Afghanistan Veteran to Tom Holland's Bodyguard: My Story | DEEP

we literally walked up into the office we sat down uh he did a background check on me I had some um some legal marks on my on my report of the time he sent an email off we left about 30 minutes later and he got a email in return saying those black marks had now been removed from my record so I was able to transition across borders and things a little bit easier we were literally walking to Starbucks he goes That's good is it and show me and said so yeah clean Rec was like okay [Music] I had quite a a feisty childhood let's call it um a um I come from a loving home but growing up in North London it's very you know Rough and Ready and they always say you get in with the wrong crowds but we'd bounce off each other and just get into little bits of trouble um and I didn't know anybody in the military period especially not the Royal Marines uh but one of my best friends actually got killed when I was 17 and that sort of pushed me into different angles I wanted to become something big something better uh he used to you know um play with fire let's say he was up to all sorts as most people were in our area everyone had side hustles whether it be you know drugs or selling this or that and um you know he he was in a conflict with another group of guys and um a conflict happened and his life was taken I came very close to choosing the dark side and if it wasn't for having a loving mother at home and actually took me away from the situation she took me to Australia just for a few months to show me the world was bigger than my crazy little world to show show me that you know the world was bigger than just London and from that it it really broadened my horizons and by the time I came back she basically promised me to sort of better myself and made me promised to go to university and um I sort of went Kicking and Screaming it wasn't something I ever wanted to do but we made a deal if I got my degree she'd support me joining the realy Marines so I sort of came back from Australia sort of ready for growth I'm not sure what directly drove me to them but I think it was just simply I wanted to be the best and I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and I wanted to show the world what I was made of I think that's a lot to do with it if I'm honest the first 15 weeks are very much like a general not General um but a softer side of training where they're trying to weasel people out and once you go past the 15 weeks that's when you begin the Commando training that's when you really begin specialist training I've probably labeled the first part of training and the guys will call out for that it's not easy it's very difficult it's actually more punishing but it's less about the skill set than it is the mentality so the first 15 weeks they try to weasel out the people who aren't really interested the second 15 weeks you really Bond people together as like a Brotherhood and you think you're with people for eight months suffering day in day out it's 32 weeks so it's no joke yeah and do you think you do your tests are the final thing you do so your first last test you actually do is 30 miles across dartmore but you have a week of tests that run up to that so I had a friend who actually ran 30 mies with a dislocated knee uh guys have got like broken toes just you can you can imagine because you can you have to finish that 30 miles once you do you're an official raw Marine you can rest up a little bit after that but you have to complete all of your tests and all of your physical criteria ready to fight it's not just about getting there what's the point of getting and arriving at a battle zone or a war zone if you're not ready to fight so it's that mentality they store in you and I I think for me by the time I'd finished raw Marine training I was just a different Beast a different human being when you think of the raw Marines you piture like a bunch of what 6' five stey ey wheel wheelers of death tattoos everywhere just really mean angry men over I think it's like over 70% of raw Marines have degrees um there actually it's very much about eut um we joke that we Swagger we don't walk we're very much gentlemanly but there's certainly a criteria we're expected to act act in a certain manner we're not fugg is in any way you're expected to act in a certain Manner and I think that's where the effort and dedication is inspired from as well where it's generally for me to be sat here now it's still the proudest thing I've ever done I joined 42 Commando uh M company I didn't feel any fear before I went that's not trying to be brave or big I was just so excited uh to get out there once you're out there the level of uh responsibility and your dedication to each other was one of the biggest things mainly being no one wants to mess up and cause harm to anyone else I don't think the lads are so worried about them getting hurt or injured as much as they are causing it upon their brothers and that's what keeps you focused and I think every Soldier would tell you that not just for Marines um but the hardest thing for me was saying goodbye to friends and family because that's the difficult thing so for me it was fine but I always feel more for for the families even like the guys that um didn't didn't come back with us the guys that are even injured or anything like that I always feel they had their choice they were injured or they died as a raw Marine Commander that might sound crazy to some but for me that's a fantastic honor and I think for the families Left Behind it's more difficult so it's I always try to be very respectful talking about these sort of things like I very much enjoyed Afghanistan in some ways and had terrible days in other it taught me a lot about myself it taught me a lot about Humanity I saw Heroes men women I saw local Local Heroes people doing things for each other from just out of Duty out of care out of humanity and then I saw the most evil people as well and the things that they would do to women and children and you know all of the the disgusting things that you you can imagine so seeing that spectrum of humanity for me it humbled me beyond belief what's the most interesting thing that people don't seem to think about is you're out there for Real about 7 and a half months and it's not Cowboys and Indians every day it's not shootouts and it's not super exciting um situations you can go weeks with nothing happening where you're just dealing with like political issues dealing with locals and you have to spend time with these local people and they have customs and things that you know go against your very M fibers there's a lot of pedophilia in Afghanistan is that they're very violent you see some of the kids fighting with like bricks and you know it's it's quite a crazy Place some days you would face scoo and shoots where people would go past with uh literally on on scooters and with someone on the back and they take a couple of pot shots dealing with I IEDs all day and it's just that there's just um a constant threat and I think that's where a lot of distress grinds guys down I think sometimes once we were actually contacted and the full firefight actually began a lot of stress was relieved because then you have an enemy to fight you have something to do otherwise you're literally walking around you know the the Taliban don't wear uniforms they look like everybody else you can be walking along next minute you just hear a burst of fire or an explosion or whatever it may be and uh your days just just changed a little bit hi welcome to deep this channel goes a l deeper deep is a brand new YouTube channel that is dedicated to the amazing experiences of incredible individuals we basically try and answer the questions that you always want the answer to but you don't feel like you can ask myself and the team are responsible for a lot of the factual content that you might have seen on YouTube minutes with The Gap agree to disagree among others and we set up this new studio and this new channel to go a level deeper we will be uploading a new video every single week week there'll be a wide range of stor so please hit the Subscribe Bell please let us know in the comments if there's anything you want us to cover any stories that you've been interested in any any questions you wanted to ask we hope you enjoy now back to our story for me it was just a job I think um to to put it another way so can you imagine if uh an army or another Force came to London and all the London Lads they'd be taking part shots and throwing bricks or whatever they were doing and a lot of these young kids were were just that they Prov whatever they may do I don't think you can hate on that um do I respect it do I think they're great absolutely not but do I understand it I try to when you start talking about some of the hardcore Taliban and the people that go into schools and kidnap children and attack women that's a different thing but you understand when you're fighting them there's a difference between the two they're far better Fighters these are hardcore Taliban but again you can't there's no emotion in it before when you briefing you might understand who you're going against and you might be amped up more because you understand the quality or the the quality is probably the wrong term but the the level of individual and and people you're about to go and fight is higher so you have more respect but at the same time these are really the evil that even the local afghanis don't want anywhere near them so it's it's certainly a different thing it's hard for guy I think it's hard to be be emotional because you're so well trained for me I had some amazing moments in like the distant Farmland we'd go on these on huge wrecky and we'd sit there with people who hadn't really seen any Outsiders for you know five years or something like that and they tell you stories about when the Russians were there or about different tribal stories and it's just there are C certain experiences that I took home with me very different from anything else away from the combat like the actual real Afghani people who are there just witnesses to all of this craziness that goes on in their land they basically Liv like us a thousand years ago mud Huts goats and it's it when you're coming back to our civilization you almost kind of feel there's got to be a happy medium between the two if I'm honest with you it's it's strange a lot of guys feel that way I think it's almost peaceful out there at times it's really strange but I actually worry about my friends who have left a lot more I think my friends who are in are with each other they're doing the job that I I know that the guys know and there's always that threat but I think the threat of guys actually taking their own lives these days is far bigger than actually Afghanistan for me when covid struck and it all sort of came to a Hal overnight and all I'd been doing is working and I began to lose friends and actually lost 11 friends in 16 months to suicide and two of them were childhood friends um a good five six seven of them were friends from around the world who I'd worked with it was all from either military or like the security industry I'd been in a lot of the guys had been the um I was quite young to be in my position in the industry I was in so lot the guys were 40s 50s some 60s and the reason I I kept on moving throughout my career in security is a lot of guys are well most of the guys are divorced they don't speak to their children they might have a lot of money but they don't have anything in their life and it it I think it does get quite depressing at times once you've you sort of you can't step out of that life because that's all you have and then when you do have a day off you don't have anything to you know you don't have anything there for yourself and I think when covid came I think the initial lockdown was quite well received and people looked enjoyed the rest I think but I think when it got into like that second year people were dropping like flies if I'm honest with you and I just feel like the you know everyone was forced to sit there and go over all of their issues whatever they may have been and also as well if you know I think I was certainly the same if I'm not busy doing something positive I'll end up getting myself in trouble that's why I I train every morning it doesn't matter how I feel 5 6:00 I'm training I need to myself and take accountability and keep myself positive you know when I was me at my lowest I was drinking beer taking cocaine smoking weed just for breakfast just because it wasn't about getting higher enjoying myself I just wanted to stop my brain working you know I wanted to be asleep and I think that's another huge contributor as well that happens with the guys I think I know some things had already begun and I think Co just made it worse but I feel there was seed sewn long before in many many of the issues it wasn't just because Co had happened but it certainly inflated these issues couldn't ask for help um and yeah if I'm honest with you I wish had time to figure out or to speak with you know some of them were a shock like a complete shock you know I spoke with one two days before having a laugh having a beer on Zoom you'd never know but it was just that overwhelming feel that everything around me was falling apart and I became depressed and suicidal myself and I hit rock bottom like I never thought I would like I saw other people depressed and sad I'd get grumpy Etc but I just broke there was nothing of me I was a puddle of a human being and I wouldn't be sat here now if it wasn't for my RW Marine Brotherhood because my friend Junior called me up heard my voice break he lived 4 and a half hours away within 5 hours he was at my front door and moved in with me for three months and I mean was time and presence you know he was just there that was the biggest wakeup call for me I have since started a company called virtuous Savage where we began just working with military personnel and high level even some of my old celebrity clients during covid were calling me because it's very hard for them to talk to anyone about things like that so I I began coaching and for me the more I've coached the more I've learned about the struggles that people face and the great work that a lot of Charities are doing here in the UK not just with veterans but for mental health and for me it's shocking it's still the biggest killer for males in the UK below 50 um and strangely enough and dementia is the biggest killer for females here in the UK so it's fair to say that we're all struggling quite a bit on one level or another whether it's veteran or or normal and from the strength that I basically got given from Junior and realizing just how much one person can make uh that's what's changed my whole game now and I pretty much coach people and work with veterans and Charities just to try and get them back out of that darkness and then try and take them from that five or way up to a 10 and show them how great they are when they get out of their own way the most I've worked very closely with the world's most famous people with the richest people with true wealth that you can't imagine like billions upon billions of pounds and it is not a direct correlation to your happiness it doesn't mean you have a happy marriage it doesn't mean your kids are going to love you it doesn't mean you're going to be healthy none of these things are correlated whatsoever I think those are the lessons and the things that I've sort of taken with me so far and that I'm just sort of now finding if I'm honest with you I'm just now finding my feet and learning how to apply those skills that I've learned before into what would you call it the regular World reality wherever we are right now yeah I always plan to leave after about five years you have to do a minimum of four years and you have to hand in a Year's notice so um when I handed in that Year's notice I actually had a lot of good relationships with my sergeant major uh who I'd been in Afghanistan with so I was a allowed a bit of time off so I went to South Africa to do the running close protection course which is run by Tim Tim Smith who who was n Nelson Mandela's bodyguard for 20 plus years I think uh Tim's the real deal as you can imagine being a bodyguard in South Africa it's no joke so I studied with him and then by the time I came back I started applying um to jobs before I even left the Marines but it was uh it's certainly interesting the day you leave the Marines you officially drive home and you just sit down and you're a normal person and you're not going back to Camp or you sort of feel like you've been thrown back to the world so to speak it's an interesting [Music] time when I left I worked for a huge American company and they looked after the world's most famous people really Sports personalities actors actresses all of that sort of stuff um so I was very lucky my first job was actually with two of the world's most famous people it's not just about walking around with somebody uh in bodyguarding obviously there's many layers to it but you have to think about the the interest that people uh have in them if you imagine I don't know someone like Kim Kardashian if she was to walk into the middle of Leicester Square and one person takes a picture of Kim Kardashian and posts it in five minutes Lester square is round you have a serious situation and these are things you have to take into consideration like constantly so you go because i' I dealt with that sort of level of personality I started my company and within three weeks we were flying we um we had a number of celebrities but also a lot of business personalities as as well so there's clients I had and and I just couldn't stand them if I'm completely honest with you uh and you'll be with them all day every day I've had situations where it's it's not that they don't like me or I don't like them I think the fact that I don't know some people are quite quite prickly individuals anyway under a lot of stress they have a lot of considerations they might have families they might be in the spotlight it's a lot of issues and the fact that they have to have security is an issue anyway they don't want you there you know a lot of these people you always needed to have that separation you're always friendly but you're not friends I would never speak to my clients it was very much speak when spoken to and that's not because I wasn't interest in the conversation with them but it's when I spoke I needed them to listen to me so if we were always chitchatting and then I needed to get their attention they're not really going to pay attention whereas if they're having uh a meal off or whatever it may be and I walk over mid service they understand that I'm about to tell them something that they need to listen to it was a real change for me um I I come from very humble beginnings and was living in a summer house at the end of my mom's Garden when I left the Marines she was on well so I'd moved home partly for leaving as well and next minute I'm driving around in Rolls-Royce Lamborghinis all of the cars you can imagine 150 million pound houses all the finest restaurants we'd often pay the bills as well we'd have one of us would escort the clients out to the car so they can leave everything's a lot more graceful and we'd pay the bill I think on like my third week I paid one of the lunch bills which was like over £1,000 or something for the two of them at lunch and to me that just blew my mind at the time I think I I I couldn't have been earning too much more than that I'm sure one of our clients had a Rolls-Royce and they had these diamond plated Alloys and if you chipped them which they were easy to do in the London streets it would literally cost you £1,250 to get the alloy fixed so whenever the guys drove it it we left like it took us twice as long to get anywhere I can guarantee it and it's it's little things like that that people don't think of and you have the the volatility the violence the kidnap threats and things like that that you are almost easier to deal with because that's when everyone stops being involved when something that happens that's when you step forward everyone quiets and you can you can take care of business if I'm honest with you the UK we provide some of the best security ourselves a lot of Europeans as well um but the American guys I've worked with because they're used to carrying a gun and they're used to a lot of the guys are big guys like I'm not taking anything from the US they work in a different culture to us but because they have that they can dig their hes in and find and actually in the fire whatever they don't spend as much time in that planning in that preparation and I think for anyone getting into security or anyone looking to sort of improve their security levels I think it's just all in the advances all in the preparation and all in the departure everything in between will will change and go wrong the second you arrive anyway so the films I worked on are fantastic Beast Justice League U mowle uh Men In Black so all of those uh everyone who was acting those films Chris Hemsworth Tessa Thompson Tom Holland uh zidia obviously been with Tom both a lovely couple great people I will do everything in my hand in my power not to limit them on doing anything especially something like a fan interaction um I actually uh looked after Tom I actually met Tom in Beijing and we did the Spider-Man press tour there so it was quite an interesting meet the first time I met him he came out into Beijing airport where there was crazy amounts of fans but he is very friendly with fans so you need to you need to not allow it is a wrong word you need to cons take consideration for that but it's not that fans are just looking to attack them either it's not that fans are coming along and trying to you know um purposely cause issue they're just excited you know if that's your biggest biggest star that's why people of that level are famous because of the fans so you know if you've got hundreds of people there you can't be seen to be throwing them away or pushing them back you want some sort of interaction like a barrier where he can go and say hello take some photos Etc but there's also that limitation where we'd always be the bad guy and you know like most of the people I've L I've looked after and who are dedicated to their fans they want to spend as much time with the fans as possible but I'd normally have someone from the pr team whispering in my ear like it's time to go and uh and off offered chop but yeah I think I think Tom's a great example um the way he treats uh his fans the way he his energy levels and the fact that he's right at the top of his game at such a young age and stayed so humbled and and setting a great example I think you know he was one of the best ones for sure I sat at home I was putting together a close protection job which was about 40y old guys and I could I hated the client um really difficult person to deal with and you know if you gave him a gold bar the gold bar was too heavy and I was tired and anyway I'd spent about three months putting this job to G it was about to start and I'd kind of had enough before it began so out of the blue my friend from the Ron close protection called me and we were on the course together and he said I'm doing this job at the moment I'm burnt out I'm away all the time I need to get home do you know anyone looking for an ops manager I said yes you can come and do my job and told him I was trying to get out of the composition he said well I can't just step out of what I'm doing but maybe you could come and do this do you fancy doing some surveillance it turns out that he was actually um working for a company who were providing services to interpal Interpol is basically it's an international uh think of it as like the international uh police and they all share information together each each country and if there's like um a really dangerous person or um think of aama um Bin Laden for example he would have had uh arrest warrants in every country around around the globe so to speak that is involved with Interpol and that's what they do they collaborate information and have customs and watch and they basically collaborate together so it's basically a giant police group that then Outsource all of their surveillance and required details for them to provide that information back to them for them to go and make the arrests so they basically cut out the middle man and what that does it's kind of the James bondy thing to make it sound sound cool and sexy but it's just creating deniability so if you if you're hired and you know we'd be hired by a company my company would be hired by a company that company would be hired by a company then they're hired by whoever it may be so um the reason I say it's interpo I was interpo associate I never work directly with Interpol the way they work is they will hire a company to to provide surveillance or security and then they will hire a company to provide security surveillance whatever it may be and I have no idea who's paying me so my friend literally had called me up and he said well do you want to come in and and meet this guy tomorrow I literally went in to meet him the following day I actually went into uh there was an office in Canary wolf at the time into a company um and sat down with them and that afternoon I left to Paris and started working with Intero [Music] we literally walked up into the office we sat down uh he did a background check on me I had some um some legal marks on my on my report at the time we called them black marks it was like just getting in trouble for fighting or people would have if you got caught weed or something when you were a kid he sent an email off we left about 30 minutes later and he got a email in return saying those black marks had now been removed from my record so I was able to transition across borders and things a little bit easier we were literally walking to Starbucks he goes That's good isn't it show me and said so yeah clean I was like okay I thought he was joking right I I didn't believe him at the time we walked into Starbucks and then by the time we got to Starbucks he was like so tell I was halfway through talking about myself he'd asked me about something I don't know how many brothers I had or something and he said uh how many security were in that building when we left and he said what were the vehicle registrations and those two vehicles that drove across us and he said without looking what was the girl's name that um that served us and if honest with you the only things i' picked up I picked up one of the cars I knew the security numbers and I I knew the girl's name and they would I was just slightly trying to pick up things cuz I knew he wasn't just taking me for coffee I knew I wasn't just here there was going to be something and I got like half of one of the registrations I got the security numbers and I think I mispronounced the girl's name but it was good enough and that afternoon I left to Paris and started working with Interpol it was insane um but really cool stuff super super intelligent people I done a bit of surveillance here and there like from my clients but very lowlevel stuff watching doorways whereas this was you know the certain gadgets were coming out camera Technologies and things were coming out and I was hooked overnight I nearly ruined my business back in the UK because I didn't want to come back because of it so from there we went to Paris and then I was actually collected in Paris and went on to a job for it's about six weeks around France Monaco uh Lithuania can't talk about some of the tactics and bits and pieces though I'm pretty sure everything I'm going to tell you right now is completely outdated anyway uh as like all of the stuff that we were doing then was amazing but things like scanners and information scanners now they have you know things that look like credit cards that you can scan someone's phone and it basically takes all the information we didn't have anything like that it would have been great it would have saved us a lot of time but I think um surveillance for me was it everyone always thinks it's the James Bond sort of interest in but it's about patience to one good example of this so after I worked with Interpol and we worked with close neck teams we worked and started working um and privately and it's a lot more profitable the main reason being is billionaire divorce settlements are very profitable one way or the other so when billionaires start getting divorced everyone gets surveillance everyone gets anti-s surveillance and you're trying to basically catch out the other person because it can literally save or cost you half of your worth um and I was actually had a few rare days off once and I was in a hotel with a girl I was seeing and received a phone call from my friend and he said uh you fancy going to the moldes and I said when he said this afternoon he said one of our friends is going and he want and he he doesn't want you to be there but we need you to be there something along those lines and he said can you uh can you find yourself a date I was like sure and he he said I'm getting a funny connection I'll call you back that was our code that we used to use to basically unuse old no your uh burner phones uh I went and spoke to him and he basically briefed me that there was a guy going to this remote place in the males with his with his girlfriend they managed to get one of the other many Villas that were there and could I go out there pose as a holiday maker and basically just try and get a picture of this guy in this location with this girl which I told the girl I was seeing which she like to come to the mold EES which she was very happy so basically we ended up flying that night uh went out there ended up just getting drunk getting to know everyone in the hotel which she didn't know why we were there just said you want to go to Lal she thought I was her I said I had business there I needed to go and meet someone yeah so I was a legend to her she thought it was amazing I obviously didn't do much to tell her it wasn't me like why would you so um yeah so obviously she was she was Mega happy and we we left um that afternoon we got there and when I arrived we'd heard that he hadn't left his location yet so basically for two days I was very loud got every staff member to know who I was by name settled in by the time this guy comes part of the furniture they literally arrived one evening um we I was probably a bit more drunk than I should have been at that point I'd got a bit too comfortable um but it worked out well because we actually ended up they have like a it's very intimate setting and each area is private but we basically ended up striking up a conversation with them and before the end of the first night we actually had a photo taken with the guy and the girl with with the girl I was with as well um so after that first night managed to do it and then I was basically stood down so I basically got to send the photos off and go and enjoy another 3 days out there before coming back it is a very small Nick world and it's mainly about trust as well it's not and it's about that cohesion if you're working in these small niit teams you know if we were doing surveillance I just told you a very like exciting story but I haven't told you the story about when I spent two weeks sat in the car peeing in a bottle you know what I mean so there's there's all these layers so that's when you see the films when you see you know obviously you don't want to see a film about a guy peing in a b for two weeks but you need to understand that balance and and the different aspects and it's the same in private security you might feel great walking through the cameras with a staring in the newspaper whatever it may be but then you'll sit outside that restaurant for four hours before that whilst it's raining and everyone's inside having a good time so it's about maintaining that discipline that professionalism and um kind of putting the the job before yourself and I think that's why it's such a small nick uh small Nick group of people that actually work within it I mean I could probably name you 20 people I'd feel comfortable in working on big level stuff with I would say that we all create our own lives right so we all put ourselves in that environment surround ourselves with those people we are all accountable for our own our words our actions our faults even I certainly chose the life I lead and um it isn't about trying to be a matro man it's not about trying to be in control or this fake concept of alpha these days for me it really is about uh it's about service and being a part of something that's bigger than me and it took me a while to figure that out but it's almost trying to tame or control the uncontrollable when you're involved in something where you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow like for me I couldn't go and work in a ninet to-5 and this is no disrespect to anyone my family my friends some my favorite people do this but for me if you said to me for the next 20 years I have to go to work 9 to 5 and work in an office doing some unrelated that I'm not passionate about I wouldn't make the first year I couldn't do that the way I feed my Sal is I need to be on that edge it is almost an addiction to challenge it's about challenging about growth I need to feel like I'm getting better every day it's you know if you look at it on a negative aspect there's a level of insecurity there but if you look at it on a positive aspect it's just about getting better and I feel like I've been very fortunate and I'm very grateful in my life to have been through the things I've been through to learn the lessons I have to be surrounded by the people I have but I've subconsciously been making those decisions as I go along I don't like being the big fish in a small pond I like being the most useless person in the room CU you learn most I've become so comfortable in my humility from the raw Marines where I've learned that you know I was I'd consider myself a good Marine but there was fantastic Marines you know I'd consider myself a good bodyguard but it was fantastic bodyguard so I've said the same in surveillance and that's kind of my addiction it's not so much I want to be a part of these crazy things I just want to see what I can achieve

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Length: 31min 33sec (1893 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2024