The Accidental Army Reservist & Best Selling Author | Owain Mulligan

The moment you realise it is not “a big adventure” anymore can arrive fast: a new job title, a live threat, and soldiers looking at you for decisions you did not expect to be making. I sit down with Owain Mulligan, a reservist officer whose winding path through a gap year commission, the OTC, and the Army Reserve turns into operational tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and a career shaped by responsibility.

We unpack what it is actually like to mobilise as a reservist, including the strange incentives around volunteering, the intensity of pre-deployment training, and the brutal jump from training theory to troop command. Owain talks candidly about Basra on Operation Telic, the shock of a Lynx shootdown, IDF, and the hard-to-explain anger that can surface when you face mortality for the first time. We also dig into leadership where it really counts: NCO trust, competence under pressure, and how good seniors respond when a young officer makes an error on a strike op.

From there, the story moves into specialist capability and the Defence School of Languages, including 15 months of Dari and Pashto and how language skills can shape an Afghanistan deployment. We finish with Owain's book The Accidental Soldier, why the ending turns reflective, and why he sends his royalties to War Child to support children affected by conflict.

If you get value from this conversation, subscribe on YouTube or follow on Spotify, share it with someone considering the Army Reserve, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Cold Open And Introductions

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If you're shit, I will just sack you. I've never met a man who's had so much to do with the army without ever actually really joining the army. I was definitely seeking an out. So 99% couldn't be good, 1% mild trepidation. And then the helicopter gone down with everyone on board, and you know, all five in the end had been killed. That was the moment where it went from kind of adventure to it's pretty real.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Guys, welcome back to the Army Blake podcast. If you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify, welcome back. Today I am joined by a guest that has a lot of experience as a reservist officer. I get a lot of questions about a career in the reserves, and obviously I didn't do that. So I've been trying to find a suitable guest to give you some information, and I think I found the perfect man, not least because I read his book last summer and literally couldn't put it down. So I have been hellbent on trying to get him on since. Owen, thank you so much for joining the podcast and spending some time with me today. Do you want to give a quick intro to yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yeah, of course. Yeah. My name's uh Owen Mulligan. Uh I uh uh originally uh joined the Army straight off school. So I did a Gab year commission, I think it was known as a short service limited commission back then. Uh I was a gunner uh for about a year, so I was in the Royal Artillery. Then uh stayed in the in the reserve, so stayed in the OTC uh all the way through uni, uh transitioned over to the as was TA now Army Reserve in a in a yeomanry uh reserve cavalry unit. Uh and then about six months after starting my my civilian career post-university, I decided I needed a change of scene. I was a teacher and uh was was to put it mildly not very good at being a teacher. Uh so I mobilised myself, or I got mobilized effectively for a tour uh on Optelegate uh in Iraq with the Queen's Royal Hazars, uh, where I was a troop leader for about seven months. Uh came home uh after that, thought, right, that's me. I've got the army out of my system, I've got an operational tour under my belt. I had actually thought the same thing after my gap year in the gunners, I was like, right, that's me, got the army out of my system, all good. Uh I worked for the UK government for uh for about three years after that, uh, and then had the realization that uh I still hadn't got everything out of my system. Uh so I went and did a uh FTRS, so full-time reserve service. So you sign up uh as a reservist for a period of um full-time service, uh cleansing the name. Uh and I did a 15-month language course uh in Dari and Pashto, uh, and then uh did two tours of Afghanistan uh off the back of that. Uh at which point I finally had got the army and operational tools out of my system. Uh stayed in TA for a couple of years after that, but that was me.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, okay. I had no idea you had so many cat badges under your belt.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

I honestly I've been the biggest military hobbyist uh you can imagine. Just very unreliable, bouncing from thing to thing.

Learning Dari And Pashto

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, how was learning Dari and Pashtin?

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Uh yeah, it was hard. It's hard work. Um yeah, I mean Dari, Dari is actually not too bad, so it's kind of Arabic script, written right to left, but it's the most regular language you can think of. So everything is like, you know, rules bound. Pashto is the complete opposite. So again, written kind of right to left, so you've got to get your head around that. But it is it's the kind of language where there's a different ending for the word if it's feminine. If there's two of them, there's another different ending for it. And if it happens to be in a particular village in Helmund, there'll be a different word for it. So that that's nails. Uh luckily I kind of majored uh in Dari and did a bit of a side side in Pashto.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So were you ever fluent?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Uh I was close to close to fluent. I was uh in in Dari anyway, I was NATO Stanag level four, which is one below uh five, which you you can only get if you're a native speaker uh and been been born there.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

So that is so interesting. Nice, okay, cool. And how long was the language course?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Uh that was 15 months end to end. Yeah, it's pretty intense, right? Yeah, it's I mean it's one of those army courses you can kind of make it as intense as you want it to be. Uh so you know, starts at 8:30, finishes at 4:30. That that can be it, you know, and and some people kind of really lent into that. I made it quite me and a couple of peers made it quite intense for ourselves and kind of lent into it a bit. But um, but yeah, you know, it's great because the army leaves you alone. There's no there's no orderly officers, no guard or anything. Um there's fizz, but there's no exercises. Um, and you just you just learn verbs and vocab and you know, do your do your listening and speaking all day long for 15 months.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Great. That's very good. I'm sure we'll we'll we'll get into that again. Um I've quite obsessed with well, obsessed maybe the wrong word, but there's so many language courses that the army offer that I never took up. Now I'm out. I'm like, God, why didn't I try and get on that? But sometimes they're like tour-specific, right? So they pinned you for something and then you have to go on that. But um, we'll probably get into that. But maybe let's just start at the start.

Why Join And Gap Year Commission

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Why did you join the army?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

That's a great question. And I uh I spent a lot of time reflecting about it when I was in the army. Why am I doing this? As I'm sure most people do. Um, I mean, I don't think I had any particularly noble reasons. I think I joined for a lot of the same kind of reasons that that young men do a lot of stuff. Um, so I kind of, you know, grew up reading Biggles books and watching Soldier Soldier, and it looked fun and adventurous and kind of exciting. I mean, I grew up in a brilliant childhood, but I grew up in in kind of South Buckingshire. Everything's very like ordered and kind of safe and like, you know, lovely, but there was no kind of edge to anything really, um, which is brilliant for a childhood, but it kind of maybe leads you to thinking, well, what happens if what happens, you know, if I just go and kind of seek out adventure. Um, so that was kind of one bit, just wanting to go and see the the wider world. Um, I think it also, you know, if we're truly honest, it's it's quite cool. Uh a lot of it is quite cool. Like I didn't know what the word Ali meant at the time, but I knew I liked the feeling of Ali. Uh, and you know, I think that drives uh a lot of young men and certainly drove me to to want to be kind of part of it. But there was no kind of you know, I wasn't necessarily seeking challenge or or certainly seeking to kind of serve my country. There were kind of much more young 18-year-old man type reasons than that.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Okay, yeah. No bigger advocate than hero slaves than me.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I mean, absolutely just yeah, you love yourself sick sometimes, just you know, you could only capture that that image of yourself, you bottle it and try and sell it.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

But in my case, it was like, what amazing practice platoon attack that was not so happy. Um, okay, cool. And then how did it work for you? So the reserves now, the TA back then, the territorial army. Did you have to go through AOSB? How did all that work to become an officer in the TA?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

So I had a slightly, a slightly unusual route. I mean, I never did anything uh in the kind of straightforward or sensible way. So I because I did the Gap Year Commission, uh, I went to AOSB uh as was RCB at kind of 1718, um, did briefing, did did the main board, and then basically went to Sandhurst for just shy of four weeks, um, did the kind of short service limited commissioning, limited commission commissioning course, and then basically spent a year in in the field army, uh so with a uh uh gunner regiment up in up in Lincolnshire, which then meant when I kind of went back to the OTC and and and subsequently kind of transferred into the reserves, there was no more kind of training requirement uh for me, um, because it was you know rightly or wrongly believed that I'd kind of got that under my belt. But yeah, it was the same kind of uh AOSB that that people were going through for commissions, short service commissions in the regular army.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Nice uh as was. And so so with the gap year, because that still happens now. I actually remember one young lad joining our battalion, had a great time. Yeah, just sort of giving a platoon. Uh I like did some exercise and whatever. And uh, because he was only there for a year, like I think the battalion was really keen for him to have a good positive experience. Yeah, I think that was some you know duty stuff to go with it, but actually got on like quite a few decent exercises, AT and all that sort of stuff that maybe would be in a a few years, he got in that year. How was your experience there?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, pretty pretty analogous, actually. Um, so I mean it was an air defence regiment, uh, which was good in a way because they're quite big troops, they're kind of like 35, they're more like an infantry platoon than a than a cavalry troop or what have you. Um, and you're not stuck in a gun line with with lots of other officers, so you're kind of out and about with your independent command. Um, I took over a troop when I got there. Um, I actually, you know, I stayed with the troop, did all the exercises that troop did. I got cut away on occasion when they were going to spend you know a month in camp doing vehicle main to something. I would, you know, head off to Cyprus to do uh uh an excise lion sun with uh with another battery and you know, yeah, no, it was good. I got South Africa, um, you know, a few other places on AT. So it was great, you know. Um uh and I got a good mix of kind of proper military training, which you know I'd later have to rely on quite a lot, um, but then also just seeing the fun side of the army as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

And why a gap year commission at that age? Was it a bit of a decision point to go, I'm gonna try this before I fully commit, or how did you see that? Exactly that.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

So it was partly, partly it was a kind of sense of urgency uh or a sense of like, you know, I've just done 18 years living in Southeast England, done my A levels, you know, I know I'm going to university next year. It'd be quite nice to get out and do something a bit different. Um, so it was partly that. It was also partly because I'd had that, you know, watching soldier soldier and growing up with the army. I thought, you know, good good chance to have a look at it. You know, I've got no real kind of other than grandfathers in in World War II, I've got no kind of real military connection. Um, so it felt felt like a kind of good try before you buy, you know, and the worst that happens is you just find out it's not for you and and can go off and do something else.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Okay. So it sounds like that process is still very similar. Have to do briefing main board, then you get that gap here, commission. And then what happens once you've done the year?

SPEAKER_02 9:06

That's it. Uh there's no uh certainly as was, there's there's no kind of further draw on your time. Um, I mean it's a it's a pretty far-sighted thing of the army to do because they they don't really get much out of you when you're in the army. You're not, you know, you're leading a troop in in name uh potentially, but you know, they certainly can't take you on operations. I think some of my peers got to Kosovo, but you know, that was about it. So they're not really getting their kind of money's worth out of you as a trained officer. What they are hoping is you either come back, uh, which a bunch of people do, or you kind of go into the wider world and just propagate, you know, the army and you know the the benefits of uh of the military more broadly to a wider audience, which you know pretty much everyone does because pretty much everyone has a great time doing it. Um and they never see you know any any kind of downsides to to military life, really. Yeah, it definitely gets better the longer you've been out as well.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

The rose tinted glasses just get more and more shaded uh as time.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Very much so. Um okay, cool. So we've we've done the Gap Year Commission. What do you then go on and do?

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Uh so then I'm at university for three years, uh uh just just doing a degree. Um I was not so kind of into my my military uh training that I made a beeline for a kind of local TA infantry regiment. I was you know pretty happy with the OTC. So I, you know, hung out in the gun troop there. Um, you know, lots of AT, lots of social, you know, bits of military on the side. Similar kind of ethos to the gap yeah, really. Like ultimately the army is interested in people having a good time, some of which you know will will stay and and become productive, trained officers, some of whom will just take a really good impression of the military and to their later lives. Um so yeah, that was that was three years at university. And then you know, still enjoyed the military aspects.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Uh, and therefore, when I left, kind of just transitioned sideways really into a uh the Royal Mercy and Lancastrian Yeomanry, which is a reservist cavalry regiment in uh so really from a young age you've kind of been involved in military service in some capacity until I guess you've sort of left a decade or so ago when you sort of timed out what you mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Exactly, yeah. Although I've never fully committed, like I've just I've just taken this hobby and it's completely run away with me, and I've ended up on three operational.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I was gonna say that's that's probably enough commitment, I imagine.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, but I mean it's yeah, I think my best man at my wedding was like I've never met a man who's had so much to do with the army without ever actually really joining the army. Um, so yeah, there's a bit of

Teaching Burnout And Mobilising For Iraq

SPEAKER_02 11:22

that.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It's pretty cool. So then you were a teacher, and this is kind of how the your book starts as well. Um it's a pretty gripping start, actually. Uh it's we'll come onto the book in a bit more detail, but it's funny from the start. You had me, um, which was really good. Uh, but you sort of mentioned it it was a bit of a frustrating process. And what I tend what I thought I, you know, I picked up was it wasn't so much that you joined the army because of the love of the army, it was more that you joined the army because you hated that. Is that a fair assessment, or maybe I've got that wrong?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Uh it's not, it's not unfair. Um, I think I was definitely seeking an out. Um, I was on the the teach first scheme, so you do about six weeks teach. I've got a habit of just doing very short, inadequate amounts of training and then trying to do really hard jobs afterwards. Uh so you know, that that definitely came through with teaching. So you do about six weeks teacher training and then you get put into, you know, typically quite a quite difficult school to work in. Um, lots of children on, you know, um with with kind of disadvantaged backgrounds and and you know, behavioral issues, all that kind of thing. Um, I just you know, I thought I'd finish with the army, had a great time in the gunners, and was like, all right, okay, that that probably is it. Um, I didn't want to be a lawyer or kind of you know, uh barrister or management consultant, ironically, given that's what I am now. So I thought, well, let's try this because you know it's a bit different. I I was hopeless at it. Um the school was really tough. It wasn't the kids' fault, like it was, you know, their backgrounds were were difficult. Um, and I could just feel my like cortisol mounting and mounting and mounting. Yeah. The army at the time was running super hot. I mean, it was 2000, uh late 2005, early 2006. So um it's all happening. Yeah, it's all happening. Iraq is kind of absorbed 10,000 people at a time. Um, I think Afghanistan's about to kind of sick off uh kick off rather with those early uh single-digit herracks with you know 16 Air Assault Brigade uh smashing everything up. Um so you know, there were trolls going around pretty consistently around the TA saying, look, we need warm bodies, that began to feel increasingly like not only the outs, but also I started to see people coming back from those tours, having had you know, a quote unquote alley time, you know, no kind of downsides had become apparent. And I just felt between those two kind of motivations, like this feels like the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Um interesting. And then how does that troll work? So for people that are you know are either on their journey to join the reserves or considering it. Obviously, my regular experience is you're going here, yeah. See you in a bit. Uh, but it's different in the reserves.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Uh so but for I think the very first phase of telex or the war fighting phase, I don't think the TA ever compulsorily mobilised people um uh for either Iraq or Afghanistan. So after that point, there were no more notices landing on people's uh doorsteps saying, right, you you know, brown envelope, you are going. Um what you did was you kind of you told your company start major, or in my case, rang the adjutant every morning for like three weeks saying, get me out of teaching, um, to say, look, if one of these notices arrived, I would not be averse to it. Um and the reason for that was if you get compulsorily mobilized, they look after your job, um, you kind of you know, you get your um, depending on what salary you get, it'll kind of get topped up. Whereas if you volunteer, none of that none of that kind of happens. So it was a uh you basically you effectively volunteered, and then the formal process was compulsory on the outside, but it wasn't really.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Okay, cool. So you finally get the call.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Talk me through that bit, is that kind of like that realization bit of like, yes, oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Uh it was all it was 95%. I mean, you know, no 23-year-old is particularly kind of switched on thinking about second-order implications in the wider world. I mean, I think I was right at the bottom of that kind of bell curve in terms of actually thinking things through. So it was 99% get in, like, this is my out, you know, it's all going to be good. Um, and you know, 1% kind of mild trepidation, but but nothing material. It just felt like the start of a big adventure. Partly because, you know, Iraq, while it had had its moments, particularly on um, you know, something like the PWRR's uh kind of infamous uh CIMIC house tour, um, it was still kind of low-level counterinsurgency. Um, you know, the people were getting hurt and dying, but not the kind of scales we'd later on see in Helmand. So it kind of had that adventurous, kind of slightly edgy risk bit, but also I was just hopelessly naive. And you know, we'll talk about it later, but that fell away quite quickly when I got to theatre. Um, and real stuff started happening that made you think, well, actually, this isn't you know a game or you know, just a fun adventure. It's um it has it does have second order consequences. Um, but initially, yeah, it was it was just happiness at getting out teaching and real kind of appetite for you know, I'm gonna see the desert and drive around and look alley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, very 23-year-old reaction to the news.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

So then um, you know that's happening. You go on uh do you go on like a PDT type timeline, and then all of a sudden you're out in theatre, how do you meet your troops? Or I guess fill in that bit before you actually turn up on tour.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah,

Thrown Into Troop Command

SPEAKER_02 16:12

so it's uh I mean, initially they don't really tell you what you're gonna do. I mean, the army being the army, it's a little bit loosey-goosey, you kind of ride up until the last moment. Um, so got the news uh, I think you know, late end of the year in 2005, then got told, you know, you'll deploy uh in April 2006, um, you know, early January, get yourself out to Germany. You know, we know the unit you're going to, the Queen's Royal Tsars are at Sennager. Um, go and go and meet them. But you know, there's no kind of description of the job you'll be doing. Um, my working assumption was I'll be some sort of liaison role, or I'll be in a headquarters, you know, ACAD, something like that, or you know, assistant to the assistant to the assistant ops officer, you know, really making sure the brew area is tidy. Um so yeah, effectively um got got the notice, pitched up, went to Germany, um, uh got in a minibus uh from whichever airport I turned up in, got to Padbourne. There was a note in the officer's mess saying, Um, Second Lieutenant Mulligan, go to B Squadron in the morning. I was like, great, okay. Went to B Squadron and my OC, um uh Ian Mortimer, who um subsequently became a brigadier, um just told me uh flat outright, I'm down a troop leader, you are now third troop leader, and you know, looked at me as if he was expecting me to be cock a hoop. I I wrote about in the book, was trying very hard not to throw up in my mouth because this was completely unexpected and I did not feel prepared. Um, but it wasn't until that point I had any grip of what it would what it was that I'd be doing in theatre.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, it's it's I I remember reading that and I'm quite open that I finished uh the 44-week commissioning course at Sandhurst. And like if someone had told me then you're off uh to war, I'd have been like, no, I'm not, I'm not ready. By the time I had finished Brecken, I felt much more ready. Yeah, but by that point, I've been in the regular army for you know almost 18 months, and then you go on a PDT anyway beforehand. Well, some people would have actually just finished Brecken and gone and joined their platoons out there back in the day. Um but but yeah, I sort of read that and I thought, wow, actually that is quite something because I think I would have felt exactly the same as you. Suddenly that responsibility kind of, oh wait, what am I actually signing up for here? So it's interesting that that is how you felt.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah, yeah, it was the first phase of that kind of like slightly naive, happy-go-lucky kind of facade falling away and being met with the reality that, you know, it wasn't gonna be a jolly where I actually nothing I did would really have any kind of consequences. I'd be kind of tucked away in an option. It wasn't really a sense of kind of, you know, I wasn't um there was no trepidation because of a sense of I'm it's gonna be less safe than working in an option. It was more, wow, that's a hugely terrifying amount of responsibility. Um, and in fairness to Morty, you know, he was also very clear that I'm down a troop leader, um, you are third troop leader, then told me a bit about the lads, uh, and then finished it with you know the heartening words, you know, obviously, and I think I got my first kind of break and point at that point, you know, if you're shit, I will just sack you. Uh which words of encouragement. I mean, yeah, but I mean, I you just you can't you can't beat the army for that kind of like giving it very straight down the line. Um and he was absolutely right because his primary responsibility as OC would always have to be towards his soldiers, not uh reservist officer he's met five minutes ago. Um he gave me an absolutely fair crack of the whip the whole way through, and I, you know, for obvious reasons, or not obvious reasons, but obviously didn't get sacked. Um, but you know, that was absolutely the right call for him to have made at the start.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, so so you've had that meeting. I imagine there's a bit of nerves going around now, you know what you're doing. But also I'm particularly intrigued to hear how the other officers received you and particularly the soldiers that you're leading.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yes, uh it's a good question. Two kind of two very different reactions. Um I mean the officers the QRH is or was, and I I'm sure still is, just a really happy regiment that's kind of comfortable in and of itself, uh recruits you know, good people um who uh get on and you know focus on the job at hand. Not you know, the big personalities, but like it's a you know, for certainly at the time I was there, it was like a just a happy, happy unit. And that would always be my advice to someone like you know, when you're when you're looking for somewhere, you know, look obviously for the role and you know, all that kind of thing, but also just look for someone that feels comfortable in all of itself. Um, so the officers, you know, obviously my nickname from day one and for the rest of that tour, all through the PDT period, up until I left them, you know, in Paderborn at the end of the tour, was Stab, stupid TA bastard. Uh just reflexively. Uh that you know, that was you know, uh I think Morty at one point was just like calling me out on an O group, saying Stab, what do you think? Uh so actually asking my opinion, but but yeah, I'm no offense by it by that.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

No, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

It's just I was I was kind of answering to it as well. I was like, you know, popping my head up when someone said stab. I mean that you know, absolutely to be to be understood, but at no point, I mean I I they must have thought, like, what the hell's going on? We've just done, as you say, 44 weeks on a commissioning course. We've done, you know, uh three six months, whatever it is they did at Bobbington and Lullworth on a kind of young officers course. Um, and who is this dude who's just like bimbling up to try and do the same job that we're doing as troop leaders, that we've worked really hard to get to, and you know, he has just kind of wandered in because there happens to be a gap. But you know, in fairness to them, at no point did I ever feel less than or or made to feel like um, you know, I didn't deserve the job providing that I could deliver the goods. Um, there was no kind of instinctive snobbery about the fact that I hadn't done that commissioning course. And part of that was helped by the fact you just get thrown straight into PDT. There's no room for kind of, well, you know, you did four weeks, I did 44 weeks when you're both on your 36th hour without sleep, kind of like crouched around a scratch model pit, trying to work out how you're gonna do a kind of two troop raid on some building in the Fibra village. Um, so you know, that you become very close very quickly, and th those kind of things fall away, except for stab, which stays for nine months. The soldiers um uh really didn't seem to kind of uh register it in the same way. I think there is, you know, notwithstanding the fact that people get very close to their soldiers and the bond is huge, like they're not fundamentally that interested in the kind of formalized details of your training and like where you've been and what you've done and all that kind of stuff. Where they take an interest and where they kind of make their judgment calls is when you're out on the ground or, you know, in training. Are you doing the right things? Do you look competent? Can you read a map? Um, are you, you know, is your judgment good? Do you flap under pressure, etc.? You know, they were much, much less interested in, well, how long exactly did you do it, Santa? So like it never really, it never really came up. Um, you know, one of the other troop sergeants right at the end of the tour said, like, you did you did really well for a stab. And but that was genuinely from the from the lads, anyway. That was the first time it ever really kind of come up.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Um, and I didn't, you know, I didn't gloss over it. I didn't go into detail about the fact that I was basically half trained. Um, but you know, they certainly never kind of proved it or pressure tested or really asked any questions.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, because I guess you've got that difficult balance of you were their leader at this point. So uh you need to be honest, but you also need them to have confidence in you. Exactly. And it's really interesting you say about that because I had my former RSM uh on the podcast, and I sent you, you know, in his younger years as a soldier, before maybe he was sergeant and was more aware of that type of stuff. Um he said, Yeah, just not interested in how an officer gets there. Yeah. Just interested in what I have in front of me. Yeah. And I think for anyone listening, that might actually be a bit of a relief. Yeah. So I just get there, learn, and and try and do it. But also, probably quite hard to balance that of I need to learn quickly versus I need these people to have confidence in me. Because I mean, in your case, you're literally going out and doing dangerous stuff almost immediately. Yeah. Um that's that I find that particularly interesting and how how you um did that.

PDT Realism And NCO Trust

SPEAKER_00 23:42

So how long was PDT in total?

SPEAKER_02 23:44

PDT was probably about uh probably about three months all in. Pretty thorough. Yeah, fairly thorough. Uh and that, you know, that really helped kind of close a lot of the gap as well between my kind of level of training and what what the other troop leaders maybe had had. Um, because it was all, you know, it was quite different for them as well. Yeah. Um, you know, as with anything at the regular commissioning course, like I've only read about it and never done it. But you know, there's I think there's a two-week kind of public order stroke um coin phase. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, which is which is two weeks. We then went and did kind of three months with the optag staff who have, you know, either just come back from theatre or have visited theatre, they know exactly what's happening, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

With everyone qualified. Yeah, exactly. Sandhurst, everyone's pretending they know the role.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Exactly. Apart from the instructors, obviously. Um so they you know, the the the other guys were getting stuff wrong as well and kind of learning on the hoof, and you know, a lot of you know, they've spent six months learning tank gunnery and all that kind of stuff. Like it starts to become less relevant that training. Um, and you know, the two weeks they did at Sandhurst on that coin exercise is much more relevant. So, you know, that was a good level setter. As you say, like it's unbelievably thorough. Like the army's very struck me as very method in the way it trains you, um, particularly for those operations. Um you know, if they think you're gonna get a certain fire, like you know, other organizations might think, well, let's introduce them to the concept of fire and you know, talk about like fire and you know how it affects you. The army is very much like let's just set them on fire in Germany.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, the old petrol bomb inoculation.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Exactly, and they'll work it out. Yeah, and then you know, I mean it never happened to be in theatre, but uh, you know, and and later on, um, when I uh went to uh Afghanistan, I was I was embedded, luckily enough to be embedded with uh UKSF, and the the training for that um was um another level of kind of realism. So, you know, you'll you'll be manning a kind of fob, and you know, five to midnight, very quiet, nothing really going on. All of a sudden there's a massive Batsim explosion outside, yeah, and you've got like two double amputees who come from I think it's amputees in action, they lost their legs in car accidents or motorcycle accidents, like pulling themselves up the steps of the fob towards you, like clutching at your trousers. Fake blood everywhere with fake blood squirting in your face, and you're like, wow, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

It's uh it's pretty real. Well, when you obviously see it for the first time, you're like, that's not what we've done in well, in my case, it's Andhurst that much. It's something like, holy shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I mean, uh afterwards on that particular serial, the DS were like, I think you went into like mild shock there, sir, because your face kind of like, you know, went extremely white, and you know, and that's a mark of good training. Like if we can send you to the edges of like almost battle shock just by being an excise, yeah. That presumably has to inoculate you really well for the real thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

I've just had a flashback to something we did at was it Sanders or Bracken, I can't quite remember. And I don't really know the purpose of this, but I think it was to be like, you know, we obviously can't just shoot at you, so you know what that feels like, but we can try. So we it's like a big hole in the ground. Yeah, they've got like GPMGs at one side. You basically just sit in the hole at night and they just fire over the top of you. It's like just a waste of an hour, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

I I don't know. I think it's so you can at some point in your career look incredibly alley because you can explain somebody who doesn't know what's going on. Well, that's the thump, and then the crack is, and that means it's closed, which I never managed to do because obviously I just you know headed for the ground anytime anything happened, but um, but yeah, I I suspect that might be the point.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

I I yeah, I've I've not had that. I'm the least experienced uh person I've had on my own podcast when it comes to all of that. So you're a good company. Okay, so um so PDT, three months, pretty thorough. I've also just written down here um NCOs. How did you approach that? Were you given any advice maybe by your company commander or the other platoon commanders about how to I know I know you've been in the army anyway, so you've probably experienced this, but you know, your relationship with the other officers, then your relationship with your sergeant, then your your corporals and whatnot, and then obviously the private's probably quite different. Were you conscious about how you tried to handle that? Was there anything you did to try and get the the NCOs on side from the start? Um not not really.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Um but I think that was a function of we were kind of straight into it. Like not long after I got there, we went to um Tin City and we were kind of, you know, we were in a effectively like you know, a platoon house type type setup and living cheek by jowl. Um, I mean, I think to your point earlier, I I kind of lent on them and was more open with with my troops aren't and uh and you have a kind of troop corporal in in the cavalry, it's quite a small unit, it's you know, 12-person troop, uh, and then you have a couple of lance jacks as well. I was more open with my troops aren't troop corporal, who are kind of in a in a tank troop would be your commanders of your second and third tank, but in my case for commanders of my second and third Land Rover. Um, I was a bit more open with them about like, you know, what how would you do this? Like what, but you know, I also wasn't, I've got no idea how to do this, I need you to help me, because not as much as the boys, they also need to have some confidence in you as their troop leader because your troop sergeant is not there, he's there obviously if anything happens to you to take over, but he's not there to do your job. Like you very much have your job. His job is not making tactical decisions, reading the maps, manning the radios. His job is you know, admin Kazovac, you know, resupply, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, he's got his own job, he's got his own job, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:38

So, you know, and also you don't want to fill the guy with you know, he is aware of your kind of background. I had a great troops aren't for the first part of the tour, I you know, then swapped around quite a lot, actually. Um, but you know, he wanted to see him succeed. Um, I think you know, there's so much to be said for just being a good human being.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Um, especially if you join one of those kind of happy regiments like kind of mentioned earlier. Like people want to see you succeed. Um, they don't, you know, they get nothing out of you failing. Um, so if you're a good, decent human being, that can kind of that can all almost make up for quite a lot of formalized thought about well, how do I get people on side? Or you know it'll just happen more organically. And that was certainly the case with my with my troops, aren't yeah?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Really interesting. I I I I can't remember who I was chatting to about this, but um, with what I do now, obviously I'm speaking to a lot of people that are going into this type of environment in terms of starting Sandhurst and wanting to know about relationship building with their NCOs and sort of hear a lot about it. And I always come back to the best sergeants I've seen do it are very capable of leading the platoon, but know that that's not their role. They know they are a leader of the platoon, but ultimately they know that they need to be the best to IC possible and support that commander in the best way they can, which yes, involves telling them when they're wrong, bump around the shoulder, telling them the better way to do it, but it's never undermining that person. It's really facilitating it. And I've also seen, and I'm sure we all have, platoon sergeants that overstep that mark. And actually, it it does get awkward and it fractures the relationship somewhat. And I don't think the soldiers want to see that either. They want to see that uh ideally, you guys have a really tight-knit relationship. So it sounds like you had that with with the the first person that you sort of PDT and deployed with.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yes, no, yeah, absolutely. We were um yeah, we were we were close, and you know, personal reasons had to go home. Um, and then you know, actually, I'm probably about four troops aren't over the course of the yeah, people stepping up and stepping down, you know, um, just the just the nature of an operational tour. Um, and the army being the army, it was cutting people away in the middle of the tour to go on like career courses back in the UK. So good to know that's happening. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, even the even in the midst of a high-tempo counter-insurgency operation, like we need to make sure that people do their career courses. But uh, but yeah, you know, I I again, you know, I was very lucky. Cavalry, I think, is you know, it's a fairly laid back but professional type of organization in general. Um, and that is kind of reflected in how the NCOs approach their jobs and approach their young officers as well. Um, so that helped a lot. But you know, there's no it doesn't feel like there's any kind of rocket science to it. Um, if you're a you know fundamentally good person who listens but also like leads by example and you know makes the difficult decisions, I think your troops aren't and your troop corporal will want to kind of get behind you on that journey rather than you know showboat or or trip you up or um or disintermediate you in front of the uh the boys.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, definitely. Well, let's move on to when you're out there then. So uh

Basra Reality Check And Lynx Loss

SPEAKER_00 31:21

what was it like actually deploying in and getting your boots on the ground?

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Um yeah, I mean again, you know, I probably I turned up in theatre still in a bit of a mindset of um you know it's an adventure fundamentally, you know, we're gonna have a good time and uh it's you know spicy but but not you know not threatening in a way. Um the scales kind of fell away fairly quickly. Um we hadn't been in theatre very long when um J. Shalmardi uh militia shot down a lynx uh helicopter uh over the city. Um and you know, helicopter was like the way to move around town if you didn't want to go by road, which was getting a bit more uh tricky. Um so it was a it was an absolute shock to the system uh to learn, you know, literally Morty sticking his head in the tent flap and going, right, they've just shot down the lynx in the city. We're on 30 minutes nice to move, get to the cookhouse, I'll brief you up. Um that was the moment, you know, days after arriving theatre, where it went from kind of adventure to this is pretty real now. Um, you know, it's very clear immediately that the helicopter had gone down with with everyone on board and you know, a number of people, five in the end, had been had been killed. So that was a real kind of level setting moment. Um the first time on the ground, actually, um, was a little bit the inverse. When they take you on PDT, because obviously they've just got the three months, they throw absolutely everything at you every time you get out of the gate, like someone explodes.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

The worst case scenario every day.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

It's huge, and like you just get you go from like, oh someone's just exploded at me, and then like, oh, someone's just opened up me from a depth position, and while I'm doing that, like there's a minor aggro scenario forming, and I'm being pelted with like bits of two by the time.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

I've lost my platoon day after day.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Exactly. Like, I mean, we worked it out at some point. We were like, wow, the entire squadron's been killed about four times now. Like, we are gonna need more soldiers. Um, and then you know, you go out on the ground for the first time for your you know familiarization patrol. I went out with um uh kind of multiple from the RRF, uh, Royal Regiment Fusiliers, uh, you know, Geordie lads, went out the back of a couple of warriors, and you know, I honestly I was saying prayers. I'm I I'm a Catholic, but you know, I was saying proper prayers leaving the gate uh that first time um because you assume from PDT that the minute you leave, someone's gonna fire an RPG from just outside the main gate. Uh it's gonna take your head off. And you know, every time someone drives towards you, you're like, well, okay, when are they gonna clack themselves off? Um and it takes you know quite a long time for you to realise that you know Basra is a city of 1.5 million people, 1.4999999 recurring of those people just want to live their lives, they want to like fix their cars, take the kids to school, go to work, um, you know, have some downtime on the weekends, etc. They're not all looking to clack themselves off next to your vehicle. And you know, notwithstanding the fact that contacts do happen and it can get can get spicy, um, you know, that is reflected in a lot of your patrols, right? Um, I mean it is worth saying that telecate had its moments, but it was nowhere near you know Hellman's kind of 2009 type experience. I mean, not not even close, but um, but yeah, the the the the kind of it was a slightly strange duality of okay, some real things are happening, people are being killed in quite big numbers, but also it's not happening every time I go out the gate in a way that it did on PDT.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah, it's interesting. I as you're speaking there, I remember like the first patrol that I did on Obtoral 7. It's obviously different theatre again, definitely not the Herrick uh days. Um, so so rather peaceful at that at that point. But obviously, it's my first tour, uh my first time out the gate and going on this patrol, and then you just see like all the civilians like barely bat annihilated that you're there. Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, you've had this for a long time. Yeah, it's like 20 years. Yeah, yeah. It's like you guys are used to this. Um, so yeah, trying to judge the atmospherics and walk around calm rather than uptight. Yeah. I actually remember uh in the first week, I think the biggest threat when I was there was an insider threat. Uh and I'm sure in the first week that we'd sort of dropped off the the um advisors that we were sort of security detail for, uh, and came back to camp and then all of a sudden sort of come over the comms that you need to go and get them, like something's happened. So I remember going out and there was a we were taking over the Mercian um I think it was their support company. And the my driver at that time was the Mercian guy whilst we were on familiarisation patrols at that point. He took me there and I was like, Have you done this before? Has this happened before on your tour? And he's like, No, first time. So now I'm nervous. Like, oh my god, it's kicking, this is my time to be Ali. So we go there, and to be fair, the Ministry of Defence there in Kabul uh was the place we almost went well every day, and there were people really on edge. And I thought, obviously, I was a bit nervous, but I was also like, Great, because I was the only one in my company that was out on the ground. I was like, this is so cool. I can do this. So done that, come back in. I'm about to spin my Ali ditts. We've saved the people in like wrong grid references. Amazing. It was like 10k away. I was like, no, my Alias dit is over. Yeah, not the one.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Um I'm glad you can laugh about it now.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's their fault. Almost inevitably, just didn't tell the advisors that saved you last time. Um, so in terms of in terms of that tour, then I guess I've just written down sort of any standout moments from that tour. There's a few from reading the book uh that that stood out to me as particularly sort of eye-opening, I guess. Is there anything that you reflect on where you're like, yeah, that was a big moment?

SPEAKER_02 36:35

I mean, there were there were all kinds of big moments. I mean, I think the reason that people bang on about their military service like long after they've left, particularly Operation Tours, is because it's just full of big moments, like it's just kaleidoscopic. Um and it's you know, there are big moments all the way from the kind of the horrifying to the sad to the you know the the funniest and the hardest you'll you'll kind of ever laugh. But um yeah, I mean, you know, uh in terms of eye-opening moments, in terms of my own mortality and kind of um you know, and again caveating it with the fact that it wasn't a a horrific tour. Like the first

IDF Barrage And Facing Mortality

SPEAKER_02 37:12

time I got fairly heavily mortared and and and rocketed, so IDF'd. Um we were, you know, in a big uh it was it was called the welfare area, but effectively it was a big port cabin that functioned as a sauna up in uh in Camp Amenage. And we'd been kind of we'd been mortared a bit before, but it had been fairly kind of speculative. You know, someone props three rockets up against a sandbank and fires them at Scheiba, which was the big logistics base or kind of Bazer Air station. Um that night in in Cannes, I think it was towards the first third of the tour, um, they they really went for it. Uh so something like 64 rounds fired um you know, within uh a kind of eight-minute, eight, ten-minute period. And Camp Abenaji up in Maisan was a fairly kind of contained area. Um so they they were coming in for kind of eight minutes while you were like fetal. I was fetal on the floor. My troop sergeant was counting the rounds and kind of like guessing calibers and stuff because he was much more level-headed than me. But um, but you know, it was blowing the sides off porter cabins kind of too over from us. So it was quite close, like 120 millimeter mortars, 107mm rockets and so on. And that was the first time I'd kind of like really been under threat. And again, you know, not Helm in 2009, but but enough for me. And the the eye-opening bit about that was afterwards, because as I say, my background had been quite sheltered and nothing bad had ever really happened to me. Or, you know, if if something bad had happened to me, kind of everything had stopped to then make it okay again for me. So you get hurt playing football or rugby, and you know, it's all about you, and like, you know, you've broken your nose, and like we'll we'll fix you. That was the first time it felt truly out of control. And like, actually, someone I felt almost like a mild sense of outrage. Like, why are you trying so hard to kill me? Like, I'm a good I'm a good bloke. Yeah, yeah. Uh like I, you know, I'm a nice lad, I do all the right things, or I think I do. Um, you know, this is just kind of outrageous, and also the sense that no one can do anything to stop this. You know, we've got a counter-battery radar, but you know, we are not gonna be firing mortars into Alamara to try and like nail enemy IDF teams because you know, God knows where they'll end up. Yeah, um, so you're gonna lie there and take it, and someone hates you enough that they're gonna try and kill you with, you know, pretty what feels like quite great ferocity, and you just don't really understand why, because you've not you've never experienced it, and I've I've been too sheltered. So that that was a kind of not just on that tour, but that was like a bit of a watershed moment in my life where I was like, okay, maybe everything is not sunshine and roses in the way that I thought.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

It's really refreshing to hear you speak like that, actually, because as as you're saying that, um, I reflect on on my own tour, which you know, you're lying to the Herrick days, and I'm a Lyconic to your days. Like it was, it wasn't like that. But there was um, there were some moments where like your anger really takes over. I remember we got IDF'd and it wasn't even as close as that, right? It was just it didn't come into the camp, but the sirens gone off and all that type of stuff and incoming and whatever, and people are running around camp trying to get to their stand to positions and whatever. And I remember I was like, it's just gone New Year's Eve. Like, quite frankly, these fuckers they know what they're doing. Yeah, like, come on, this isn't fair. Yeah, and I remember actually genuine feeling like that. And then I think when you said about your own mortality there, I remember um I think I was in was asleep, and then something uh something went off, and it was like we had a small shelf in our ISA cabin, me and my platoon sergeant, and uh like whatever was on there fell off. Yeah, and I thought, fuck, yeah, they're at the gate, here we go. Yeah, and it was 5k away. Yeah, I think there were a lot of people that did die in in that explosion. Um, but the crater in the ground was it you've never seen anything like it. Well, I and that's where you go, oh wow, like there's I've I don't get how big this stuff can be. Yeah, and that yeah, as you're speaking there, I'm like, oh yeah, shit. And actually, even reflecting on that tour after you come out of this stressful environment. But I I remember speaking about this to someone else in and sort of saying, But I've been on tour with people that had done those herrics. So I never felt like I could really just go, oh, that was actually really stressful. Yeah. Because in the grand scheme of things, you're like, everyone's fine. Yeah, it's just some fun dit, and we had stake nights, and it it was completely different. But actually, on reflection, you're like, it's pretty fucking stressful when you think your life's in danger.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah. The the I mean the it's it's one of the things it's so curious about the army, like the benchmarking on operational tours, it's so real. Um, and you know, you you do feel like you can't talk about it. If you're talking to someone who's on like a single-digit herrick or something, you know, your kind of telecate tour um you know just doesn't stack up and therefore, you know, just keep keep your mouth shut. Um, and you know, there is there is some truth in that. Like I would have coped much less, much less well with um with the kind of tours those guys had. I think, you know, it may only be when you talk to people outside the military, um uh, you know, to the extent you ever do about those experiences, that you get a kind of more accurate read on you know how it is maybe you could be feeling. Yeah. Um so my wife read the book. I've never really talked about anything to my wife because it's quite boring for her. But she read, you know, she read the book and she was like, Why are you not more traumatized? Or, you know, that you've kind of talked about this quite lightly, but like that was quite scary, wasn't it? Um and you grudgingly admit that yeah, like it was it was quite scary. But um, but yeah, you know, I think when you are in an environment where people have seen absolutely horrific things, and you know, every time they go out the gate, they're losing blokes. You just do tend to kind of batten down your own your own experiences.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

And and the funny thing is, those people aren't the ones that are making you feel like they like so when I've spoken to them subsequently, and my RSM's a great, uh, you know, he's he's done it all. Yeah, he's done it all at the very, very sharp end. Um and actually, I sort of mentioned that to him before, and he's like, You should never undermine your your own experiences. Yeah, and that's coming from someone that's done so much harder shit, yeah, but is absolutely open to the fact that stress is stress, yeah. You know, also you're the leader there, so you're trying to keep composed, you can't freak out, and you've got other people to think about and your thought goes to them immediately. How can I whatever? And yeah, I it's it's interesting because I wonder where that comes from. Is it from within? It's not it's not necessarily from the other people. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

I I wonder if there's something about the military culture that can be, you know, it can engender a bit of like just just suck it up. I mean, I think you know, even then, people talk a lot a lot about kind of mental health and all that kind of stuff. Like, you know, for example, after that uh barrage or you know, whatever you want to call it, IDF attack happened, like, you know, I I remember very clearly the senior NCOs going around, like talking to the officers and saying, like, make sure you talk to your soldiers, because that was a bit snaggly, um, and they're gonna want to talk, you know, and even in the absence of kind of mental health, you know, formalized mental health support trim, that kind of thing, like that, that's always been going on. Like, I don't think the army has ever been like that kind of closed off. Um, but there is, you know, a certain aspect of just suck it up and crack on that I think is part of what needs to be in the military mentality, because if you had a little moment after everything that happened, yeah, on a busy tour, you'd be having moments all the time, right? You start to become ineffective, you know, and after that IDF attack, um, you know, we had to go and do something else, right? The tasking came up. And like you've got to go out and move. But I wonder if there's something about that that then, you know, when you are back and actually, you know, it probably is time to talk. Um, you just don't do. And there could be an there might even be a British thing about it. There's a brilliant book called Um What It's Like for Young Men to Go to War. What it's for yeah, what it's I think it's maybe a bit gender bias, but what it's like for young young men to go to war by Carl Malantes, who's uh he wrote a book called Matorn about Vietnam, which is one of the best war novels ever. But he uh is a Vietnam veteran, American. Um, it took him 40 years to write this book. But in what it's like for young men to go to war, and he was a US Marine uh uh uh junior officer, um won the Silver Star, I think, um, so got in amongst it. Um, he talks about how you know the Spartans or the Greeks or the Romans, like you name it, your kind of ancient societies, when you came back from their equivalent of an operational tour, like duffing up the, you know, duffing up the uh the nearest city over, um, you the last thing you did was not talk about it. The whole point was to talk about it. You sat around a fire and you gobbed off relentlessly about what a hero you were. And part of it was kind of self-aggrandizement and and all that kind of thing. He argues that part of it is like getting it, getting it all out and getting getting the trauma out. It's probably not something we're good at in the UK. Two weeks in side prestige. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. And I do remember Satan Beach after that tour. I mean it's it wasn't actually at the tour, but like after a couple of the Afghan tours, you know, with my worn can of fosters, you know, watching a banana boat go by and go, right, is the banana boat gonna cure me? Yeah, yeah. The army thinks so.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting because um, because of the nature of the tours now, they don't do that. Yeah, so actually our decompression is a video when you're still in theatre. Yeah, it's like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

I'm waiting for my two weeks and nine and a half. Yeah. Um, okay, cool. I I've actually written down just a couple of

Strike Ops Mistake And Leadership

SPEAKER_00 45:44

prompts. I had written down IDF because I remember reading that in in the book. Uh I put O.C. Reci, um, which might be where he he might not have been best pleased with you at that point.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Uh OC Recky, yeah. Uh I think he's called like Steve in the book. His real name's Ian Pennsylvania. Uh are you always BP now uh BT now, I think. Um absolutely like the epitome of a soldier. He was ex, I think he was ex-parareg. Um, so he had uh uh joined as a soldier and then and then subsequently commissioned, but not an LE, so he'd kind of done a direct entry commission. Um like the the soldier soldier, um, you know, knew everything there was to know. Um he was always very nice to me. Um he was slightly bemused about how a teacher with shit guns had ended up in Iraq on an operational tour, but you know, was uh was nothing but nice and just a hilarious blokeal round. Um but Recce platoon um were the the strike platoon effectively. So when we went and did strike operations to go and arrest um people in in Basra, they were the people who effectively kicked in the doors. Um, you know, the most snaggly job that you can imagine. And Ian drilled those guys for you know pre-tour, on tour, like week after week. You'd see them cutting around the place, like kicking open the doors of porter cabins, all that kind of stuff. Um, and we had our first ever big uh strike op. Um, so the entire battlegroup was involved. Um, we were going after some Jay Sharmahdi uh bomb maker. Um, because I was a reservist, I wasn't qualified on Challenger 2. Um, so you know, we had a mixed bag and a battle group of warrior companies and a Challenger 2 squadron, tank squadron. Um so, you know, their function during the strike ops was to be overwatch, so sit on the top of a bridge with their thermal imaging, keep an eye on everything. Um, my role as a non-tank qualified young officer, which delighted the lads no end, was to take Reccey Platoon to the target in our snatches. Um kind of six of them crammed into the back um with all their all their kit, drop them off outside, turn the vehicles around, and then you know pick them up and take them out on the uh on the way there. First big strike op um, 58 vehicles of all kinds of you know descriptions involved. Um we were going to an area that was very kind of closed in and narrow. You couldn't get a warrior down there. So the idea was I would you know follow a warrior to the turn off into this kind of quite closed-off area of town. He would throw a blue siloom off the back of the turret. I would then you know be reading my map, my GPS, but also see the blue siloom, know to take the left turn, uh, and then take you know my six snatches full of Wrecky Platoon on this very time-sensitive uh strike off. Obviously, me being me and you know, the situation being the situation, um, I don't know, to be honest, if you ever threw the blue siloum. What I do know is I drove straight past the turn. Uh, so got you know something over the PRR about 100 metres past the turn, where the warrior commander was like, you know, you just missed that 100 metres back. All my snatches had gone past it. You know, commanding officers on the net, my OC's on the net. You know, I literally feel like curling up in the footwell. Ian Penns is like banging his hand on the top of the snatch, shouting, You've missed the fucking turn. I'm flapping like 10 men, my voice has gone up like sick doxives. Like, you know, we try and turn around and then nearly go into, we crash into the central reservation, then we nearly go into like a sewage ditch by the side of the road. You know, kind of look out my door, like all the snatches have gone past it. We kind of go back, there's another warrior at the turning with like the commander going, it's this way, it's this way. Go into the kind of you know, what I thought was going to be the snaggly bit down all the alleyways and and all that kind of thing, which actually turned out to be fine because that's the bit of the map that I'd like burned into my brain. So we, you know, kind of um uh had no dramas there. Uh got to the target's house, you know, recognition debust, um, kicked the door in. Uh he apparently hadn't been there for like three months. Classic, uh classic Incor. Uh we've just sent a thousand people on strike up against the wrong house. The target's like in Iran or something. Yeah, exactly. Uh so and you know, there was they but uh which for me almost was a relief because I was like, I will never forgive myself if that bloke was in his house and taught until he saw like Billy Smart Circus at the end of the road missing, you know, turnings with their clown cars, exactly, doors falling off, like bubbles coming out, and like some TA Platine command or TA troop leader um who doesn't have a clue what he's doing. So I was almost like relieved. I was either the two things can happen now which would help, which would be a massive firefight, never will forget about that. Yeah, uh, or he was never there in the first place. Um anyway, he kind of came back. Um, and Ian, you know, I'd done a few things there. I'd, you know, bollocks up all his practice and his training on this on the first strike op he'd ever taken Recuplatoon on. I'd put him in, you know, quite considerable danger because um, you know, and this happened at the end of the tour, there's not uh an insignificant chance that if you give the target too much warning, they're gonna be there ready. You know, they know where they live and you know whether ways in and out are Recuplatoon don't. They've probably seen the building once and maybe on some on satellite photos. If you take five minutes sorting your life out to get onto the target, there's a good chance he could just nail you all. Um he's ready. Um, and you know, he'd have he'd have had every right to lamp me. But we stopped by the loading bay um to uh to unload. Uh he came over, he looked at me. I frankly didn't know what to say, started stammer out an apology, uh, and he just said don't worry about it and uh gave me a bit of a bear hug.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Um it's just that is such good leadership from him as well, isn't it? Yeah because no one needs to have a go at you at that point. Yeah, you you're doing it all internally.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Yeah, you know, it's I was on the verge of tears, like I was about to lose it. Like it was, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

I feel it when you're talking, like we've had my own fair share of navigational errors, and it's you know, it's just it's an error. That's that's what it is. And it's like, yeah, I know we're in a line of work where bad things can really happen here, yeah. I don't fucking want to do that. Yeah, that wasn't my thing. And yeah, I think it could have been so easy. And I'm picturing a lot of angry senior NCOs I've encountered before coming over and not doing the bear hug bit, which which I think is absolutely okay, cool, it's all right this time. I've I've fought another day.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

Yeah. Um, and then there's there's one more. I know we're sort of dit spinning here, but the key things that that I I read that it really came out, and I they they came out because I think every young officer, every young officer has this or feels like this at points. Um, and the next one I've played is split callsite, which I think was maybe dozing off.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

Oh yeah. Uh yeah. Yeah. So we we we did some very, very long road moves on the way from uh so Basar and Alamara, probably, I don't know, like, don't quote me on this, but like 150 miles apart, something like that. If you really put your foot down back in the day, you know, when it was relatively safe and you could kind of move in light like um uh green fleet, uh white fleet, you could do that in a couple of couple of um couple of hours. By the time we got there, Route 6, which was the main route that kind of connected the two, was just you know, it was EFPs and IEDs almost from kind of end to end. So we're increasingly kind of looking for different routes and back roads and all that kind of stuff. So some of those road moves, not two hours, took like 17 hours to get from like Basro to Alamara um uh and then 17 hours back. I'm doing a lot of kind of caveating and you know explaining why I'm about to uh tell you the story I am, but you know, just don't judge me. Uh is that so I think we've done one of those road moves up. Um we were kind of coming back. Um, I was hanging out, everyone was hanging out. You're kind of in that hallucination phase of sleep deprivation where you're almost kind of you're rubbing the orange powder from your ration packs and your gums to see if that'll somehow like keep you awake. Screech it. Yeah, screech it, your head's kind of lolling all over the place. You're doing little micro sleeps, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, for some reason we were kind of towards the bat. I think my in fact, ironically, Morty, my OC, had said something like, you know, you go last vehicle, just like pick up anyone up who, you know, falls asleep or any stragglers or anything, not imagining that his troop leader would fall asleep himself. But anyway, um, my entire vehicle crew fell asleep, my driver fell asleep, would stop for a halt because someone was doing a VP check or something, uh vulnerable point check. Uh, and yeah, nodded off, woke up probably about five minutes later. Top cover were like, you know, it was bright in the middle of the nowhere, so the top cover were kind of in the vehicle, not not out the top. Um, and everyone had fallen asleep. And I kind of looked up, uh, you know, instead of the kind of reassuring front of me, couldn't see anything. Um, and at that point I was like, oh wow, like there are four of us here. Yeah, we could be potentially depending on how long I've just been passed out, we could be in quite a bit of trouble here. Um, and you know, 100% on me as the vehicle commander, you know, there's all sorts of things I could have done. I could have got out of the vehicle, like, you know, propped myself up, um, you know, splash water on my face, and I just, you know, I think I was just at that point of tiredness where you're not even thinking straight. It's just easily done. It's yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you can see why the army takes it quite so seriously. Because I mean, you know, we then got our foot down, got ourselves up to like warp speed in a snatch, which is about 41 miles an hour, um, you know, the fastest the vehicle will ever go. Uh you know, almost have my like by-nose out trying to see the vehicle in front. Um, but you know, it was Maisan, which was quite a spicy province at the time, sun's coming down. You know, I was flapping like 10 men. Obviously, my radios were like US and not allowing me to talk to anyone, um, caught up with the rear of the convoy, uh, and then it was pretty immediately clear that no one knew we'd even gone missing. Yeah, exactly. This is probably if Morty's watching, uh, that never happened. It was just a story for the book.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Um but the uh those three things the the IDF, um, the the navigation and then the falling asleep, they stood out to me because I think everyone experiences it. Uh well, I definitely have. I've set up a fire support line facing the wrong way, um, and then all of a sudden everything's going off, and you're like, why is nothing happening in front of me? And then you're like, it's behind us. Um the the clag was in.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Anyway, you need to do that before you tell the difficulty.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The uh the angry veterans are wrong with that. Um, you know, the the falling asleep. I remember literally being on Toro and and dropping off some advisors, and we had to wait for them. And then me and the the driver just conked out completely. And you're right, you know you should be stepping up, but like you just do because you're knackered. Yeah, you're knackered, like it's just non-stop for six months, yeah, type thing. It's tiring. Um, and then the IDF that that you've put it brilliantly, which is sort of realising your immortality, it hits fast. And I those three things really, really stood out to me. Um, look, I I I could talk more about that that specific period, but you've also done two further tours um where I know there was sort of UKSF involved as well. I don't know

From Linguist Course To Afghanistan

SPEAKER_00 56:10

how much you can speak about that, but I guess the next part I'd like to sort of speak to you about is navigating a reservist career and how all that sort of comes comes about. How do you go on two more tours? How do you end up with UKSF and in that type of stuff?

SPEAKER_02 56:25

Yeah. Um so I mean the the kind of background was I, you know, I I'd finished the uh the Iraq tour, uh, came home, worked in a uh civilian job for the for the UK government for a couple of years. Um, and then again, you know, the old classic trolls were going around. Um, I think by that point the army had worked out that, you know, if we're going to spend a long time kind of effectively occupying a country, like we should probably have half a dozen people who can speak the language of the people who live there. Um so linguists and kind of cultural advisors were starting to become a thing. Um, so the defense school languages were putting out, or the the the broader military actually was putting out quite a lot of um trolls for linguists. So would you like to go and do 15 months uh learning a language? Um they were getting a lot of uptake from the TA, they're getting a lot of uptake. It wasn't a particularly good thing for your career if you're a regular officer. You know, you wanted to go off and be an ops officer or an adjutant or something, not go and spend you know 15 months and then a couple of tours doing doing languages. So it was a very eclectic bunch of people who ended up at the language school. But yeah, effectively applied for the FTRS, sat the aptitude test for languages, which is you know, um, you have to kind of identify the verb in a made-up language, passed that, um, and then went to Beaconsfield, which is the Defense School of Languages. Um, and then uh yeah, effectively spent 15 months just doing vocab and you know verbs. And we did some in-country language training in Tajikistan as well, but you know, other than that, it was full full-on kind of language training, uh, which is great because you know, that's exactly what we were there for, and the army didn't get in in your way with kind of admin and trivia. Towards the end of that course, um, you kind of got uh effectively boarded or or sifted for various jobs going, um, ranging from you know the covetable jobs like you know getting the chance to work with UKSF to the jobs where it wasn't completely clear why we needed a linguist. So there was one linguist in charge of all the interpreters in uh Kabul, um, by definition, people who speak English, uh and therefore may not need a linguist to look after them. Um so yeah, you went through that process. Uh I had a kind of uh background which made me um uh suitable for um for the UKSF job. Uh so went and did a six-month tour with um uh with a unit, uh, came home for probably um three or four weeks. Uh my replacement was unfortunately killed um uh uh uh just around Christmas 2011. Uh and then I went out as a BCR to replace uh him again.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Okay, that's I bet how does that work? What thoughts go through your head then? That's like devastating news, and then it's like, oh, I'm going out to replace that.

SPEAKER_02 58:53

I think I was lucky in the sense that um I was still you know, you're only three or four weeks back, you're kind of in the the still in the tour mindset. Uh you know, personally devastating. Um not just you know, replacement kind of underplays, you know, he's obviously been on the same language course as me, sword leader and Downing. Um and you know, friend would you know gone running together, all that kind of stuff. Um so you know, upsetting from a kind of personal perspective, but because you're still only three or four months uh three or four weeks home, you are uh still uh almost in that tall mindset where the ethos uh that is put into you uh is to just do a big sniff and crack on.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

It's almost the right thing to do, I guess, to go back.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

It is the it is the right thing to do. Um and it made sense for me to go back because it was a job I'd just finished doing. I knew all the people, I knew the Afghans uh uh particularly um really well. Um but yeah, you know, it's one of those and you know it it it was it it was not a um it was not a kind of indication of necessarily the the intensity of that job. It was you know an unfortunate circumstance. Um but yeah, you know, uh I think if I'd been a lot longer out of theatre, I'd have spent more time thinking about it than than I actually did at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

And and what about when it comes to um navigating promotion within the reserves? How does that work? Does it differ from the regulars?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

Yeah, I think you've got to be more mindful about it. Yeah. I'm probably not the best person to kind of give the g give almost the party line um because I, you know, I topped out as a captain. Um, you know, I did the I mean I did the requisite courses um, you know, to make sure I kind of got to captain before FTRS in order to kind of get paid as a captain, you know, for my effectively full-time job for two and a half years. Um, but you know, I I somewhat used the reserves as almost like a lump poly to get me to places I wanted to go to go and do like interesting and alley things. Um I think my sense is you've got to be quite mindful about your career in the reserves because a lot more of it is about you know what you put yourself forward for, yeah, you know, and you volunteering for things and making sure that you are purposeful about when you go on things like JoTAC or a junior officers course, when you go and do, I don't know what the courses are to be almost like staff college, that kind of thing. Um, because it, you know, you don't have someone necessarily in, or you probably do in theory, but you don't have someone in Glasgow who's kind of looking after your career and mentoring you. Your commanding officer may be a regular looking after. Again, you know, I haven't lived it, but uh I uh yeah, I I take that with a pinch of salt, it sounds like. Um, but you know, your commanding officer is probably or could well be a reservist as well. Like he may not be kind of nurturing his young officers in the same way. So, you know, navigating promotion, all that kind of stuff. Like, I think you've got to be like, and you know, this I have peers in the TA who've ended up with stars, they've been brigadiers and major generals, and you know, they've done that partly because they're just really talented people, partly because they are actively thinking about right, what is the next job, what's the next course I need to crack in order to keep um doing what I love.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

Amazing. Um, let's move on to to I guess how the book came about.

Writing The Accidental Soldier

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

So here it is. If you haven't uh if you haven't read it, uh my girlfriend bought me this last summer, uh just before we went on holiday. Went on holiday with our friends as well, uh, both um the gents who I'd served with. Uh so they basically saw me glued to this for for about a week. I don't think I was much company, to be honest with you. So your fault. Um but she uh my girlfriend Lucy has just doesn't care about the military at all, uh, but actually really enjoyed, hasn't fully read this, but has really enjoyed me explaining bits about it to her. Um, and it's next on her reading list. Okay. So if if she likes that, that's some some feat. Yes. It's something I've not managed to do in four and a half years.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

It is the littlest test. Can you go? Because my wife doesn't care either, um, but has read the book and uh enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

Um yeah, I even took her to Mestu's and she's like half like, this is okay, it's not that cool. And I'm like, this is unbelievably cool. So look at the history. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's silver. Um how did it come about? How have you written a book?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Uh so I um, as I think a lot of people do, I wrote, you know, lots of blueies home, uh, I wrote emails home, you know, partly to my family, like quite a lot of time to girls I was hoping would take an interest in me when I got home, like spinning my uh what I thought at the time were Ali Dits. Um, you know, part of that was was in order to, you know, gob off, frankly. And you know, you're 23 and you're kind of quite concerned about making sure that everyone knows what legend you are. Part of it though was um because it was such a kaleidoscopic series of events that I would have been gutted if I'd not kind of recorded it uh and written down how I was feeling and what I'd seen. Because, you know, I I know that I will never see or experience any of those things ever again. Like, you know, just um there's a book called George McDuh George uh Courted Safe Out here by George MacDonald Fraser, um who he wrote the McCausland books and um Flashman as well. Um and he finishes his book with something like he's kind of leaving Burma and he sees uh he sees his old section kind of walking through the the sun with dust around their feet and like you know, this the slanting kind of sunsets coming down. And he says something like, Make sure you fix this in your mind forever, because you'll want that you'll want to remember this and you'll never ever experience it ever again. And I kind of felt the same um writing uh writing those emails home. I wanted to record it. I then um wrote actually I tried to write a book when I got back um from that tour. Uh having read it later, like I'm really glad that it didn't go anywhere because it was very much a 23-year-old's book. Um, there was still, you mentioned anger earlier, there was there was still quite a lot of anger in there, you know. Um it was dismissive, I think, of the Iraqis and and their experience. It was very much, yeah, the book written by a 23-year-old who's been home a couple of months and has some time on on post-tour leave. Um and I, you know, I don't enjoy reading it now. Parked it, didn't do anything with it. Um, and then gosh, what how old's Benger's now? Nine, so kind of fit at the thick end of like probably 10 years off that tour. Um, I uh had a son, got a couple of months of paternity leave, um, wrote the first half of the book in those two months of paternity leave, then did nothing with it for another six years until I had another child, uh, had another two months off, uh, kind of finished finished it when uh when she when I was on paternity leave for her. Um and the intent was really just to record it all in a more kind of structured way and have something for the kids to read, maybe, you know, when they inevitably think I'm incredibly boring and old and pathetic, which I am. Uh I wasn't always like that. So, you know, it was really kind of for them and for for interest, really, and because I just enjoy writing. Um, I then, you know, backing myself horrendously, thought, well, actually, there could be something here, sent it to a few kind of literary agents, one of them uh um uh picked it up, um, sent it to some publishers, uh Hashette in the end, uh picked it up um and then published it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Amazing. Yeah, and particularly how um how it's written. Uh so I don't know if the intent was to to have me in no, you know, laughing out loud at certain points throughout it. Uh, and just because of the way it's you know, it feels quite a jovial reflection on the whole, um, with obviously some some really sort of hard hitting. Bits in there, but the bit that I found most hard hitting, and I'm I'm sure this was a conscious decision. Please tell me if I'm wrong, was the final chapter. The tone completely changes. And again, I think um I don't know if I would have felt this way straight after my Torah experience, but after reflecting on it for a while, it's exactly how I felt. You sort of leave and you know, um just sort of reflecting well, what's it for? And I don't I think it's we we sort of spoke once about about that anyway. Um but how did you decide to write the book? Because it's quite something to think about writing the book, and then how did you come up with the idea of wanting to leave quite a hard-hitting ending, I guess?

What War Leaves Behind

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

I think it's just it's kind of I mean you're right that the most of the most of the book is pretty jovial, um, with a few um someone read it and described it as like a sitcom with gut punches, which I think is quite a lot of what the army is on operations. Like, you know, the reason it's jovial is because 75% of what happens is just absolutely hilarious for different reasons. Like, often because the army is doing something palpably insane, um, and you're kind of living living that experience. So, you know, the jovial bits almost kind of write themselves because it's just funny. Um, you don't have to try too hard to make it make it comical. Um, the gut punches kind of write themselves because they feel like gut punches, but the ending is just is kind of reflective of the the mix of sadness and gratitude that um I think a lot of people feel about, certainly Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, gratitude that they were there, that they got to experience the things that they experienced, and they got to spend time with the people they did. You know, the book finishes with um my mother described it as a bit of a love letter to my soldiers, um, which I'm glad she picked up on because that's exactly what I was hoping people would get out of it. Um so you know, sadness and regret that we were there in the first place and that we handle it in the way we did, um, particularly Iraq, which just didn't have brilliant reasons for being a thing in the first place. But if it's you know, as Colin Powell said, you know, if you it's pottery barn rules, if you break it, you own it. Um we broke it and then didn't really own it. Um but then if we did have to be there, I'm so I'm so gr grateful to the boys um for having been the way they were, you know, being paid less than a traffic warden in the UK, but doing some of the spectacularly brave and noble things I saw them doing. So it was that kind of that kind of blend that I wanted people to kind of leave leave with. Um and I'm not a kind of didactic person, but if you can come away with the perception or the understanding that war and conflict is awful, but we have you know people at almost the inverse end of that spectrum, absolutely brilliant people who are the people who get involved in those things on our behalves and will continue to get involved in those things on our behalves. That's kind of what I wanted people to uh to be left with.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:47

Yeah, there's a there's a great book called Tribe. I don't know if you've read it, only a small book. I think by a guy named Sebastian, I can't quite remember his can't pronounce his surname. Um, and it talks about how people are trying to search for that purpose. Yeah, in Western society, largely as a community, we we have lost our way, which I think is pretty fair. Um, and it sort of reflects on people, civilians missing world wars. Yeah. Um, because actually that's when the community really came together. And if they were in the bomb shelters, you know, there were no arguments, people just came together and it's like, well, if you locked, you know, a hundred people in London in a bomb shelter right now, they're not getting on. I can, you know, they can't even get a tube together without things kicking off. And I kind of reflect on that. And I think through the nature of now being on social media, I always say I see the best of the veteran community and the worst in the comment section. I think there's a lot of people that are like, why would you serve in in what do you think about, you know, wars that aren't just or whatever? And it's like, you can absolutely have your views there, but and I didn't fight an unjust war, you know, it was uh it was optoral, so it wasn't quite like that or anything, but you don't think about that whilst you're there that much because you've got stuff to do and the relationships you're forming, like it is the old cliche of you care about the people you're with, the left and right. Um, and that absolutely comes across in the book. Um, and I thought the I thought it was very clever the way it sort of left. And I think for anyone that is has served, particularly on put probably those operations, I think it's just a you get it type nod that's like, oh yeah, it's almost that's perfectly how I feel uh about it. So I thought that was really interesting. Is there anything else coming? Obviously, it's it's out, so if people want to buy it, they can just go and buy it. So it's right there, really well. All good motoservice stations north of the Watford Gap. Uh yeah, yeah. And The Accidental Soldier, the title. Yeah. Did you have to think long and hard about that? Did it feel quite natural?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

Uh it felt it felt quite natural. There's actually, weirdly enough, there's uh there's another book by the same name, but you know, it it it just describes how I ended up being a soldier. Like there was no literally nothing. It's ironic. I'm on a podcast where people are actually planning their careers and you know, thinking, thinking very purposefully about like why they're joining the army and like what they want to do and how they're gonna get there, given that I just like blundered from you know thing to thing to thing um without any sense of kind of purpose or direction. So yeah, it didn't take very long to kind of come up with it because much as I would like to give it a name like you know, one million bullets or like Warriors or you know, any any of those kind of other military books have been written by those tools that are just fundamentally Ali. Um I'm the least Ali person in the world, and therefore, you know, the accidental soldier is probably the best and and most fitting description.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

And is there anything coming up with it? Because I know you've done a few talks as well. Is there anything, I guess, promo-wise?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Uh so the I mean the paperback's out in uh June. Uh so that's uh that's coming up. It's been it's been uh optioned for um for TV. Uh so we'll we'll see if anything kind of comes of that. Need some actors. Yeah. I mean the terrifying thing is you and I would would unfortunately, well, probably less you, I have 100% aged out of anything apart from like wizened Iraqi man standing on street corner, like I can't do anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:49

I've got my cam cream somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Yeah. All my mates, I mean all my ex-military mates are like, well, you know, if it does happen, I want to be like a platoon commander. I'm like, mate, you know, you would look it'd be a stretch for you to be the colonel at your at your point in life. And also they'd be asking, like, when was the last time that colonel passed a PFA?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:05

Um Yeah. Great. Um, so we we've kind of done reflections on on the experience, how it's all written. Uh, you do some talks about it as well that I I've seen uh go out there. I guess we're we're kind of coming to the the point about that uh love letter to the soldiers. I guess this sort of series I sort of named it is lessons in leadership, and I think there's a lot coming coming through here, humility, but also the main part being these relationships. Um, and when I've spoken with people that have have been on uh you know, so Sam Perrin was here who spoke about his his experience on Herrick Six and then having to leave the platoon after he described it as a breakup. Yeah, um, how was that process of you're back in the UK after that tour? And I imagine a quite an emotional, internally emotional goodbye to the soldiers. Um, how does the next bit look? Is it quite easy to just move on from that, or do you stay in comms with them? And I guess what were the relationships you had with them?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:05

Yeah, I mean it's it's a little bit it's I don't know what it was like for Sam. It is a little bit like a breakup, and it feels quite brutal, particularly for reservists, because you know, QRH will, you know, in the story, they will go back, they will go to Afghanistan, they'll go back to Iraq, like you know, they'll have six weeks postal leave, but then fundamentally they're all back in camp together, you know, just cracking on with whatever the next serial is. You know, I had uh I know like maybe a week back in camp with with the unit, and then that was that was me basically cut away back to the UK for my postal leave, um, which is you know, as it as it should be, I'm not part of the regiment. Um, but you you know, it is quite a kind of blunt cut-off at that point. Um I stayed in touch with with some of the soldiers um uh and some of the officers, uh, so a couple, quite a few came to the book launch actually. Um stayed in touch with one of my, it was actually very close with one of my troop sergeants on that tour as well. Um, and you know, he he was really interesting um to talk to after the tour because he made me realize that you know he's not necessarily he, I mean he's very was a very perceptive um guy, but you know, he was thinking about about me much more as a human being on that tour than I ever kind of really appreciated. You know, we talk about what it was like, and you know, I remember that time that we did this, that, and the other. And he was, you know, he'd say things like, Oh, I always thought you were like, you know, very thoughtful and like, you know, um I'm like not big myself up, but like he'd use those kind of words. Whereas I think you know, sometimes as an officer, you you come at it like how professionally competent do you think I am, like how fit am I, all that kind of stuff. Like you are being assessed as a human a lot of the time as well, because the people you're leading are humans. So, you know, I think all the good drills about being fit, leading by example, like you know, applying discipline and uh where appropriate, but also softness where appropriate, are important. But you should never forget that fundamentally, like the other person or your soldiers are humans, and that's kind of in a big way how they're looking at you at the same time, um, which I think is kind of easy to forget when you're like very focused on like me as a as an officer, not as a person.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

Yeah, it's that genuine care. Yeah. I think genuine being the key word. You can spot it a mile off when someone, you know, does that doesn't really have that interest in you, what you've been up to, your thoughts. Yeah. Um, and I think the soldiers definitely, because they see so many officers, you know, it's it's very, very well, in literally zero cases will once you're trained, you turn up and take over a platoon. All of them would have had at least one boss before in training. Uh, most of them will have had multiple.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

So, you know, they can see it. And they they're also used to the fact that when you turn up, you might not know everything. And guess what? They they don't really care. Yeah, it's more about are you willing to learn and are you willing to learn from us? And I think, especially at the start, it's this odd balance of learning from those that you lead. Yeah. And it's that I can ask for advice. And I did that probably not amazingly at the start because I felt like I had to be right because I was the officer. And then you really you understand that you can't be right all the time. These people have great ideas, and my role isn't to be right, it's to do the right thing. And I think there is that that's quite a big difference there. Yeah. Um, I guess we're naturally sort of wrapping up, and I've I always sort of say is there any bits of advice that you've got to anyone else embarking on a similar journey that you've been

Choosing A Healthy Unit Culture

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

on?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:16

Yeah, I mean, try not to do the same journey. Uh, it's a haphazard one and uh you know, largely, largely unplanned. Um I mean, I think if you're considering the military, you know, if you even if you feel like there's even a part of you that wants to do it, I think, I think do it. I mean, buyer beware, we're in a we're in a kind of different world, and you know, um you have to kind of take stock of the the kind of risk element, but almost having got away with it, I'm so grateful that I did it and I got to spend time with with soldiers and people in the military because um the people and the circumstances in which you work with them and and live with them are so uh I simultaneously kind of challenging but just incredible that I'd feel like there'd always be a bit of a hole in me if I'd never done it. So, you know, if you think you might be up for it, fire beware and kind of take all those uh those considerations into consideration, but but don't don't sit on the fence or don't back away from it for for not good reasons. It's a slightly convoluted way of saying it, but I you know I it's been by a distance the bit of my life I'll probably remember the most. Um sorry kids. Um the other piece uh I kind of mentioned before is you know, I know there's lots of uh and you you talk a lot about this in terms of kind of you know selecting where you end up and like how do you fit in, all that kind of stuff. Like I really would hammer home that trying to find some somewhere that's a happy unit where people look kind of comfortable in and of themselves. That old adage about kind of hurt people, hurt people, you know, can be, I think in some units, I've you know, on my gap year, I was part of for that Cypress X, I was a part of an unhappy unit. I was in a battery that wasn't at ease with itself and and comfortable, and you know, it had hurt people in it who were hurting other people in that in that unit, um, which just destroys the whole thing. So, you know, when you're assessing the role and you know, do I like Ajax or not? Do I like light roll or not? Do I like being in you know north of England or south of England? Look for somewhere where people have genuine affection for each other, you know, walking around the tank park, you know, how do people respond and kind of react to each other, how do they interact? Because I think that is a big determinant of your experience. Um, so yeah, those are probably my two bits.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:28

I think that they're fantastic, especially that second point. And I think you it's why the visits are so important when you go through the commissioning course. And I think the visits are so important in that point as well because cultures change. Yeah. So by and large, you know, you've got the regimental traditions, but the personalities are going to change. So if you visit them in, you know, the junior term or intermediate term when you're at Santas on the regular commissioning course, you're going to be serving with a lot of those people if you end up there. Yeah. You know, and you're also going to grow with them. So you're never really going to lose touch uh with many of them, especially your peers. Um, and some of the OCs will probably be a CO during your time. So you'll have a really good understanding if it's not your type of, if it's not your cup of tea um on the visit, it probably won't be your cup of tea for the next four to six years of your life. Yeah. Um, I think that's really, really wise advice.

War Child And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 1:19:17

Um, I have written down War Child because I we forgot to mention that when chatting about the book. We did.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

So do you want to get that one in? I will, yeah. So uh um all the royalties, uh uh the advance and all the royalties from the book are going to a charity called Warchild. Um they're the only uh global charity that's that's dedicated to helping children in conflict. Um there are, as of last count, this number's probably gone up uh since that last count, about six months ago, unfortunately, uh 473 million kids uh around the globe uh who are living in some sort of uh conflict zone. Um I saw it time and time and again, you know, on my tours, that the damaged humans and grown-ups of today and the people who um end up sometimes causing these conflicts or participating are very often the damaged children of 20 years ago. Um Warchild takes the view of, you know, if we can get to those children earlier with psychosocial support, welfare support, helping them kind of readjust from being in conflict zones, you know, frankly, helping them when they're in conflict zones, um, because they are not, you know, we've talked about Ali, Warchild are pretty Ali in terms of where they'll go. Um, they, I think, rightly think that's where that's where the big benefit will come in terms of kind of hopefully just reducing that cycle of violence. So, you know, I can't think of a better reason uh to buy the book um than the fact that all my royalties, anyway, will be going straight to uh helping children in conflict.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

Fantastic. And um, yeah, I will second that. It's it's one a fantastic read. So for any of you veterans that want to reminisce, I would definitely say uh it's it's worth a read. Um and if anyone's going on that leadership journey, embark on it, and especially obviously as a reservist, I think it's it's um it's written in a way that's really engaging, really gripping, but really honest. Uh, and you can see the highs, the lows, um, and the reflections as well. But what really comes through for me is is that jovial side, um, which many people reflect on from their tour experience. So, Owen, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. Um, and guys, that's it for for this episode. If this stuff is useful, please do click like, click subscribe. You can also click the bell so you can be notified every time I upload a video. Clicking like and subscribe really helps me out. And also, if you've got comments or questions, please put them below, and I will do my very best to get back to you. That is it for this week, and I will see you next week with a brand new video in a bit.