Another Mans Shoes
Interviews with fellow military veterans and adventurers about their experiences of war, the lows and times of hardship, joining them on their journey and how this has shaped their lives in the most extraordinary way. Comedy moments, dark humour and witty banter.
Another Mans Shoes
From Paratrooper to Pathfinder: Tom Blakey's Journey Through the British Army
Ever wondered what it takes to become a pathfinder? Join us in an exhilarating conversation with Tom Blakey, a seasoned veteran whose incredible journey from Wellingborough to the elite ranks of the British Army is nothing short of inspirational. Influenced by his father's military service and driven by iconic events like the Iranian Embassy siege, Tom reveals how childhood aspirations and 80s military action heroes paved his way to becoming a paratrooper. Together, we explore the humorous and sometimes intense world of military training and the iconic representations of soldiers in media.
From the rigorous selection process for the Parachute Regiment to the elite Pathfinders unit, Tom provides an insider's glimpse into the demanding world of military training and deployment. He shares tales of camaraderie, perseverance, and the evolution of training methods that shaped his 25-year career in the army. While recounting the intense experiences of high-altitude parachute training and the challenges faced due to subpar equipment, Tom also reflects on the missed opportunities for combat during peacekeeping missions and his transition to life after service, including his passion for skydiving and role with the Red Devils, the British Army Parachute Display Team.
The journey doesn't end on the battlefield. Tom's story continues with his life-changing parachute accident and recovery, showing resilience in the face of adversity. We delve into practical advice for military service leavers, the importance of a proactive mindset, and how to navigate the challenges of civilian life. Wrapping up with a heartfelt invitation for your feedback, we look forward to more captivating episodes featuring fascinating guests. Whether you're a military enthusiast or someone seeking inspiration, this episode offers valuable insights and stories that resonate with listeners from all walks of life.
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Welcome back to season three of Another Man's Shoes, and Martin and I are delighted to have Tom Blakey, aka the prepared pathfinder, in the studio with us today. Tom, joining us on video, is gonna take us on his journey from being a young member joining the parachute regiment through to becoming a pathfinder and all the experiences he's had in his 25 years serving in the British Army. He's an accomplished skydiver, businessman and so much more. We're going to hear about his journey with us in the next hour. So really looking forward to this episode. Hope you do too, tom. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Cheers mate. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Hey, tom, so we were just chatting before we started recording, and I'm hoping that we've got this right, that you can actually see both of us on screen when people watch us on YouTube, because at the moment you've got two talking arms and Winston, the dog in the middle, also known as Martin's old rsm. So tonight we're going to uh talk for your journey, mate, and I'm really looking forward to it. But the first thing you said we're on, we're on youtube, we're live streaming. Epic beard, uh, all the blokes out there, especially the ones from brighton, that are watching this, they want to know what product you're using.
Speaker 2:Cream mate.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:That's great so take it away Martin. Hey, Tom, how you doing mate. Yeah, so normally how we do these things, then is we like to, you know, go right the way back to the start. So if you don't mind starting off and just telling us about little Tom, All right, okay.
Speaker 2:So I grew up in a little town called Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. My dad served in the army. He did his national service in the 50s and then he ended up in Vietnam. Funnily enough, he went to Australia, joined the Australian army, served in Vietnam. Come back to the UK, met my mum, settled down in a place called Wellingborough. So that's where I was brought up.
Speaker 2:Fairly normal childhood, just running around flipping, doing stupid stuff outdoors, climbing trees, playing army and all that good shit. I wanted to join the army since I was very young, since I was seven years old. I'm guessing part of that might have been because my dad had served, but he never encouraged me to join the army because he actually didn't enjoy his time in the army after being conscripted, to be honest, um, and I just wanted to be a paratrooper since I was a very young age and I don't know really why I don't. I didn't really have anyone that taught me into it. I didn't know anyone that served in a parachute regiment, um, but I just wanted to be in the army and I wanted to be the best and I thought, well, parachute regiment's the way to go, especially after seeing what happened in the falklands. It was either marines or parachute regiment, and I wanted to jump out of planes and shoot guns, so that's why I wanted to do what I did mate.
Speaker 1:That's epic. So you would have been. What were you?
Speaker 2:a child of the 80s yeah, so I was born in 72. Um, so, yeah, by the time 1980 came around, I was eight years old, yeah, so, um, you know, you see, stuff like the iranian embassy 1980 and then, uh, the falklands in 1982, and I'm guessing that had a bit of an influence on my sort of view on all things military and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:Basically, I wanted to go and do that stuff yeah, that's, that's true, because I think a lot of people you speak to sort of our generation, they joined up because of things like 82 or because the iranian embassy or you know, more importantly, watching commando with schwarzenegger, because I mean that is exactly, obviously, what it was like. Watching dyad, I mean because you know all of those blokes, all those action heroes in the 80s they were, were absolute legends, you know, and you were just about thinking, oh, that's what I'm going to be, and then ITV brings out Soldier, soldier, and you're like that is it, I am sold, I am sold, I want it Tucker.
Speaker 1:No, mate never watched Soldier Soldier in my life, jen mate, season five they all got airborne, so you know it was all good I was.
Speaker 2:I was serving, I was in the army by the time soldier, soldier came out and it was known as screamer, screamer. When I was in the army, that is true, isn't it?
Speaker 1:that was like the uh, what was the ses one that they brought out years later with the bloke off eastenders? Oh it was called ultimate fast, wasn't it? I remember I'd be at Hereford watching that on camp, feeling like a real fraud, so okay the funniest thing is when he went and did that program wasn't it Extras?
Speaker 2:and he took the piss out of himself for basically that program Special Army Soldiers did you ever bump into him through your career at all?
Speaker 2:uh, no, I didn't, not ross kemp. But yeah, yeah, I remember I actually went to a charity night once and I think it was for it was for british legion or something like that, yeah, and there was a comment, there's a comedian on stage and he said to me, because I was in uniform, anyone serving had to be in uniform. Yeah, I'd literally just got back from my first tour of afghanistan and, um, this, this guy on stage went oh, and this bloke here, he thinks he's ross kemp.
Speaker 1:And I was like, does he fuck I goes, he thinks he's me, not the other way around yeah, it's funny, he did say that when I, when I bumped into him, I met this bloke called tom epic beard fucking really fancied him, you know, if the rumors are to be believed, um, so okay, so let's just roll it back a little, a little bit. So you obviously left school, you watched commando, you did all the 82. You wanted to join the military, to take us through that journey back. When was you know of actually walking through that recruiting door and saying you know of actually walking through that recruiting door and saying I want to be a paratrooper?
Speaker 2:yeah, so this was back in the days where it was all, uh, army or I'm, I'm forcing recruiting office, um, it wasn't done online like it is a lot now, and that's that's what I did. I went in when I was 15 I think I was just turned 15 um, the earliest I possibly could to apply to join the Army, and I said that's what I want to do, I want to be a paratrooper, I don't want to be in anything else, I just want to be a parachute regiment. And the guy that was in the recruiting office actually supported that really well, because I've heard lots of stories of other people who said the same thing and they kind of got winked into joining, support arms and stuff. Nothing wrong with that, it's just, you know, if you're determined on doing one thing, why not support that?
Speaker 2:And, yeah, just went through my normal processes or the tests and stuff and set in Coalfield for the weekend, for the selection weekend, and are successful in getting a place in Junior Parachute Company, which was quite sought after, because there's only two intakes, or there was only two intakes a year of something in the region of 52, 54 people for the entire country. So those places were very well contested. You know I was chuffed to bits to get a place at Junior Power.
Speaker 1:And how old were you then?
Speaker 2:16. 16.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's young, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, did you try that, martin, mine did you go straight, yeah, so I did my um, I did my work experience as a parachute regiment. An older shot, um, when I was 15, um and um, I had full intentions of, you know, doing that um, but after that two weeks work experience with them, I, uh, I changed my mind and ended up joining the artillery and then, obviously, volunteer, volunteering for the all arms parachute selection course, which go on, you know, you can say and take the piss if you like, but um, for me, I was, you know, I'm proud of it and uh, you know we all work together, don't we? Absolutely, obviously, that couple of weeks in the mortars blocked in.
Speaker 2:Very well for you.
Speaker 1:That's what it was, mate the 81. It's like that base plate story, isn't it? With the RAF regiment. They disappeared that up a little 15-year-old mine yeah.
Speaker 2:Mate, the rough reg, the gift that keeps on giving, oh, mate, less about that.
Speaker 1:You're going to ruin the podcast, so take us through. So, like depot, para is a 16 year old, how long is that? You know what's involved in it all the way through. You know from skills through to p company yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, well, I joined junior para, as I say, when I was 16, so that's separate from depot para. Um, by the time I joined it was actually in the guards depot at perbright, but we we had a separate company of juniors and we just basically got fresh for six months. We had six months there getting beasted and loads of weapon handling, loads of field craft, loads of tactics and all that good stuff. So the difference between that and depot power is in depot power. They're basically the first part of it. Really, the main bit of it is just getting you ready for p company and after that we was doing a wings course and everything. Uh, apart from advanced whales and basic whales, a lot of it was just getting beasted really, and they didn't. They didn't have a lot of time to teach you the skills that we did have in junior para, because we had six months worth of just basically training and field craft and fitness. So by the time we got to depot we were all pretty damn fit, just turned 17.
Speaker 2:Um went on p company. I literally I think I was 17 and two months or something like that. Um, I actually got injured on p company. I didn't pass, I got an injury on a 17 miler and then went straight on the next p company and flew through it, no worries, um, yeah, and yeah, depot was very different back then because you had, um, there was no sort of visibility from outside, so they had their own train set and they did what the hell they wanted within that four walls. So, um, you know it was.
Speaker 2:It was quite rough, to be honest, and, yeah, went through, got through no problem after that first hiccup, apart from I then broke my leg on the parachute course as well. So on the seventh jump, seventh of eight jumps, I actually broke my leg, got back, squatted again and then restarted the parachute course and then passed out after that. But, yeah, quite a tough. I mean it ended up being a year and a half because six month juniors, six month depot and then, with the injury, um, I had to wait sort of five months and then I got. Obviously, the p company fell in the first time as well, so it's about 18 months all up. Quite a long time actually, yes, long isn't it so?
Speaker 3:um, after you've uh, passed out of junior depot, um, you then went straight on to your um basic parachuting course and then obviously, you got that injury. So did that mean?
Speaker 2:yeah, after after junior power, now that we didn't go straight onto the parachute course, we were straight into a recruit platoon and then you're on p company after, but I think it's about three weeks, three or four weeks, yeah yeah, and his P company as was.
Speaker 1:I mean, I went through in 99, mine was, oh, 2006, but I think it changed quite a lot because I was at Catterick, I guess. Were you at Aldershot then? Yeah, and did you do the Brecon phase in those days?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so we used to do two days in Aldershot and three days in Brecon.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, it was a different course back then. Wasn't it A bit harder, I reckon? What footwear did you have?
Speaker 2:It was. It was. It was flipping tough mate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think, because we were talking some of this 25, 30 odd years since we've all done it, but I think that the standards and the tests have remained exactly the same. But as I understand, it's the approach. You're not getting absolutely thrashed. There's more talk on stretching, on nutrition and actually getting the guys through the course, rather than just trying to drag them to the start line, and you've got to try and get through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. The emphasis is now trying to get guys through the course and not trying to fail people. That first time I was on P Company, there was 78 of us started and only 24 passed. It's a big attrition rate, isn't it?
Speaker 1:But that also goes to show how hard it is it is.
Speaker 2:Every person has earned that very yeah, the other thing is that there was a lot more people didn't even get to that stage in training. You probably could count another 30, maybe more that didn't even get to that stage. So you're talking well over 100 people and only 24 got passed. So there was a massive attrition rate back then, back in the late 80s and early 90s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but well, it's fantastic, You're all-arms course, isn't it? On that course the attrition rate isn't quite as high on that, so I don't know what the reason is behind that. Maybe it's you know, all that infantry stuff in that that you do, you know, and all your beat-up stuff that you do is you know in the infantry training stuff. Maybe that has an effect on your performance in that. Three weeks on P company.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, for us it's only a week, it's only the five days. So all the all the beat up stuff is just within depot, just within the training. You should get thrashed constantly, basically.
Speaker 1:Well, we covered that off. So anyone that's listening to this that wants to go and do P company is way easier now. So if you do pass, you're just basically a modern hat. Um right, so so moving away from that. So where did you get posted to then? So what were you?
Speaker 2:one, two, three para, so I went to one para uh, which was literally across the road from depot para. So the brigade lines in all the sharp montgomery lines is now a housing estate. It's been knocked down, uh. But yeah, we, we literally well, I got posted directly across the road to one para. Um had a year there. Um had a great first year, loved it. We went and did loads of exercises and bounced around all over the place, went to america for a couple of weeks. I loved that. And then we we was basically preparing to go to the gulf. So we got stood to to go to the first gulf war at the um start of when was that? 91, 91, yeah, yeah. So we got stood to to go to the first Gulf War at the start of when was that 91.
Speaker 2:91, yeah, so we were stood to and we did all the training for it. We did loads of NBC training, as it used to be called back then gas chamber runs, vehicle recognition for Soviet vehicles, stuff like that. We actually received a load of extra weapons as well. We got up armed within the battalion, so we had two gpmgs per section, uh, and we had two m79 grenade launchers per section and we did all the training on those two. Um, and sadly, right at the end of that year we reverted back to what was already planned in the first place way before that, and went to northern island instead for two and a half years.
Speaker 1:Man, that's demoralizing, isn't it? Like, I guess, on the flip side, the guys that did go out to the gulf gulf one it was a bit of a crappy tour anyway didn't really get to see much action unless you were bravo to zero whatever, but generally I think it was quite a quiet yeah, compared to the proper golf yeah and, and you know I, I was I was absolutely gutted because you know there was me thinking, oh, this is the opportunity of a lifetime to go away on operations as a.
Speaker 2:You know it's a real war. It's not just walking around the streets of belfast getting flipping, blown up if you're unlucky, um, but you know you can't help the bigger picture. You know, as a soldier, you just you just go where you're sent. But at least we were going on operations to Northern Ireland, like nowadays a lot of the guys are just all they're doing is going on exercises and stuff. So, yeah, we headed over to Northern Ireland for the Royal Mudd tour of Belfast Palace Barracks, two and a half years out there, took over from Free Power in Palace.
Speaker 2:What was that like in Northern Ireland? To be honest, it wasn't what I joined the army for. I've got to say I joined the army to jump out of planes and flippin, go around the world and fight wars and stuff like that. It's your job, though, as an infantry soldier, isn't it? I found it quite mundane and quite boring, mixed in with a lot of nasty shit.
Speaker 2:Basically, you know getting abused by locals and you, you know just feeling when you were in those areas of certain areas of Northern Ireland, the areas that they always put us in because it was a dangerous area West Belfast and places like that.
Speaker 2:It was just a hostile environment, you know, and as a young kid I literally just turned 19 when I went over there straight into two and a half years of hatred and hostility. It wasn't exactly a happy experience, I've got to say. You know, we was constantly deployed out on the streets in different areas and every time you took a knee you had to do your fives and twenties because there could be a flipping bomb next to the hedge you sat next to. And not just that, like I say, the hostility of people you know, constantly abusing you and gobbing off and all the rest of it and chucking shit at you literally sometimes. So it wasn't particularly a nice time and it wasn't really what I wanted to do with my life in the Army. But you do as you're told, don't you? And you get deployed where you get. You went out to Northern.
Speaker 3:Ireland deployed where you, where you get went out northern ireland um what? What happened for you next after that, when you returned from two?
Speaker 2:and a half years on on operations out there. Uh, well, actually I had a little bit of a a gucci tour for six months, um, I, uh, I went on the parachute regiment, um mobile display team as it was called back then, it's like the recruiting team for six months, um, and just basically bounced around the uk flipping, doing a cape tour type stuff, um, and we used to put up this 60 foot scaffolding tower with, um the fan thing, you know, the parachute simulator on the side and the death slide.
Speaker 2:That's it, yeah, doing that, loads of shows and stuff going on the pierce, that was a good crack. And then after that I went back to one powerhouse. I went back to one power I think it was like september, october that year, 1993 and then back into an infantry.
Speaker 1:So you know rifle company those cape tours were great, weren't they? I mean, they were like the glory tour. Someone said you want to go on, you know, going on a two, three week cape tour, what's it? Keeping the army in the public eye? I mean, it was just a complete shagaphone, but you'd sort of like. The problem is, obviously I was like six to start with, so all we did was go around and show people clansman radio, and this side put an antenna up which is, it's, about as exciting as coronation street. Yet, you know, then you got the guy over the road. It turns up with his like power rig. You think that's it, you know. So all the essence birds are wandering over there.
Speaker 2:We end up with the fatties yeah it was just which is about all I've ever done anyway doesn't happen anymore, obviously, um so yeah, you go back to that.
Speaker 1:So at what point did you sort of decide you wanted to sort of turn up a gear and go pathfinder?
Speaker 2:uh. So basically at the end of that year when I went back to a company, one para, I did um. A few months back Then I actually volunteered to go patrols, which is the recce platoon for the battalions. I went there because basically you know, I was always kind of striving to be better all the time and I went to patrols platoon. We had a really hard card to join that platoon. We did a month in Brecon in January, got thrashed, and then we did.
Speaker 2:We actually did what's known as seer now combat survival back then. Uh, and we did, we did all that training um with the pathfinders. So they were, um, our ds for the carder, for the patrols carder, and then we did their actual um seer package as well. And at that time I was like, yeah, these, these guys are, they were super professional, very, very impressive, um, really good soldiers every one of them. I was like, yeah, that's what I want to do, um, but we actually had another northern ireland tour coming up in one para. So at the end of that year, which is 1994, uh, we actually went back to northern ireland, back to belfast, funnily enough, did another six months um. So I had to wait until after that tour before I could actually apply to join Pathfinders. So it was 95, October 95, that I went on Pathfinder selection.
Speaker 1:And back then was Pathfinder exclusively for PowerEdge.
Speaker 2:No. So in 1985, it was all PowerEdge, but it was only. I don't think it was long, I think it's like a couple of years, if that before. They then started taking guys from other parts of the brigade, from 5th Airborne Brigade, so they had engineers and signals and people like that that had the option to join the platoon for their specialities. It then got opened up to the rest of the army and by the time I joined there were guys from a few other different cat badges and stuff in there. Not that many, but there was probably about 70% parachute regiment and then we had probably around about 30% or so from other cat badges, mainly from within 5th Airborne Brigade, but there were the occasional couple of guys that came in from externally as well.
Speaker 1:Didn't know that Every day's a school day. I don't know much about Pathfinders. I think you know out of everything in the military that's elite, sf, whatever you want to sort of put it into whatever box. Pathfinder's probably the least known. Everyone knows SAS, sbs, sfc is obviously Legends, srr, a bit of that's coming out now more Marines, paras. But when you say Pathfinder it's like what's that? So what is Pathfinders? What is the selection? What's involved in that whole sort of shooting match?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's a six-week card and basically it's kind of similar to a compressed version of selection. So it's only six weeks. But when you say only six weeks, it's crammed in from day one all the way through to the end. I think on our course we got the first weekend off Saturday, sunday. We might have even been traveling to Brecon on the Sunday, I can't remember but after that we got one day off for the rest of the course. That was it. And the only reason we got one day off for the rest of the course, that was it. And the only reason we got that day off is because it was the day after endurance. So you start off with an aptitude phase where you literally just get thrashed for a week doing 10 milers and 8 milers and various other stuff, and then you get all the other sort of tests, all your weapon handling tests and signals and first aid and stuff like that, just to get a bit of an assessment, a bit of a picture of what the soldier's like that have just turned up. Because like any selection course, you'll get dreamers, you'll get people that aren't really capable. So they kind of sort the wheat from the chaff on that first week and then after that they then pick up the tempo even more and you, basically you do a what they call a walkabout phase, same as selection, where you go out in groups, navigating over the hills, trying to keep to 4Ks an hour, being assessed by a DS, and then after that you go into a test week, but a test week it's only four days. I say it's only four days. It's a long four days, but it's all the same routes as SF selection, same weights, same distances and all that. But in some ways it's a little bit more challenging in some ways than SF because there's so few people on it. It's not like on selection, where you've got a massive line of Bergens going up a hill with luminous panels on. Sometimes, by the time you get to the hills phase on pf, there's only literally a handful of guys left. They've been thrashed into the ground so much that there's there's a lot of guys dropped out with injuries or whatever. Um, so, um, I know, I mean, I know one card that finished with three people left at the end of the course.
Speaker 2:Um, so you do, you do the hills phase, then you do a range phase where you're doing all your contact drills, section of tats and all sorts of live firing stuff in brecon, um and on my card. We used to have to tab out to the rangers as well. They stopped that, which isn't a bad idea, because your legs are completely shagged by the time you've done endurance and all that um, but that was a very, very hard week as well because, like I say, your legs are completely knackered and your body's in bits and so we were tabbing out to the ranges doing like an eight miler or a 10 miler or something. And then that's just the start of your day. Then you flip in. You know, you change your socks, put some warm well, not warm kit but some dry clothing on and get on the ranges all day getting fresh. So you do that and then you do a uh, an sop phase where you're learning all your small unit tactics, things like trolling, ambushes and optical crosses, crossing and uh, ops and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Uh, you do a short exercise, an op exercise.
Speaker 2:Uh, by this stage on the course, when I was on it, it was freaking freezing as well, because it was november by this stage.
Speaker 2:And you know you sat in an op for a couple of days I think three days or something, um, going through just the routine of setting up an op and operating an op and observing a target um, carrying out ctrs and stuff like that, and it was freaking, freezing, so cold.
Speaker 2:You know, just sat there just having to. It's a different kind of endurance, putting up with that sort of thing, um, and then after that you go into a final exercise where you you're out, for I think it was like best part, two weeks or something like that. Okay, you go through again a patrol task followed by a platoon task. So if there's enough of you on the course left, then the patrols come together, you go through a set of orders and then you'll do a raid or an ambush or something similar, and then obviously at the end of it they always bug you out and you go, you know, into another tab right to the end of the course. So they thrash you for every kind of last second of the course right up to the point where you finish proper cheeky course. Then yeah, yeah, I don't know if I uh, absolutely right.
Speaker 1:So you ever tried it, martin, you no, not tickle your fancy. No, no.
Speaker 3:B company was my limit.
Speaker 1:I remember it's funny, you said something just now which just reminded me on my first hills course I was on like day three on test week and my nab was always pretty pretty pony, to be honest, and I just relied on my fitness just to like run around, bounce around the hills. Um, anyway, I saw a bergen tab in the distance so I just I was just a follower, so I was like I was gonna head in that general direction. So I just like went that way for like two, three hours. Get to a checkpoint, you know, you get out your, your map, the dslr point, you know where you're at. And you're like I'm there. And they're like what? No, mate, no, you're not what, you're right, you know, refold the map. You're here. I'm like, oh fuck, because how did you end up here?
Speaker 1:I was like I was following that guy. He's like, mate, their pf selection, a totally different course. Oh, mate, I was. Oh mate, I was hanging out after that, but anyway. So, um, what do you get? So you pass pf? Uh, do you get like a? Do you get a? Did you get a lollipop badge? What? What do they give you for, like, passing the course?
Speaker 2:You get high five, you just get a DZ flash. Yeah, you, just. You just get a DZ flash. Just the brigade, sorry, the unit um flash, which is obviously the arrow Um, when it it was five airborne brigade. So the the dz flash is based on the brigade hq flash, which back then was maroon and green, yeah, with a horizontal line going through it with a black arrow on top. Yes, um, since they changed the 16 assault brigade, they're obviously using the 16 assault brigade hq backing for the flash which is um maroon and blue, vertically with the arrow on top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did you get a pay rise Any more power pay or something.
Speaker 2:So basically, when I went there, no, there was no change whatsoever to your pay. And that's a big difference between SF and Pathfinders is obviously, when you go to SF, then you get your SF pay straight away and it's quite a big pay difference. Um, it increase, um, but with with Pathfinders, no, there's. No, there wasn't anything like that at all until April 97 when they established something called uh, I think it was called high altitude parachute pay. Yeah, okay, basically it was like double parapay. Yeah, that's the way they justified it. They said, well, these guys have done the free fall course, the halo course and all that, and it's basically just double parapay. So it's not massive, but it's a few extra quid. But obviously the guys don't do it, you don't do it for the money.
Speaker 1:No, but I think it makes a difference. At the end of the month, doesn't it? When you get back, he's got loads there to spend on a brand new car that you can't afford. And then yeah, so you talk about the high altitude because obviously everyone's paratrained. You do your sort of basic parachute course rounds thousand feet, whatever it may be. But pathfinder is completely different method of insertion right yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, we, we went on the high altitude parachute course. It's it's not called a halo course, it's called hap, the high altitude parachute course. It's not called a halo course, it's called HAPC high altitude parachute course. So you go out to California I think it was like four weeks or something like that three or four weeks and you bang out in a region of what was it about? 60 or 70 jumps, something like that, 60 or 70 jumps, I can't remember.
Speaker 2:Now you start off with a basic, so you get what they're called aff to accelerate free fall, where you learn how to skydive, to start with um, and then they, they, you know, ramp it up in increments. So you'll be jumping with a rucksack. Then you'll be a big, weighted, massive rucksack, you know 70 or 80 pound, uh, and then you jump with a weapon as well, and then you'll be jumping with oxygen, um, and then they take you up to 18 000 feet, so that that's classed as halo when you go above 12 000 feet because you were in oxygen. And then from there you go up to 25 000 feet and then you jump at night with all those things as well, and then the the sort of final thing is all that stuff at night, 25 grand.
Speaker 2:And they also put in a thing called a free fall, um, a free fall bundle, uh. So basically it's like a big long tube. First person pushes it out, it's on a drogue parachute, and then you all pile out after that. That thing, um, I don't think that's in service anymore because that's been replaced with a military tandem. Um, so, uh, but that that cool, because I I was always a fast baller, cause I'm relatively chunky and small and short, so I fall really fast. Uh, because I fall fast, they used to put me in the front of the stick, so I was always the one pushing the six foot tube out, so I'd literally hoik it off the tailgate of the aircraft and then follow it out, Just dive straight out after it.
Speaker 1:And he used to try and chase it in free fall. It was amazing what 25,000 feet. What's that? Give you free fall time?
Speaker 2:So it depends on what height you deploy the parachute. So back when I did it, we were deploying sort of 3,000 to 3,500 feet. Nowadays it's a little bit higher. It just depends on the parachute type. But yeah, I mean you're talking about a minute and a half, something like that it's called a proper journey and many accidents well, funny should say uh, on my first free fall course, uh, one of the ref guys pulled in and died. Uh, sadly, yeah, yeah, there was.
Speaker 2:There was a problem with the parachute system. Basically we used to have a handle there. You'd pull the main handle, deploy a drogue off your back. That would pull the main parachute out. But what we used to find is the drogue wasn't catching the air properly. It wasn't a very strong.
Speaker 2:Basically it's on a kicker spring and as you're falling in free fall, above you there's a patch of what they call dead air, so it's like a vortex above you. As you're falling in free fall, above you there's a, there's a, there's a patch of what they call dead air, so it's like a vortex above you as you're falling. So this spring would come off your back and then just sit and wobble around in free fall and what you'd have to do is basically take your elbows and literally smack the sides of the pack to try and dislodge the parachute, to actually come out the back of, you know, the pack and this poor guy basically I'm not going to go into detail, but it didn't work and he went all the way in maximum velocity, terminal velocity, poor bloke, flipping dive.
Speaker 3:Was that fault known at the time.
Speaker 2:So the well, we knew that there was a problem with the deployment system. Yeah, and that's why they actually brought in the drills of literally smacking the size of the pack with your elbows, which is crazy, isn't it? Yeah, you know, there were again, I won't go into too much detail, but there was, there were a couple of devices that they, you know. After I got more experience for skydiving, I found out that if they put at least one of these couple of devices in the parachute at the time, that guy would still be alive now. But the kit we were using was quite old technology. It was like 1970s, really 1980s technology. You know, I was on that course in 1996.
Speaker 1:So it was well, it was pretty obsolete, to be honest, the kit we were using. Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 2:We continued with the course as well. So they paused the course for a few days about a week or something, I don't know whilst they did a bit of an inquest and all that. But we actually continued with the course, which is you know, it's pretty scary. You're learning how to skydive and then you're doing it with flipping kit, and you're doing it at night and all the rest of it. Someone dies, and then you're back on the back on the pony doing it again. You know it's um crazy. It doesn't fill you with confidence when you're using the same kit that that guy died with but what choice is there?
Speaker 1:you know you, you can't just sack it and go home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're training, um, you've got to get back on the horse yeah, absolutely, you've got a crack on, but it's um, it's not the nicest feeling, thinking shit. You know, somebody died a couple of days ago using the same parachute. I've got my bat now. Um, but yeah, none of us actually qualified because we we ran out of time because of the inquest and stuff and then we had a few days bad weather, so none of us actually qualified on that course. Um, the whole course basically had to come back and do it again at later stage yeah, I mean that sounds awful.
Speaker 1:Going back to California for another month. It must have been really shit.
Speaker 2:Well, the extra bonus we got is the RAF, just for us. Pathfinders said, right, you guys that were on that course, we're going to now put you on an intermediate thing to keep you jumping. And we got sent out to Holland and we went out with the, the Dutch commandos, which is their special forces, and went on their free fall course. And we went and did about 30 jumps out in Holland, got the Dutch wings and all that Dutch free fall wings and yeah, that was that we come back off that course and we got flipping slagging from the blokes. We come back off that course and we got flipping, slagging from the blokes because they're like, well, you're still not qualified. Well, fuck you up too. You know, because the Dutch didn't have a a high altitude capability, so they only went up to 12,000 feet, which meant we weren't fully qualified because we hadn't done everything with oxygen on and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, then we got a third course. So we California.
Speaker 1:So go on then. How many jumps have you got and what foreign wings have you?
Speaker 2:got. So I've got about four and a half thousand jumps all up. That's all the different types, you know tandem, civvy, free fall, military, all the different types of military jumping. About four and a half thousand Foreign wings. I've got American, french, dutch, german, moroccan, what else? I think that's about it. I have done a couple of civvy courses with companies and stuff. I wouldn't count those. I went out to Thailand and did some jumping out there Not that kind of jumping, and Czech Republic, johnson's not Ripcord jumping and and and Czech Republic Johnson's, not Ripcord's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Czech Republic as well, but I don't, I don't count those cause they weren't with the military. That was just fun jumping with a company that was doing doing military jumps with military people, but it was in our own time, sort of thing. Yeah, I think that's it. I might have I don't know, I can't think of any other ones that I've got but yeah, about half a dozen, something like that you, mark, what's your best, best foreign jump mine's got to be the German.
Speaker 3:German jump into the 65th anniversary of Arnhem with the Germans. Yeah, when that klaxon goes off and you haven't got a clue what's going on, it's like everyone just piles out the door and um yeah, the ground training.
Speaker 3:The night before we rocked up late for it and, um, you know this, this german guy came out, spoke in german. No one had a clue what was going on, um, but luckily there was a, an american jump master there that had jumped with a chute before. He was like guys, don't worry, we're. You know, we'll go through it before we load tomorrow. And he went around and just got us all squared away and stuff. But I had no clue whatsoever about that klaxon. You know. When it went off I was like you know what was that? And then everyone just piled out the door. It's mental.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the French do the same as well. We went to Corsica and jumped with the French Foreign Legion and they stick that, that klaxon on. I think it's flipping crazy because, if nothing else, it bloody panics people, doesn't it crazy?
Speaker 1:so after you've been on all your fun jumping holidays, it sounds like you joined the military. You've done a bit of time in Northern Ireland, then you've had loads of jollies, sort of jumping out of planes all over the world, fantastic. But there must be a point where you thought you know, obviously you went Pathfinder and then you went and did some more parachuting and more jollies, and then you probably must have sat and thought I've not actually fired around you, I've not actually done the job. I want to go to war. I've missed the Gulf. Northern Ireland, obviously hairy old place, but you're not getting rounds down every day necessarily. Um, you want to go and get in it, you know, you just want to get muddy. So so it's what we're talking about 98 now, 99 bosnia, kosovo, sort of time yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're actually right there, because I I wasn't the sort of person that wanted to join the army to get away from home or just to get a job. I actually did. I wanted to go to war and when that first opportunity came up to go to the first gulf war, I thought all my christmases had come at once and and then I was gutted. I was gutted when it didn't come, when it didn't happen for us, you know, um, but anyway. So went to the pathfinders, thinking, you know, it was a fantastic unit and I had a great time there. I was amongst people that were, like me, very keen and, you know, motivated, wanted to be there, um, but the only place we went to my first tour of pathfinders because I was there three times was kosovo.
Speaker 2:Uh, so we went to kosovo 1999 and we was all chuffed, you know, we got away in operations, great, um, but it obviously was a peacekeeping tour, it wasn't a warfighting operation. So we're, you know we're information gathering and it was interesting in some ways. Um, we was gathering information about lots of different things. You know, mass graves and stuff like that, um, what the population had been through and information about what the, you know, the serbians have been up to and we was monitoring roads, ops and stuff like that, but it wasn't a warfighting operation by any means and, to be honest, it kind of.
Speaker 2:I was a bit pissed off at the end of that tour because I was thinking all that selection, all that training and we're basically just, you know, just keeping it. But that's yeah, it was. It was stagging on and we was actually used funny, you should say that we was used to stag on Brigade HQ Pathfinders, so you know, spare bods just using them for what we can. I suppose I was stood next to a female RLC private on stag on the front gate of Brigade lines in Kosovo and she hadn't even her weapon, wasn't even made ready.
Speaker 3:Whereabouts was Brigade Headquarters? I can't remember the name of the place. It was at the fucking old schoolhouse.
Speaker 2:Was it in Pristina no, this was before Pristina, it was like an old schoolhouse in some town or village somewhere. And I'm just stood there thinking, you know, am I the equivalent of the person stood next to me and I blatantly wasn't? Um, and it kind of pissed me off a little bit, um, and as a result of that and also I that at the start of that year so I went on selection, uh, in january 99 and I came off with an injury, um, so I didn't pass that um, and I was sitting in a bit of a okay, what we're going to do next with my life? And I was at the stage where funny, you should say about skydiving. I was loving the jumping side in Pathfinders. I'd done 500 jumps in four years whilst in Pathfinders and I was loving it and I was getting more into the skydiving side. So I just went sod it right on going to the Red Devils. I jumped ship and went to the Red Devils for a few years.
Speaker 3:Red Devils. That's something that you know we don't normally hear about. Very similar to the pathfinder stuff be really interesting if we can sort of dig into that.
Speaker 2:You know the red devils yeah, yeah, so, um, you know, a lot of people know who the red devils are. So it's the. It's actually now the british army parachute well, parachute display team. Yeah, um, when I joined it was, it was the parachute regiment free fall display team, but it was like the official army team, um, but now all the rest of the teams in the army have actually been shit can just this year have been binned. So now it's it's just the red devils army parachute display team.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's gone from being a regimental team to being the only army team, um, but the job of the red devils is public relations, um and again, keeping the army in the public eye, that sort of thing and representing the regiment, the army, the uk. If you go overseas by jumping into different events, um, whether that's a town show because we did lots of fairly low-key stuff like town shows, um, or big events like brand'satch or Silverstone or air shows, things like that we used to jump into air shows in the States a few times a year and that was just an amazing job. So you're literally getting paid to do what your hobby is. If you're into skydiving and if you're a parachute regiment and you're into skydiving, there's kind of no better job. Really, it was a fantastic three years.
Speaker 3:So is it exclusive for the parachute regiment or is it tri-service can? Can anyone sort of go to? You know, have a. Have a look at joining the the red threads no, um, so it's the parachute regiment team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the. The name red devils was the nickname of the parachute regiment from world war ii. Okay, so they're not called the red devils because we wear red jumpsuits. It's the other way around we call the red devils, so that's why we wear red jumpsuits and it is the parachute regiment team. But, um, they do have um guest jumpers in as well, not guest jumpers, they have guest members in, yeah, I guess what. And so basically you've got to have passed p company and got your parachute wings. So you come from, you know, say the signals, the engineers, whatever medics, and they do have the occasional person in from outside of parachute regiment.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 2:No, there's been a couple of female members and they've been absolutely fantastic as well. Friend of mine, jackie Smith, was the first ever red devil and she's an absolute legend. She was the first ever Red Devil and she's an absolute legend. She was the first woman to wear a maroon beret and she was an absolute legend. She's a world record holder in various disciplines of skydiving. So, yeah, there's been some proper characters going through the Red Devils and achieved some great stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Where were you guys based at that time?
Speaker 2:So Netheraven? Yeah, Years and years ago ago, before I joined, they were based in Aldershot with a brigade. Yeah, which didn't make an awful lot of sense because you're nowhere near a parachute center. And then somebody, somewhere, made the correct decision to locate them at Netheraven, which is the Army Parachute Center. Yeah, for skydiving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did the. Yeah, they've been here ever since I did the. Uh, you know the um static line course there. Um, yeah, it was 2003, something like that, and they've got a bar there, haven't they? So you go on, you go on the piss the night before and you end up jumping with a banging headache yeah, yeah, I used to instruct on some of those courses, actually the static line courses.
Speaker 2:Okay, that would have been, um, just before you went there. So I was there from 2000 to 2000 or january 2003. Yeah and yeah, I used to instruct on the courses and stuff and yeah, yeah, I loved, I loved my time in red devils.
Speaker 1:It was amazing now they are an impressive I mean. I think when we were in arnhem a few weeks ago, yeah, red Devils jumped in on a Saturday when we were up at Ginkle Heath and I mean it was pure blue skies, not a cloud out there, obviously like we're all on it. But we looked up, the Red Threads have jumped out and then, like the guys there with the Union flag sort of hanging off his foot, which I mean that flag is huge, it's like it's own postcode.
Speaker 2:I mean it was just like really mesmerising which did you see the second demo they did that day opposite the Hanslein Hotel no, we didn't catch that right.
Speaker 2:So they jumped into the green opposite the Hanslein Hotel, which is the one. I've done that a few times when I was in the Freds as well, and it's quite a small landing area. It's actually very small and you's quite a small landing area. It's actually, yeah, it's very small, um, and you've got a monument, a big monument, right in the center of it and you're right next to a busy road and all the rest of it, um, and they put in an amazing display onto that. I, um I actually I've got a youtube channel probably mention that in a bit, but I stuck a little compilation of that weekend on my youtube channel and I've got some. I've got some really good footage of the guys jumping in there, because literally there was landing 10 to 15 feet away from where I stood, because there wasn't that many people there. It wasn't that well advertised. So the great thing was you didn't have that enormous crowd that we had at Ginkle Heath and you could see them right in front of you. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:That's prepared Pathfinder on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. Yeah, so I've got a youtube channel there. Yeah, and I put it on there just last week, or?
Speaker 1:something like that got loads of subscribers. It looks very popular. So anyone who's listening to this, you know, head on over prepared pathfinder on youtube. Yeah, you gotta plug everything you can in this life. No one else doing it for you yeah, cheers, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's one of those that. That um youtube thing was a bit of a um, a lockdown project that grew arms, and bit of a um, a lockdown project that grew arms and legs. Relatively quickly, everyone had a lockdown project, didn't they?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, coffee, that was it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, to be honest, I didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but it it gathered quite a bit of momentum fairly quickly and even though it's just something I do once in a while when I get the opportunity, it's doing all right. So yeah, brilliant. Well done, I've cracked on with it. Keep going.
Speaker 1:So you gave SES selection a crack 99, came off. How far did you get in before you got injured?
Speaker 2:I basically just got on a test week. I was in, I was middle of test week and I come on, I already had I had a bit of chance of completing it, have you? No, yeah, so I had a bit of Achilles tendon problem from PF selection because the amount of mileage you do on that and, yeah, come off that. And then, like I say, just decided to do something different after a bit of an assessment, after let down of Kosovo, when I went to the Red Devils. But the thing is I wish I'd stayed where I was because less than six months after I went to the Red Devils, the Pathfinders then deployed to Sierra Leone and I missed that. I was in the Red Devils and I was absolutely gutted. Yeah, I was on that because they had a big dust up out there and that was exactly what I joined the army for was to to go and do that sort of thing. But you know, hindsight's a great thing and all that. But you know I always enjoy myself jumping out of planes, so you can't really whinge too much.
Speaker 1:One power had a great dust-up out there. That was in August, wasn't it, of 2000? Yeah, he was involved in something out there in June, whatever. It was just before that with the boys and uh, but the guys I was working the ops room for when that all went in and like just listening to the net and everything. It was unbelievable. I mean, I was just like sitting there like I wanted to crawl down into the net and just get out the other side and get some rounds down.
Speaker 2:It sounded epic yeah, and that was my old company as well. That was a company, one power. So again, when that happened, I was like, oh god, I was like a double whammy of bugger yeah, however, so you didn't go back, you didn't give sas another go, so left it.
Speaker 2:No I did have it in the back of my mind to do it but, to be honest, I was all right doing your normal daily fitness and stuff tabbing and running and that but I'd never felt like I was really up to scratch for giving it that amount again, going through that amount that you've got to do on the hills. I always wanted to but it was like, nah, I've never really got rid of those little niggles that I had. There was a few minor injuries that were kind of ongoing as a result of PF and all the rest of it, to be honest. So I never did, but I did go back to Pathfinders.
Speaker 1:And then so you were one pair. Then you would have gone to Golf 2 or the Iraq War Telek in 03?.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I was in the Red Devils, we knew Iraq was coming up around the corner. It was on the flipping news and all that this is going to happen. It was on the flipping news and all that this is going to happen. So I literally went back to the Pathfinders because I knew there was stuff coming up. So I volunteered and it's very rare you get people in the Red Devils when I go back to soldiering but I did. I went back to the Pathfinders and I am just in. Well, I say just in time a couple of months before Iraq kicked off in 2003. And yeah, chuffed the bits. Yeah, managed to actually go to a war at last. All right, okay that was you.
Speaker 3:You joined when it marked, that was it? Yeah, yeah, I just joined that year. And then, oh, such a croat. Yeah, I'll catch up, though don't worry.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's it. What'd you do six months on telec one?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, about five, I think it was something like that. Yeah, good contacts? Uh, no, we didn't actually. So, um, obviously, his job with pathfinders your job is reconnaissance. It's not job to uh, your job isn't to go out and, um get involved in stuff, uh, so we did my patrol I mean a lot of a lot of the other patrols did, but my patrol in particular didn't actually get involved in any contacts out there. But we were doing your classic long-range reconnaissance role, yeah, very, you know, classic sort of reconnaissance tasks out in small patrols and vehicles, a long, long way ahead of the flot and stuff. So it was.
Speaker 3:It was good stuff, it was interesting you did your job proper then, because you didn't get into a contact, you were gathering all that intelligence and stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly and it was.
Speaker 2:You know there was. There was a couple of times we thought, you know, that this could turn pear-shaped, but we, you know we didn't actually get caught out or anything like that, so it was good. You know it was, um, it was an interesting, uh, an interesting few months I'm for uh team medals, team biscuits and medals yeah sounds a bit too sensible to me.
Speaker 1:I mean, I always pictured like Pathfinder sitting there out on a lot with like a Milan on your back, like taking out a dicker. You know why use 556 when you've got an anti-tank round. Imagine if someone did that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll come back to that point in a bit when we're talking about Africa exactly so you come back from there, then obviously I mean, this is what?
Speaker 1:oh three, oh four now, um, things are starting to heat up. You know we've done the business out in iraq afghans sort of starting to to heat up. You know we've been out there in 2000, 2001. Wasn't it sort of initially doing the bits and bobs, yeah, and then the regular army deployed 2004 5. You know old, know old. What's his name? Dr Dr Hunt, or can't remember his name now said that the old foreign, the foreign sector, is something that we're going to be out here. We're not going to fire a single round. You know he was full of shit, um, and then obviously it goes loud, doesn't it out there?
Speaker 2:and I'm taking you out on Herrick, yeah, so yeah, so we was on that first one. It was 2006. We was on that first big kick-off tour and that was Herrick 4. The ones before it were basically the engineers and stuff building Camp Bastion. So Herrick 4 was the first big deployment into Helmand where we went out on the ground and that was three para-battle group and Pathfinders were part of that. So yeah, we had a very um, kinetic, as they like to say, very kinetic tour. Uh, for that that six months, wherever it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I was out there with you guys. Um, I was with uh three para um patrols out on the mogs and stuff Getting the artillery rounds down for you guys, which we'll get onto in a bit, I will imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your 06, obviously that was a hideous tour. A lot of friends, family, all of us. We obviously had the Nimrod accident, or an accident really it was going to happen another day. But Martin Compton don't know if you know him. Household Cavalry got severely burnt. Musakala yeah, there's something niggling in the back of my mind.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that's what I was going to say a second ago we were there for nearly two months, just under two months.
Speaker 2:And yeah, that was during the operation, where it was a three-parry company, I think, plus HCR and support arms to extract us and I think, whoever was planning it. You know it's difficult. I wasn't there to receive the information that the guys in charge had, but it seemed to me like they hadn't really taken the threat seriously enough that we were under attack every day and basically theiban had free reign of the town because we didn't have enough bodies to even patrol out. We went there with 21 guys, you know, for the whole of muzakala um and yeah, when they said they were going to come in with bloody cimeters and, you know, dismounted troops, I remember saying, when we got the orders for it, I wouldn't want to be in one of them cimeters, you know, because they've got to go through a built up area and they're not going to have good visibility. They're just a sitting target. They're a bullet magnet, aren't they for RPGs and stuff? And yeah, that poor bloke, you know, and the other guys that got it as a result of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were talking to Martin. He came on the podcast season one. We've been mates with him for 10 years now. He doesn't talk about it much, you know, for obvious reasons and respect that. But he did open up. You know we'd been out, we go skiing. Now we go out in the piss together and he talks to us quite a lot about it and Christ, I mean, that was a hell of a firefight and everything, the guys getting in there, how they extracted and yeah, not good. And we were in Arnhem on the 75th and Martin knew Martin here, knew Martin Compton who got injured on the Muscala, and it was only at that point that they both connected and realised that actually when, when Martin Compton had been blown up, martin here was like, well, we were on the gun line for thrown in.
Speaker 3:We did the support plan for you guys to rip you out? Um, and obviously his vehicle got hit. Um, and uh, one of our bosses was in the vehicle. Um, and I, I just assumed, you know that I, for the last sort of 15 years, I assumed that everybody in that vehicle, you know, had perished, but turns out Martin hadn't, and it wasn't until, you know, we were cycling along to Arnhem and you know I said to him come on, mate, you know what's the dit sort of thing. And he did, he opened up and started talking and I was just like you know, it's putting the airs on my neck up now, tom I nearly crashed the bike. Yeah, by me, you know. Yeah, I thought everybody in that, in that vehicle, yeah, yeah, it was a bit of a shock, but I had a moment and then, sort of ever since then, mate, we've been, you know, best buddies, it's yeah, it's interesting having tom on tonight and you were there, you were, they see they were there coming in to get you guys, might?
Speaker 1:it's just, it's such a small community, a brotherhood really it is, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the, um, when we did actually manage to get out of there, because that first operation didn't work, that's right, yeah, they couldn't actually get to us. Uh, when, when we did, they I think um, the, the, not brigade, sorry, the battle group when they put in a bigger operation to actually extract us, that worked. I was actually a lead vehicle because we had to. We was in a Wimix, you know, totally unarmoured, and I don't know how many vehicles we had, I guess maybe about 10 or something. I don't know, but I was actually the lead vehicle coming out of Muzikala, which is obviously the most freaking dangerous position you can be in, cause they'd been sat there for two months, two months worth of prepping IEDs, you know, and whatever else they want to make, and I was a hundred percent convinced I was going to die. I thought that's it.
Speaker 2:I was a lead vehicle, I was a commander of the lead vehicle and obviously the lead vehicle is the one they're going to hit. They're going to hit the lead and the rear and then everyone else in between if they get the chance, but obviously you're going to drive over a device first and I thought I ain't going to survive today. This is going to be it. But luckily for us, the operation that came in distracted them so much that we wasn't actually hitting the way out of that town and, for whatever reason, the route we took didn't have an IED on it, or at least it wasn't actually activated. Maybe it was a command detonated one, I don't know, but they definitely must have had IEDs out there. But yeah, we got out of it no problems at all we fired an awful lot sadly there was a guy killed.
Speaker 2:There was a guy killed on the operation coming in though Cuts. I think his name was an RLC guy that was manning a. I think he was on a Wimmit manning a GPMG and sadly he was killed on the operation as they were coming in to do the relief in place.
Speaker 1:So rest in peace that man agreed but at this point have you managed to get any rounds down yet? You've been in the army 15 years it doesn't sound like you've done more than apwt, so copious mate, copious amounts of rounds on various weapons.
Speaker 2:It was freaking so muzakala was one of those places where it was like the worst thing and the best thing in your life Both mixed up into one big fucking party mix. Yeah, it was amazing, brilliant. So GPMG flipping, ugl flipping A2. Well, still got to shoot 50 cal, yeah, cal sniper rifle, minimi, lmg, everything mate Plus FAC in as well, because I was an FAC at this stage.
Speaker 1:sniper rifle um minimi LMG, everything mate.
Speaker 2:Plus FAC in as well, because I was an FAC at this stage. Excellent, we were bringing on aircraft, on on on targets all around the place. It was. It was you know. It was A10s flipping straight from the joint and carriers coming in B1 dropping bombs. It was mega.
Speaker 3:What was your, what's your biggest ordinance?
Speaker 2:I don't remember, to be honest, I couldn't quote you anything, but I mean there was various FACs and they were all getting amongst it dropping lots of bombs but we nearly got taken out, funny enough, by the Americans.
Speaker 2:An American B1 dropped I think it was a thousand pound bomb, and it went off. They reckon it was a problem with the weapon itself and it went off. They reckon it was a problem with the uh, the weapon itself. And it just it landed just outside the compound, straight on top of a mosque, and completely demolished the mosque right in front of us.
Speaker 2:Um, and it was a Danish FAC that was in charge of that mission, that, um, that I remember hearing the noise of the bomb getting louder and louder, coming in towards us, because you get to recognise the sounds of the ordnance when it's coming in close and stuff. I remember hearing the sound of it, but it sounded wrong. It wasn't going overhead, it was coming towards us and it landed probably 100 metres or so, 150 metres, from where I stood, and the only reason why we survived it is it was just the other side of a 100 metres or so, 150 metres from where I've stood, and the only reason why we all survived it is it was just the other side of a big wall, like a 10, 12 foot wall, and the blast went straight up.
Speaker 3:Well, did that stir up the hornet's nest? Obviously for you guys locally. Yeah, I bet it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know. We were fighting before that, but then it was just full on after that. It was nonstop, you know, every day, twice a day sometimes, quite often actually. They obviously thought it was intentional. We were just destroying a mosque and it wasn't that at all. That bomb was completely in the wrong place and we were very lucky. If it landed just inside the wall, we would all be killed From where we were sat. It would have, yeah, From where we were sat. We would have landed within 50 metres where we were sat, don't bear thinking about it, does it mate?
Speaker 2:And there was no cover. We were sat behind women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:No, it would have taken out the whole of the PF and won her basically.
Speaker 1:What was your, your, personal weapon?
Speaker 2:Was it a C? We had A2s. It was just after that tour we got the C8s. So back in the mid-90s we had the M16 A3s that were borrowed from Hereford. When they changed their weapon system to the C8, we had to basically revert back to the A2 because they didn't have any to loan us like they did with the M16s, and we didn't have any armor support either. So we had to revert back to A2s for that and we had them for that tour. And then it was just after that we got a C8.
Speaker 1:And what's your personal preference between the two? It's a very big debate, isn't it? The old school would always just talk about the slr that it was the best gun ever. But you know, the a2 I always thought was a pretty good weapon, but the c8 was head and shoulders. But I don't know what your your thoughts are yeah, I mean the c8's a far better weapon.
Speaker 2:Plus it's more alley in it because you know not everyone's got it, so it's going to be more, but it was. It was a better weapon for definite, and it is a better weapon. The A2, it was much better than the first version of the SAE, which I used as well. So the A2 was better, but still it's never been perfect. It's always had its little glitches and stuff. I remember, for example, when we was in Muzikala, the rubber on the butt of my sae just deteriorated and started falling off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I literally had half a butt on my weapon. For most of my time whilst I was in musicala, which is, you know, we didn't have an armor there, we didn't have any, any logistics whatsoever, so I was fighting with my weapon that was, you know, had half a butt on it, so that's not ideal it was shocking, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:the equipment issue sort of in the early years was just crap. I mean you're going out with all sorts of rubbish yeah, vehicles.
Speaker 2:I remember in uh on that tour, specifically the uh. I don't know if you guys remember this, if you were on this tour, the, the uh clothing was really bad as well. So so it was the old, the desert, desert. Yeah, they issued clothing back then. We called it, we called it. We called it teabag because you could literally you could pretty much see through the material. It was so thin and apparently the logic behind it was is you only had it for a certain amount of time and then you got reissued a new set.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, that didn't really take into account that the guys were deployed in fobs all around the Philippine province and there wasn't a single chance of being resupplied with virtually anything. Really, I mean, we ran out of food when we were in Muzakala. We was butchering goats, that's it. Yeah, let alone getting Philippine spare clothing. There was guys walking. I remember the boss, the OC, walking around with a crotch of his trousers that had all rotted and fell away, and he's walking around with his flipping boxy shorts hanging out of his pants. You know, and this is in, this is on operations, you know, for two months.
Speaker 1:It's embarrassing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of the kit you get issued is pretty bad yeah.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't enough either. Never, never enough, was it? You know? Five pairs, five pairs of summer socks. You used one for your water bottle, didn't you to cool your water bottle down on the wing mirror of your Jeep or whatever, your Wimic? And then you were down to four pairs of socks.
Speaker 1:Mate, I'm a little bit worried actually. You just mentioned that you've been eating goats, but the night before the local blokes were having a bit more fun with that goat. So you might need to get yourself a little bit of a health check, a bit of extra protein mate exactly but the thing is it's funny you should say about that.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, it's funny you should say about that, because there was some dodgy stuff going on within the fobs as well, and you'll know what some of the locals are like over there, and the old the saying man Love Thursdays come from that tour, because that's what they were talking about. We were talking about this the other day, weren't?
Speaker 1:we Genuinely. Yeah Well, we'll fast forward a bit now. So how many years did you do in the military? I?
Speaker 2:did 25 all up. I did three tours of Pathfinders three years in the Red Devils Pathfinders, three years in the Red Devils, five years in one para, and I was also at J at Bryson Orton for two and a half years doing the parachute trials as well. So what did you leave? As I was only a sergeant when I left. So basically because I'd spent 19 years outside of a battalion, I'd kind of sacrificed any chance of rank and stuff like that, which I'm not bothered about. To be honest, I didn't join the army to try and get a W02 or W01. I joined the army because I wanted to go to war and shoot guns and jump out of planes and I did that to the max, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like you had a great journey along that way. I mean, martin got his way up to W02, and then he worked his way back down. He left with a large jack of fiend, didn't he?
Speaker 3:But he got the pension, as you say. Yeah, he got the pension, that's the main thing.
Speaker 1:So when you got out, what was the next thing for you then? You sort of done your 25. You sort of get out. You're still young, you're like 40 years old, 45.
Speaker 2:You've got a whole life ahead of you. So I I yeah, I was 42, I think, because I did two years extension bang as well um, and so basically I I did a job, uh, with a company called rescue global for a couple of years uh, which was like overseas search and rescue type stuff, um, and I joined I actually re-enlisted into four power as well, so I went to four power after about six months out. Um, did a few years there as well. Whereabouts were you with Fort Parra?
Speaker 3:I was down at White City in London oh, okay, yeah, yeah, they got a few places, didn't they?
Speaker 2:and, as a result of being there, I actually got the opportunity to go back on the Red Devils. So, as a full time reservist, I actually went back on the Red Devils in 2017 and I'm getting a second bite of the apple here, which is flipping amazing yeah yeah, a bit wiser, you're a bit older.
Speaker 1:The things that you kind of missed, you wished you'd done, you've got that opportunity to go back and do it again. Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, at the end of that year I stoofed in quite badly parachuting. I was actually on holiday in Kenya skyddiving and, um, I broke my femur into three pieces. Um, I had quite a bad parachute accident and that that was the end of my time in the red devils. But at least I had that year and I had a great year that 2017 what happened there then?
Speaker 3:was it just like uh, you know the air, the the air, make the parachute fold. Or was it and just a freak out?
Speaker 2:I basically I did a bit of a low turn. That was a result of a couple of other things going on, yeah, and I was on a very, very high performance parachute, a very high performance, fast canopy. Yeah, I hit the ground at a very, you know, very high speed and my second point of contact was my head, so it was feet, head back. I'm lucky to be alive, to be honest, yeah, christ.
Speaker 3:We were out there in 2016 and the brigade did a jump with the LLP. I think 11 guys got out of the hook and out of the 11, nine of them were rushed to hospital with, you know, back injuries, hip injuries, and it was to do with, you know, the air out there. Just it wasn't right for the parachute, so it was crazy, you know they had to put on a hook to then move the guys yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what was that like for you for the medical care out there? Was it sort of first rate, being military or no?
Speaker 2:cause I was on holiday, so I had to go to a private hospital. Before that, though, I had no pain relief for an hour, so I was lying there with a shattered femur with no pain relief for an hour. That was great. I had to go to a private hospital. When I got there, I found out my medical insurance only paid 100 quid a day, and that was it. They didn't cover what your actual costs were and my medical bill was. I think it was 10,500 pounds for 11 days in hospital, so instead of it being 100 quid a day, it was nearly 1,000 quid a day. But yeah, I won't go too much into that, but that wasn't a particularly nice time, I've got to say, and I was on crutches for two years as a result of that injury.
Speaker 1:But you've obviously recovered because I mean, you're still jumping. Yeah, You're not struggling with the leg.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you say I've recovered, but I haven't. I'm not fully. I'm jumping but I can't really run anymore and I do get a bit of pain and stuff with it, but I've still got a rod going through my leg now but I'm still jumping. Yeah, I'm still getting hills and doing stuff. So you know, as long as I can still keep doing stuff, then I'm happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that rod got to stay in as it, tom, or are you having that out?
Speaker 2:well, I think the nhs they just kind of fob you off. I think it's just a case of unless you really whinge about it, and even if you did, you're going to get put on a flipping waiting list forever. But when I had my last appointment I asked that and he just said no, there's no need to take it out. Okay, um, but I do know people that have had them taken out before. But again, you know what it's the hassle of staying in a bloody waiting room in a flipping med centre and going to hospital for x-rays and all that crap.
Speaker 3:And then going through rehabilitation again after Unless, it becomes a real drama.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unless it becomes a real drama, I'll probably just leave it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean that jump we did into Carentan earlier this year. You weren't worried about rounds and getting injured then. Yes, I was.
Speaker 2:That was the first jump that I've done since I've bust my female with a round canopy and it was definitely a little bit of a let's see how this goes sort of thing. But because of the conditions on the day and the DZ was just, you know, as you know, it was crops and stuff to land into and generally winds, it was. It was great, it's perfect. It was a subject five, yeah it was good jump.
Speaker 1:We were coming down and I mean, what was the grass there was like four or five foot deep, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:so it's just like the best landing there was a couple of guys that landed in the canal I think someone landed in the mercedes Mercedes sort of showroom or whatever, smashed on the cars.
Speaker 1:Then you landed, didn't you? You're dragging your parachute in and the frogs are there asking for your passport. No, that was good. I know, it was hilarious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've done a little video on that on my YouTube as well, if anyone wants to see it.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, We'll have a look. So obviously you're still talking about the hills. You've also got an events company First.
Speaker 2:In. Yeah, so I've got a company called First In Events. The reason why it's called First In is that's the motto of the Pathfinders First In. So I do it based on some of the not all of them, but some of the military stuff that I did activities and that from when I was in Pathfinders. So we do like tandem skydive days, we run a fan dance, we run a P company event, which is actually next week. We run first aid courses, survival courses, bug out course. So lots, lots of different stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's some skills there. I think they're really important for people to come along. So it's it's practical first aid, I'm guessing, rather than some of the classroom stuff you might do at work or something on a course yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So our first aid course is coming up, uh, first weekend of november, and yeah it's, it's learning practical, practical skills. So it's not one of these companies where you get shouted at and you pretend you're in the sas or you're on bloody, that staff program on the telly who does wins, and all that. It's not like that at all. We actually teach people practical skills. So we do navigation courses as well, so teach people how to navigate from the ground up. You know, as in never seen that before, here's a map. This is what it's for. This is a compass, and the same with a med course.
Speaker 2:We do an outdoor first aid course where people are learning practical medical skills that can apply in real life. It's not just a tick-pocking, tick-pocking exercise, um, and the same with all the other stuff. We do survival courses. It's not just the case of, oh, we're doing this for a little bit of fun. It's actually learning genuine, real skills from people that, uh, you know well qualified, know what they're talking about yeah, so if someone's listening to this now or watching it, you know, on youtube, where can they?
Speaker 3:you know, what do they need to look for so they can get on one of these courses with you, tom, and your guys?
Speaker 2:yeah, basically first in eventscom. That's that's it first. In eventscom we've got uh the website, uh, I'm on uh instagram and also on facebook as well. We've got pages on each of those and we, you know, I'll put updates on there of courses that are coming up and I'll put all the pictures on from when we're running activities and stuff. So, yeah, we get a whole mixture of people on it. It's not just for people that are ex-military or military fans. We've got all sorts of people that come on the course, on different courses that we do. So it's a really good mixture of people and different skill levels and stuff as well. Sounds good, sounds fun that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:I mean, when we get to the war, to the end of the show, I mean the first thing you say is you've been on a mega journey, mate. I mean fantastic. You know, really, alley career, you've done all. You've had the glory sort of career, really, haven't you? You've got to go to war, which you know. Let's be honest, that's what we'll. Join delphi, we want to get some rounds down and do some naughty stuff, bring some gucci things home from saddam's palace or whatever. And then, um, yeah, you've got to do in the red devils multiple times. You know, awesome pathfinders got out, started your career. Um, you've got the first in events. I mean that is a proper journey. Been on new, well done.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm also still in there. I'm still carrying out parachute displays as well. So I'm actually in a civvy parachute display team called jump dogs. Uh, my brother who is x1 power and red devils, he established that yeah um, and most of the guys in the team are x parachute regiment, quite a few x-Red Devils and we actually jump into events all around the place as well. We just jumped into Arnhem the other weekend as well. Did see that out of a helicopter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, yeah, fantastic. That was me. I jumped in with a parachute regiment flag on that.
Speaker 1:Brilliant and you managed to land without hurting yourself. Yeah, I've practiced it a few times now. I did see that. That was a really impressive photo. I forgot about that. Yeah, I saw. I think you put it on Instagram or Facebook or something.
Speaker 2:I saw that on there yeah, but that's picking up quite a bit now as well. The parachute side, because you know I've kept that going because I didn't just do it because it was a job, I did it because I enjoyed it, and now that all the army parachute display teams have been binned off apart from the red devils there's there's a big demand for parachute displays now from you. Know anyone that could provide it? So, um, the team that I'm in, the jump dogs, uh, we've actually picked up a lot of the displays that the army was supposed to have done this year and next year and it's now. My challenge is now trying to fit all these things in hey, fit it in.
Speaker 1:You're a long time dead. Just enjoy it, smash it and get through life. You know, that's the way. If the missus moans, it's what it is, you know.
Speaker 2:Take them with you.
Speaker 1:Questions. Yeah, so this is Martin's part of the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we've got. We normally finish the podcast with a couple of questions. So first one is um grab bag. If you know you've got, you've got that grab bag, you've got to pick it up and get out of there. What's the free items that you've got to have in that bag? Just three, yeah yeah, just three.
Speaker 2:Okay, med kit for definite, okay. Um, I've actually got. I've got my grab bag sat right next to me right here now. So I have an edc bag that I carry everywhere with me every day of the week. But the first thing I put in there is a med kit, for sure. And I've actually got two med kits in my bag. I've got like a trauma kit, so you know the trauma shears. I've got an Israeli bandage, cellox, and a tourniquet and a chest seal. So I've got that. And then I've got a normal med kit.
Speaker 2:You know that normal people carry things like you know your plasters and bandages and stuff like that. So a med kit would be the first one, uh. Second one would be a head torch, absolutely, because if you get caught out at night, um, you need to have light to be able to see what you're doing, whatever that might be, and if you've got a torch in your hand, then that hands out of the game, isn't it? Yeah, head torch, stick it on your head and you can see where you're going at any any one time. Uh, the third one and this might be a little bit of a cheat, I'll actually show you because I've got my bags out here, and this isn't a setup.
Speaker 1:You've asked me this question. You didn't know. Yeah, we never. We never tell anyone, yeah, so yeah, so there's my med kit.
Speaker 2:That's just my normal med kit as in, not my trauma kit. Um, I've got my head torch, is there? That's not a pair of pants, that's a mask it's like a thong.
Speaker 1:It's a thong. Okay, he is one pair yeah yeah waters mate and then
Speaker 2:the last one. Um, I'll take a patch off this because a rude patch on the front, uh, is my edc pouch. So that's a bit of a cheat really, because it's like a bag of a bag of stuff. But within that, you know, I've got all me, all my bits and pieces. Yeah, I've got a whistle in there, I've got a tin opener, I've got a notebook, pencil cordage, swiss Army knife, flipping multi-tool lighter, blah, blah, blah, so all sorts of stuff. So it's a little bit of a cheat really, but you know, edc pal, it comes together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly there you go. And for anyone who's wondering EDC everyday carry Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then last question, we'll wrap it up. So any service leavers out there, you know that are coming up to their sort of resettlement and stuff, what advice would you, you know, pass over with your experience, for them leaving, you know, leaving the military, or just, you know, the forces?
Speaker 2:That's an interesting question because you've probably seen it, you guys have probably seen it yourself, um, especially people that have been in the army all their life. I mean, I joined, I was in the cadets when I was 13, then I joined the army when I was 16 and I left the army when I was 42, um, so I've been in it all my life. Yeah, I think the main thing is to be flexible. Okay, is not not be too. I know it's difficult to say because it depends on your personality, um, but I found I was always one to kind of be thinking about things in different ways and trying to be flexible, um, because if you, if you remain in that military mindset of being, you know, institutionalized, then where's my next paycheck coming from? And I, I need to live in the block because I haven't known anything different.
Speaker 2:Um, you need to think outside the box a little bit and just basically problem solve for yourself. Don't expect the world to owe you something because they don't give a damn about you, the same as the army doesn't give a damn about you. Once you leave, um, don't think the world's going to owe you anything just because you're ex-army. Nobody cares. So basically, be you know, be your own destiny, forge your own flipping way and just, just, you know, say, be flexible and just just work out what's out there, and it's not hard.
Speaker 2:People will say to you, oh, it's really hard on the outside being. You know, once you've been in the army I didn't find it hard at all, not at all. But I think that's down to mindset and being flexible and working out just problem solving, just seeing what's out there, applying yourself to whatever you can. You know, for example, you know, busting my leg. I spent all my life jumping out planes and running, you know, in the parachute regiment and all of a sudden I can't do either of those things. Yeah, so what did I do? I found out what I could do next and then apply myself to that and become successful at it. So you know, if you get a problem, just work your way around it or work your way through it. Yeah, and you know a problem, just work your way around it or work your way through it. Yeah, and you know just problem solve, just use your initiative.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's really good advice.
Speaker 1:Tom, yeah, it is. I think that's one of the big things, isn't it is? Use your initiative, work the problem when you get out. I think it is great. Just don't talk about, oh, when I was in the army, this is monkeys, what they want. But what military people have got is that initiative that get up and go and you will stand hands and, above any civvy, that you work with a lot of the time because you know five o'clock they're knocking off. You're staying on to get the job done. People recognize that. You know you'll go up through the promotion ladder or what have you.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. People might be looking at me, looking at me now going. Oh, he sat there with a flipping camouflage hat on his head and a picture of a gun on his chest and he's talking about his life in the army. You know, he doesn't know any different, but actually I've applied myself in lots of different ways to lots of different things. You know, I've got my own company now and I'm still skydiving and having fun, and you know so, old dog and new trips, you know, just just apply yourself, old dog, make the best of life winston agrees mate, he's like so, uh, I think that has been a cracking episode.
Speaker 1:It's a great one. Season three, I mean we're really smashing it out this, uh, this season and we got some great people on and I think you know you are right up there people are gonna love this. We're gonna great people on and I think you know you are right up there people gonna love this. We're gonna get loads of feedback. I'm sure we're gonna point them towards you when we do the write-up, you know, towards the the first day and towards prepare pathfinder on uh, on youtube and um. You know, we really want to say thanks for giving us the time today cheers, mate.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it, that's all right now I'm gonna do a little outro. I'm gonna put a bit of music on, mate, you're just gonna have to sit back there, you know, stroke your beard for 30 seconds while I uh, while I put this on and try and get it right, I usually cock this bit up, so uh here, we go.
Speaker 1:Well, I really enjoyed recording that episode and I hope you guys out there enjoy it as much as me when you listen back to it. Some inspirational stories from Tom there and what he's told us about his journey from becoming a young paratrooper 25 years in the military pathfinder red devil display team, first in events. You know he's really been a busy guy and he's had an alley career and top bloke. So what we'd say is Tom is on social media, so pop over to YouTube, prepared pathfinder. You'll find his page there. Subscribe to him, watch his videos. They are really interesting. Go on to Instagram. You can follow him there. You can connect with him and if there's anything you want to ask him, feel free to reach out to us at the show as well. We'll happily ask those questions for you and I think actually there is a lot of stuff we didn't get to cover in this episode. So we will probably try and get Tom back on in the near future and if there's anything you want us to ask him in that episode, drop us a line.
Speaker 1:Moving forward, we've got some great new episodes coming up. We've got some really good guests joining us. What I would ask is if you've enjoyed this show. Feedback positive, negative. Please pop over to podcasts on the apple app. Just click a star rating on there and leave a little one two word review. It really helps bump us up scales. But for us that's another episode completed and we thank you for joining us.