quieter places, but in the summer it's really busy.

• 1:53:16Speaker 05

  Scotland, like epic, epic place. Be prepared for insanely harsh winters where you will see every single season known to man. And you'll be absolutely drenched for the whole duration of whatever it is that you're going to do. Where else? I've not done that much in America. I'd love to, like I'm, I'm going to spend more time in America over the winter. Patagonia is obviously beautiful, insane. Very desolate, very isolated, not that busy. Even just to go there and trek is, is absolutely beautiful. So yeah, there's, there's lots of, lots of amazing places around the world to go and explore.

• 1:54:02Jack Murphy?

  Absolutely. Well, Jay, thank you for taking the time to do this interview and sharing your story with us.

• 1:54:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, appreciate it, Jay. Thanks for, thanks for, thanks for having me on.

• 1:54:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, absolutely. Any final thoughts before we get going today?

• 1:54:19Speaker 05

  Good, appreciate, appreciate you guys.

• 1:54:21Jack Murphy?

  Thank you. And thank you, everyone who joined us and watched the show today and we'll see you again next week.

• 1:54:32Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it, it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 1:55:15Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 1:55:39Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star Trust Pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  We think they're murder hornets. 911 Nashville returns.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:56:21Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:56:25Speaker 03

  Oh, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:56:39Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the Team House, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis.

• 1:57:23Jack Murphy?

  You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. So we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.

• 1:57:39Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it, it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 1:58:22Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 1:58:46Speaker 00

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• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:59:27Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 1:59:28Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 1:59:35Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 1:59:37Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:59:52Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it isn't, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:00:35Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:00:59Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:01:31Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:01:41Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:01:42Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:01:46Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:01:49Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:01:51Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:02:06Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it isn't, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:02:50Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star Trust Pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:03:42Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:03:53Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:03:54Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:03:56Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:03:58Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:04:01Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:04:03Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:04:18Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it isn't, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:05:02Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:05:26Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:06:05Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:06:07Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:06:09Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:06:13Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:06:16Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:06:17Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:06:32Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself and it isn't, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:07:15Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:07:39Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal Dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:08:10Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency?

• 2:08:14Speaker 00

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:08:21Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:08:22Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:08:26Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:08:29Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:08:31Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Brian Philippi joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:08:45Speaker 06

  Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa, and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it, and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:09:28Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together, and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:09:52Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:10:21Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:10:31Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:10:33Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:10:34Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:10:37Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:10:40Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:10:41Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:10:44Speaker 01

  Brian Philippi joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:10:57Speaker 06

  Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa, and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it, and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:11:41Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together, and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:12:34Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency?

• 2:12:37Speaker 00

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:12:41Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:12:44Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:12:47Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:12:50Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:12:52Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:12:54Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:12:57Speaker 01

  Brian Philippi joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:13:09Speaker 06

  Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa, and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it, and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:13:53Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together, and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:14:17Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Covers seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:14:48Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:14:58Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:15:00Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:15:01Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:15:04Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:15:07Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:15:08Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:15:11Speaker 01

  Brian Philippi joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:15:24Speaker 06

  Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa, and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all, get into it. You know, the thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it, and they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:16:08Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together, and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:16:32Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency? Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 2:17:12Speaker 02

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:17:14Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:17:18Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 2:17:21Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 2:17:22Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  Brian Philippi joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:17:39Speaker 06

  Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa, and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, Relationships and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all. Get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it. And they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:18:22Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:18:46Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency?

• 2:19:21Speaker 00

  Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  We think they're murder warnings. 911 Nashville returns.

• 2:19:28Speaker 03

  There's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:19:30Speaker 01

  Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:19:34Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues in the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:19:41Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:19:54Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa and y'all know I always have the latest. So on my new audio series, Love Lately, I'm getting into the conversations we're really having about love, relationships, and our sexual health. Every week, it's me and Dr. Contessa Metcalf, my big sister with a medical degree, breaking down what the culture says versus what the doctor says and helping make sense of it all. Get into it. Another thing me and my friends don't really talk about is like how you're having conversations with people about getting tested. I'll be honest, so many women don't feel comfortable talking about it. And they don't feel comfortable advocating for themselves. But let's go ahead and just put you in a position to where you can kind of empower yourself. And it isn't something, it's not a judgment thing.

• 2:20:37Speaker 06

  It brings that peace of mind that y'all can just do what y'all do and have a good time. Yeah. I say get tested together and that's beautiful. Brings you closer together. Listen to Love Lately with Lauren LaRosa from iHeart's Ruby Studio on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gilead Sciences.

• 2:21:01Speaker 05

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:21:30Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency?

• 2:21:33Speaker 01

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings. 911 Nashville returns.

• 2:21:40Speaker 03

  There's a homicide detective down here.

• 2:21:42Speaker 01

  Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 2:21:46Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues in the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 2:21:53Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 2:22:02Jack Murphy?

  Girl, guess what?

• 2:22:03Speaker 01

  Hey, what's up?

• 2:22:05Jack Murphy?

  I'm looking into prep for HIV prevention.

• 2:22:07Speaker 01

  Prep? I didn't think that was for women.

• 2:22:09Jack Murphy?

  Same. Then I asked my doctor and she said anyone who is sexually active should know about prep. Really? And there are long-acting injectable options. Long-acting? I like the sound of that. Sounds like it's time to talk to your healthcare provider. You can also check out preppistforwomen.com for more information. Sponsored by Gilead.

• 2:22:29Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  Picture the KFC bucket you love. Now picture it on the go, right in your hand, filled with all your KFC favorites. You see it? It's the new KFC Go! Bucket. Choose what you crave for just $3.49. Golden Nuggets, Spicy Wings, or a Crispy Tender, paired with fries or wedges. Now go ahead and picture yourself devouring your Go! Bucket. Man, it's a pretty picture. Try a new way to KFC with Go! Buckets. For just $3.49, it'd be good to go. Prices and participation may vary while supplies last. Taxes, fees, extra.