Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 20: British Bulldogs

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

John and Jake, two combat veteran infantry officers from The Green Howards (Yorkshire Regiment) talk about their experiences in Sierra Leon, Northern Ireland, and Afghanistan. We also get their take on modern politics and ukraine

Oh, Drextelfander, storms moving in, and judgment day is calling, My soul has been healed by the sign of the ever falling Yes, he will fall, I will strike him down the mall, and you will know my calling Brave recalls my name in the sound of the wind in the night. My sword will drink blood and I will fight. Yes, I will fight in the dawn of battle. Alright guys, so for this, let's just, real simple. Like I'm starting to record right now, so just go ahead. We'll start with Jake and then John go ahead but introduce yourselves and tell you guys, tell the audience who you are, what you do now. So Jake.

Yeah, I'm so, I'm probably a bit out of date for some of this stuff because I left the army in 2011. But so what's 20 odd years in the, in the infantry? I mean, in a lot of places across the Balkans, obviously Northern Ireland, and then more sort of latterly in my career, and you know, the sort of Middle East, oh, it's one of the headphones is running out, the Middle East and Afghanistan. And then having left, then went back into something similar and worked in Iraq for about seven or eight years on the security side.

And then with the same company, they moved across to Mozambique to set up a business here, which was sort of four or five years into it now. Which has been a bit of a roller coaster because of what's been going on in the North of the country, but it's been interesting. Okay. So, I, I was, I'd been in the, the regiment, this is a regiment called the Green Houds for a couple of years and I knew Jake's brother very, very well who joined slightly before him and I welcomed Jake into the regiment and similarly he said, what do you think we're looking at? And we sort of shadowed each other for many, many years and

ended up outside of the infantry both working in the same sort of mutually supporting departments doing counterterrorism and in my case UK operations, Jake looking overseas operations in my case UK operations, Jake looking overseas operations at the Ministry of Defence level, and then we decided to take a bit of a break together. We went off to Sierra Leone for a year and a bit, maybe over a year actually, it was about 14 months each, and we convinced the boss there to let us set up a team ourselves with some handpicked people and get out and start to take care of things that were going on out in the east of the country where the Liberian Civil War was a team ourselves with some handpicked people and get out and start to take care of things that were going on out in the east of the country where the Liberian Civil War was spilling over. When I came home I did a UK, a UK counterterrorism and resilience staff job, I thought

it time to leave and so I now have my own business advising large businesses in crisis management. have my own business advising, large businesses in crisis management. Oh, dang. Matt, you want to hit the backup record button as well? Oh, I started it on... Okay. So... OBS, yeah, we're good. Okay, so the one question I have, because like all of this is like when you guys emailed

in, you guys said that you were on loan from the UK army to Sierra Leone now where you guys doing like a train advise assist or you guys doing a company as well Because like in it so like in the US army we have two units that do exactly what you guys did which is S Fab in green Burais and like the difference is Obviously green Burais will accompany and they'll go out on missions with the guys doing counterterrorism operations whereas S-FAB, they'll train advice and assist but they are instructed to say stay one terrain feature away from the front line. So like what was your guys experiencing that? Yeah, actually I lead off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, after the military interventions, the British military

put infantry battalions in there to train up a Sierra Leone army that could potentially take on the rebels, and that went on for quite a while. They were then withdrawn and a small military presence was kept there called Operation Siltman, and it became clear that they had to basically get people inside these newly trained battalions to go and take the water to the revolutionary United Front, the rebels. And so 114 of us, I think, at the peak were deployed out into the army, everything from logistics to the joint force commander to little teams. I think Jake, there was two of you in Second Battalion, weren't there?

You and the Sergeant? Yeah. And then we rationalized that down into a team of four Sergeant majors, mainly parachute regiment and me and Jake, and heading up. And we had a French foreign agent guy with us for a little while major, and a US Marine guy who was attached from the, but just really in some sort of weird observer role. And so it was all of the above. We trained, advised, assisted, our only barrier in theory was to go, not go within one kilometer of the Liberian border, but I'm afraid that was operationally impossible. So we just basically often went to the border and spent a lot of time.

Not great when I'd bogged in a land Rover on the border and had to spend a night just sort of sitting on the roof of the NAK thinking, I just got here. It wasn't very well defined. The joint force commander who's a Brit said, I don't want doctrinally intelligent people. I want frontiersmen. That's what I want frontiersmen to get out there

and do what you're going to do. So arm yourself. There's your land ravers. Feed yourselves. Go for it. I think probably the US Marine was probably restricted to train advisors and no more. I think ours was certainly a company as well because we used to obviously patrol with them and all that sort of stuff.

And Johnny says get, you know, get really up close to the border and things, if not actually cross the border, unfortunately. Which I think people probably knew, but as Johnny says, if we didn't do that, then it wouldn't have worked. But I think we did something very, in Afghanistan, we were, we, we called the, the MLTs, which was that the operational mentoring and liaison teams, which was exactly that again, trained mentor, assist in a company, and very much a company. And if actually many cases.

So I do know that in like 2000, a bunch of like royal Irish regiment boys were taking captive and like Sierra Leone, was there any geopolitical ramifications from that? Because I know that the Brit sent soldiers to help stabilize the region and some guys got captured. So do you guys have any insight on that? Yeah, so I mean I go on to action. I just say because I think probably the biggest ramification was was the rescue of which scared the hell out of the IUF because it was obviously an S-Eparate to release them and it was pretty brutal, pretty quick and very successful. And I think that along with another engagement which the Pathfinder Patoon from the Parachute Regiment had,

or from the airborne brigade had, those two engagements really made the IUF think we're not going to take on the British at all in any sense here. So that was the biggest sort of ramification from it and I think the it was and if that hadn't have gone that way I think it would have been pretty embarrassing to be honest So I think that release was a probably pretty large relief actually It was The British were in pretty high

post, you know, Falklands war, like they got national identity back after the Suez crisis. And if they wanted, if they wanted to fumble a situation like that where hostages were taken, like, ah, I don't think it would have been good. No, and they were geopolitically, you know, why the hell were we putting all this effort into Sierra Leone you know what was the purpose and some some people believe that because Tony Blair who's then the prime minister his father had been a lecturer at the Forabay College in free town the capital of Sierra Leone that he had a personal invested interest and that's why we went in so big and so, with such strength.

So when that happened, it was a real setback. And I was told by people who were there and it's like, we were part of the solution to this problem. Was that initially, people were saying when the Brits arrived, you're our colonial masters, you're our saviors, literally using those words, and you heard it every... God come and take back over you're our colonial masters. And we heard it quite a lot with our soldiers,

but what then happened was when the Royal Irish were taken, the credibility went, and apparently the atmosphere changed in the city, in the city, particularly in the capital, particularly where suddenly the Brits were not this magical silver bullet. And not really spicy. Until one company parachute regiment, I think a tiny team of about four to six SAS went in and wiped out that entire rebel force and rescued all of the guys in tact. That changed things. What the Brits then discovered was that because the Paris had thrown smoke grenades before they went into the village, Barry Barna was the village where these guys were being held and pretty badly treated. The rumor went out and rumor in Sierra Leone is everything literally the jungle drums

beat and they said bridges soldiers appear out of puffs of smoke. So a massive siop's campaign went out about British magic, magic being such an underlying piece of West African culture. And the combination of the actual military force and the superstitious element, as Jake said, were pretty fundamental to geopolitically to bringing an end to that entire, to a tenious civil war, just those out. I know that when it comes to something like, say, Hong Kong, when they were doing their freedom protest,

they were waving the colonial British flag. They were like, we just want to go back to that. They were like, we don't want to be Chinese anymore. And there was even footage of women, old women carrying pictures of the queen. They were like, we just want to go back to this. Like, we don't want to be Chinese anymore. But in terms of geopolitical terms, the UK just can't show up and take it. Like, they just can't. So they just opened up like, all right, if you're born before 1997, you can see a asylum in the UK,

we'll give you full citizenship. And then from there, the amount of people, they were like stuck between, we can leave, and we can't because we have kids that live here. And I don't know if that's like a similar situation in like West Africa, but yeah, that Hong Kong situation is pretty intense. Hey, Joe, I mean, you grew up in Hong Kong.

What? Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's true. I mean, I don't know. I think it's a Britain, we're talking about the past too much. Because there's a bit of sort of personal embarrassment around the world about it. But for Hong Kong, I think because Hong Kong wasn't really there sort of, you know, happened so much later than the,

sort of major decolonization push in the 50s and 60s. It was a very different story and it was obviously, you know, it wasn't becoming independent, truly independent as all the other countries were. So, although I think that's right in Sierra Leone that there'll be some people who, through desperation, I think, probably look back to the Brits and thought, you know, it was better under them. that there'll be some people who be through desperation, I think probably look back to the Brits and thought, it was better under them. I'd hope in reality now, they're probably thinking,

actually, now things are functioning a bit better. It's not so bad. I think Hong Kong's a completely different story, as I say, because it was effectively went from one sort of form of cloningization to another, unfortunately. Didn't they call it a long the it was like the man Hatton of the Pacific or something like that.

Mm. Yeah, something where it was, it was the industrial center. And if you look at like the economic like upturn of the Chinese government, they didn't start making money until like 1997 when Macau and Hong Kong turned over. Mm. That's right. And I remember actually, bizarrely, about month after the left of the army, I went to a talk by a Rousey, the British sort of a strategy institute, where Mikhail Sakashvili had just taken over in Georgia and he came and did a talk and he said, I envisaged Georgia being the Hong Kong of the Caucasus and Central Asia. And that's how we saw it.

This financial capital just boomed from that being the hub of everything. Now obviously that didn't happen. But Sierra Leone sadly had, you know, other than the diamonds had very little. There was another rumor that the reason we intervened was because Sierra Leone's territorial waters are the same size as this landmass and that there was oil out there. And that might have cynically been another reason the Brits decided to prioritize it. But geopolitically, I don't think we ever wanted to retake over. Well, we'd never will. we'd never will try to. It's just not in the British psyche now. But to try and influence,

I mean, if you walked into a British battalion now, it's, there's a serious staffing of commonwealth soldiers from South Africa, from West Africa, from particularly from Fiji, I mean huge numbers from Fiji. And it's become a real feature of the British Army now that it is a common, it's a heavily common wealth, there's a heavy influence of the common wealth on the British Army nowadays. It's actually really weird to, because I know John, you may have listened to it,

but Jake probably, probably not, but one of the first episodes we did here at Kickbag was a guy who's a master on China. His name is on Instagram, Cino Talk. And he brought up something that it's... He mentions it, and I see it everywhere now, and it's weird to see you guys talk about it too. He talks about how China controls the narrative of like, you know, you can just call an American racist, and it just like all head down and shame, right? And then it's interesting to hear you guys and I mean, Jake just said it like he doesn't as an Englishman It's kind of hard to look back on things because you sit there and you You know and you head you're like oh, it's a shame, but it's like that's exactly how

China and Russia that's a sign up. That's literally a sia that was done to you. And you're sitting here as warriors who are just like, it's kind of shameful. It's like, that's exactly what they want you to think. And it's weird how not only start, you can kind of see it like you say. And it started in Sierra Leone or like Matt was saying, it started like post-Falklands, we didn't want to screw up.

And like everybody's like, oh, man, we don't want to screw up this, you know, this prisoner raid right like we don't this hvt raid with prisoners, you know We don't want to screw that up because I could hurt our image and it's like if you ask China or Russia are like my first-hand Experiences they don't care about any of that so it's weird to see how this conversation even I mean This is like a 30 40 year time span we're talking about but you can see how you guys are already, the SIOP blocks are already being built with you guys. And here we are 20, 30 years later, like, are they screwing with us?

And so it's, it's interesting. I think it's interesting to look at Iraq and Afghanistan where the British Army went to Helmand, like that was rough. Yeah. And they also went to Basra and Iraq, like the two worst areas for insurgents. And maybe you two gentlemen can like enlighten me, but was it a push from the British to like retain that like warrior culture? They're like, no, like we know what we're doing.

Or was it like an alternative? Like, well, the Americans don't want to do it. I guess we're going to do it. Like, what was that situation? Because it went in Helmand from the British to the Marines, again, like, the hardest fighters. And so it was like a weird, I think in Bosra 2, it was a one three to go over Bosra after the Brits left. And I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it, but it's like this national identity of like we can't flock up. We'll take the hardest job. I don't know if that is anything to do with it, but I think it's just bad intelligence. I'm pretty sure, I mean, that's probably made sense strategically for us, because it was sure to lines of communication and all that sort of stuff. I've, you know, the view helped by a lot of people is that Helmann was a sort of reflection

of a perceived failure in Bazaris. So, you know, Helmann was asked by the way of, I suppose, almost getting back in the good books with the US, which seems a bit pathetic to say, but it was like a sort of, you know, we're not as bad as you guys perhaps are thinking. So, we'll take on this. And then we take it on with not enough as we always do. And it was still a bit enough. Exactly. I don't think it's more to have you come on all the hills. I'm going to say it sets. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think I'm Helman, you know, I look at, I mean, I think, I mean, I think, I'm Helmand, you know, I look at, I mean, what

was interesting with Helmand, I think, is there was a lot of discussion even at the time where we're going in there and certainly, you know, quite quickly early on about what the hell were we doing there, not just the UK, but as anybody, because it was a pretty, it's a pretty mean, it's a bit of territory, do you want to start? I don't see the sort of strategic value of Helmand, other than perhaps the Poppy. And the Poppy, do we need to eradicate it, or should we just buy it? I don't know.

And if you've gone back in British, you go back to the colonial lessons, we could have policed Helmand with one political officer with a bag of cash. And perhaps the hard assassin, which in today's terms would be a sort of NSF precision striker or something. And that's probably the way Helmett should have been managed. We should put a sort of fence around it, paid off the guys inside, and if they set down a line, wax them. Starting to put

troops on the ground in some light helmet is crazy. And the Brits had done that before, you know, we did that sort of 200 years earlier, and exactly the same happened. As soon as you start building forts in Afghanistan, they attack you. They don't respect it, they don't look at it and go right, you know, shit, these guys are hard, we're not going to, you know, we're all going to lay down our weapons, we're going to behave. They just don't see it, they don't look at it and go right, you know, shit these guys are hard, we're not gonna, you know, we're all gonna lay down our weapons, we're gonna behave, they just don't see it that way. They just see, right, there's a target, we'll go after it. So it's amazing how lessons are on learning, isn't it, really?

There was, it's actually really funny, because I was in Canterhart, and part of our AO as like the the aviation sector was saying and Nobody ever controlled singing which is helmined and it it from marine to royal marine core to like it just passed back and forth Between the Marines and the british like Matt was saying and you're absolutely right like My wand. I didn't know this until after I left But my my wand is like just west of candahar for the listeners And a british regiment was absolutely decimated there. And when I tell you like pretty much, because we, hundreds and hundreds of missions I help

play in in targeting packets and stuff like that, but Maywan was, I mean, I became so dissensitized with Maywan, we called it Mowing the Lawn, because we would go back there and blow things up, burn entire Taliban and strongholds. And then the next week it'd regrow. And so we're like, oh, we gotta go mow the lawn. And everyone knew we were going back to May 1th that week and just going to kill more Taliban. And so it took, like I said, I was there and it was part of our responsibility.

But I had no clue that there's a lion in the UK dedicated to the British soldiers who died there. And it's crazy to me that you say that, that it's like, you know, the British had to step up and feel like they needed to take a seat next to the Americans and perform because the whole time I was there, Candahar and Helmann was like the the bastard child. It was Australian, Kiwi, UK. Nobody wanted to touch it. There was a it got so bad that they killed a three-star A&P general, and then they wounded

general Smiley who was an American general there. That's how bad it was. And I was there, that's why I went there in the first place, is because they surged me down there to go put in the effort, but it's crazy to hear you say, like the British politicians felt like they needed to step up and stamp us when like if you ask any American or British army officials, it's like the minute the bridge show up, or like the Australians or the felt like they needed to step up and stamp aside us when like if you ask any American or British Army official, it's like the minute the bridge show up or like the Australians or the Kiwi show up,

the American military is like, hey, like we're, it's a party. Immediately faces are lighting up. Everybody's happy, we're talking, we're drinking, we're training, but on the political side, it's completely different. Like they feel like they owe each other something and it's baffling to hear that.

And I think that goes back even further. Not to like the global war on terror, but to the days of like Otto van Bismarck, where was Otto van Bismarck? Who fought the Frank O'Preshman War? Who led that whole thing? Yeah. And there was always a threat.

They were like, what at the British invade? They were like, we'll use the cops to throw him in jail. Like, the Chinese not big. They're like, what are the British and they they're like we'll use the cops a throw them in jail Like they're trying to not be They're like we could just do that what are we gonna do? They're gonna land three boats and we're gonna throw them in prison It's not that hard, but I don't know it's Trying to think I'm trying to put words here. It's that's We owe you factor. It's kind of what,

it's almost hindering in a tactical sense. Yeah, like, I think, I think, I think, and I don't know when I'll start, whether it is necessarily the political side, I think it's as much the military side. I think the, um, we've always had a bit of a, sort of a history in the British military that, you know, if it's not used, it's cut down. And if you look at the British army sort of pre-Napoleonic wars and then pre-First World War and it get in pre-Second World War, because they haven't been used for a few years, they got cut to the bone.

And I think we've always sort of followed that cycle. And I think there was a fear coming out of Iraq that if we, you know, if we're not doing something, then we won't get, you know, the next big purchase. And the way our sort of ministry defence operates, anyway, it's quite a compessive environment between the three services. So you almost need to be playing somewhere to get this sort of sexy kit and to get budget effectively. So I think it's probably an element of that.

I see what they're going back to May 1. So I was in Sanding for about three or four months, I suppose. I did the first half of my tour in sort of a mix of Nimra's province and then around Musa Kahla, because Musa Kahla was originally, well, when we arrived there, it was held by the Taliban. The first part of our tour really was sort of getting that town back, and then once that was done,

I moved down to Sangin, and actually the last two weeks of that tour we spent over in Maywant, though we did a sort of comedic operation to Maywant, which really pisses soldiers off, because if actually what happens is you get to the end of a tour, and I'm pretty sure that some a'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r o knows me and those are what happens to the brisha, every time we go, you don't want to be doing that in the last two weeks of your talk. Thankfully most of the lads don't read the books. And it was, we sat down with the old cheaps when you get there and stuff. They did talk about it, They knew all about it. I mean, firstly, they thought we were Russians still. Yep. You know, they were still confused about what we were doing there.

They thought the Russians had left, but clearly hadn't left. No, we're not Russians. Oh, we're British. Ah, we also know the British. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, well. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not sure we're that much better equipped than we were 150 years before as well. I think when it comes to geopolitical terms, especially Afghanistan, the old concept of the great game, no one talks about it anymore, but it's like the reason Afghanistan exists in the first place is to keep the Russians in the British from meeting each other in a border.

Like it was like this buffer zone. So whenever the, I wanna say the Taliban or Mujahadim, but the Afghans would attack the Brits, they're like, we'll just set up a fob in the middle of the country and like can't harb our province. And then they would just immediately look at the Russians, like, can you please kill these guys for us? Like it's, it's this weird like self looking ice cream cone

when it comes to Afghanistan where hates our point of people's heads. All these weird drug deals are being made. And yeah, I think you're right. I don't think the Brits had enough tools in Afghanistan this time than they did the first time. It's really interesting. You mentioned a great game, isn't it? Because I never heard it mentioned much in Afghanistan

I've only been there as a contractor not in not in the British military, but in Pakistan Where I was doing some work my god the great game came into almost every conversation blaming us for this that yeah, and the Pakistan's were absolutely superb and they were wonderful to be with and we've obviously got a lot of mutual respect but my god the great game is very alive in their thinking even right now in terms of how they see us potentially meddling or our strategic interests and that's really cool that you mentioned that man because I've forgotten about that and yeah interests and that's really cool that you mentioned that man because I've forgotten about that. Yeah. When you look like the big picture like the former colonies they remember like if the

Brits refused to not acknowledge but like approach that topic. The colonists remember and so like the Brits are here again like a situation like that so in like a tactical term if the local is remembered the bridge from a hundred fifty years ago and like the afghan wars they're gonna fight harder because you're like this is generational this is a this is an internal struggle against the british so the british have to fight harder

and if they don't have good tools you're like what do you do rip out with the americans who also, the American Marines who also don't have good tools, like helmet province. It's poor people fighting for people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know.

It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know.

It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's poor people that don't know. It's well. I don't think we had a clue. Again, which we should have done because we had the history with it. I don't think we could clue about the culture of it because I don't think you mess with those people. I really don't think you mess with them. I think, you know, for them we are aliens. And as soon as you go in this,

they're going to fight and they just won't stop fighting. You know, the idea that you can in any way sort of, I don't know, pass away to the point where they're happy because you've provided education and healthcare and that sort of stuff, it means nothing to them. Because it's fucking medieval. There are a thousand years behind the rest, anywhere else, I mean, it's incredible. We were, I've told, like American American US Marines or Air Force or any American personnel in Afghanistan, they're like, dude, you can't kill them. You can't convert them.

Why are we here? But if you look at like the traditional bird of sense, they're like, you passify them through killing. Like, that's just how you do it. And it's not wrong. It's bizarre. Whereas like the Americans became disillusioned, but I mean I've worked with Brits before they're very professional Every time I work with the brick commandos Paris everyone there all the Marines like hover around them like please teach me your ways and they're like don't look to me, dude

They're like they're like that, but Yes, pretty crazy. Where's the comes between us? Before we keep going, I just got to notice that this is going to end in 60 seconds. So I might have to end this and send another invite. Are you lonely, sad, depressed? Well then why aren't you in the Kip Bad Conversations Patreon? For $10, you get a front-chip simulator.

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A cup of Starbucks coffee for the month? One cup. One cup and you get all that and a group chat. So instead of driving to work, lonely, depressed, and crying, listening to me and Matt and our PJs, talked to two British officers who stacked bodies higher than my two-story house. It's a trailer. It's not a house, it's a trailer. But anyway, you could be hanging out with us in the group chat right now. You could be hanging out with us in the group chat while you're at work. You could be hanging out in the group chat while you're

going home. That's right, texting and driving. We don't endorse that, but you know, meh. So stop just listening to the podcast, getting involved in the community, and see if that $10 is somehow works its way back to you in the form of video games, competitions, and all types of stuff. So go on, head on over there. Go on. Do it. Do it. I know that you wanted to talk about how the British Army has like degraded over time since like the Iraq invasion and Afghanistan. So when you say it's degrading, are you comparing it to like World War Two or you saying Korea like in your experiences or is it, or is it recent? Like, are you saying that this is like

completely gone downhill, like we're seeing cascading downhill? Hey, I don't know. I mean, I think this world would be kept up, like, because I'm at a date in terms of leaving, you know, every 10 years ago, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's necessarily gone down. I know I think in many ways it's, it's very good. You know, the sort of individual soldier level, it's very good. Okay. I think, I think it's problem is one of really identity now.

Yes. And that's probably around how it's, how it's used, what it's been used for, now. Yes. And that's probably around how it's how it's used, what it's been used for, what's gone wrong, and then how it's funded. And I think, you know, when you compare, I listen to one of your pods the other day, the one where you were pretty critical of the US military. And I listen to him thought, Jesus, you know, you guys, because the US military, I was very impressed with every time I worked, I was very impressed with them. And largely because they come with all the Mae'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio'r ymwch chi' reason we insist on buying British, for example, rather than not just British, but mostly British. When we don't really have a big enough defense industry to do that, and you can look across it, you know, the US and look at their kit and think, you know, I wish we had some of that stuff. And I think, you know, I think some of our issue was, well, I think it was, is interesting

watching the way the US military reacted to a rock, versus the way the British military reacted to it. I think at the start of a rock, when it went from a more conventional fight to clearly a counterinsurgency fight, I think the Brits thought at the start, we have this, we understand this, we know how to do this, because our history was around counterinsurgency. I think it took us a long time to realize that actually, we didn't really have it. We'd lost a lot of those skills.

We were looking back at Northern Ireland saying, there's real transferable skills from that. And in reality, there were pretty different things. And in that time space, the US military caught up and overtook in many ways. And I was really impressed with how they used to do stuff. And I suppose the only major difference I saw between us was probably around command and control.

And the US military for some reason, sort of sub-unit level, a company level, commands with captains, whereas in the British Army, we command with majors. And I think our system is better on that side, just because I think the amount of experience you have as a sort of 10, 12, 15 year major compared to a five, six year captain is pretty substantial.

And an amendment when you're particularly in the counter-assurances environments where the subunits is where it's at, it's a sort of subunit war or a company level war. You've got to, you know, you've got a through mission command, let those majors go, let those captains do their job. And the British military did do that. I think the US military is quite sort of controlling.

But then they, but then having said that, I suppose they have the tools to do that because they've got track it, you know, they, they do now, and that and comms and all that sort of stuff. We don't have that. Do you know that in Afghanistan, there's this thing called the strategic corporal in the Marine Corps where they're like, a 19, 20 year old corporal could call for fire

on a building and ask for forgiveness later, because they were like, you're on the ground on the front, the major in the rear is not. Like one of those things. So, I mean, I understand what you're saying, but when it comes to like a situation like this, like, eh, if you're getting shot at,

if you look at like the Soviet model, if a corporal gets shot at, he has to call the major. He's like, can I shoot back a situation like that? Like in Afghanistan. And then, I think the Marine Corps kind of pivoted away from it, but it was a very sexy idea for a little bit. They were like a 20 year old gets trained up before going.

Know what he's doing. And then from there, he's like, oops, there was no one in there. I'm sorry, we had to pay out cash. So I'm not saying it's a perfect model, but it's a, it's a different way of thinking. The decentralized command of the US military the Marine Corps specifically is very heavy on the NCOs to like call the shots and it's a little different I would say with us I think it's different say it was us isn't it really because I think I said my way to do I absolutely you know the strategic corporal is the guy you know that that has

always been the case has always been our model that. I think all I'm saying is that when I might sort of outside of you in the particular of the US Army, I mean, that's based on really one unit, which is that we worked very closely with the first of the 500 sector, what have they are, the 82nd Airborne, who bloody good, but my god, they were controlled,

because they're such a good sort of command system that sort of controlled their movement and so on. But that's not to say that, you know, at the NCO level, they weren't making decisions, gone, sure, they weren't. Whereas we didn't have that, because we didn't have the communications, you know, that's why you can't talk to your commanding officer, because there's no communication, he doesn't know where you are, because we weren't tracked. We didn't have Blue Force track it, so he doesn't really know where you are. There's a very different space, so we sort of get on with it, I suppose a bit more. But I agree, I mean it's absolutely where it's at strategic corporal.

But I think culturally as well, we've bred the strategic corpor-prol piece naturally through the various, I think particularly probably in our lifetimes, it was at Northern Ireland that probably bred that way. Team commanders, between sergeants, had to be doing exactly the same as as team commanders, second-sync command, etc. But I think we also benefited for a very long time and I think it still exists from the fact that we have formed a formed battalion. So ours was called the Green Hours. But when Jake and I were left tenants,

those same private soldiers became up to insurgents and sergeant majors when we were company commanders, commanding officers, generals had officers on their staff for people who had grown up. And I mean, our guys, we were together with them for 16 years each, we were U20. And I think that gave a huge amount of ability to devolve in high-pressure situations, just devolve trust. And just go, guys, just cracking with that, I'm going to worry about this right now, particularly as I think in our culture, I would say Jake,

would you say the major is often forward anyway? Yeah, completely. I mean, you know, the company commander is in the thick of it almost all the time, unless it's a routine patrol type operation where the ops room is overwatching some smaller thing. I can only talk from the Marine Corps standpoint, but the standard rotation is six months on, six months off, six months work up, like one of those things. And a strategic corporal who's deployed to Afghanistan two, three times at 25, like that's

it's probably pretty good. He knows the environment, but I'd say today, there's no combat deployments anymore. And so there's like a wedge between the two where it's going back to like traditional officers say this and listen, do what they say. It's a situation like that. But back, let's say 15 years ago, that was not a thing. It was cross pollinated. They were like, ago, that was not a thing. It was cross-pollinated. They were like, dude, I trust, they do, like a dude culture was like, I trust you. You made the call. Might not have been great, but we'll fix it. It's a situation like that. I don't know if Cody, so he was an Afghanistan. He could talk more about the army side of things, but I know the Marine Corps was very,

get the job done. Let's figure it out later. And we have massive similarities to the USMC anyway, but yeah. Yeah, so I was going to say to Jake's point about like, so I was very fortunate. Like I didn't work exclusively for the US soft and that stuff. Like it's being part of the aviation brigade and being like Intel and like Pathfinder and all that stuff. Like it was my whole job was bringing the kitchen sink to the party. Like, I brought all the toys. You know, like we call it the Armada, for Chinooks, two Apache's, for blackhawks.

Like, we could bring the Thunder down. And so including High Mars, Triple Sevens, Mortars, ATENZ, at one point, we even had command authority over an E18 groutler squadron. And so my two teams that I provided targeting packets for were Polish Lithuanian strike forces. And it's exactly like you said, but it's funny because like if you take the operation side off of the US Army, if you were to take the 82nd and put them over there, and then put the British paris there, but give them the tools of the 82nd mind-blowing for these guys.

I mean, absolutely, just like you'll see a blood vessel pop in the eye of the support structure that comes with the US Army. And so one guy told me, he's like, if I'd have known, this is what the plug that was gonna be like. I wouldn't have gone to breach your school that I've gone to PowerPoint school because like the average slide that we would bring

was like 84 slides of CAS, fires, plans. And this is just like all the guys like me in the office. Like, so this is what's gonna happen. And it's like, it's the symphony of destruction as the helicopters are coming to the objective, you know, we're watching with drones, eight tens, all this stuff. I mean, all of this hate and just murder is happening.

And then the, and then you'd have the paras light and it's like, my God, like, yeah, you're about to find out why America doesn't have healthcare. But when you, when you don't have the British paras, when you don't have those guys and you have our guys who expect that, they're just like, yeah, I want high, I want all the toys. It's, it's very, very burdening because it, it just, there's this hubris that comes with American soldiers. Like they just think and know, like, oh, I'm going to have that,

like, right? Like that's going to happen, right? Like that dish go won't be there. And it's just like you want to peel your eyeballs out and then, but you work with the European or NATO counterparts and they're just like, this is amazing. And it's like, yeah, right? Like billions of dollars at work here. And so I'm very critical of the US Army because in my experience, everybody was like that,

except the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps was used to having nothing either. And when we showed up with something, it's like, this is amazing, right? Like we can, so many bad guys die. But it's, and that's what I see when I'm like really critical of the US Army is, like I think we've gotten too close to the technology

that we have, like we're just, we have gotten rid of quality soldiering, and we're just doing soldiering with technology. We're hoping that the technology will make better soldiers so we can fight the Chinese horde versus making quality soldiers and then putting the technology on them, which is why NATO, in my opinion, is the best alliance ever, because you have Polish soldiers who hate communists more than anything in the world and then we back them with the American military industrial complex. Like, it's the most unstoppable thing on God's green earth is pissed off Warsaw Pat countries

with American backing. Like, this is so true. I'm just thinking of slide deck and a parachute regiment or green house slide deck would just be, oh, Bayonet, three eggs. It's your full escalation. Hand, hand of God, I have seen it. That's why I got that job was because the Lithuanians literally just put a village on a slide

and they put a clearing symbol, like a NATO clearing symbol and they're like, oh my God, and they're like, you, Lieutenant, go help that major Lithuanian and like I turned one slide into 14 slide This is the ground schema maneuver. This is the pre-plan targets and T.A.I.s N.I.I.s and like you know string and little plastic army men on the floor and they're just like This is awful. I'm like no, no, no, trust me. It'll be great like It's my job to do this

Talking point on a soldiering that we did four son force with the Marine Corps with the British paris and Marines and the Brits absolutely destroyed us. Yeah that happens every time. Every single time. Every time. It was crazy is we would all like in the same camp and the Brits would stay in their corner we would stay in ours. Sometimes the guys would like swap or blouses or something but what was really cool is the Brits would get fucking hammer every single clear out the bar they would get trashed they only drink energy drinks and then went out into the field and they were like were the

Americans over there perfect call for fire done yeah it was it was a orchestra of destruction like, where are the Americans? Over there, perfect, call for fire, dawn. And it was, it was an orchestra of destruction against the Americans. And the Americans would come back. They were like, how do we fight that? I'm like, thank God. Thank God. Every time you get paired with breads, they drink the bars, clean, and they outruck you every time.

You're like, what is that? It was time. It was beautiful. Like, I was not angry. I was thankful we've got some stories that probably after this podcast but I have to say we were banned as a battalion from Graffinville from the US military training center in Southern Germany because within within a few minutes of arriving up on the armored vehicles have come off the rail flats and some

of the drivers have got drunk on the train and And they managed to crush a load of American married quarter cars They're warriors Shortly are also those that There's that massive fire Johnny in that in that bar Good the getty's good Yeah, so the two the p.m. Americans drinking there and 400 grits and he just went badly wrong and the px Couldn't cope with the fact that every time we put stock on the shelves, it was all stolen, including the brownie.

There was the stock with the mountain bike under his coat. Yeah, our labs they were brilliant, but very good at being able to win all. Good solid. So I was in HMMA, no, HMM 167 or 169, and it was offsprays. And so when the Queen Elizabeth Aircraft carrier came to Florida, our guys went down there. And they were like, would you like to want a specter ship

in the Americans, you can drink while deployed. They're like, what the fuck is this? The Brits were like, yeah. So the Brits went out in time. They were like, Americans are posse, and like sort of like raiding bars. And the Americans were like, please stop, please stop. And the Brits were like and Tom, they were like Americans or Pussies and like sort of like raiding bars. And the Americans were like, please stop, please stop. And the Brits were like, this is just us.

You invited us here. Well, well in Bolson here we had two years Marine Corps staff sergeants attached to do like Siv Mill stuff. And they were quite, quite straight lace when they arrived. They're now very close friends. And they were getting, why are you doing this work on this fire brigade down there? We said, well, because we need a compressor for our bar to be able to pull the beer. So if we do the fire station, we're just... And that was the logic.

But we were theoretically on a two-can rule. You like two cans of beard. But you know, that's a day. It's circumvented that daily. It's all about professionalism, isn't it? Yeah. It's a make-up. Thank you, sorry, thank you. Oh, go ahead, Jay. You knew it.

I was going to say, no, I was going to say now, sorry. I'm going to have two cans of I've got what I was going to say now, sorry. I've got two cans of Bosnia. Yeah, I think the example about support, I suppose, is, so like in Helmet, we were in theory of brigade strong, but it was a brigade plus, I think, it was probably sort of eight or nine thousand. I think to support that, we had, I think it was either five or six of Shinoks, of which two were probably in maintenance, two were on, what are you calling that, so IRT, you know, there's sort of immediate readiness for, you know, picking up casualties.

You normally had one or two aircraft spare to do anything with, for to support 8,000 troops of which, okay, only a couple of thousand are actually, you know, sort of bare nets, I suppose, but it's still tiny. And I think, you know, the Tach helicopters, I think again, similar number, probably had about six of patches, of which probably four, you know, two will be on IRT again, two available. It's absolutely tiny. So when we did that, that job in Musacala with the, with the 82second airborne guys, you know, when they pitched up, my god, I've never seen anything like it, you know, I mean, they flew the whole

battalion on helicopters in, you know, we just don't do that. We drove up. They flew in in their helicopters the whole way from sort of, well, for our space, I think they even came from Kabul, maybe. No, they pro-came in Canada, I assume. We just drove up in our shit unarmored, well, they're supposedly can to RSU. We just drove up, in our shit on armoured, well, they're supposedly armoured, but our shit vehicles don't stop mines.

And that was just the sort of way, and it was what we were completely used to. And I remember actually, because when we were doing the music, I didn't know the A team attached to me. Under my command, but they were doing like fire support stuff, so they were bringing the fact that, you know, to our team and that sort of stuff. a'r ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n ymdyn ni'n And they put a specter in the air and that was us done. We all got our heads down.

And I've never seen that before. For us, you're out to your stack positions and sort of For us on, for us off, whatever it is, the whole way through the night and the whole way through the thing. But these guys, we all just got our heads down because there's some big thing in the air. It was incredible. And we just don't see that. But it showed me. It's certainly not the infantry.

Was there a documentary or anything that came out about the British military? incredible. You know, and we just don't see that British home. I'm so sorry, not the infantry. Was there a documentary or anything that came out about the British military? Because in America, like the 173, I fucked up at Westrup. Oh, it was documentary about the American military really likes to lick their own wounds and like reflect. Is that a thing in the British military today? Because we could talk about passion Dale. We could talk about the song. No one from what I see, no one in the British military today? Because we can talk about passion, we can talk about the Psalm.

No one from what I see, no one like the British like, psyche talks about common problems. No, I think we do. No, I think we do. I think that's our weakness. Yeah, I think that's our problem. I think that's our problem. You know, I think, and again, you guys,

I'm pretty critical of you at the US military, but I think you'll, you guys are good critical of the US military, but I think you're guys are good at that stuff, because you do forensically pull the stuff apart. There seems to be an allowance within your officer corps as well that you can be critical of how you're doing things. I have a lot of work in the Army Staff College in Levinworth. It's really good to conversations there, people are really critical, people are really dug into it. I don't think we do the same. I just don't think it's in the British psyche. I think we just sort of, we move on to our next post.

I think those are critical leave, it's going to be honest. I think those who sort of, I think that we can do better, just end up leaving because they're pissed off with it. I think those who, they are those who sort of accept it, and they don't really criticize. And I think that's just the British way, which is unfortunate. I don't think it's good at all. It's not healthy. That's probably why the First World War, something like that. We've kept doing the same things for four years, whatever. Because they've really criticized what we do.

But I think it's a good idea just to walk he told the enemy. But I think if you look at the 1970s, when Northern Ireland became, you know, the high-intensity insurgency, whatever we want to call it. It's only now, it's only probably in the last four years, that the British military, the guys are starting to be interviewed for documentaries about their experiences in it. And there's a latest series on the BBC just come out, which is very, very insightful, talking to all parties involved in the conflict. But it's only now, she, you know, 1999 was a good Friday agreement. And here we are in 23 and the

spate of documentaries finally addressing a few of those issues. I don't think one becomes like a cultural difference between the two. a few of those issues. I don't think one becomes like a cultural like difference between the two. Cody and I probably grew up with watching videos of like US Army Rangers school goes on to blow up like 300 Taliban fighters really cool right like the whole transition. Every time I try to look that up with the British it's like a 1963 video of like like oh British soldiers must erupt outside of a bus station and get their head shaved. I was like, dude, you can watch that in like the Marine Corps like you had face

with page. I was like, what's that? And I mean, that's very insightful for me because there's almost this cult around in the US military around the British where they're like, you guys are the best in the world. Like you would do this so much better than we do. And to hear your alternative take, who's like, no, actually, like, we don't talk about this. Like, I don't know if it's like a cultural thing where, say the Germans, they don't talk about over one world or two, but they

have some of the best soldiers in the entire world. But then alternatively, like Americans are like, yeah, we don't talk about the Myline Massacre, but we'd mention it because it happens. Like one of those things. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's actually funny because you said you had two shinnoks. I did the math. I had, at our disposal, we had 24 shinnoks. I think it was 18 Black Hawks and 18 Apache's.

And then we could also call for more for brigade if we had bigger things. One of the biggest missions I ever did. We had two Specter gunships, four F-16s, two AC-130s, four Apache's and we had a eight lift, which means we had four Chinooks coming in and then shinnoks were waiting and other four coming in two black hawks and then the super sneaky three-letter agency guys had their own helicopters as well. So like we used to do missions like that in Maywanda

and like that was once a week and so yeah we used to we used to bring the thunder down but it's Yeah, we used to bring the thunder down, but it's as far as like Matt would say like the it seems like you guys don't do the Like we have like our own army bases and marine bases that are just in no man's land like the army and the Marines We're like oh, there's a swamp in Virginia. We'll take that and like so we're like completely cut off from society and like I'm a perfect example of that. Like my dad spent 33 years as a Greenberry and Fist Munch Force group and I grew up on the obstacle course. Like my dad would be like like, oh, just play on the jungle gym. It was not a jungle gym. It was an obstacle course.

So when I went to the 101st and did aerosol school, like there was no train up for me. I didn't care. I just did the obstacle course, could climb a rope, all that stuff. But my wife came here. She was like, what do you mean? I have could climb a rope, all that stuff. But my wife came here. She was like, what do you mean I have to climb a rope? Well, I can't do this. And I remember having to take her and do that stuff. And so I think it's more of like when we talk about

like critiquing things, there's two things that play into that. And the first one is like, we don't have a warrior culture. But when you join the military, you start to find out and meet people like Matt and myself. Like, I've got four generations of US Army service, like, trace all the way back to like World War One. Matt's grandfather was in Vietnam. His dad was a Marine. He's a Marine. And so it's like, we have this, basically a populace within America who've always been poor. And's just you join the Marine Corps son and that's what you do and so we've always had to kind of build upon that and then the other thing is that there isn't that reservation as much. I've noticed that with like British military veterans is that you guys are very tight knit with your stories and like you don't

want to talk about those failures or like oh we did this and this but you know it's kind of chin up and carry on. Yeah, but when I came home from Afghanistan my dad was like, come here let's talk and like it was just stories after stories with like my uncle who was in Vietnam, my dad and it was just like three hours of just like pouring it all out and move on. And so it's we're a little bit more open here. So when it comes time to talk about this battle or that battle, we're like, well, that was fucked up because we lost Johnny James and Jim and blebba, and it just, it goes on and on versus like the British military, you guys are like, I said, just take

that and shut up. Oh, I think that also comes out slightly, but by the way, was it your father that was on the previous podcast? I can't remember if he was on the other side. Episode 10, yeah. Yeah, he was massively impressive. But I think we also have got, we have got a strength in this county regiment thing, you know, we mentioned the Green House, about two other regiments from Yorkshire. Yorkshire is the biggest county in England.

And but yeah, it was divided out between three regiments, and ours was the north. And when you think that at any one time there were probably 500 of us in the battalion, maybe 150, externally in the army doing whatever they were doing. And yet, in the First World War, there were 30, I'm just, I checked beforehand, 34 battalions from that tiny era. So what you have is every family has got some link to that regiment. There is, for us, we had father's sons, five brothers at a time serving in the same. So I think that also gave you an ability to deal with things internally

within the team. When trauma happens, when bad things happen also gave you an ability to deal with things internally within the team when trauma happens when bad things happen There's an ability very much Culturally ethically and almost in the DNA yeah to be able to manage it and JKFV would say exactly the same because Raw tanks were still very tribly based. Yeah, they are Scotland another very easy other hero they're the best. Yeah, they are. Scotland and other areas. Even other heroes. But, uh, we're talking about the end of the Pals battalions from all the one. Yeah, where, yeah, the local villages are like, all right, like all the boys can list together. I want to show

would go off and kill 50 dudes. You're like, you know, some are straight. The police gave house and the scouts, truth, pals and stuff. Yeah, well, scout troops are joined up together. It's just this crew. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very, I think it. Sorry. I mean, the US military today, you can't be family members in the same unit anymore. They're like, we are not doing that.

We're not killing a bloodline because there's a war. They're like, if, like me and my two brothers join the army, they're like, you will never be in the 501st together. Like, never. Like, just, there's the risk is too high. And I think it's, it goes back to like the trauma that came from the British and World War I. Because like, if you're saying an entire neighborhood

could like take care of its own, if the entire neighborhood's dead, the entire family line's dead, you're like, if you're saying an entire neighborhood could like take care of its own, if the entire neighborhood's dead, the entire family lines dead, you're like, oh, how do you deal with that? So, yeah, I think you can probably talk to that from your experience. Yeah, I mean, we perhaps today's family. I mean, I had a good friend of mine, one of my two sergeants, but he's a guy that I joined, you know, the regiment almost at the same time. So he was a private one, I was a second attendant and stuff. He was one of my two sergeants,

and he was killed outside Musa-Kala, but his younger brother, who's younger, about 18 months, two years, was up in Kajaki at the time. So we're all sort of operated. The battalion was all across Helm and Province, but we're a company or so up in Kajaki and the north of Helm and Province. And I think Don, who's the younger brother, I think he'd come off a patrol where I think is in terms of, had sort of walks on to run onto a mine

or something in terms of how to sort of walk on to run onto a mine or something in front of it. And he got back into camp, you know, the PB there in Kijaki to then find out that his brother was being killed the day before. And don't don't went out obviously with his older brother's body, but then he came back to battalion, came back out for the last couple of months. So I don't know if we learned that lessons from the first or more, but I think it's for us terribly sad as that is and it was terrific because brilliant guy leaves the guy's kills with a great guy. We had a lot of brothers in battalion, often serving in the same company as well.

It wasn't even in different companies. And I think it's a strength of ours, as you say, Johnny. It's all, you know, our guys, you know, in our region, it all come from the same town, really. I mean, although it's part of Yorkshire, and reality, they all come from one city, which is called Middlesbrough, and in reality, Middlesbrough,

they all come from really the same sort of areas in Middlesbrough. They all know each other from young. But I think it's a strength. I think when you're then they're also shoulder to shoulder bit, you know, they're real sort of, you know, their brothers. I think it's not a queen in country stuff. It's they fight and they. And it comes into its own afterwards, because now 20 years after they've sent their own veterans bars up in the city where they really communicate, they really gather and these are really happy places, bizarrely. But they're really positive places to be. And because of that regional and local piece, people get on a bus, people get on a train if they live out of town,

and all be with their friends till they die. And that, I think, is massively important, whereas if you had a dispersed England's a small place, or Britain's a small place. But if you have people dispersed from all over, and I think because there seems to be a leaning in the military towards a core of infantry, if you like, where people just, you all join the infantry and just go, we'd lose that. And that would be an, in our, I think, in our opinion, it would be a disaster.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's our culture. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, we talked about earlier about this sort of, you know, the British military change. And I think that is probably one of my worries is that there's a lot of reason why the British military is what it is and you can criticize it and you know I'm not the one to stand here and say we're the best friend like that at all. But one of our strengths was always our regimental system which has been mirrored by a lot of other places like India, Pakistan and so on but well, the expletage colonies I suppose. But it is one of our strengths. It's always been a, and I know the US actually looked at it in there at one point, sort of trying to go

to a more sort of regimental system and probably didn't because of the fact that the Brits were doing it. But if we go away from that, I just don't see what sort of army will be because we're too small to have the sort of mass of the US. Where it doesn't really matter, as you say, because you can just bring all the toys anyway. But for us, if we lose

that, that edge, and I think some of our edges, the regimental system, that really weaken us, really weaken us. So, I'm actually, because I don't know if you guys have read the book, Tribe by Sebastian Younger. No. I read it once a year. Absolutely beautiful book. Everything you guys are talking about is literally what you guys, like is the biggest preventative of PTSD. And I'm looking it up right now and you guys actually have half the veteran suicide rate that we do, which is like

that's insane to me. Because if I could cut veteran suicide rates in half, I'd do it tomorrow. But we don't have that that so we don't have those regimental systems. In fact, when I was talking to get out, I wanted to stay in the soft airborne community and they told me that I had done too much time and I was going to go to Inescom, which was just basically like a desk up in Maryland. And so we do that all the time. We bounce around. Like I would have gone from like light infantry to like an intel shop up in DC, then to like a heavy armor brigade, and then maybe I'm a tellin' in my career I could go do something else

versus like what you guys do, which is absolutely beautiful. You guys stay in the same regiment. But we do something slightly different as well. In that I joined my battalion as an air mobile battalion It's to be light roll. We then became mech. We then became armoured We then became light roll again and we go the whole unit That that that that expectation oh wow and

500 of you and all the families, so we moved from North Yorkshire to Germany 500 of you and all the families, so we moved from North Yorkshire to Germany, five years in the government, and then you move on. Now that's been stopped by the military now. I think that also reduces a lot of our versatility and sort of inherent knowledge, which I think is a loss on the shame. It was an expensive thing to do, but I do think it's probably graded something. of things to do. But I do think it's probably graded something. We talk about the PTSD thing and I think one of our big things has been so in the last decade since I've genocide I think with our guys is that it's exactly as you say some of you you always see guys on Facebook who you can see they're sort of going downhill or somebody will put something out and say you know if you've seen so and so and

and everybody rallies around, they all live, you know, they're all in the same streets, the same town or whatever it is. And everybody rallies around, they help them get jobs, go after a drink with them, whatever it is, you know, go around to their house, check on them. And that happens all the time. And I think that, as you say,

in terms of preventing PTSD thing is massive, certainly in terms of preventing suicides, massive. Yeah, it works. It's actually crazy because last year, one of my best friends, he actually lived right down the door for my sister and he killed himself. And he had no way to contact me or anything. And my sister said, yeah, my neighbor killed himself,

and I found out through her That my best friend who had left the army killed himself and so it's just it's crazy to me that you guys have each other right there And you know about it you have it all there and then like back here You could live two doors down from somebody and not even know it and so that's I I love that system I think it works wonders. We have something on It's not close but like between the 82nd and the 101st like our infantry officers and some of the guys Sometimes they like bounce back and forth between like Fort Bragg for Campbell and they just kind of spend like 10 years in this like loop-de-loop And it's it's terrible because your knees get blown out and your back's broken and you're just like, now that you've done helicopters,

let's send you to planes, but it's a toxic loop versus whereas you guys have, like you said, you have a whole Facebook group community, you have your soccer clubs together, you have your pubs together, like, that's insane to me. So that's awesome. It's perfect that when I was in the Marine Corps,

it's called boat space. So say's awesome. Sure. The fact that when I was in the Marine Corps, it's called boat space. So say an infantry unit, you could work there for two, three years, and they're like, all right, cool. You have to go work if you're like a grant. They're like, you were in three, six for three years. Now you're going to be a part of one four, and they uproot you and like throw you across the world. And then from there, if you're an Intel guy, they're like, cool. Yeah, it's pretty sick. You're Intel. However, you're going to be aviation, you're going to be recon, then you're going to be infantry, and then you're going to be logistics.

So you have no like sense of home, right? And then from there, in the special operations community in Marsoch, what they do is called both space. They're like, hey, there are not enough seats on the boat for you. So what they do is they're like six years max. So if you like enlist, you're like, I don't know, like, like,

like, grants, right? You're an infantry guy, you listen Marsox, you do six years of with like, the coolest dudes in the planet. And then they send you to like a logistics battalion No, and it's like the cultural disposition is so wide That even though the Marine Corps is so close. There's only a hundred and eighty thousand of us like

Someone knows someone like it's one of those is very close That like dynamic is not there It's it's bizarre. Like I think we did an okay job, but just hearing how you do it, I'm like, dude, man, that is. I can't do that. I'm just gonna serve the British

Americans are doing it. You'd be so well. You'd be so good. I just, I want a community. But it's interesting because we always look at the US Marine Corps with its spirit. And recently our drum major and a few guys and veterans went across the Quantico to do some presentations. Believe it or not, our regiment in Shanghai, I think in the 20s, taught the fourth battalion,

fourth Marines to play the Marines yep to play the 5th and they presented our drum major of our core of drums with the Shanghai Mace which which is still carried on parade so it's a lovely little bit you know where we've served we jailed don't we there's a real cool thing about the box of rebellion in the Marine Corps yes all the Marines get together in Belgium, and they all just get trashed together. They're like, hey, you were Marines, we're Marines, Marines respect Marines.

And so from my personal standpoint, looking at Russian Marines, driving up armor vehicles into a city, I was like, you're not using them right. You were saying this on a, on a podcast, you're right. There's no parallel. We put it in there, but they have four brigades of UK marine, or not, you create, yeah, you create a marine,

getting ready to cross the Dineeper. And like, they have all their aerosol and the Marines together, getting ready for a big push in the South. And so yeah, John, I don't know. I don't know. Sorry, which side is... Ukraine. Ukraine is staging all its Marines and aerosol,

air mobile units for a crossing of the Deneeper. I mean, I'm only getting my information from a lot of, from you guys, from JKFV, from a number of podcasts and place like the KF Post, which are all great places to sort of amalgamate it. I can't see that happening because, as you've discussed before, when you call a post-Soviet state's aerosol or airborne unit, probably 90% of the staff have never been in a helicopter or people have never been in a helicopter and certainly have never jumped out of a plane. And when you're talking about a marine battalion, nor have they ever seen a landing ship, nor has there coordinated plan to put naval gunfire support

coordinate with air. I don't know, I can't see that. Yeah. Let's somebody stick something physical across that, which is highly unlikely as well. I can't see that. What do you make of it? I mean, we were talking to Dingo the other day.

About Poison bridges. Two hilarious. Talk about Pantoon bridges. Yeah. And it's like the Russians built Pantoon bridges for the tanks to roll across from Belarus into Ukraine and no one stopped them. You think the Russians don't know what to look for? And what's...

And you were saying? He was saying about, no, it's... You think the Russians don't know what to look for? What? And you were saying? He was saying about, no, it's been done wrong because, sorry, it's gone wrong because it's been done wrong with all the prerequisites, the ability to use deception, the ability to conceal. I, yeah, I think Dingo was bang on. So, yeah, back to you guys. I don't...

It sounds like a lot of guys sitting in a field, to be honest. It's one of those things that we were talking... I was talking about the contact about this because he was the one who was told that they're starting to pull intel on the river and stuff and like look at it. Like as a serious consideration, then I saw the news of the Marines getting ready and I and like look at it like as a serious consideration then I saw the news of the Marines getting ready and I'm like brother man like it so that the AFVs of Russia and Ukraine are specifically designed to snorkel and be amphibious and cross those rivers cross the Deneeper without stopping like

the whole idea of the Russian mindset was that like a BTR or a BMP should be able to cross these small rivers and not need a bridge crossing because guess what, they're dangerous. And so, it's when I'm hearing Dingo talk about how, you know, just the clearing process of getting through a trench system. So you've got to do a bridge crossing, get through the minefield, get through the wire, get through the second minefield, get through the second set of wire, get in the trench, and then kill those Russians. And it's like, yeah, don't it wire, get to the second mind field, get to the second set of wire, get in the trench and then kill those Russians.

And it's like, yeah, do it today. It's deliberately. Yeah, it's deliberately. It's one of the worst operations in tactical history. And they're going to do it again. And at the moment, mind fields are a problem. So sticks water a beach, very limited abilities to get out of the water. Different sea states where BTRs and BMPs can't swim.

Unstable and subsea conditions wear, anyway, snorkels are not going to work. Get your troops brave enough to drive a tank with a snorkel without a train. No, I don't see it. I think the Ukrainians are doing a lot of fantastic things. I think their deep battle is a real lesson. And they are against horrifying obstacles, but launching across a stretch of water. So, Jagen, crazy spread is they want Crimea. It's like a deal

for the end of the war. It's like the peace deal. They want Crimea. What did Kody call it? Were the iron crosses grow? Yeah, Crimea is not so strong. They're still fighting in Crimea when they were fighting in Berlin. Yeah, it's insane. So, Jake, I'll just fill you in here. So they're starting to pull information and data about the Dnieper, the Ukrainian army. And they also have 10,000 Ukrainian Marines and their air mobile and air assault forces ready. So it's starting to look in the south.

So it's starting to look like they're going to do a river crossing to fight Russia. What's your take on all of these, all of this, if you will, but do you think that can do it? You will. I think it's Friday. I think no. I'm not a week ahead than it could be. So I'm not a big body of water, isn't it? It's not like crossing the river visa in Germany. The visa, whatever it was. Yeah. You know, that's a big space.

I mean, I mean, that being said, you know, the Russians have, that's an exact performance. Well, there's a lot being hidden. I mean, I'd love to know how many of those, you know, challenge attacks, Abrams and Leopard are still going. And I'm sure most probably haven't been destroyed, probably most aren't working because none of those things are particularly reliable. Well, it didn't work for us.

I did, they did. So, you know, we used to have a training, we used to have a training unit until Jake, AFV told me, it's closed, Batis is closed. We had an area the size of Wales in Southern Canada, just above Montana where we could go and blow the shit out of it and we had whole battle groups with tanks artillery and we go in life fire and then do tactical simulation. And cheese, our vehicle availability was horrifying. So try that in your conditions with British kit. No, this challenge is ain't gonna be moving. Oh, very far.

It's like the lepers. They were first test run in Syria and the Syrians blew them up. Like, they figured out the Syrians against the Turks figured out how to destroy the lepers pretty quick. Pretty sure the Russians learned. So just went there, Armour column of lepers running down the road, got a bunch of UAVs guiding them into a kill box and boom done, like

it is. And the Ukrainians are being quite tenacious, well they're being phenomenally tenacious and how they're turning citizens' soldiers into really quite professional fighters is really fantastic. And God, let's hope they win, of course. But the cynicism over these aerosol to amphibious claims, as Jake says, geez, weed struggle. But we've got hundreds of years. Maybe it's some sort of big deception or something, I suppose.

Yeah. I just, my thing about it is having planned all this stuff before and just seeing how much caffeine and sleepless nice go into it. And then you just have, because I think about it like this, when we had some of those missions, I remember looking over at the Lithuanian commander who is just this stoic of a missions. I remember looking over at like the Lithuanian commander who is just this stoic of a man and he was a full-on pagan. Like he wanted to die in battle. I had seen him on ISR standing above a trench, single-hatedly taking on 7 Taliban fighters trying to call

in a JDM on himself. I'm like, that is a man's man. And then I look at the Ukrainians and the Russians fighting each other and it's like I've had two weeks training and I am ready to go and I am ready to take my platoon across the river. I'm like brother man, let's take a break, let's chill, let's not put the pressure on you to perform a counter attack and let's take our time and think about this. But you know you have the politicians who are like no,, do it now. And I'm like, Oh, God. That sense of foreboding because because they can't afford the casualties. And and that's what's going to happen if something like that's attempted, even putting that amount of people into the air, if there was that amount of air, to that amount of aviation to move it.

No, I think it's pretty close to tell me now, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I don't think, I assume we'll head to some kind of negotiation and there's no way the Russians are giving up Crimea, so I don't know how that will go, but I doubt the Russians will want to go up anything that they've taken. So I think it's a stalemate that goes into years,

if not decades of negotiations or, and I mean nothing's gonna happen happen while peaches are burning or something like that. Juffer, for a warrant, yeah. It's closing. It always depends on who comes off. It all comes off to peaches, isn't it? Is that person more hard-minded here? Or are they slightly more sensible?

And then they might be interested. One of the craziest things I saw is when those Russian alternationals attacked Bill Grade and they were like seizing Russian territory, waving SS flags in the media in the West. We're like, yeah, they're pretty good. You're like, I'm certain that they're infinitely worse than Putin. Not what they're in charge. It's that. worse than Putin. Not what he has got in charge. It's that, it's that. I've just been come to I when I was resettling from the army, I went to Russia, so ostensibly

still as a serving soldier to go and try and learn Russian. And I'd been there during the Cold War taking expedition there, which landed me in a whole world of shite because of vodka and KGB. But the, but, but, but, you know, which, which is why I went back to the moment I was leaving the army, because they banned me from going before. But that dichotomy of, I've hold your horses, this massive Soviet legacy, and yet there's addiction to Nazi ideology, by which I'm talking SS ideology, that sense of excellence, that sense of selectiveness, and all that. I'm still struggling. And I keep thinking about it, and I can't balance it out.

I just can't get to the bottom of it. I was a guy, his name was Ivano Lin, and he was a Russian political thinker who was influenced by like Mussolini in like the 1920s, but his whole thing is like You can't get rid of God But you also need to use iconography to achieve the end So what he did is so his whole political theory was the end justifies means however use whatever Whatever is possible. So his whole thing, and this is back in like, the Russians hated him. And the Nazis didn't like him,

because he was like, Christian. And he was like, you gotta use religion, you gotta use art, you gotta use the military, you gotta use culture. Where the Nazis were like, you just gotta use the military, essentially, it was like a military in politics. But he was trying to like bleed all these together. And so he was exiled to like Sweden, I think, and died there. And so when Putin became president,

he was like that one. He essentially showed up with a gun to Sweden and said, give me a von Lenn's body. I'm bearing him in St. Petersburg, the true capital of the Russian Empire. Yep. And so he went over there, grabbed a von Lenn, buried him, and called him the true representation of the Russian people. So to me, like today, whereas like Soviet iconography, it's like a bizarre hybrid of like Soviet Russian Empire, current Russian Federation, you know, we won World War II, but also we were fighting Nazis, but we're also right leaning. It's like a bizarre hybrid, and it comes from this guy called the Bonne Linn, who was like, whatever works, works. If you need to embrace the SS symbol in order to win a war, do it.

And he's a very interesting individual in Putin. What was that one guy's name? His daughter was blown up last year. The Russian political thinker. Mm-hmm. I know you're talking about she was like one of the they were trying to kill him actually because he was like the head of like the The media arm and they ended up killing his daughter. Yeah, so they killed his daughter, but so in Russia they use faint operations where they're like we're gonna mask our true identity

And then replace with someone like, this one guy, I can't remember, is it Dugan maybe? Dugan? Yeah, it was Dugan. Yeah, there were like, this guy's in nut jobs. So the West goes, this is what the Russians believe in. We need to get rid of that. But they don't believe in him at all.

He's a face man for all Western propaganda. They're like, please don't read a vandal in because his whole thing is, it's not racial purity. I don't think it was a racist, but it was like a very like Russia for the Russians kind of thing. And whatever you need to do to protect Russia, because his whole thing was looking back to, it was like, every single time an empire collapses is at the fringes You have to go after those guys first. So it's it's bizarre hybrid and Yeah, really interesting and I spent about a month last year Getting really into the weeds of his like political doctrine and Putin lives in Burieda

Because I'm the ideal Russian. This is what we need to strive for. And a lot of people would always say something like, well, as Putin really a Christian, he might do this for political means or whatever. I'm like, I used to believe that. Now I think like Putin's like hard on Christian and he believes in what he's doing. Yes.

And it's because he was influenced by this guy, Evon Alain, who was like, you need, like, everyone has a God shape hole in their heart. What are you going to do? Phil with hate? As the Nazis don't do that. Phil with God to justify your outcome. And it's crazy. As Juliet Jake Blues, you know, he's on a mission for God. But you're right. And Matt, I just want to ask you, how do you, how do you see that iconography all playing out? In what you're seeing from your different sources across the Russian spectrum.

In the light of the fact, you guys have mentioned a few times about the fact that actually, while some Russians are dying, the majority of people who are dying under the flag of Russia are from Bashkortistan, they're from Buriant, just wondering what you think about it. Cheshnas. So, when it comes to iconography, the Russians believe in Russians first, so it's like white ethnic Slavic Russians. And so when it comes to the first line of soldiers, Stalin did it with the Mongole, and Stalin did it with like the Degas thine, and he did it with the Chessians. And he's trying to like preserve actual Russians. So when it comes to something like today, Fugging the US is pretty hard. You're not going to win. So what they do is they send like that

might is right Orthodox Christianity is the true way of doing things and it's bleeding over into the American conservative psyche where it's like orthodox Christians are pretty cool and they go to the gym and they abstain from drugs and alcohol and green marital sex and stuff like that which is usually Christian talking points but what the Russians are doing is we go to the gym and all their promotional material that comes out of their military are like super jacked us soldiers and they counteract it with like

I don't know, like a dopey kind of like skinny fat us army soldier. He was like, yeah, I think we're we know what we're doing. So it's not so much winning the people, the Russian people love Putin. He's at like an 89% approval rating. We're in the world, especially Africa. So Africa's the big one I want to talk about. Because American liberalism and the Western liberalism like psyche is very much like let's weigh both options and like talk to people. Like let's get in a room and talk. But in something like Africa and the Middle East, you're like, who hates me? I'm just gonna kill him and then no one hates me. And so they call the Russians in

because the Russians present this very strong national identity of like, yeah, if you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you. Like Cody said on the last podcast, that what the Russians did in Ukraine is no different. Don't let the Americans didn't Iraq 20 years ago. It was like they didn't like what was going on there. said on the last podcast that what the Russians did in Ukraine is no different than what the Americans didn't Iraq 20 years ago. It was like they didn't like what was going on there.

They went in, they tried to fix it. Americans got bogged down for 15 to today, 23 years, but the Russians are in Ukraine. And so it's like this weird iconography of, if you want to look at like Soviet propaganda, they're like don't smoke, don't drink, don't have premarital sex, only workouts. Like crazy stuff like. And it's the same thing the Nazis did, which is insane. Like they just borrowed it from the Nazis after World War II, implemented it and American

like, I don't know about Brits, but like American conservative like 22 year old kids who are like, quote unquote conservative are latching on to like orthodox Christianity they're not going to like top G by Andrew Tate like just dumb stuff like that and so it's like it's bullying but seriously it's like it's like going to church is the new rebellion. It is. It is. It is. It is.

Great things. That doesn't work in the British culture, does it? No, not. I think we're too cynical for all that as a race. We just don't, anybody goes into that. There's especially soldiers. There's just no way. I mean, I think if there was a soldier who was heavily Christian, it just wouldn't work.

They would just be shot to pieces by the other guys. You just don't see it. I can't remember one soldier being that religious, really. Yeah. So they're a bit even the Fugins. But they were their brutal Fugins. And they do all that. I mean, they might be religious, but they drink like lunatics.

They fight like lunatics. Yeah. True. Yeah, but they've got the right version of the shanty. It's throwing that idea of like purity, where it's like you're doing good things for the country. Like you're doing good things for the people of the world, which is like, I don't know, you can say that's like a very socialistic idea of like looking at things like we're

not talking about us, we're talking about the world, but how do you fix that first? You gotta fix your country and then you gotta start at the fringes, like Ukraine and Belarus and Dagassan and Chechnya and the Central Asian Republic. And you're like once you secure your borders, then you can start pushing all your ambitious ideas and it's something like Africa,

who guess what has minerals? There's a whole reason the Europeans countered Africa. Like where the Spaniards were looking for money in like wealth. The Brits were looking for like knowledge and culture to refine their culture. And, but also, I mean, they got spices and stuff out of it. But the Russians of the military rise wing and the Chinese completely sever topic are like the economic wing. And so they're strong-arming Africa into like this big corner. And it's bizarre to see American conservatives. Again, I can't talk about the bris but like Americans conservative saying like, Russia's

the good guy. I think they're the good guy. I think they're doing good things, which is insane. If you look at the average like Russian people, yeah, I'm pretty sure they have like, cirrhosis of the liver, they're incredibly agnostic. Like they do not like adhere to what the Kremlin saying that the Kremlin propaganda is so strong. And that's like a big thing the Russians do. It's like It's called the far war like the Taliban did it. They're like it's called the far enemy and so you got to fight them first So when you get there, it's easier to fight them. It's a whole thing. Do you know, did that race for Africa, I've just thought of an example, during the Civil War in Sierra Leone, Chinese built the defense headquarters. The Brits came in

and made a difference and built our little compound for us that we never saw because we were not country all the time. There's a little compound on the top of one of the high pieces of ground called Leicester Peak and just that side of that built the Sierra Leone Armed Forces Officers Training Academy for just not like a mini-staff college. I've now seen if you look on Google Maps and you look above Leicester Peak right on the highest point above free town is this huge American Embassy. Smiling down on the brits going by the way. And it was commented on back in, God, this was what, when was it, Jake? 2002.

And it was, you know, the changing, the changing emphasis about who needed to be exercising influence in all of these places. And we are at the moment seeing it being tipped straight on its head. And it came as a joke and I were trying to work out would we give a positive report about what we achieved in Sierra Leone? I think it generally was and they're now playing an active role. You know, they're in a civil war there and they're playing an active role in the African Union, you know, fighting in place like Somalia quite efficiently and quite well. But perhaps our softly, softly approach kept them in the fold, whereas what we're seeing elsewhere, where French and others and aren't doing it could be the undoing of Africa as we're watching it right now and as you

were back to Seemack. Well, yeah, I mean, I go out to Africa here soon and I was just there and it's it's bizarre. We were talking to Kato's and he was talking about like the cultural difference between Northern Somalis who speak English and the southern Somalis who speak Italian. And they have like a superiority complex over each other. What they refuse would like let say British soldiers come in. They're like, let me fix this. Like what?

Your country is ruled by Al Shabaab and you're bickering over like what language is better. And you're like, you're talking about English. You should probably call the English, like one of those situations, like, I don't know. But I hope it didn't sound schizophrenic on that rant earlier. No, it was actually. Oh man, it's the way the Russians do thing.

It's beautiful. You're like, just distract somebody. Like I always like to say that Americans play poker you can read somebody's face after around you put the cards down to get a new deck The Russians play chess We're gonna go like we're gonna lose a lot of people But they studied the opponents and they know how to win and it's a different way of looking at things Where it's too separate to get it's too completely separate games, but however, it's like the Russians know how to win. They lose like what? A hundred thousand soldiers KIA maybe in like 200,000 wounded. That's not even close to like them calling quits

The threshold was you reckon for so just don't worry. Yeah Peter Peter Zayin says that the threshold is to like this is how you get Russia to get on its back foot you You need to kill 500, not casualties. You need to kill 500,000, or you need to do a coup. And I think people are joking on the internet, they're like, oh, they paid Wagner to do a coup. And I think they just took the money and said, all right, we're doing a coup and then everybody who stood up got shot

and then Wagner just went to Belarus with their money and they're like, see ya, like. And so, but I mean, the key pocket was World War II. The key pocket had 500,000 soldiers been among. The fight to Moscow lost over a million. My name is Brad, it was millions. And that was like the first year. It's like, Russia's that guy that you could like beat stab,

hit with your car, and then you're like, I won that fight, and then as you get your car to leave, he's on your window like, I'm not done with you like bro When it comes to something like propaganda or iconography The Russians always point like their initial talking point was Ukraine is full of Nazis, right? We got to get rid of them, but then It's almost like everyone forgot about like 275,000 Ukrainians enlisted in the SS to eradicate Jews and Bobby Yor.

And you're like, and if they deny that, you're like, cool, you're feeding their propaganda, you're feeding them. And then from there, if you cut them off from like the World Bank, social media, all these things like that, they can only consume their own entertainment. And so from there, they're like, I think the Nazis are in Ukraine. It's not the Germans, it's not the Russians, it's the Ukrainians. And then even in Poland, when it was this last weekend, there was like a battle, I can't think of the name right now, but there was like a battle, or battle quote unquote, where

a bunch of Ukrainians were like seeking refuge in Poland. And under the communists, the Polish turned around and killed all the Ukrainians. And the Polish are like, we did not forget that you did this to us. And so the Russians take that, they're like, Poland's on board. I understand they're like a tool to keep

their kind of war going, where it's like, I think the Poles would rather fight the Belarusians than the Russians, because like one-on-one, I like I think the polls rather fight the Belarusians than the Russians because like one on one I don't think the polls would win however the Polish people at a soccer game are going oh Yeah, you crates not actually that great like they actually commit a horrific atrocities to Jews with the Bobby R And they also listen to SS so Where's that weird oxy moron where the Russians can go like? Looks like we're justified Americans didn't like Saddam

The thing he was committing purchase. Think he was committing ethnic cleansing You've created that. I think we can do that too. We have to go cure this like one of those things and it's bizarre I do think you've hit on it hits on something though. It is difficult for us to criticize what's going on given what them what we did in Iraq. It's a big one. Like Iraq is. And that's all the chat. That's all the chat here for example. I mean, because you know where I am now, the population broadly is probably supportive Russian, more than it is, you know, the West. And a lot of that narrative is around things like a rock and stuff. I also just because they sort of, they sort of whole meal believe the propaganda stuff. When I sat with somebody a couple of weeks ago, who was blaming the British because he said

that the British had nuclear weapons based in Ukraine. And I was like, we don't have, we're the only nuclear weapons we have on submarines. We don't have land based nuclear weapons. So that can't be, we don't have, are the only nuclear weapons we have on submarines? We don't have land-based nuclear weapons, so that can't be, I can't have any. This is an intelligent guy. His intelligence guy, yeah. And I said, we don't have them. And he said, no, you do, you just don't know about them.

I said, I promise you, I do know what nuclear weapons will hold on. They're only on submarines, so they can't have been on land. No, no, no, no. I read it in the newspaper. Then you can't have been on land. No, no, no, no, I'll read it in the newspaper. Then you can't push back against that stuff. So you're in Africa. And this is something that we talk about a lot on this podcast. It's like we have this issue in America, the EU, in the UK of like, and it were not politically affiliated. Me and I voted for Biden, Matt voted for Trump. We talk about politics, like, to civilize adults all the time on here.

But it's like liberals in the UK, and the EU, and America seem to think that they, you know, we know how the world works. But like when you expose that Western liberalism to Africa, it completely falls apart. The second and third world countries of the world do not like that. And so as you are a British man in Africa dealing with these things and you're encountering this stuff, how is that impacting your work? Like you're seeing like Western media and liberalism try to come into Africa. They just stare at that. That is not how the world works for us.

You can't put a carbon tax on my country when there's how am I supposed to get electricity? You know, I think it's right. I mean, broadly, I think most of the population isn't that fast. If you sort of mean, they think about things that we just don't have to think about in Western societies, like what am I eating tonight? And that gives a complete different

outlook to everything. And that gives an outlook because that sort of feeling runs the whole way through society, you know, up to the sort of political level. And that's why corruption's right, because if you've got a chance to take money, you should take it while you have a chance. And people don't really see that as corruption's right, because if you've got a chance to take money, you should take it while you have a chance. And people don't really see that as a bad thing because you could be hungry that evening. And then the rest of it, I think it's just, I suppose it's a reaction to years and years of being told how to do their business, either through colonialism or post-colonism, that is bored of it, and they're looking for, and what I find incredible, again, it's a,

I suppose it's a sort of ignorance, but also, again, all grists to the Russians for how clever they are, because this sort of, this anti-colonism thing about, you know, this places like the UK that colonized us and years gone by and then it's the US who's colonized us economically and so on and so on. But the Russians have never done that. Yeah. The Russians aren't a colonial power and you're like, just not true. The huge colonial power, it's just that most of their sort of colonization was around their board, it's rather than a great reach. But that's what they're seeking to do now, you know, as you said, the Russians, the Chinese,

now, this is new colonialization on a big scale. This is like the British with Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, heading up to Zimbabwe, all for economic reasons. That's what the Chinese and the Russians are doing here. But it's just not recognized. It's hard to know why, but they just don't see it. Whereas some of the big companies here are American companies because of the gas and stuff in the North. And they're not here to colonize.

They're here doing proper normal business, which relates to obviously taking profit from it, but also returns a huge amount of wealth to the country. But they'd probably rather see Russia and Chinese businesses doing that, who just won't do the same. They won't play on a level playing field. They won't insist that those profits are used properly. And I put back into, there'll be some controls by the big companies here. It will be insisting that the government is not just, that money isn't all disappearing. You are seeing greater

wealth amongst the people and so on. That Chinese, I think, they do have a hell. They do not care. Yeah, they do. You know, they don't care. They'll take all the profit offshore, and they'll take all the profit offshore, but they'll return a little bit to people's pockets. Taking it down to a microcosm of the veneer of democracy and how it works in Africa, you know, when we were facing in Sierra in the first post,

when we were just bringing the Civil War to an end, we were going to have the first monitored democratic election. And I took over my battalion the same week. I put mile 91, and the first meeting, first old group I had with the officers, well, we've lost nine wives, they've disappeared. Well Well we sent out the boys on a bit of scouring mission and we found the bodies in different ditches around the place where their reproductive organs have been removed and I said what the fuck's going on here? They said

oh one of the local politicians will have eaten those to give him power in the election. How do you start to influence that? Yeah, I mean that is that is that's perfect right because like Jake's talking about like how the Chinese and the Russians play the you know the corruption piece they turn that dial and like how do you explain to like you know I mean like conservatives and like realists in the the western world they're like okay if that's how they want to play that's how they want to play explained to like, you know, I mean like conservatives and like realists in the Western world, they're like, okay, if that's how they want to play, that's how they want to play. But then you have like, you're saying like the African magic and all that stuff.

And then you have like, the liberals are like, what? And it's like, you have to like, really big, deep ago, listen. Look, you could sit here and you could say whatever you want, your feelings and all that stuff. But when you come here to Africa, you come sit here and you could say whatever you want, your feelings and all that stuff. But when you come here to Africa, you come to play to win because there's gonna be corruption, there's gonna be black magic, there's gonna be a case. Like, Kano's put it perfect. He's like, you know, you go to South Africa and these gangsters put a gun in your face. He's like, you don't do anything because they're just gonna shoot you right away.

There is no hold up. Let me Yeah, there's no law and he's like because he like he says me videos all the time He's just like bro. I and like you know, one of those questions he had is like that like what Jake Steeler with over there and hit that part of Africa because Kato said in Mozambique when the The the revolution was done He's like the Americans just showed up with guns and who wants to do military training. And they're like, we just got done killing each other. And then the Chinese showed up to Mozambique

with a hospital ship. And he's like, in Mozambique, they sit there and they say, China is only second to God. And it's like, okay, how are we are we gonna how do you do this and you can't get like that same movie blood diamond DIA this is Africa if you're like nothing else it's I'll look I tell you when Jake and I were that the reason we got free fresh drinking water because we were like feeding ourselves was because we met where were we befriended, one of the last executive outcomes guys who'd been known as baby face

out there at the end of their time there. He was still there just sort of clinging on a great bloke, really, really good bloke, named not to be revealed here. And he kept trying to explain things to us about that. And weirdly, he looked just like Leo de Caprio in that film, spoke like him. It had been there exactly that time, and I can't help but thinking he was the model for it, but it's so exciting.

But I mean, there's going to be a timeout here in like a four and a half minutes. I don't know if we want to keep going or anything. But we got, we got, uh, all caught us two after this. So if you guys have, how do you, yeah, uh, we, these coming back into the world, uh, Cole is awesome. You're not. I can't do it.

Sorry, who's setting out to Niger shortly? I am. Yeah. That's Matt. Is it? I was in Nigeria last year. For about, I didn't know, two months or so. In Niami and was it Zinda, I think. How was it?

You should have fallen. It's a shithole. I was trying to do, I was trying to do, we're trying to set up a business there. I got you. Oh, great. Yeah, thank you. I mean, the last time I went to Africa, this one that Sue Dan stuff was going down.

And I was like, oopsie daisy. And then I got like a call. They're like, can you go back to Africa? And I was like sure, within six days, and as you're in clothes, and I was like, amazing. We've got a French kid who did an internship out in Ethiopia selling wine and like all types of stuff out there.

He's like a 19, 20-year-old kid just in the discord smoking cigarettes on the balcony and just like, I don't know what I expected. This is all shit and I just keep getting divia. And I'm like, he's like this college kid on an internship and we're like, what did you expect? Good, like, this is Africa. But anything you guys have to have, man, anything you guys want to end on, we're definitely going to have you again for sure. I want I'd like to put to pipe in and say it's

pure luck I found you through Instagram. It has been an amazing experience being part of the community, being a part of the Patreon and I'm going to plug it for you. I have not yet technologically worked at how the fuck to post things and actually join conversations and linked to stuff but I watch it every day and it makes me laugh, it's not in the discord, it makes me laugh my pieces off, I love having the extra stuff. I want to say a quick thank you to Olk on Siner Talk especially JKFV, Dingo and all the gang because it is brilliant what you guys have created here. I absolutely love it and I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.

Jake, it is... Nice. No, it's good to meet you guys. Really good. Thanks. Well, I'll email you a link to the Discord. I don't know if I should warn you or not, but it's everything from Dingo's... Dingo is former Australian combat engineer with two deployments, and he did one in Iraq

as a humanter. I'm in there all the time. JK, V is in there, so you've just got this... It's literally a dado training exercise and then we also play strategic video games I mean this morning the Royal Army or the Royal Tank Corps just beat the living shit out of a California kid who likes to get high and talk shit and he's not having a good day in there they are shit not him hard but yeah that's one of those quick humbling situations where I was like I'm just gonna place the US Marines and they saw that that absolutely gets destroyed that get the

issue I never want I just like all I do is I put all my guys in the Huey and I send them across the battlefield I'm like if anyone shoots them down the games over. Matt keeps recreating a customary airport and going, why? And like, it's literally, it's just everybody's in there from all over the world, giving each other shit. And we're trading up, we're doing a gun competition

in the Vembera Kampitrip. And then also, A.F.E. is looking to do some stuff with another British army vet who's going to go to a shooting club there. And we're going to start one up in England as well. So you guys will have stuff to do there and we're doing stuff here. So it's coming together. It's just taken a while.

But we don't want to be that guy, but I don't know how much time's left in the next like minute. So I just want to say like, you know, thank you so much for coming out. Thank you guys. You're insightful. And yeah, I want to cut it out before we cut you off. So you're always welcome back. Always welcome back.

Hey, thank you so much. You guys have a good day. Cheers. Thank you guys. Cheers. Bye bye. Bye.