Black Rifle Coffee Podcast: Ep 197 Christian Craighead - British SAS

[Music] that's your t-shirt now don't i this is the black rifle coffee podcast this is it this is it the first of many i suppose the first of many yeah so chris uh what is it like being james bond is it is it interesting is it fun is this is this how it's going to be [Laughter] um i i i don't even know where to begin other than it's a fascinating story your life is a fascinating story so i i've been talking to you for a couple years now but there are things that i i've learned in the last few weeks that i think are incredibly interesting and uh first i think it would be uh suitable for everybody if you just tell everyone who you are where you came from uh because we don't have sales so i think you flew you didn't sail across the ocean right you actually flew yeah so give us give us a short bio so my name is christian craighead i'm from newcastle in northeast england so it's on the border with scotland so a lot of people in north america seem to think i'm from scotland you sound like it well i'm it's my accent's called a geordie sum it's jordy yeah geordi's people from newcastle um like say northeast england right live on the borders so okay and then what year did you join the the british military i joined the british army in 1992 at the age of 16. not long before my 17th birthday so what all did you do when you were in the military so you joined at 16 uh in what was we'll get into that what that was like but kind of give us a a summary of your positions in the british army firstly i suppose i should have thought about this before i was going on a podcast so this is completely unprepared come on and yeah and it's going to be simple right i didn't realize i'd have to work for this but um so i joined the british army in 1992 spent almost a year in training because back then we had the junior para so as i joined the parachute regiment it's called the junior pair so it's june because we joined um below the age of 17 and a half or 18. so you have to become a junior div this was actually the last the last platoon if you like when it happened that then they shelved it and then started again in a different format um but this was this was a real experience a real and at the deep end if you like the parachute regiment is is the premier fighting unit within the british army right and um it's hard to do comparisons but we'll i suppose we'll have to do this throughout this yeah this chat it's the the parachute regiment is almost like the ranges especially back then right when before the war on terror so we joined the i joined the junior para at um just before my 17th birthday six months of training in in junior para and then to depo power which what's that it's then the what we would call adult training so it's the the regular training to become a regular soldier right and and from then we went to older shop and then not long into older shop it got dropped on us we're going to cataract which is northern england and and which is where the training is now so we went up to carrick and then passed out of the training in um august 1993 and then joined second battalion the parachute regiment okay so as a as a junior para at almost 17 years old that's six months of training so i'm assuming that's a lot like basic training for the united states army yeah um so but when do you go to jump school so um jump school happens at the back end of training on when you at depot para if you like from adult yeah yeah so then six months of training junior para um we do it go to older shop then carrick and we do something called paid company pay company is pre-parachute selection it's uh a really hard training course that uh not many people pass but what is it intel well it's fast and furious um it's starts well i'm not gonna go through it in in itself it's a it's a fascinating um course and it's it's like it is hard how long how so how long does it take like what are you doing throughout that entire it's not classified or anything no big company no it's just uh it's changed a lot since i did it um but it's a salt like soul starts off with a salt cause there's a log race in it the log race is pretty brutal and then and rook marches yeah it's only paid company itself is only five days which doesn't sound like much but you build up to it um and and then when you pass then you that's gives you permission if you like to go on and do the parachute course and everyone who's an operational parachutist in the british military has to do an arduous course and p company is one of these courses that qualifies you to do it got it and then how long is that the airborne school the british airborne school um i believe it's um it's gone back a few years now for me it was four weeks okay and um sadly because of because of cutbacks because of aircraft availability right young paratroopers now the they pass out of training go to their parachute battalions and then somewhere in their military career return to to jump school to rf verizon to complete their parachute course got it now for me i was fortunate enough um things were different back then so you'd pass out of training as a as a power trooper as a qualified paratrooper got it so when i was 17 years old um i jumped out of an airplane first it was the balloon so we even had the balloon jump then right through the world war two barrage below yeah yeah and it's just an amazing experience i should add i mean it's going to come out but you know the the the sheltered life that i leave that i think it's quite a cool thing that you can that i jumped out of a c130 aircraft before i uh slept with a woman so stand-up virgin soldiers so yeah i you know i i think that i think that's that's appropriate i mean i think the the uh the uh males would just be better off if that's that was the progression right you had to jump out of a c-130 before you actually got you have to earn the [Laughter] [Music] so the balloons i jumped a balloon in korea and it's like a got a big square in the center of the hole the basket you jump out of it so are you guys what are you guys doing is it like a platform or how was it it was the the basket and there's just like a thin metal rail one yeah and you'd and the party jump instructor would open it up and i think it took i think every parachute jump instructor has the same old joke so you'd open this little thin rail right and you go out just let all the air rush in like that's a solid joke it is this is like four guys on there who are probably terrified yeah they're terrified definitely science silence it's quiet yeah it's quiet um there's just the thing cable holding connected to the guy it's an old world war two like barrage balloon yeah yeah and uh he opens it up and you just it's like number one in the door yeah the first guy goes up and and then you hear him jump he likes like go stand by go and you hear the one thousand two thousand three thousand and then it's number two i i can't remember what number i was i think it might have been number one um because that's about right it's a consistent theme in your life number one yeah i uh it was death it's eerie because it's so quiet and you can hear the rubber bands on your shoe like pump pump like as you're hopping out of the back of that thing that's one thing i was like i'll always remember the quietness and then the static line getting is it's like coming out but but i think the the balloon jump and i i know you're going to be able to relate to this as as many other people oh this when i say people are terrified that's not actually true yeah because you're getting in you you're nervous you go for it you get into the uh the the box if you like and it's slowly going up to 800 feet right and in that slow movement update on the feet you're going through lots of different thoughts thinking about different things running through different scenarios and it stops like this is it it's the realization hey i'm gonna have to jump out of this right now again funny old joke opens the opens the gate it's it's it's on and this sense of nervousness is abby is going away right more and more as you move towards that moment right a moment of truth and then you get to the door or to the edge and it's like everything else stops right and then it's go and you're out yeah and you're in the moment the parachute opens and then it's a completely different feeling yeah and for me it was almost satisfaction because not so much because the parachute had opened it's because i'd wanted to do that be a paratrooper right since as long as i can remember since about four or five years old right and that was it i'm a paratrooper and that was the the good moment and then and then you land and then it's progress onto a c130 and which is completely different now because now they use a skyvan yeah and they're lucky if they even get a c130 to jump out of right it's uh sad times um so it's but it's like a lot of things we build up to something and people say oh when you go through the door whatever door that might be whatever if it's an interview whether it's a podcast whether yes it's you build up to it and you're going through these but when it's on it's on yeah that's it's really interesting to explain things controlling adrenaline and controlling uh your your fear which is it's a it's a practice and learned skill i think that it's something that you can continue to to um evolve into i've talked a lot about it i think internally maybe not inside the podcast but there are there are moments in your life where your insides you're freaking the [ __ ] out like they they're the there's so much adrenaline going on inside of you that you you don't exactly know how you're going to control it but somehow like you start talking to yourself you start working through a process and you you start putting it into a box you almost like start pushing it down and like making it smaller and controlling it and you know it's there yeah it's it's always there and it's like it's almost like there's so much energy that if you were to open that thing up it would just consume every aspect of you yeah and it would make you completely non-functional and you know it so you gotta like you gotta like hack away at it to keep it into this little tiny little box where you know it's there but then focusing on what you do keeps it at bay to a certain degree and i think and i hope that that carries on with a lot of people because i think what drives it is is it's necessity you've got you've got to do it sometimes you're it yeah and you know you might be there with your family or you might be doing something with all your friends and you're like the the leader if you're like oh it's you've got to do what you've got to do and everyone else maybe is freaking out like you said you've just got to go because if you don't do it bad things are going to happen so you've got you've got to control it and maybe it's just being stubborn as well if and a lot of people like who who've done what we've done we're trying to prove something to ourselves as well so so even if it wasn't on us to do something we find we feel like because we're little people i'm only five foot ten and uh and it's like you and you carry yourself like you're five seven and i'm like what do you think i just lied to you because yeah i just made that up all my life oh yeah i'm 5 10. no measure me if bad posture you know you know i love the reaction because every time like the last couple weeks we've been cruising around and uh people have heard of your story we'll go into too much detail but and it's so fun throughout the years when people they would always do this to me because they would ask me like well what you what do you do in the military or whatever but god meant you know you whether maybe like a mls or i'd say oh i'm a green beret or i'm a special forces guy and they go huh yeah you sure you sure about that little guy you know i'm like no that's yeah but now you you're you're so um [Music] kind you know you're humble and you're kind and i think a lot of people when they hear your story and they'll go oh that's um that's chris and this is what he did and they'd go that guy was that so that guy did that and i'm like yeah that's what he did it there's this like general perception i think from a lot of civilians that you have to be ten feet tall and bulletproof in order to carry this this certain regimental crust or whatever it might be and it's just not the case there's there's like the guys that you meet in special operations globally there's just very few of those guys uh excluding like i did a rotation with the polish grom and all those guys seemed like they were like viking tall but yeah i mean i remember meeting the um the swedish special forces yeah and they all look like bad guys from die hard yeah they're like all like seven foot tall good looking like well-dressed yeah if i could do it again yeah they if i had to do it again that's what i would join the swedish special forces just mainly because i really like the environmental aspects of the swedish female population but that's so controlling adrenaline controlling fear that's something that you know a little bit about and that started at such a young age you're 16 and a half when you join you're 17 when you become a paratrooper you go on to you know the the infantry basically and so it's a parachute infantry right yeah and what was that like because you're you're not even 18 you can't drink a beer yeah you are living in the barracks you probably can't even have like posters on your wall and you're 17 years old and you're out rock marching and living in the military you're living a military life i mean i think it it i look back at it and it's one of these strange um feelings where i'm i'm really proud of it yeah i'm really like positive about it and it shaped me to become this person who i am but if i had a 16 year old son right i'd i'd feel a bit like oh it weary him doing that right but so it's a bit hypocritical but i think a lot of people who have done junior para and then went on to the parachute regiment will agree with me that it was a good thing and it it makes makes a certain class of soldier who who goes above and beyond normal normal duty most of the time they had a good track record of it and i think there was a lot of protests within the parachute regiment when they when they said oh we're gonna we're gonna um finish junior para right it's like i said it started back up again now but it's completely different format little things like in junior parrot on a saturday morning we do a rug march right every saturday morning building up to eventually be a 10 miler yeah now i'll feel sorry in hindsight you feel bad sorry for the instructors who on a saturday morning had to come in and do that every weekend but it's pretty hardcore after a whole week of fitness as well and yeah and we used to train every day and train hard and it was a it's um yeah it was definitely something something something that shaped a lot of people yeah well there's something to be said about for a lack of a better term indoctrinating uh [Music] late teen males into military culture because of the effectiveness uh you can you can mold them through their their their um their brain development years to be a highly effective uh fighting individual right and they can you can put them into a series of performance-based skills and tasks that allow them to to really rise i think that's why ranger regiment in the united states why that's it's such an effective unit because a lot of those guys are 18 19 years old when they join and they're they're indoctrinated into a very uh combat effective very tightly organized i think they they tend to have probably the best senior enlisted men leaders in the in the military whereas you go to the green berets you're you're an e everybody's in e5 e6 you you're running indigenous host indigenous force but you're not leading americans typically like in a fire team or a squad that comes from that that level of management and leadership that guys continue to develop over the course of decades once they've joined yeah it's it's very hard to replicate that type of experience so how long were you then in the in the pera so i was i was in the the powersheet battalion if you like for three years and then i um after a bit of exposure to a unicorn path in the platoon um what's that pathway platoon is the airborne brigade reconnaissance unit so it's again into comparisons but like force recon okay yeah um i applied for a selection to to go on to pathfinder platoon what's that selection like it's again a fast and furious um selection the first week is supposed to replicate pay company so it's rook marches on a set route but at a fast pace and then it goes into um hills similar to special forces selection so eventually moving on to carrying rocks navigating through uh arduous turin um at four kilometers a full four kilometers an hour um that finishes a live firing package again which is pretty tough and um starting at normal um section level attacks building up to contract drills for working in small teams and extracting yourself in a firefight and then to a final exercise so it's a short uh five or six week course right but there's a lot to it and it's got a again a very not many people pass the course what what's their ratio on on pass fail so on average you'd get about 50 to 60 um on day one with about five or six and passing on on on that's great yeah yeah that's that's that's a highly successful selection it's i mean it's great i love i love hearing data like that because it's like 10 that's awesome but um and and it's it's a good at the time it was um and i think it's gone back to that now it's it's seen as a stepping stone onto onto special forces units right on to on to tier one special forces unit yeah and and um in my time in pathfinders it's i worked with some of the best soldiers on i'd say on the planet right and it was a it's a bit of a love-hate relationship with me because i spent a long time there yeah and i wanted to get out but there was nowhere better to go right so um um i was badly injured whilst it was then so we had a rocky relationship with with the platoon but it was some real good experiences and like i say some of the the best soldiers on the planet were in that platoon and then i met them again later on in life right well so how long were you there um nine years oh wow nine years so you're 92 you join uh 12 years later this is 2004 2005. okay 2005 that was my end of my time in in pathfinders so did you do afghanistan or iraq with the pathfinders i did um iraq with nothingness that was my first time as a team leader within pathfinders as well so it was a good moment okay so so tell me uh your start unpacking your iraq experience the first one [Music] so everyone this is what this is going back to 2003. yeah the invasion of iraq right building up i was a team leader um really good my team was the 3-4 delta and it was uh was a bit of the wild bunch um but some real good soldiers who i would see a lot of whom i'd see later on in life right um and we were just getting ready we weren't sure what what exactly how the how the war was going to pan out we if you can remember back then we weren't even sure if we were going to invade yeah iraq it was all are we aren't we i'm sure that our political masters knew we were always going to right but troops on the ground we we didn't know where were you guys prepping in kuwait yeah okay and then um just prepping we're just doing so it was all going to be vehicle vehicle mounted so we're using two to cut down land rovers to do reconnaissance um patrols yep and um yeah well it was good preparation we were ready all set and then the invasion happened and then we crossed the border um again we were we were held to the rear under crossing the border and then we moved and we set up um basin um in like a disowned factory right with the 16 air assault brigade headquarters and then we were just my patrol was waiting waiting for a mission right some um so how long were you there on the invasion again this is uh a long time ago yeah a long time ago but um a few months yeah a few months yeah we got the mission and it was a great mission it was a reconnaissance a reconnaissance mission so it was good so we'd in my time in pathfinders we we deployed before in um kosovo uh sierra leone but we hadn't really been used as our in our real role which was doing reconnaissance missions right whether it be an observation post or close target reconnaissance right which is as you know sneaking sneaking around the enemy troops gaining intelligence and um this mission came in for for my my patrol and it was a close target reconnaissance of an iraqi armored division right estimated 4 000 armored vehicles so it was it was juicy yeah it was nice and uh yeah and and going back to indoctrination about there's a high chance we were going to meet the enemy yep even though that would be in theory you could say mission failure because it's a reconnaissance but it was like hey chris you know you don't have to accept this mission because the chances of you coming across the enemy is high and you're going to be outgunned outnumbered with no support right and i'm like sounds perfect i mean and every single one of the guys are with me in 3-4 delta were like yes let's do it what we might die brilliantly so um so yeah and um so breaking down uh we we had a sponsor patrol that that which was uh so we'd use another patrol to look after our vehicles right whilst we went on foot and did the reconnaissance and i i broke down the team into uh into um three three of us so we could move quietly right and if we got into any trouble hopefully we could slip away right and um i don't want to give any spoilers away because hopefully yeah in the future people might be able to read about this right is uh is yeah we got we met we met the enemy we came across an iraqi ambush position and that's the first time i uh killed someone as well so how what was the size of the force that you encountered it was uh run by eight men okay there might have been more but right visuals it it's great and uh and then it was just again pure uh three of us on to the enemy force uh and it was just aggression speed speed aggression surprise so you and i pushed them it was well what what happened was it's a bit of luck bit of faith bit of whatever right i'm i'm walking down this track and i shouldn't have been on the track but the going was so bad right we we we were to get caught in the open so i pulled in the three guys and said look we need to get on the track we'll move down the track to some power lines crossing it this will be the demarcation line if you like right once we get hit the power lines we'll go back on to cross graining because otherwise we're never going to make the objective we're going to be stuck in the open is everyone happy with that because i didn't want to do something that was you could people would lookings or that's unprofessional sure and and i wanted to everyone say you understand that and about yeah let's do it so got on the track and then moved it it's at a good pace but maintaining tactical discipline down the track and then uh just as we the power lines were approaching i i had a like a a deus acon with a radio and i stopped to adjust it because it was digging into my shoulders and as i stopped i could hear whispering just about two two or three yards to my to my right over a burn and i could hear it whispering and i was like so i turned to the guys and was like whoa the guy guy behind me froze and is he i was like come in come in was that whispered i think there might be enemy forces enemy forces down there and and whether they heard me whispering where they heard me adjusting someone stood up and looked right look so i immediately raised my weapon and um and and engaged right one shot um got a stoppage nice so and we we we were sure we were going to meet the enemy so we we cleaned our weapons before we even stripped on our magazines and that's how holy [ __ ] how confident we were to get into a fight i don't know if i hit him or not but he dropped right so i then don't know again we talking about before duel this yeah put it all in a box put it all in the box it's on so i ran up to the berm pulled out the uh aj grenadine just threw the grenade down behind the boom right um great detonate there's a bit of a scream and because i had the stoppage that pulled out my pistol right engaging all the guys with weapons all that weapons or amber's position and and and like so have they all browning high power and then engaging all the uh all the um combatants right guy to my right swings up um with these uh with the m249 right the minimay and starts making music with that and so and utilizing all the threats right and uh he's just like and again complete professional putting down and then um the third guy was armed with a sniper rifle and he he uh pulled some hand goodies and threw into depth i was like right let's go let's go once i neutralized um five iraqi soldiers right and then and the guy to my right uh two plus and then so i was like let's go and then working in pet like so those two working has appeared me as an individual bounding back right once we bound back um i then turned one right let's let's [ __ ] go right we ran down and for about two kilometers to like an rv point to get picked up and that's why when people say i don't know why i don't understand why soldiers have to put all the gear on and run as fast as you can because that's why right that's in the british army they have a two miler yeah it's pretty hard it's it's two miles wearing all you all your ships used to be an 18 minute past time i don't know what it is now i don't even know if they do it but that's why you do that test it's hard you like run and you're running for your life but and when we got to the rv going back to do the mindset of people is get to the rv no no none of the iraqis are following us up but we're not happy about that right we're pissed off because we wanna we wanna we won the fight right we want this like oh be awesome if wouldn't be awesome with loads of tanks we're gonna die that's awesome but yeah like um the guy next to me larry he was like oh like hissing is like why the [ __ ] aren't they following us and then the other guy patty say sniper cycle and he's like perfect for him because he would just be done oh yeah but at that stage of the wall i feel the the iraqis were on the verge of surrendering and yeah they were like what's the point right what's up you know what's the point they just lost some guys and they're just thinking we go after them there's some of us gonna die for not we're gonna they probably knew they're gonna surrender soon anyway right so that that's the first the first engagement yeah that you ever participated in yeah uh and then did you guys get in any other gun fights while you were in iraq on that first um we did it it wasn't a gunfight we ended up calling in artillery yeah later on a couple of days later we went back and that and that was again uh just yeah called in an artillery but it wasn't a proper fight if you like right so you come out of iraq did you do a couple rotations no that was i think how did you get injured on there what i got injured in uh 1997. well in a car accident oh he did i was a passenger in the back of the land rover and uh it's um a lorry pulled out a truck pulled out in front of the land rover spun off the road and then it rolled down the embankment and it was a pretty bad the lord a lorry driver truck driver died uh that the driver of our vehicle grim he died i was crushed and i got ejected out the back right and i uh i was badly injured so i had a uh broke my neck in three places my back in seven places dislocated my hip broke a load of ribs i had a tension human neurothorpe normal thorax uh broke my shoulder blade my collarbone fractured my skull and had a subdural hematoma so blood on the on the brain which he had to operate on right so i was in a bad way and um uh yeah and it was in hot it was a coma for self the injuries for about two weeks and then i came out so how how long does it take you to recover from something like that this is the so this is 1997 in the dark ages so back then it was i came out the coma about another week in hospital and i get a phone call so you know make sure you're back at work it's so this is leading up to christmas back at work in january so like three weeks three weeks at home and then back at work and then it was like zero rehab [Music] and then uh but being i was what 23 then 22 23 and you just want to get back into the fight right um and what i always say to to young people who are injured now is make sure you get rehabbed yeah make sure you don't no one's gonna thank you for getting back to work early yeah make sure you're fixed because there's still problems i'm i'm such good i'm fitting well yeah especially for my agent for what i've done yeah and but they're all like posture uh hip problems right or not hit not hit problems but hit mobility yeah it's probably due to that to that accident right but uh yeah i was i was um so five months later um this is not an exaggeration and i sometimes say this this is a true story and it doesn't mean that [Laughter] [Music] this one's true this is true this is true but when i say this is a true story like i'm not i'm not exaggerating any of this and not that i do but i always feel the need to say that but five months later from from time of injury first parachute jump and and it's um 25 000 feet right um halo halo jump onto onto an exercise right the difference between on to exercise and onto a training jump is when you're doing training jumps you just have your rook yeah boxed out but when it's on to like going into an observation pose for two weeks it's like the whole rook's like heavy as hell yeah odd shipped and it was like here we go do you know what i might have even mean i might have even been with a gpmg to have a machine gun free for them as well and i was just thinking to myself well this is this is a good way to start it all off but uh but but again what are you gonna do you're not gonna refuse right you're good to jump yeah yeah even in your mind you're saying no i'm not right like my neck still hurts my back still hurts my hip still hurts but you're still into it but because you're young and stupid you can't yeah i'm good i think that's something with uh going back to one of our other our point of controlling fear and like i know what it feels like and i think you know what it feels like but how do you how do you do it when you because we've we've had these reps and i'll explain the way that i think about it but i want to see how you think about it because when you know things are things are going to be pear-shaped right you know they're and they're they're going in a different direction you know that it's there's people are either going to be shooting at you you're going to be shooting people and it couldn't it's not just that it's you're going to be jumping out of a plane at night or you're going to be jumping out of the back of the helicopter in the middle of you know the the dark water at you know 2 o'clock in the morning what's going through your mind before you make entry before you cross the threshold so to speak i think i think at different different stages there's different thoughts and it's like so there's the initial like far from it far from the the furthest point yeah is is more you think about your real life right and this is really far removed so this is before you've even left the base yeah you're thinking about your family you think about is my apartment clean so if i die right no one's going to think i'm a slob yeah yeah it's like i sanitize the pornography in my foot locker there's a message yeah this hard drive into a missile and fire it at the sun there's that sort of thing and that's and then it comes into um like the first the first phase was you thinking about the task at hand right and that's your problem solving that's you what am i going to do whether you're the commando or is whatever your role is within that your problem solving the next next point is the apprehension apprehension of the and this is where this is probably what we're getting into is is going through you're going through what could happen what might happen and there's always the negative and i think with most people um from a military perspective it's it's not about you know no one really fears about dying i don't think it's it's always about messing up you want to make sure you do right that's the worst thing that could happen like when you skydive no one's thinking about oh what if my parachute doesn't open the thinking about the drills that i've got to do i hope i don't i'm nervous because i don't want to mess this up and yeah be the weak link performance anxiety yeah and then and then the final thing is this is it and for me it's when it all falls away and once like say whether it be a skydive once you leave that ramp or when the red light comes on it's like finishes and there's like you're in the moment and then and then you leave and then it's that rush of now you're in the moment yep same as whether that be military things that you do right you're now in the moment and then it's probably like rapid problem-solving rapid reaction so if you're free-falling if something goes wrong how do i correct it yeah if you're in a gunfight something happens you react you see something you react and it's then it's completely in the moment and i think i hope i don't describe that is it's not tunnel vision it's far from it it's open vision you're super sensitive to sight sound smell everything all these senses off popping away in the moment whether like say free fall or whatever and i think there are stories though you know when people talk about their um first free fall or first moment in combat and things when that comes at a cost where you go you don't remember it you don't eat some things are lost and some people uh might freak out or might have a complete sensory overlord and like freeze yeah and i think that's um that's what happens but for most of people we know him because of because of training because of how the training system is that when certain military people get into those high stress situations then it's very unusual for them to freeze or to completely flap out of control because the building has taken them to that point right whereas if you just pick someone off and drop them into that then it might be completely different yeah i've i've explained that to a lot of people where where i would build into these things even early early in my life where i started doing things that were were uncomfortable or adrenaline-based activities that would force me into a level of uncomfort where i had to control what i was doing so you know climbing before there was a war it was climbing and kayaking like white water kayaking and spending a lot of time in adrenaline-based activities because i wanted to figure out how to focus and then get results under pressure and it's interesting before the wars there were some people that understood that there are some people that didn't understand that what why you would go and do something it wasn't just because it was fun it was because i have to actually teach myself how to do this because i saw it i saw it in um when i went to airborne school which was around the same time you went to airborne school give or take well not really i was five years away from you but you go through these training courses and they're three weeks long and jumping out of a plane at that point really wasn't a big deal because you go through rep after rep after rep after rep and you're you know being wasted up by the tower and dropped and you're just like okay let's [ __ ] get on with it it's kind of like it's kind of like okay enough with the build up it's a lot of foreplay like we got to get it on here right and so by the time you get to that point you're like man i'm so excited to do this i i just got to get it done yeah but you still saw people that were so hesitant and they were so scared and there's like another group of people are like [ __ ] and this is awesome right and we're gonna like jump out of a c5 or a c-130 or something like that and i never i never got nervous after that point like jumping out of a plane i was just like okay whatever like we're you know stand up hook up move move off the back ramp or through the side door or whatever it was it was never there was never fear again in any of those activities it was like more of like we got to go jump and it became more of an inconvenience yeah that's right it's not like built up it's not like oh my god we've got another jump tomorrow yeah guys like like yeah and there's a lot of guys i'm i'm sure for the stat static line 800 feet power streams don't like it and then yeah and it's but it's but yeah you're right it's not build up it's not like oh my god we're gonna do another parachute jump it's just like here we go we're gonna it's the inconvenience of jumping into an operation or an exercise now yeah and it always looked and i looked at it if it was a nice day we were jumping into like a field i'd be like oh that's cool you know i'm light enough like i've always it's like 150 pounds if it was like a hollywood jump and there was no no equipment nothing i'm like uh it's fine i don't i don't hit the hard i don't hit the ground very hard so there's always those other things where you're looking at it you're like oh man i got a lot of weight that thing's gonna suck you know or wherever you're going but there was never another doubt or there was never another thought in my mind like oh i'm terrified yeah there's to walk off the back ramp of this helicopter like never another thought of it never thinking oh what if my parachute doesn't open [Music] 20 miles when i land on the ground that that's what you're thinking about that thing is is just on and i hope now i i i i really hope that that's how it still is today because of the um lack of aircraft availability funding things like that paratroopers don't jump as much as they should do so hopefully there's not that element of it's an extreme thing now because they don't do it so often everyone's like oh we're going to jump so hopefully it's how it used to be where people just don't like it and just gotta get on with it and then yeah well wouldn't that be weird think about that if so you go back to where you're at with the pathfinders and what if you had this dude in the pathfinders that was on the team and did you guys do any static line or was it all free fall every now and again you do is that static line for current season right so imagine the dude in the team room that was like super fired up about doing a static mind jump like come on guys this is awesome that's me can you imagine if there's that dude who's like yeah yeah we get a static line today guys this is awesome man this is going to be great we're going to static line nobody said that like after we're british no one says that about anything yeah that's fair yeah that's yeah you guys are too stoic yeah yeah you're too stoic and but yeah there's nobody like celebrating and high-fiving like firing people up going let's let's jump out of a you know this is like oh yeah cool we gotta go do this and it was more like oh god we're gonna sit on the tarmac we're gonna get jmpi'd like bring a [ __ ] book like oh my god like it's just an inconvenience well actually i'm completely wrong about this um i don't know if it still happens but you used to get a what you call a green light warning order so before every static line parachute jump the motif commander of the lead parachute jump instructor reads this statement right of you've got it you're about to do a military parachute jump and it's it says for one of a bad word if by not jumping you're breaking the law yeah and you'll be co-martialed yeah so it's like so that in itself is a bit of hey you got to jump no if i think it came from world war ii yeah hopefully that still goes on because i think it's a good bit of tradition where yeah really formal yeah on behalf of the queen if you don't jump you're going to go you're going to get kicked out you probably just get caught you know probably get counseling now if you've refused them rather than kicked out or you get a medal yeah what's it called um courageous restraint or something oh yeah you you shining examples you know you did it you didn't even want to do something you didn't want to do and you know what you you you those bullies make you jump out the airplane and you do and you stopped in your example and everyone and yeah isn't that funny though if you think about the most mundane task we were talking about this the other day where the most mundane task that wouldn't elevate your heart rate past 65 would give normal people cardiac arrest like it would it would just it would throw them into cardiac arrest if you just took them out put them into a situation where we're literally just doing a logistics effort it's not it's not even something that we're we're concerned with whatsoever it's just like literally logistics it's we have to be here at this time this is the mode of transportation okay let's go do it yeah and then that would kill most civilians they would be like i can't do this there's like when i say not it they wouldn't psychologically or physically be able to accomplish said task in any way shape or form yeah well maybe or maybe not because if you think about world war ii yeah um it's all about like i said earlier about necessity yeah and it drives the human body to to do things it wouldn't normally do right if you think of world war ii you have people who had normal jobs yeah then we're in global war a little bit of training and then perhaps they're flying over the channel to jump into normandy yeah and you're like and they're doing it and they've like compared to all the years of training we had right it's been compressed into just a few weeks and saying now you're going to be in a glider and now you're going to be in it and they they have to do it they have to do it it'd be interesting i don't personally i don't think most civilians in this day and age could do that if we i don't need a global wall but it but it is interesting that when when people are forced into a certain situation how we can rise to it and and do the extreme i i think you'd have like a good percentage of maybe the listeners of joe rogan's podcast would be good with it but i think there's there's a huge percentage of the realistic or the hateful ones yeah they're the ones who listen and probably give themselves a chinese burn right they're like they'd go a bit angry afterwards and then comment on something i don't know yeah i in in when i when i've looked back on a lot of the things you know iraq iraq's kind of a blur in a lot of different ways because it's like four and a half years of just you know back and forth back and forth but i mean i would be falling asleep in a car like like if things weren't going on i'd be like man i wish i could [ __ ] recline the seat here and take a little nap because there ain't nothing going on and uh most people would be like i i can't psychologically or physically deal with with being in this place whatsoever and it's it's you get used to it you just kind of get used to what's happening and if things aren't i remember baghdad early on when things started really ramping up and the ied threat started you know yeah it took it took a while to get used to it because you're like but you're you're acclimating to the environment but when you think about what we were used to on a on a regular cadence it was there were ieds going off everywhere all day long you'd have black mushroom clouds across these you know in these cities and things would be blowing up all day all day long and then you'd have indirect typically you know a few times a week you have you know rockets and mortar pits going on i it was just and you'd be sleeping you'd be sleeping on your cot like all right and sometimes like for a while before the invasion i remember i tried i was like when when we were worried about scuds you remember that [ __ ] it's surreal isn't it yeah yeah and uh i remember sleeping with my body armor before then and for like two nights or whatever it was and then i and then it dawned on me i was like i i i don't need this because if it lands i'm not gonna really you're not gonna feel it either way so i like put my body armor underneath my cot and like went to sleep and i never never never did it again ever after that and i remembered you know when you were talking about uh attack alarms going off and uh from indirect fire yeah and i remember listening to people saying oh did you hear the alarm go off and this was people outside of my job right and they'd be like i jump on the floor and it was yeah yeah and i was thinking well i don't i don't jump on the floor right because it's just like it's just the inconvenience you know you pull your duvet up that little bit the luxury of being in in like in the in the rear so to speak when you've got duvets and things when there's people doing real soldiering in all bases who haven't got duvets and who are living it but you know um and because again if you hear it go off and jumping on the floors it's done it's done yeah yeah i don't i'm not going i don't advocate that that was just my my drill so if anyone says oh you're doing a bad example because yeah i debated it a lot for a while because i was like am i just lazy err you know i just accept it yeah you know what yeah you know but the chances of it of a rocket landing on me in bed is pretty slim yeah and if it maybe if it if it did it was meant to happen right maybe i i had one land in a shower next to me i had a mortar land in the shower next to me it didn't go off it was just stuck in the floor well it was like there's a there's just a lot i know he's like here there was a guy who was sleeping not that far away from me in a couple of blocks away in a certain place and a motor round landed he he got up in the middle of the night and decided he needed to pee right went to the bathroom and a more round landed by the by the end of his building it would have completely peppered him had he not woke up in the middle of night and went for a pay and that just it's weird how life is isn't it yeah it takes you in certain directions so when you when you leave the pathfinders what do you go and do after that so then i um apply for um special forces selection did you did you get accepted on the first the first that was that was actually the third time so i tried it and yeah 2000 2001 and this was my third and final goal wow and it was i was it was i'd sign so i finished iraq had my had my fight if you like and i'm so glad about and then i met a friend of mine who was in the in the in the ses right and i was chatting to him and i said oh i'm getting out i've said i'm going to go on the circuit i'm going to load the money yeah as everyone was doing at that time right and he was on what you doing man just just put you put your papers in to come and try try and get into the to the regiment right and if you fail then get out right work on the circuit but if you pass there's a whole it's you don't understand what's beyond right and uh and i was off and it was a lot easier about that now you have to do lots of pre-courses and yeah and and things and um so i came back and and said to the the officer commanding i find this i want to sign back on but i'll only sign back on if you let me go on on sas selection right and he's he then said yeah you can do that but if you fail you're not coming back to pathfinders you're going back to the power so everything was everything i'd pull everything all my all cards on the table yeah if i fail i'm going back to a parachute battalion and because i've been in pathfinders for so long it'd probably take a like it wouldn't be a good place for me right so my last year in the army would be would be hell or i'd be in a bad place mentally so then i so for the third time went on selection and passed and uh and then i and then i served until i retired in 20 2020 september 2020. uh how much can you talk about selection i think that's it that's yeah that's all i'm going to go on i don't want to um as you know that i've i've wrote the book yeah one man in right which talks about something i did in 1919 right and i'm working with the ministry of defense as we speak to to do do it properly yeah to release this book so there's no one there's nothing there's no sense of information or anything so that's as far as i'm willing to talk about my my life in in 20 second special air service regiment right but and it's it's interesting because and i'm sure i should add that that the book one man in is just about that one day one day so for anyone now on the edge of their seats it doesn't talk about anything that i did right while serving in in the in the in the unit just talked about one thing one thing i did that we all know i did right well it because the the the sas is is very secretive right and but there are some really high profile guys that are out there that have been you know part of the sas yeah um you know chris ryan is is one i think that comes to comes to mind we're did you read bravo 2-0 did that have some type of impact as to your career progression well bravo 2-0 came out when i was um i'd already i was in two para yeah second battalion the parachute regiment when they came out and i read it over i read it then and it yeah it was it was great it was yeah i cut through that in like one day it was it's a really great and i'm and i know that lots of lots of people have joined the army and then and then the sas because of reading that book and i read chris ryan's the one that got away yeah really good read really good enjoyed it and um have you ever met him yes i have yeah yeah he's a friend of mine is he really yeah yeah yeah is he the same place we sound we sound the same yeah so if we if we get together we have to be wary of because what when two geordies get together right now i'm trying to speak as clear and as slow as possible and then i thank you for that and it and it starts speeding up speeding up and then people would hear us talking and go what are they what are they doing right i don't know but um yeah he's a good guy is he yeah and and what he did was is fairly inspirational again he it's the longest on foot escaping a vision in history i think on for whether in the regiments anyway but and it's the book was really good and did you watch the movie too i didn't i i just wrote i can't believe you didn't watch the movie yeah because it was like i was into the system then and right i don't know which because i think they did the bravo two zero the movie and i think i did one that got away as well i don't know i didn't see that one i just saw probably the only one i know of because it's all clipping is and you've got them running in the in the desert yeah and it's got phil collins playing yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like well they had uh that's a bit weird yeah well he's pretty maybe maybe maybe yeah yes but maybe i mean that to me you're saying if you say hey chris we're going to make a movie and there's going to be the scene where phil collins is playing and you're running in the night that's like a dream i had once i i didn't like it yeah but i would like to see that i would like to see like a one-man cqb montage with phil collins playing in the background collins is great though yeah yeah yeah genesis is like a thing it is i mean if anyone if any uh young people are looking on who genesis it's like a suggested listening easy isn't he sir phil collins he might be yeah i think he is i mean he should be if he should be like well that could be a recommendation and his daughter's his daughter is it lily i think she's rocking on lots of things and i think a lot of people don't know that it's his daughter yeah i didn't know that i didn't she's in love i'm not sure what so if that's all we're going to talk about as far as like your entry into this yeah i do have a few other questions though okay okay and we can edit this out we can edit them so when when you estimate your your your your time in service and i would think like the most impactful because you get some titanium and you're give it titanium arm yeah yeah yeah yeah basically from my elbow to shoulders the titanium rod in there in you don't talk about getting shot in the book no but you have been shot yeah and with what it was with a um from a like a a drop dragon off assassin dragon of sniper rifle and so did that shatter yeah went to the bone through the back of my arm shouted my humerus which is your funny bun right um was it funny then or no but i give them like a dirty look yeah you know like [Music] people are going to cringe now um when i'm in a bad mood or someone says something i don't like or whatever they get what they call the katars right yeah yeah do that with my lips right i'd probably give him a day look at that you just shot me but but what's it like being shot but this is the strange thing now it it hurt badly it hurt you don't say yeah it hurt but it goes through that bone and i get if people say oh when when people get shot they don't feel it i i completely buy into that if it doesn't go through a bone right but once it goes through a bone and shatters it it hurts but it wasn't a feeling of of it was like banging your funny bone and times it by 10 000 right that's what it felt like but he's the he's the messed up bit going back into junior para being indoctrinated and things it was a sense of satisfaction it's like i've just been shot that's pretty cool because yeah that's what we do in the back of my mind playing it's like i've been shot that's cool it's like a take i hope i don't lose my arm yeah i and and my arm was hanging and was hanging by the tricep right but i could having some medical knowledge i could i could wriggle my fingers in my mind again just thinking that's not that bad because i can wriggle my fingers in my mind i was thinking i'm going to keep my arm but it not only went into your arm it went in didn't it go into your side too or was it only your okay yeah yeah but um yeah but that's a strange thing it's like it's like a thing of like i i think most young soldiers maybe you you kind of want to get shot yeah yeah it's like a thing isn't it i've been shocked yeah it's that that the movie it's the movie gunshot where like it's it's always right there right where it goes through the shoulders oh man i got got shot in the it's a it's that thing where you're like oh wouldn't it be sweet if i got shot but it didn't really [ __ ] me up all that bad like like you really do think about that yeah you're like i really want it just for the experience wishful isn't it yeah yeah and even some people when again people might say oh i was in an idea i don't like it you kind of want it to happen you kind of want to be tested yeah if that's what you it's like and and sometimes death is a price that you said you know what i don't mind dying i think there's lots of people who haven't seen combat right who would have said i will sacrifice my life to experience that combat and i think that's part training mindset everything comes to it so you get shot yeah did you put a tourniquet on your arm no i didn't no pressure dressing i wanted to yeah and it was this whole thing about the um you know when you have toner case on each right each pocket on your arm and the reality was i couldn't i couldn't get it yeah and then so from then from from that moment onwards i'd always carry a tourniquet on the on my front and i would urge everyone to do the same um but that was a blessing because i got myself behind cover um made people aware that i'd been hit yeah they didn't put a tourniquet on didn't think about it and then when i got into a vehicle there was a there was a young officer in front of the vehicle saying should i put a tourniquet on and i said um yeah don't bother because if i needed it i would have blown out by now right that was a good move because with the surgeon after looking at my arm said hey if you just because no one put a tourniquet on that saved your arm it would have touched it so it was a blessing that's crazy it's yeah it's strange how things happen yeah so what was what was happening so i'm assuming it was a through and so it went all the way through yeah and then there was probably a significant amount of uh fragmentation so the bullet probably split into pieces the as it broke the bone or was there did it go all the way through it just kept going so it was just fmj yeah right yeah well that's what i mean yeah it was lucky it was the um in uh in headley court in uk the specialist said it's amazing that the three main nerves running running down my arm weren't when compromised yeah which which allowed me to then carry on carry on in service right which is good and how long did it take you to recover from that nine months nine months nine months of rehab wow and it was really uh yeah good really good good group of people who were working on my arm and and got me back in in fighting shape yeah that what's that recovery like how much when you're because they had to replace the bone with a titanium rod right yeah the fact it's some it's some uh like some sort of rod that allows the bone to like grow through i believe okay and it was always like that the bone grows back and and then it's it was just a slow slow slow process of right getting movement yeah and the only risk to it when they when they did the surgery said look you you saw about the woods as long as it doesn't get infected for the the immediate time after the um operation then then you're going to keep your arm which is which is good was that the only time you'd been shot uh yes yeah any um any other experiences with like frag or things like that from grenades or ieds just uh in the close proximity but no nothing that required me to go to hospital right but since we can't cover some of the things that i'd really like to cover maybe that's in the future that's the future i do have a series of questions which is your time in service you used a couple different rifles yeah what was your favorite rifle um you don't have to placate to the american crowd you can say like whatever british pile of [ __ ] i mean sorry yeah i mean um i'm trying to think now with uh what um [Music] because you like those bullpup things right those the brits like no we don't basically get one thing straight no one likes that and anyone who does like it do you know what you know do you know what they do well i don't know even what they call it now it's like the s80 yeah and all these guys and all these officers and these generals are probably going to be like oh my god he's talking about the sae right um it's terrible do you know what it is it's like if if if jazz music was a weapon that's what it is that's what it is because there's this minority they love it and they don't love it no one likes it no one likes jazz music i mean it's just a lie it's the same with this essay there's all these specialists going on it's super accurate it's really good it's that yeah yeah yeah it's yeah i've never understood that i've never understood that everyone knew was terrible and then we just kept on tweaking it it's like the stubbornness of someone going instead of just if you look at the police and and and other units within the within the british system they've changed their weapons systems yeah umpteen times but the british army just keep twicking this piece of [ __ ] and it's still got it now and it's like it's been it's outlived anyone in military service it's it's and it's terrible it's like it's terrible it's so bad it's just like when you you you probably saw a lot of bad commanders do this but they make this really bad decision and it's so bad that if it's a little bit bad they'll say yeah yeah okay we'll just change the plan because it's changing because it's so bad you can't lose face and if you just kind of keep gotta keep plugging away plugging away at it it's terrible isn't it it's terrible yeah yeah it even looks i mean one of the key things was bad too yeah and that's it and that's an important thing yeah i don't care what anyone says if it looks good it's half the bow so if it was a piece of [ __ ] but it looked badass you know yeah we can live with that yeah sometimes sometimes yeah yeah what about the the british pistol what did you guys use browning high powers yeah it was the browning high power and they were sold like like shaky and oh yeah it did the job when i needed it to yeah but we had to like yeah but it was but it's still not a bad like even today like the the browning high power is really not a bad pistol it's better than the beretta springfield armories have done and yeah design of it and so of um ffn and it's just it's just a nice it feels nice it works nice i think the problems with the brownings we had were just so old yeah um so realistically it wasn't it wasn't um accurate right beyond seven yards really no and i remember the first time i fired a six hour p 226 right and i was still in pathfinders at the time and and it was this feeling of joy of thinking wow it's actually the bullets are going well it's like brilliant and it's it was like a good moment and a good weapon but yeah it was a huge upgrade i remember going from because we had the beretta which is just the worst there's so many different things that i hate about the pareto and he's got a lot to answer for yeah he really does he made that 92f like i think that was based on and i could be wrong but it was based on because as a kid i wanted that gun i wanted a black brain 92 f like mel gibbs heck yeah it was just like that was the and i'm sure that that influenced the the us military into um i think what it was was the italians were getting ready to uh uh downsize our base footprint and i think the reagan administration negotiated a contract for the military through beretta if they if they approved through the italian government to not decrease our base footprint i think that was the this this exchange basically that they put out uh i mean brenda makes a great shotgun they're they're like i mean there's a great company and yeah yeah and i know some yeah there's some really nice people that work for them and it's it's good but i hate that pistol yeah i hate it so much there's like so many things that i don't like about that pistol that i can't really go in to all the things that i hate about that because that would just sound really kind of um complaining um yeah because once there's a better option out there the military at times can be really slow to adopt those things whereas once the glock came out yeah and it started replacing the revolvers a lot of the service pistols that were out in law enforcement we naturally wanted to to move over to a glock and it wasn't until much later and the the officers fought at tooth and nail like they're like this is a great pistol and it's like what do you know about [ __ ] shooting a pistol yeah i mean it's terrible it's terrible yeah and i've often wondered what change is difficult for a lot of people yeah and as you start you know looking at the weapons that you guys you've used over the course of your career what what's the best pistol you've been able to shoot so far like in the in the last like 10 years i mean it's there's so many the trouble is now is we've moved on so so much further right and leaps and bounds are there's so many great pistols out there yeah i think um two pistols um spring to mine the first or is the staccato yeah uh you're you're socal yes fires are really nice to fire it's beautiful and um [Music] um user-friendly yeah again for traditionalists good and the other one is the um uh the zev zev hyper comp and people need to understand is zev on glock people think that as they've modified glocks yeah they've have their own weapon systems yeah i've had oj9 right it's like a dream to fire and it was and it was um and credit to zev they they were um they said i said i want to do something with this sort of pistol with their ex pistol anyone would you know what have you have you ever fired a nosey nine i was that i have not right and then they said well what we want to do is do the pepsi challenge come up to our headquarters and and go through a set of pistols and they were you know they didn't have to and they but the credit to them they said if you want to do it with x pistol we'll still do it because it's your gun right but we feel that when you experience firing the hyper com the osa9 you'll see the difference and you know i i saw the difference it's a great pistol yeah and i i would 100 agree i've i've owned a couple of zabs in the last uh several years one they make they made some incredible aftermarket products early on so and they're not sponsoring the podcast so i'm saying i don't get paid yeah i i this is all from from my heart that's it's like yeah i'm working with zev not forza the the staccato to me is and i i have like different methodologies when i look at shooting um i have the things i like to shoot at the range like that are the things i just i love i like i like shooting race guns i really like them and then i have things that i carry for utility yeah right so i think you you fit the tool for the track a lot or that fit the fit the tool for the problem a lot of guys are like no you should only shoot the thing that you carry and i'm like ah dude but shooting's fun yeah i e in you can have more than one so why not yeah so i switched from the glock 43 to the the sig this thing that's why i got it out yeah it's great is that a um 365 xl yeah it's it's actually just the 365. okay so it's in the whole that's how i didn't if everyone's yeah so my other question is do you believe in carrying a pistol without a light without delight i think so to answer your question is if if you can put a light on your gun then you should always have it right and you can right it's like if it's but again through cost availability all those sort of conditions then yeah then it's not if you have to carry a gun without a light on it then it's not the end of the world but if if you can do it then do it because [Music] you could argue i know there's probably data to support this i don't know but if you're going to have to draw your pistol in a self-defense situation it's probably going to be in a lullaby environment car lots at night become it well it's going to be at night so it sort of stands to reason that you should have a light on you on your carry carry gun yeah i think so too so when i see guys carrying their their everyday carry and i see they they don't have a light it doesn't make a lot of sense to me a lot of guys carry the light separate i've seen that before too where they're like well i want the separate light i'm like uh maybe i'm probably just a little bit too lazy for that because i just want the light there so i don't forget it and i also don't want to have two separate items moving around and life always throws these things out it says that the one time that you haven't got that light on you is the one time it all happens in a pitch-black environment or a dark environment you think oh every day i carry that light yeah and it's murphy's law yeah and now i haven't got one but yeah yeah so i i carry so i switched over completely to the sig now i have i still have glock 43s i still enjoy kind of i'm in the process of just phasing them all out but what i like to shoot when i'm at the range is the staccato series where you know i've got i've got a few of them if i'm selecting the reason that i have lights on everything too is because it also gives me some front end weight for managed recoil so i'll use that that that this staccato um i think it's the p but i've got the comp on that with a flashlight you shot that thing and that's like probably the finest shooting pistol i've ever i've ever shot it's just so smooth isn't it yeah and it just fight it comes out yeah you know you yeah what they've done with that gun is they they've made it nice it's nice to fire that's what yeah people who never fired a gun before we saw it on the range and they grab it and then you they take hold of that and then they and then they fire it and they think it's really nice it's not like a brutal experience where it's not pleasant and and to some people firing a handgun or any gun is is again it's it's in at the deep end yeah it's just like this blast going off in your hand you're in complete control of something that can kill someone and and it can intimidate people but that staccato was just so nice and just flows flows out and that's the same thing is we have to get you one is the uh the hyper comb it's the same thing it's just it's just like again super smooth and i think that's what's important to people especially people who maybe don't want to own a gun but feel that because of the times that we're in have to own a gun or should own a gun right because because they feel threatened and it's and that's the dangerous area of where people are buying guns who don't train with them don't don't really want to own one and then if they go to a range and it's going to arrange could be like going to a gym where there's a lot of intimidating personalities there who've got always got lots of advice some of it not good some of it not safe so it's uh i think uh having the right firearm and enjoying the experiences is is really important yeah and which is leading me into my next my next portion of this conversation which is i've had this conversation with a lot of british guys in the past where the lack of access to firearms when you guys specifically are training um do you agree do you agree with that or do you not agree with it as far as you you're you're serving in probably the highest capacity uh but you had limited access yeah do you agree with that i think i think the the firearms and the so within the military they should be more more available right and again that's a lot of things to do with uh cost but more so with like you said no one likes change right and i think british soldiers should be spending a lot more time on the range than than they do um because it's again it's this people don't think about things you you say to a british soldier or any soldier hey you're you're training to kill someone that doesn't really come up much you go to the range to pass tests right you go to the range to shoot targets right they don't say you're going to arrange to train to kill someone right and i think that makes you think about it a bit more i think i need to be able to do this and i do think that um it doesn't matter what unit that but brace soldiers the british military should spend more time on the range because what happens is when it's not when it's not about shooting someone and high-fiving each other saying good job it's when they miss it's when someone shoots someone they're not someone or something they're not supposed to shoot that's when it all comes back and then people say well maybe we should have spent more time on the range maybe we should have done things a bit differently it's always the failure the failures that make us address the problem and i think um yeah i just think uh it within the military they should spend more time on the range um but in regards to accessibility to firearms in uk i think it's just a big um an issue and it's the same as giving access to fire making firearms more accessible to people in the uk it's like taking away from them in the us yeah it's the two countries run on different track lines and it's it's it wouldn't be a workable solution so it's just keep it as it is but within the police and military just increase the uh access access yeah i i i was wondering about this because spending some time on the on the range with both australian and the british sas guys um there's a noticeable difference most of the time as to the way that we shoot and because we have access to guns anytime we want them for the most part in the states and we shoot a lot uh we shoot comps we shoot three gun we shoot all kinds of different competition and and i love my my brother's from the australian ses guys so if you're listening to this please don't hold me uh hold me accountable for it but man they they were capable but they definitely weren't at the same level yeah and did you guys notice that in from the from the british sas perspective could you guys shoot instantly at the same level as like your counterparts from america or did you think that they're a bit ahead again i'm going into areas i want to talk about no okay that's good um do you think that america's i'll frame it up a different way do you think that um american service members having more access to firearms makes them uh better uh shooters in general as far as the international shooting capabilities special operations yes yeah and i think it's a natural thing if if you've been brought up doing something right you're going to be better at it um yeah it's a good it goes without because yeah it's very obvious well and i which which is my it's a follow-on question which is do you think societies that limit firearms or access to firearms also start to deteriorate their warrior culture yes yeah and and this is the the the thing he said that warrior culture because that we go if we use the term circle back that's not what everyone says circle back yeah we'll circle back to the start of this about junior para that was the warrior culture and that was getting the mindset and i think now that's what i'm that's what i'm always fearful of now is how we joining the army isn't about young men wanting to jump out of airplanes and kill people it's about young men getting a job right and getting oh yeah it's gonna we're gonna go into this environment you're gonna get job opportunities and further your education and then which leads to success later in life it's not this pure instinct of why do you want to join the army because i want to go to war right because i want to do the business i want to i want to kill the queen's enemies right it's the losing sight of that original picture which in turn it in turn deteriorates this sort of mindset of of of combat soldiers because they're just in it to get a job they're just in it for a a career rather than to an adventure and when we think i think as as uh you know the allied nations we look at these things i think we think about them very similarly because we spent a lot of time in the same place afghanistan iraq across the middle east and southeast asia where you know defending the nation from terrorists or any country alike that that's a very honorable profession that we should be promoting from within our society i think we should be emphasizing and investing in in the warrior culture for the for quite literally the safety of our future yeah it's i think it's i think it's it's a it's a propaganda campaign that's ultimately manipulated by our enemies to put out anything otherwise yeah like if people think the russians or the chinese are our friends and they're always going to be our friends they live in a in a [ __ ] dream world yeah so when when i hear these things where we don't have to train [Music] men to kill yeah you're living in a [ __ ] fantasy world because they're doing it yeah if it's important to our enemy it's important to us yes and that's what we should be looking at and we have to be better than they are yeah so i look at these and it typically comes from one section of our united states it comes from our a portion of our representatives i heard something about it today where you know people were defending um the chinese because of the the olympics they're defending some of the actions i'm like are you guys on the payroll i i was just the only thing i could think of is are you guys on the chinese payroll because you're defending a foreign country that has literally zero investment in our success they're quite possibly actively no they are they're actively pursuing control or control measures against us every day internationally and you're you're a representative you're you're an elected official on the payroll the united states taxpayer and you're defending somebody else and it like i can't help but think this is a is it large-scale information more and at times i think that we're not waking up to [Music] i guess how manipulative and how significant our enemies are yeah in controlling information that's a more of a statement than it is a question but do you see parallels and information as far as like deterioration of the the warrior class and more derogatory information towards them do you see that in in britain the same as you see here i i suppose i don't see it from the from the political establishment i don't see like we don't see that as as much or at all as we do in the united states but there is that it is the whole media the whole it's just everything and maybe maybe they're being really clever about it it's just it seems to be coming in from every angle whether it be social media whether it be mainstream media whether it be schooling education young people getting hit bombarded by from every direction to to become [Music] dare i say better pray yeah to be easier right to be softer targets uh than than whoever we may fight uh fight against it and it's just chipping away at this at this block to make it softer and softer and softer [Music] does that make sense i don't know it makes i it makes perfect sense i i i think about it from the context of we should be constantly pursuing the the elegance of being tough yeah because there's a way that you can you can be an example you can be tough yeah and you can lead and you can be you know you you can dedicate your life to the art of war and you don't have to be an [ __ ] that's right and it's this whole thing of we we we people feel comfortable with whatever nation you're in with that with our soldiers being able to defend themselves but on the same the same people feel uncomfortable when they say oh the military are doing this in training oh that's out of order they should oh yeah yeah but they still but they they want their cake and they want the cake and eat it sort of thing they want to um they want it they want everything they they want everything to be done within their their sort of moral moral code but also have a an effective military fighting force and the two don't marry up most of the time so it should be a case of the military have to do their thing and and you know what you don't need to know what's going on because they're doing their thing because strangely if if the military fail then the civilian population are going to be up and i'm saying why did they fail that's not acceptable well they failed because you've restricted their budget you restricted their training capabilities because of health and safety and human rights or whatever you want to throw in there to just make things but the other problem as well is maybe we've gone too far maybe the war's over because now the people there i say who might be in charge and calling the shots now have been molded and manipulated by the system right so now even if he said to the to whatever army do what you want in training we don't care you're allowed to if someone dies sure they die it's fine then they'd be going oh we don't want to do that that might upset x y or z or whatever it's right so now it's now it's like how do we how do we change it maybe we can [Music] i hope i hope that we can i think uh because i oh so just going way off track have you can you ever remember can you can you uh did you see demolition man yeah of course have you seen it recently no well what what what people need to do this is recommended viewing right is go back and watch it and watch it and it's it's really sort of scary that whoever whoever wrote it and did it it's like it's looking to the future right there's this society like if you say something bad you get a warning or penalty everyone's gotta dress the same everyone's gotta talk the same they go to the same place to eat they everything but and then bad dude bad's like bad dude comes where's my snipes he's like terrorists from old films and starts wrecking havoc and that's it so they have to defrost sylvester stallone so they have to bring someone back from the past because he's the only person who's yeah that's great yeah yeah but he's the creator he's the kicker wesley snipes simon phoenix is the is the is the character yeah he isn't the true enemy the true enemy of the liberal leaders who bring simon phoenix back from defrost to then fight these inconvenient protesters who live underground isn't that weird it is weird it's um i mean it's so many levels it's a great movie and it's wesley types has been able to wesley snipes has been able to teach us so much he's yeah as an actor yeah i mean that look again it's it's been a while since i've seen it i think he's got an orange t-shirt do you have a photographic memory dungarees yeah do you have a photographic memory a particular fashion and that's like a good look maybe it's something i should uh bring back because your recall on stuff is crazy you've referenced things in the last couple weeks or i'm like how in the [ __ ] do you remember that so although all the facts and figures at the start of this podcast but i can remember what simon phoenix's dress code is that's really why you know um you know maybe why yeah there's lots of useless information in here but the important stuff isn't around so so what's what's next what's next for you what are you doing next oh it's a good question yeah um i had i had some plans and and and um things and covered like with many other people yeah sort of kicked it into touch but um so now i'm out i retired in september 2020 and i've uh written a book called one man in which is um as we speak with the ministry of defence and hopefully it'll get cleared and if it doesn't it doesn't right i i wanna like from the very get-go i wanted to do this properly and i said to the uh to my commanders can i do this and they said yes just work with disclosure and that's what i'm doing so if it never comes out it never comes out right um but if it hopefully by the time this goes away it might have been it might have been cleared so from my from my mouth to god's ear that's happened but um so there's that and then maybe um maybe start working for this company called um black rifle coffee have you heard of it i've heard of it yeah andy stump's the ceo i've heard of that yeah yeah um and then uh so there's that there's also um do some work with zev so we're releasing the zev craig head this year yeah which is a collector's piece and then and we're going to do more z product where we we talk about like what would i carry and why and and how it looks and and through my experience if you know what both both both pistol outside the waistband inside the waistband and ar platforms right you know what you know what i'd carry away and then um and then i'm getting into the hunting hunting piece which is which is brilliant with the field ethos guys they've been they've looked after me really well and met some great people um you know i was i was honored to to go to the the fci show and the dinner there and so uh uh little brit uh longoria oh yeah with that diana award what a what a what a great lady what a what a and she takes a lot of funnier things she takes a lot of heat because she's what because she's a woman mm-hmm because she's good-looking and she and she's and then so that's an easy target that's she gets so much hate but you know what she just does a thing and and she highlights the you know what hunting is really about and it's and to me i i really picked up on what she was saying and and and i'm glad now she's a she's a friend of mine so yeah it we had this really interesting interaction at shot show because we were there and we were there with field ethos guys um you know jason and alan and you know my buddy baker and everybody's there and we went up to uh a suite at the trump because we were we're all staying there and so it's like my buddy jason everman who's uh basis for nirvana and soundgarden i'm kicking myself out and he's wearing like a carhartt jacket and like a ponytail and it's like don junior and hell yeah like sweat sweatshirt yeah yeah that's right i'm staying across ages and going who is that where do i know that guy from yeah i don't know that i didn't say anything why do i because you don't want to go up to people and say where do i know you from because most people in that room were with somebody yeah and and you don't want to hassle them going oh well i think i know and it's only the next day when when someone mentions soundgarden i should have went up and said something i now remember who he is and so yeah it was so and it was a lot of fun i mean we've we've had a lot of fun the cool thing is you're going to be here so you know we're we're going to be working together for well for the foreseeable future meet you over this day we're going to do some good stuff yeah so this is the first of many podcasts yeah and i can't thank you enough it's been great and uh we can't wait for the next one yeah well thanks for having me on here and let's look forward to doing some some cool stuff awesome [Music] that concludes today's training any questions

Channel: Black Rifle Coffee Podcast

Views: 866,333

Keywords: brcc, black rifle coffee, americas coffee, americas podcast, podcast, black rifle, freerange podcast, free range american, black rifle coffee podcast, evan hafer, black rifle coffee company, drinkin bros podcast, black rifle coffee review, sas, kenya terrorist, green beret, evan hafer interview, logan stark, podcast now, green beret podcast

Id: rd6NlaJrsOI

Length: 97min 46sec (5866 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 07 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Johanne_DeBois]

Whatever happened to discretion and keeping your mouth shut.Giving all info on the internet.Shameful. It started with Andy Mcnab(Billy Mitchell)Plenty of bloaters about.