“Right and wrong isn’t set in stone” – hero Royal Marine Lee “Frank” Spencer

Join the H-Hour Patron Community at patreon.com/hkpodcasts ***** H-Hour #277 Lee "Frank" Spencer. In this podcast, Lee 'Frank' Spencer, a former human intelligence operator with extensive experience in Afghanistan, shares his nuanced perspective on the conflict. The discussion covers the operational dynamics from 2006 to 2012, differences in military tactics between US and British forces, and the complex tribal politics that complicated the region's stability. Frank delves into his unique role in intelligence gathering, his challenging experiences with the Defence Humint Unit, and interactions with local agents. The conversation also touches upon the moral complexities of the Taliban, courageous restraint, and reflections on the broader implications of foreign interventions in Afghanistan. Frank's insights are further complemented by anecdotes from his service and his recently published book, 'The Rowing Marine.' https://leespencer.co.uk/

This episode is sponsored by Sin Eaters Guild - sineatersguild.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hello, welcome back. Welcome back to Hey Shower. We have got uh Lee Frank Spencer. I've got a choice of names to call him actually. I'm gonna call him Frank. I'm gonna call you Frank Frank. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. So you carry on. I'm still doing the intro, I'm sorry. So if you were coming into this and this is the first Hey Shower interview you've heard with Frank, go back one episode in your podcast player and find the icebreaker with Frank. That is about 20 minutes long, and it's a bunch of questions. It's a QA, questions submitted by the patrons for Frank, and he answered those questions. There are a bunch we didn't get through, which we're going to cover at the end of this podcast, but I do suggest you go back and listen to that one. Uh, if you want to have access to the live feed, there's people watching this episode now live as we're recording it. If you want to be able to do that, if you want to be able to submit questions for future guests, if you want to see the future guest list and other perks, then become a patron of the podcast. It starts from as little as five pounds a month. It is nothing. The link to become a patron is in the blurb of is in the description of this episode. Enough of the sales pitch. On to the podcast. Frank Spencer, very glad to have you in. And thank you to Liz McCoyney here, I think, who introduced us, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Um, yeah, but you we we got in touch or you got in touch with me quite a while ago because I had your number when I messaged you, it came up.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

I'm sure that was through Liz though.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Oh, right, yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Okay, right. No, but anyway, thank you, Liz. Glad to have you here, mate. Thank you for the journey down. Yeah, yeah, and good luck battling the storms on the way back on uh on uh on the journey, but we're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

That'll be my first road here.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

All right, so there is so much we could talk about. Uh what I want to start off with when we had the phone call, you were talking to me, and you mentioned uh that you you some nuanced experience, I think is the words you use in Afghanistan, and uh you thought we were worthy of a conversation, and we talked a few minutes on that. And yes, I would absolutely like to hear that. For viewers or listeners watching who don't know about me or my background, for to add context to this, one of the places I served in Afghanistan at three different periods along the campaign from Herak 4 through to Herak 11, 2006 through to 2011, as a sniper with the parachute regiment at various ranks, uh, all in frontline roles. That is my experience. Frank's experience is very, very different. And I would like to hear that if that's all right with you. Are you happy to jump into this? Yep. Just go for it. Start from like where were you doing? What where were you, what were you doing? And what was it with the boot?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Okay, uh, so I've done three tours 2008, 2010, 2012. Oh, we're gonna be over that there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Um, and I didn't do uh Herrics. Uh we roll monted through a detachment. Um, so there was people coming and going all the time as their tours would end. So you didn't get a whole group come in and take over four or six months and then go.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

So it wasn't with uh a commando.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

No, yeah. Um so I uh volunteered for special duties, not special forces, clear to make that distinction. Um, if you're not aware, uh I served with a unit called the Defence Human Unit. Um, they came out of the joint support group, which previous that was Force Research Unit, and they were the agent handlers in Northern Ireland in the news quite a lot at the moment with what's going on with the legacy, uh a lot of the legacy stuff uh surrounding uh Franco Scapatici, uh alleged uh IRA um head of uh internal security, who was also one of our agents, allegedly. Um so that unit evolved. I volunteered for it and then um fouled the course, but they'd brought a new uh uh qualification in because they were so stretched having people in uh in both Iraq and Afghanistan at the time that they uh basically brought in a lesser uh uh qualification as a human operator, as a basic handler. So I went away, done a tour in Afghanistan as a basic handler, came back, um, then completed the course and subsequently done two further tours of Afghanistan in 2010-2012 as a uh advanced human operator.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Where are you based out of? Kandahar.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Um, first tour was Lashkaga. Second tour, half uh in Kandahar, half in Sangin, and then my third tour was almost exclusively in uh Kandahar, CAF.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Uh three very different places. Yeah, Kandahar is like a goddamn holiday helm.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Um yeah, and you'd you'd uh I remember getting on a plane, and there was a lot of parallelads actually on the plane. It's just coming back from the RR, and I was in civvies, had a beard, um, had uh covert body armour uh that I was carrying uh because you have to put your body armour and your helmet. I had a Gentex helmet on, uh helmets as you landed in the Kandahar, you have to put your body armour and helmet on. And there was a uh RIF loadie on the plane, and he sort of saw the civvies as I was coming up the steps, looked me in the face and went, Oh no, you go that way. And I turned left at the top of the steps and looked behind me, and that's like cattle class where everybody was, and they were like paralads, and they were all like piled on top of each other in the back there. And I had like I was at the front with um a load of officers and a couple of civvies that I assumed were media, and uh it was palatial uh compared, and uh it's quite a long flight, so probably about five, six hours to Cyprus, and then uh another four or five hours, um, if I remember rightly. And I remember really getting annoyed at the loading because he was moaning, he said something within earshot, and he was moaning because the lads wanted to take their boots off and just to make themselves a little bit more comfortable, and he was getting the ump about it, and I and that kind of uh because I'd been um what we call in the Marines general duties or you know, at the you know, within commando units or air defence troop, uh there's a lot of bootnicks who'll be listening to this laughing at that. Um kind of you know, I've got that uh empathy with people who've living, you know, in a shell scrape and uh defecating a bucket for months on end. And uh you you feel that with, especially when you're at Kandahar, and also to a certain degree Lashkagar. Uh, because the area around uh Babaj um north of uh Lashkaga, you got Nadi Ali, which became in you know that got quite uh gnarly.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

I was in NA North 2010, 2011, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, it it 2007, 2008, it it weren't quite like that. But saying that, um uh there was uh I went went out on a patrol with the 2-1 um SAS lads, and a week later, uh girl from the Inc. Corps called Sarah Bryant, she went out on exactly the same patrol. Um, not a carbon copy, that they didn't do anything wrong as in um uh retracing their steps or creating patterns. Uh creating um yeah, creating patterns. Um so I'm not criticising that it was it it was a similar patrol in a similar area and they and they got hit quite badly. Um and uh I think two of them died and Sarah died as well. So there was you know things starting to happen, but it was completely different, and you'd see a complete detachment from what was going on in the front line, uh for want of a better word, or in the PBs, to the people who were so that's where Task Force Helmond, that's where HQ Task Force Helmand was in Lashkaga at the time, and it was just a complete and utter detachment of what was going on, and it was really stark to see. I went and um explain it, explain it. Um like all the officers in uh Task Force Helmond on a Sunday night, they'd have a cake club, they'd go and bake cakes, and I rem I'd uh I'd just done six, seven weeks in Sangim, and um I came back and and and you you uh it was the Yorkshire, it was 5-2 Brigade, which was a kind of made-up brigade. I think you had uh Culture and Guards, Yorkshire Regiment, and 40 Commando kind of made up this made-up brigade. And um I remember being in a PB for a week or so where there was no water there, the patrol out with a um with jerry cans to go and get their water, come back in, and you know, you're crapping in a bucket and burning it, and and then you you go back and you got these buffoons, and I called it cake and arse party, because that's what it was. There was just a complete detachment from what was going on.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

That that isn't that doesn't um that isn't the crux of my nuanced view of the whole conflict. I don't think that's changed since wars began.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Yeah, I think there's a thing, there's this is this if like if you if if you can have if you if you've got luxuries available to you, you know, why why not have them? And the same way that you know, there's guys in Sangin, and you know, Sangin was not a great place to be for a variety of reasons, but then Bastion, which was not the cake and ass party, but Bastion was the next like level up from the PBL that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Bastion was tiny, though.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Yeah, but it had that had its luxuries, you know. It's kind of you can kind of say, well, why should they sleep in air contents or have a have a cooked meal every day in the design?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I'm not talking about a detachment of uh uh living standards, I'm talking about a detachment from what was happening.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Well, the point I was gonna make was that it's when it's when that sort of those luxuries you have start impacting the way you are seeing how the troops on the ground are existing, what's needed, the decisions you're making based on your experiences, you lose empathy. If that makes sense, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Is that kind of where you make um and because it was, I think also, I think because it was a made-up brigade, they didn't have that sense of that there's there's a definite sense of identity within uh established brigades where they'll know a commander, they might know um you know a young lieutenant or captain or even company commander, but because it was a made-up brigade, they there wasn't that that same sense of um not only identity but also camaraderie within the brigade. So that made that detachment uh from what was happening on the ground worse, I think.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Those officers were they from various units, I assume.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, all over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Uh so so go on. Um you were talking about it's probably um because this ties in.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Sorry to jump in across you there, Hugh. Um you said about Sangin in seven weeks, six, seven weeks, didn't see a shot fired. I was out on patrol every day. And 2008. 2008. Yeah. And there was uh it was quite a curious thing, and I I kind of looked into the statistics to back. I I had a theory why it was because you had you had a feeling. Um it it it coincided with the poppy harvest. So twice a year, or um, is it twice a year? At least once a year. So I only ever done summer tours, so I don't know if it happens in the winter, where the poppy harvest would come in, and um everyone uh would put down their kalashnikovs and go into the poppy fields, and there'd be a massive influx of workers from uh Pakistan, and it's really labour intensive, so every single poppy flower head or poppy seed pod is slashed a couple of times with like a carved-shaped knife, and then you come back uh a day later and scrape the sap, and that's uh teriyak, which is the basis of raw opium, and then that's refined into heroin, and uh it was the lifeblood of the insurgency, let's call it that, and um everything stops, and there's a pause, but in 2008 it was different. Um, there was a real you really felt there was a reluctance to go back and fight up until that point. The Taliban tried to fight uh the uh British, especially the British and the Americans, the way they'd fought the Russians, because that's what they knew. Um so it was ambushes, and it was really toe-to-toe fighting, but they weren't fighting a conscript army that was poorly led, poorly equipped, um, and with poor uh tactics, and and they had their asses handed to them time and time again. And you speak to people um who've had uh experience of combat with a Taliban then, uh pre-2008, and they talk about them being brave to the point of stupid, and I've not had that experience, so I can't comment, but that's something that was said again and again, and that changed. They then went uh from 2008 onwards, that's when the IED started. And uh, if you look at the I don't know the exact figures, but it almost doubled overnight in 2008, the instant, and so they changed their tactics to IEDs and standoff ambushes, and uh because their tactics before then weren't working, they were trying to fight and they were getting uh resoundedly beaten.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I saw the same, I thought the same evolution, you know. Uh the 06 tour was crazy, crazy in that, you know, that that's uh up close fighting. Uh and I'm pretty sure it's the same for the Royal Marines who came who uh came and relieved uh three-power battle group afterwards. I don't know who else came in with the com with the command house. But uh and then when I went back out in 08, I was on a different type of operation and I was based out of Kandahar doing Kandahar doing strike ops. Uh, but we saw the same the same shift uhway from the upper close and personal were still there, but just drastically reduced. Where they could do indirect or standoff, like you said, that was their preference because as you say, they were losing people, you know. Um uh and the Russians is were not the greatest uh comparison, like you said. One conscripts and two, they weren't they weren't their tactics weren't very good anyway. Uh yeah, okay. But what was it like? What was it like uh agent handling out there then? You know, what was your day-to-day like? And and because most people, and I think most military will not understand. They they understand that you know people like uh you in that role exist and do work, but only those who have talked directly with people who did agent handling will know the ins and outs of the of the of the bit of the of the job. Would you mind explaining what it what it would look like? Which level you can do on it. Also let's not get as uh thrown in jail.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Well, it's not only that, it's protecting human operations that are happening. You also don't get thrown in jail. Uh so a day to day um there was the job evolved um from a debt or detachment of agent handlers that would run a stable of agents, and um again hadn't changed since Northern Ireland. Some of those agents can't be seen dead anywhere near a British military base, so you'd have to go out to meet them, hence the covert part of the job, uh the more Gucci part. Um, and some could be seen in the base, um, so they would walk in, and you got everything from farmers, uh members of the uh government, members of the military, all the way up to members of the Taliban, and everything in between. If if it's actionable intelligence. The purpose of the Defence Human Unit was to protect uh British boots on the ground. It wasn't to win the war, it was to protect British boots on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

I would have thought it would be the other way around. The purpose of the unit would be to gather intelligence for the purpose of uh uh progressing the campaign.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

If you could explain you know, exploitable intelligence is exploitable intelligence and the two run side by side, but uh I would say as as far as an actual ethos, um it was false protection. But again, actionable intelligence, if you're taking out an active Taliban commander, then you're uh inevitably uh helping or improving force protection by doing that.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

So so how did the work how did the work give you a perspective on the campaign which differs to people like myself and others who who were on the campaign?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Um again uh it wasn't uh an overnight epiphany, it was a um more of a a slow, steady understanding, and all of the bonkers things that went on in Afghanistan that make no sense whatsoever, we would put down to uh oh yeah, it's just Afghan tribal shit, and that kind of covered it without the understanding of that. There's a great book, and uh in a minute I'm gonna Google who wrote it called An Intimate War, um, by a um uh an army uh TA officer who'd done a couple of tours with a TA, but he went back and interviewed a lot of the players afterwards, and actually it is a fantastic book, um, and it gives you a an understanding of all of the baffling stuff that made no sense whatsoever. Like you could have a family and and two brothers sit down and and you know have dinner, and then right, I'm off, see you later. I'm I'm gonna go and fight with the Afghan National Army. Alright, yeah, see you later, I'm off to fight with the Taliban, and that was completely normal. Even people personnel would have two hats. There was an um infamous uh member of the NDS, National Directorate of Security, kind of uh the Afghan government's internal intelligence, secret police is too sinister a word. They weren't that they weren't that sinister, and they weren't that policey either. Um there was a uh guy called Colonel Rackman, he gave himself the title Colonel Rackman, then he was kicked out of Sangin, and he just appeared um when I went back in 2010. Um it's actually in my book, how that all happened, and it's a big long story. Um but he he put him to to get back to his power base. He was a power broker in the upper Sangin Valley from the Alakazai tribe, which are normally aligned with um the government forces. Um the Alakazai were very close to the Alazai tribe and um. Uh President Karzai was almost head. I think he was like second, third, or fourth command. In that's a very loose way of describing something that they wouldn't see it that way of the whole Alak Alazai tribe. So the Alakazai should really have been more aligned with uh the government. In fact, in 2007, they rebelled against the Taliban, kicked the Taliban out of their power base, which was everything north of Sangin up towards Kajaki and parts of um leading up towards Musikala. And um that they rebelled under they had a uh tribal leader called Dag Mohammed Khan. He then became part of the Afghan government uh before he was murdered, he was murdered by the Taliban, and um so they've they've always had a tenuous link with the uh government forces, but Rachman was an out-and-out talib, but he was also a member of the government and working right next to his office, it was right next to Fob Jackson in uh Sangin. And you you're going in every day to have a meeting with a man who you know, all his family are talibs, and his power base, he just wanted to be there so that you know Sangin was his power base, and he's and they're not fighting for an Islamic republic, they're fighting for control of uh the opium, and and that kind of bizarre stuff, you know, that I'm sure you came across your time in Afghan that made no sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

In um well, you don't th you don't but from from for us as being as guys on the ground, you know, the uh you know, soldiers soldiers and on the ground um marines in in the commander's case at the time. You don't you you don't really if you're if you depend on what rank you have, if you're over a lower rank, you don't really get that level of information where uh you get caused to question things or wonder why. And even if you go up to more senior rank, I mean I mean senior within your hours, you know, look sergeant, colour sergeant, sergeant major, that kind of thing. We're exposed to more information, more of the bigger picture. Even then you're not really questioning it. You tend to you tend to take things at face value, or you haven't got the, you know, you your effort is your uh intellectual effort and and your mind is concentrated on other things like your actual responsibilities for your guys that you look after. I mean guys in the non non-gendered way includes encompasses women as well. Well, I use guys, I use guys non-gendered, but I'd say call everyone guys. Anyway, so uh so you kind of you you don't you don't do it. Um, and also I don't think really at a subconscious level it's in people's interests because I would not have wanted to start questioning should I be here or should I not at the time when I didn't have a choice and I'm on the ground and I'm in harm's way every day, the last thing I wanted to do is not be as capable of defending myself or completing the mission and compromising the safety of my secret.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

But having an understanding of tribal politics was absolutely key to my job, and understanding why people were doing things, why they the other thing is in Afghanistan, um intelligence just became like a cottage industry, and the the they'd the Afghan um it sounds almost racist. Uh I don't yeah, it is what it is. Uh the Afghans would sell anything, and intelligence just became another commodity.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah, I'm so just going back, I mean I I agree on the you know, the understanding, you know, understanding the the area, the the the environment in which you're operating is hugely important. The third the third tour I went out on, I went out in a low-level intelligence capacity. I was um in the intelligence cell for uh at a company level, the kind of the lowest level you would ever get an intelligence. I've got the I've got the book on screen here. Um Martin, yeah. Yeah, I've got it your.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Sorry, I just wanted to uh reference. I just want you to reference the author.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

No, it's right. Um the lowest level kind of unit you'd ever get an intelligence cell. You wouldn't have it normally. Company level is really low level. So that's what I did. And uh and part of that, and Coke actually in the live stream chat you have just mentioned this little anecdote. Part of that was you know, key leader engagement. I would sit in the Shura's with the you know, with the OC and other people and the and the and the key leaders from the different parts of the of Nad Ali North where we were at the time. And uh, and to your point, you know, they that there was there was guys there who absolutely were we knew they were Taliban, or they were they were related to Taliban. And then there was one particular guy who who a guy called Rahpatullah, his name was, and he was a lot younger than the other leaders there, the the community leaders there. Uh and uh and you think, okay, so why has he got how has he got this elevated status then? Because he was Taliban and he was his particular village was more supportive of the Taliban than the others, and it elevated him his status level to the point where he was in that shura in his village the day before. We'd had a big bust up with the Taliban in that village, not a big village, small. We're talking hundreds of people there, not thousands, hundreds of people, really small area where he lived, where he farmed, you know, and the next day he's in the shura denying that anything ever happened there. You knew like I know, and and he knew that I knew he was Taliban, and and and vice versa. We couldn't do anything about it. And he's in there for a bunch of different reasons. One is to get intelligence, and the other is to offer up information to line his own pockets to help the community forward.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

It may not have been, there may have been a third reason, okay, which is um the the way we looked at the conflict, and um I believe uh permeated all the way up to uh the highest, very highest uh echelon of uh rank.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

And this is an incorrect way of looking at it, yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Which is um they're the enemy, they're the goodies, we're the baddies, or they're the baddies, we're the goodies, whichever way you look at it. A um what's the word I'm looking for? Um uh binary, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Binary, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

That's the word I was looking for, very binary, and it wasn't like that very few things in life are binary, but the actual conflict in Afghanistan was as far from binary as it is absolutely positive possible to be. The the um the the fact is that in Helmand, certainly the tribes, tribal alliances, tribal warlords, they've been fighting each other for generations before the Russians turned up over control of their area. And when um there was three basic power bases that came in when the Russians um they they didn't invade. You've got to get uh our heads around the fact that the Russians didn't invade. They there was a uh uh an almost uh communist kind of soft revolution within the local um sorry, within the Afghan power base, as in the people who were running the country. It became a communist um country, and then there was uh outbreaks of fighting against the new leaders, and and it wasn't you know capitalism versus communism, it's the same thing. It's with a change of power comes with change of fortunes of people aligned with that new power that comes in, and people and and other people whose change of fortunes go, they're fighting against them. A cracking example of that is in in the microcosm, is if you think of um uh Sangin uh bazaar, Sangin town centre, that really was the fault line between the Alakazai in the north, who more closely aligned to the government, and the Ishaksi, and I I can't remember the other tribes who were traditionally um not part of the government, and and that there's two main um branches of Pashtun tribals, and I think it's called the Panjpai, and I can't remember the other one, and they're they're two separate um branches of tribal federations, but so um Sangin itself was fought over between those two different um uh tribes. Now it they're not they're not at each other's throats, um, and one is more Islamic and supports an Islamic way of life than the other, and the other supports more of a Western uh viewpoint in life. It comes down to who's giving them guns and ammunition, and and and as I said, there were three real main sources of that when the Russians were there. It was the Russians who were supplying those uh tribes that were more closely aligned to a government. Um, you had the uh Iranians who were um supplying more in line with um those um not so much Pashtuns but other uh groups within Afghanistan that were um uh not Sunni, what's the other Shia? And then you had the Pakistani ISI who were supplying um those that were uh against uh who weren't getting supplied by the government and they weren't fighting on behalf of the Pakistanis against the Russian-backed uh militias or tribes or power bases or um uh tribal warlords, they weren't fighting against them for any standpoint, it was a fight for power. So whilst um the you know, it used to make me laugh. Yeah, I was a great fighter in the Muji Hideen against the Russians, which said every single Afghan that ever lived, um, they weren't fighting the Russians, they were fighting each other, they were fighting each other for their own little pocket of uh of Afghanistan and control, and that became control of the opium and uh the poppy market once that exploded. So so if we kind of forget pro Taliban, pro-government, and and they're fighting each other, it's way more complicated than that, and all based on fighting each other. So in Sangin, um when the uh the um Taliban were overthrown, the Ishaksai, I'm sure it's the Ishaksai in the southern part, through so Sangin town centre, south, um uh going down uh what I would call the upper Goresh Valley, and then you've got the upper Sangin Valley. Um, you know, probably for about seven, eight miles south of Sangin is a big uh power base of uh the Ishaksi. When the uh when the Taliban were overthrown, they lost basically control of Sanghin town centre, and that the uh Alakazai were more ala more closely aligned to the uh what was the Northern Alliance uh or what became uh the Afghan government um with Karzai, they gained control of uh Sangin. Now that would you know it's not the bazaar they were fighting over, it was the smuggling routes because in Sangin you've got uh the Musakala Wadi that came down from Musakala and above Musakala, you've got Nowzad and then the Bagram Valley, not Bagram Air Base, Bagran Um Valley, which was a huge um opium.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Musakala was there with Bagran northeast and Nosad southwest.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, and and it's where everything came in, all of the opium in that part of Afghanistan, all comes down into Sangin, and then from Sangin you've got the smuggling routes um down uh through Spin Balduck into Pakistan. So that's what they were fighting for was control over the opium routes.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, it's uh it's uh you're making a really good point that I hadn't really considered or thought about before, actually, which is why I was really interested in having this conversation with you, you know. And I know we've got hours and hours and hours that we can talk about stuff, but particularly on Afghanistan. Uh you're you're you're totally correct in hindsight. You know, the the if you think about the the aim of in 06, you know, the aim was to go in there, stabilize the region. I'm talking about Helmut, stabilize the region to basically improve things, improve things, infrastructure, education, you know, uh uh um and and you know, governance and law and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Which is a noble thing to do. You um the reason we went in is because of 9-11. And uh the best way of explaining it is if we bring it back here to London and 7-7. Um the 7-7 bombers, the the the architect of that attack was trained in Afghanistan. They had uh terrorist training camps that had uh classrooms, um assault courses, rifle ranges. You get a better class of uh terrorists if you can train them in that manner. Whereas the remember about two years after the 7-7 bombers, there was another group tried to do the same thing, and their bombs just went for his pop, and a couple of them got beaten up and filled in on the uh uh the tube when people realised what had happened. They trained on the internet. So the reason we went in to topple, or we didn't, it was the um predominantly uh the um American CIA with uh Northern Alliance. The reason they toppled the um uh uh Taliban regime is because that they weren't just Osama bin Laden, it was a fact that they had terrorist training camps, that they were getting paid a lot of money, as in the Taliban government were getting a lot of money from rich Saudis to keep these uh training camps going, um, was to disrupt that and and and get rid of the training camps. And then once that happens, you're left with a power void. So we rightly felt obliged, I guess, to kind of fill that vacuum. So that's really where the conflict came from. Then you you could argue with Iraq, we took out we thought, right, that's that's Afghan done. Let's go and do an Iraq, and we took our eye off the ball.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

You're talking about Afghan, 2001, 2000, right? Yeah, 2001, 2002.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we kind of took our eye off the ball, and then like the Taliban started filtering back in. And I think there's there's a narrative when Iraq was getting ramped up.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

The rhetoric against Saddam and Iraq was getting ramped up in early 2000. It was months after 9-11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Months after and it was happening before 9-11 happened.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah, yeah. So it was always on the cards, you could say. But the the the um they just tied it into the Great War on Terror inconvenient conveniently.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

But there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

The rhetoric that uh and and the um uh uh the the the kind of narrative behind what we see as uh the Taliban filtering back in, it really was just a change in fortunes of local warlords, power bases, shifting alliances. It's nothing more than that, and we need to move away and try to understand Afghanistan. And I won't say what went wrong eventually, because I'm not sure I'm not sure that we could ever have fixed the place. I think it's unfixable.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Well, yeah, but I think we was right to try it's a long-term plan, is uh is hundreds, generations of years long to do that. And that that's if you consider well, should it be fixed? If you if you that's before considering whether it should be fixed or not. If if fixed is even the right word statement to use, right? Um but going back to what I was saying earlier, and that I I think you're correct, where that's why I was talking about why we went in there and the reasons we went into Helmand initially in 06, the stated mission. And when the Taliban started kicking off, you know, what April, May of that year, then that binary thing came in into play where where, okay, the Taliban was the focus, they're the problem. This is why we can't do things, they're the problem where it's exactly as you're saying, it is multifaceted. Yeah, you know, they're just one of the noisiest, but no, but they're the noisiest, right? You've got everything else that's going on. You've got the you've got the the political relationships between the tribes, between the community, between the government, the local governmental elements, and then the relationships between them and the militar and the military. Then you've got the local, there's so many different factors impacting how easy it would have been for us to try and improve things in the way we want to improve things for Helmand.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

I um the uh exactly that. But when the Taliban crept back in, we've got to move away, I think. We have to shift away our understanding from a um a kind of a movement, a organization, um, sort of spreading back in and people picking up on that almost like in an evangelical way, kind of, yeah, I believe the Taliban, I'm going to join them. So what is it in reality? How would you explain it? It was the Pakistan uh lost all of its influence in Afghanistan when the Taliban fell, and it was the Pakistan, Pakistani ISI.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

When the Taliban fell in the early noughties, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

So it was the Pakistani ISI that started to uh re-energize, re-arm, retrain. For what reason? To gain control or and influence within Afghanistan. But the Pakistani ISIS. Yeah, Pakistani ISI is the Pakistani inter-service intelligence. What if you're not? I think it's inter-service intelligence. It's basically the intelligence service of Pakistani. What was the benefit they were looking for by doing that? Because they've got control over their neighbour. The same as every country that's ever existed. You try to exert control over your neighbour. They um they were supplying and fighting um, supplying the mujahideen, supposed mujahideen, who were fighting the Russians. They weren't, they were fighting Russian supplied uh Mujahideen.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

We killed Pakistan nationals. I I I know we did because because some of them stupidly would have ID cards on them after we'd killed, and these are Taliban fighters who we would later discover Pakistani nationals.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah, but he had a lot of um he had a lot of Afghanis m uh moved to Pakistan and and a lot of uh subsequent fighters came from the madrasas um in the Pashtun areas in North Pakistan. Um, but this is government-led. This, you know, um with the Taliban. So we'll go back to the Russians because it's exactly the same dynamic. So the Pakistani ISI were supplying, training a group of Mujahideen uh who were fighting another group of Mujahideen who were supplied and controlled, um supplied and trained and and um uh supported by the Russians. So they're just that they the Mujahideen weren't fighting the Russians so much, they were fighting other Afghans who were supplied by uh Pakid.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

I thought the Mujahideen were supplied by Pakistan and America and Russia was supplying the Mujahideen.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Yeah, that they were they were supplying their own uh version. So imagine the A, who we were supplying, yeah. They were nothing more than local militias of local warlords.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

You couldn't work out when the Russians were supplied.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Yeah, no, they had their own version of that, they had their own um uh local warlords, depending on tribal alliances, who were fighting on behalf of the Russians. They but they weren't fighting on behalf of the Russians, they were just getting supplied by the Russians.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

My understanding of it of the Russian invasion is that it was an as an invasion uh exactly the same as what most people

SPEAKER_00 44:50

understanding if you if you weren't part of it of our uh conflict with the afghans we weren't you know you got goodies and baddies you know that same binary the same thing applies really that non-binary okay that non-binary aspect to the conflict it it was nothing more than uh um not an offshoot a continuation of the conflict uh from from uh with the russians i just want to see uh I'm just gonna redo I'm I've not read much on on the Russian invasion of of uh of the Russian I won't I'm gonna use invasion invasion of Afghanistan apart from before I went out in 06 I read the bear went over the mountain have you read that book no it's uh it's uh it's a book which it's basically interviews with Russian commanders uh some I think they've actually got some majority commanders in as well as interviews with Russian commanders after the after the Soviets left Afghanistan to understand uh about specific missions and battles that they had okay so you had this mission this happened talk me through it what did you think went wrong what went right it's really tactic it's a tactical level it's really good uh okay so Wikipedia of all things apologies Wikipedia right uh the Soviet Afghan war took place in Afghanistan from December 1979 to 1989 marking the beginning of the 47 year long Afghan conflict it saw the Soviet Union the Afghan military fight against the rebelling Afghan Mujahideen aided by Pakistan I've completely forgotten this I've completely forgotten this I apologise Frank so if you change if you change a few of the if you change Russian for American and yeah let me finish off the paragraph here so while they were backed I'm gonna just go back to that sentence it saw the Soviet Union and the Afghan and the Afghan military fight against the rebelling Afghan mujahideen insert Taliban aided by Pakistan while they were backed by various countries and organizations the majority of the mujahideen support came from Pakistan the United States the UK China Iran and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in addition to a large influx of foreign fighters known as the Afghan Arabs American and British involvement on the side of the Mujahideen escalated the Cold War ending a short period of relaxed Soviet United States relations that is absolutely not how I remember it might I remember reading about it I I need to read about this again okay all right but but we're we we're kind of yeah we're kind of programmed to think of conflicts in binary terms in goodies and baddies in in the the evil empire and and the rebel alliance you know that's how and and the the narrative of uh the noble Afghan Mujahideen fighting against the Russians he wasn't he was fighting against other Russians sorry other Afghans who were just supplied by the Russians and called the Afghan government exactly the same as the ANA you've you've seen the ANP and the local police commander in Afghanistan they're nothing more than the local warlord and his little um uh group of fighters all you've done is shoved a uniform on them and called unless they're not they're subservient they're completely subservient to whoever the warlord is yeah and there's um in Mike Martin's book he actually interviews a lot of people goes back and talks to them and there was a big thing that um years of this you know changing switching alliances and fortunes you know one minute this grouping's winning next minute this grouping's winning winning so a family would put a son with one side and another son with another side so that they've got a foot or a boot in the uh the winning camp at any whoever's on top because of the shifting um the shifting nature of how you know the the the fighting was was uh unfolding so that's really the the backdrop to us coming in and just replacing the Russians really but we were supplying a different group so your you know this uh understanding of of Afghanistan at the time that um it wasn't at the time sorry it's as a result of reading Mike Martin's book that's when the penny went oh now it might be my thought the information and your your interactions with the agents was what was sort of the seed of this no no I was probably because I had I would say um how's this for a statement um I was because I had a more intimate and interaction with Afghans and a more widespread and let's let's say a more widespread and intimate uh interaction with Afghans from a wide varied um from members of the uh local government to the military farmers Taliban commanders a white score with different types of Afghans right yeah yeah yeah all that did was make me more baffled than you as to what the heck was going on it just gave me a more complete understanding of um how unfathom fathomable the situation was honestly Mike Martin's book's brilliant I can't recommend it enough because you can just anyone who went to Afghan it's on screen now for for people who uh who are uh if you served in Afghanistan you'll you'll read it and you'll go oh now I understand so it's this good place to uh pause for an old man's uh pause right for those watching live link we're back in back in less than five uh like off uh we oh back all right so all right so um oh so it came after reading Mike's book okay if you went back what like if how how how would you have done it then what what was what was being done wrong how would you have done it if it could be done at all um what went wrong there's a question it's we uh were led by the Americans so um and we lost sight of what we was doing we was fighting an insurgency same as what we did in Borneo in Burma in Northern Ireland and we lost those lessons I think not so much lost them there was a couple of um instances where we tried to kind of do a more soft approach and a more um tactical tribal friendly tactical way of approaching the situation without just uh bombing the shit out of everything and uh there was an instance where we walked away from quite famously Nalzad and Musakala and gave it over I was in Musicala when we handed it over the uh I I left Musicala we handed it over yeah well that was heavy to describe it that was heavily criticised by the Americans and they saw that as a retreat and a defeat when actually we were handing over and saying you know trying to do but you're never gonna win you can't go like the Americans didn't learn the lesson in Vietnam certainly didn't learn the lesson in uh Afghanistan and they didn't learn the lesson in Iraq either that this is where these people live you can't bomb them out of their own homes you can't shoot them out they're they're there whether you like it or not so you have to find a more a different way of of approaching um uh how you how you're gonna deal with the insurgency well part well part of the problem is I don't I don't think I don't think there was an alignment on what the problem is we're trying to fix there uh at any time and and the what the opinion of what the problem was and what we're trying to do in Afghanistan changed constantly with the Americans it changed with the British and then how we're gonna go about it changed constantly. There was often alignments on how we would go about uh deal like uh militarily tactically dealing with the Taliban but not uh any other of the factors that we talked about the aspect that we talked about I think I need to caveat everything I'm about to say um with this isn't a criticism of uh America Americans certainly not the bravery of American servicemen um which was phenomenal and and absolutely is not a criticism it's uh you got it's it's an understanding that we approach things differently I don't I remember um in 2006 I done some cross training with the Americans I was uh working as a troop sergeant up in Fazlane guarding uh Britain's nuclear deterrent one of what's seen as one of the worst jobs in the Marines and uh we went out to Stagging on yeah we went out to uh um Washington excuse me Washington state to train with the equivalent or the American equivalent they're called their fast teams and um I've got a cough excuse me excuse me and um they were at the time the Americans were at the forefront of not only sniping uh but also in CQB and clearing rooms and uh things like that and we were uh learning like they were the first to stack up and then that slowly filtered into uh the British military so a lot of British tactics actually come from um America especially the USMC and um we were doing room clearances with them and then we uh we had this exercise and we had this uh composite troupe of uh each troop was made up of Americans and Brits there was three troops and we all went through this one exercise where we basically there were some insurgents it was kind of based around Fallujah and the Americans experience there uh the guys that were taking us through they'd literally just come back from Fallujah and I think it was the first or were too early with the second battle with Fallujah so they you know they they knew what they were talking about and um their tactics were completely at odds with what I'd been taught and they wanted us to line up uh probably like you know a metre two metres between each man patrolled down the middle of the street to this building where the insurgents were that we had to then gain access and clear as part of the exercise and this was all with sim munition no one likes getting shot with simmunition so um it it makes you take cover when you probably should take cover and um they they as they're patrolling along in this snake um it's just each man taking up opposite arcs like left and right and scanning you know with their weapon up scanning completely scanning and that just seemed so at odds with what we would do.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

So the two troops went through um using the American tactics and they got hammered and each troop lost a uh a third of their men um were were whacked with simulation I know I know it's not the same but it it gives you a kind of indication of the indicator I looked at it and I thought we've got with the boss and I says right we ain't gonna do that what we're gonna do is we we we're gonna go in there's a building right on the corner we're gonna uh get a fire team uh covering enter the building that will then become the point of fire to move into another building and then that becomes a point of fire to actually gain access to the building where the terrorists were and we were in the building before they realised that we'd actually you know were in the the the village and uh that ruined their exercise a bit so then they got us to um said all right the terrorists have all gone there uh they're in this place here so they know everybody knows we're in the village so the enemy know we're in the village so we had to then fight our way through the village and the way uh we did it which was the way I'd always been taught is fight from buildings you don't fight in the open when you can be in a building so we kind of uh you take one building that becomes your point of fire and then um you you take another and you've got always got a section in reserve and we worked our way towards the target building got in and cleared it out and uh we only lost two guys um I think it was two or three out of how many uh a troop so 32 in the guy so it was looking at a third normally no it was a composite troop of uh Americans and Brits or the other two troops who'd done it the American way they got malleted and they lost uh a third of yeah you know it might even have been there was a third left but but right that's but the Americans they were like that's brilliant that was brilliant you'd done really well and to me they they slate us because we took too long I was like but I only lost two men yeah but that's how American tactics are so different and it hasn't changed from uh the the um uh what's the name the Fala's gap in Normandy okay where uh Monty was criticized for not closing off uh I can't remember what German army it was it was criticized by the Americans but the we don't have that manpower and then when we're talking about uh and the reason this is relevant to Afghanistan is when we're talking um about different tactics and saying the American tactic of just bombing everything having troop surges and fighting you can't fight someone who just melts away you can't win you can never win the reason we tried to not do that and to build alliances which is the only way you're gonna get anywhere from experience yeah it's from experience but also through necessity we've never had the manpower to fight the way the Americans fight I mean there's over 3500 US Marines that's just the US Marines we've only got what four and a half five thousand Royal Marines but even with the manpower with the experience we have we wouldn't have gone about it that way anyway because it's like you're saying it's that it's not winnable when you're fighting an resurgency for all it's it's that that that's war fighting attitude you know what not warfight it's more suited to war fighting yeah I mean there's a fundamental difference with the Americans as well in that the way you know the way they the the way they operate at the tactical level and the way they command you know it makes it very difficult but just it's just the way they are trained compared to the way we're trained and and the way that their command hierarchy and decision making works is that it is more difficult for them to uh to uh what's the word um delegate decision making and tactical decisions to units below platoon so to split off a a lesson platoon and give and give a lot of agency into how a a section is going to go and do things in a different part of the village for example in a different part they don't have that they don't have the ability that the British a British unit does where we you know the the and this is I to echo what you said this is not uh I'm not saying this is the Americans worse than us we do things very differently you know uh I would say through necessity an American yeah exactly an American platoon commander for example will will say okay we're gonna go and take this here's the objective in speaking to his commanders below him but I'll call them team commanders section commanders squad commanders he will tell them this is the objective we're gonna do this is where I where I want you squad leader one to go and do two I want you to go here three you're gonna be reserved and he will tell each of the squad leaders exactly how he wants them to do that job he gives me the ejections how he wants to do that job with the British and I'm sure this is the same for the Marines the British it's the platoon commander will say this is the objective session commander one this is what I need you to do tell me how you're gonna do it more autonomy tell me how you're gonna do it tell me how you're gonna do it and then they've got autonomy but but in in if we if we look at the macro level there on on um uh tactics uh with Afghanistan sorry the point I was making on on that explanation there is that that then dictates how at an operational level level up it uh how many troops are required and the the nature of the the operation you're gonna go in and commit because you're gonna need more troops that kind of way the Americans are operating and it really limits the how nuanced you can be and how you deal with the locals right yeah yeah okay but it it it it's more than that though it was it's we've we'll just swamp the area and and make it impossible for the Taliban to operate and again it fed into that binary us and them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

They did have sang in it 08 didn't they 07 maybe and got smashed who the Americans when they took it over from the uh from the British that they swamped the area it was 2010 I was there was it 10 yeah so it was I I was 40 commando handed over to um uh I can't remember what ninth meth rings a bell might not be that but it was basically the uh US Marines so for my uh three four months that I was in Sangin the Americans were a massive part of it you had the EOD guys were coming over and just slotting in being part of the patrols um uh and then gradually and then more and more Americans were appearing um so you know I worked really closely been on the ground with Americans and stood next to them um and so again I reiterate this isn't a criticise criticism in any way of uh American soldiers American Marines it is I think a criticism of well I don't think might not be uh a surprise to anyone listening um but the tactics that were employed in Afghanistan didn't work and I think the reason is that we as us British we either forgot or were led and I believe more led uh by the American way which just doesn't work in an insurgency you cannot you cannot bomb your way to victory you just can't do it it's never worked and it never will you can't bomb someone out of their own they live there we have got nowhere to go you you you know and you can't fight an enemy that just blends into the background and then comes back you cannot win that way and uh we we lost those lessons could was it it it it's winnable isn't in the same way Northern Ireland wasn't won winnable isn't a term you can apply to something like that but could we have walked away um under better circumstances I I I believe absolutely how how much better those circumstances are you know to what level would have Afghanistan been normalized is uh is irrelevant. Yeah I think sorry not irrelevant up up is questionable that's the question but I think um definitely looking with with an understanding of the non-binary nature of Afghanistan how you're not fighting the Taliban you're fighting um local warlords who have been there will still be there are still there now who are supplied by the Pakistanish Pakistani ISI under the guise of this organisation called the Taliban because it's that's how they extended their influence into Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

Yeah it was less a case of of you know what what win lose and it should be more of a case of what are the effects that we were trying to achieve. You know and there is a scale of those different effects you know what is the political relationship we want to have what is the

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

the local government uh status we want to have is there a certain level of education we want to be in place for yeah all these different things uh but um but i don't think that even even if you even if you frame the objective in the right way because of the nature of the beast the nature of the that area I don't just mean afghanistan I mean that part of of uh that part of Asia Southern Asia was it it's not the Middle East it was barely the Middle East Southern yeah southern Asia there and the nature of it is it's it's just going to be continually in in a state of flux I think and being influenced by major powers Afghanistan is undeniably influenced by um you know Pakistan in a big way um and uh Russia to the north China to the north yeah China in a sort of lesser way right but and as up to China was buying when I was there China was uh they're buying the oil fields were they not there were there's no oil fields but there's uh oil fields there aren't there no no oil fields I thought there was oilfields in Afghanistan could be a few yeah there's um there it is mineral resource minerals yeah it's mineral resource rich Afghanistan is um oh fairly rich but the Chinese were were as they are everywhere using soft power um again another lesson we've lost um soft power but that's that's a completely different it is completely different but it's something that that uh China have been doing uh I would only want to say under the radar it's completely on the radar which you've just could be completely ignored for the last 25 years but yeah conversations I've had with people about um I think a prime example yeah what what what do we call it in this country it's got a name and it's been cut back and again and again and again um overseas development right people say why are we giving money to nation yeah international development it's soft power that's what it is it's that's what it is um anyway that's that's a different conversation but we've we've lost we've lost those we lost those lessons in Afghanistan um because there was a complete misunderstanding or a complete lack of understanding of the um the nature of the conflict it it hadn't changed it hadn't changed since the Russians and it continued right the way through when we were there's some kind of stability there now but there's already fractures within what we would call the Taliban with between um a more inward looking traditional uh um Islamic um viewpoint to a more outward international looking uh viewpoint and in fact some of the people um like the the Haqqani network were um the uh Zarafin Zaradin uhqani was the most wanted man in um by the Americans at one point he's actually uh I was read an article the other day he's actually uh kind of advocating for more kind of Western uh approach uh to government than um currently what's happening but what you all see now I bet is this same kind of power um grab power brokers um infiltrating and uh supplying their the the people that they want to influence and they see it as being most likely to uh further their particular agenda whether that's the ISI or whether it's the Iranian um not so much the revolutionary guard uh but the Iranians um the Russians maybe yeah but definitely the Chinese and and those those same people will be fighting each other again for their their control over what they see as their little empire which might be a couple of poppy fields might be a whole valley full of poppy fields what did you think about the period of courageous restraint in Afghanistan um that permeated everything uh that happened within um Sangin in 2010 when I was there I was forward deployed as a human um uh operator so my job primarily was twofold to mentor and gain intelligence that was gathered by the um uh NDS National Directorate of Security and make sure that that uh information is filtered into uh our intelligence streams but also to provide uh intelligence and humin um to the battle group on the ground and uh courageous restraint was hated it was actually coined not by uh the then uh CO of 40 commander it was coined by General McChrystal um from him from Fallujah who had the uh famous for the uh uh troop surge um in Fallujah he uh coined the term as he wanted less indirect uh contact with the enemy and more direct enemy uh contact with the enemy now the problem with that he wanted um instead less indirect and more direct yeah so less indirect fire so less bombs dropping on them and more baynots and uh well that's not how is it interpreted or communicated from no because the problem is how do you close with an enemy that's already adopted IEDs and standoff ambushes they're they're made they're tactically out fought him straight away you can't close with an enemy that isn't going to stand toe to toe and fight. But I remember when it I remember that when that but that came from it came from a crystal and that's what he wanted it to mean.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:14

The way I remember it being filted down so I wasn't in Afghanistan at the time three power weren't there at the time uh but I remember I'm pretty sure it was a Gurkha unit there at the time I amongst others but I just remember this particularly and I remember and I maybe misremember this right but I remember that the the lesson was based the the courageous restraint was set was basically look if you don't have to open up and start engaging the enemy no ignore the direct indirect that you mentioned if you don't know if if you don't if you don't have to engage the enemy in you know in a in a firefight with ballistic weapons then the better option is not to in the interest of basically hearts and minds and also intelligence gathering which is kind of how I remember it at the time that was kind of the aim of it and then I remember it being misinterpreted immediately on the ground as you shouldn't be firing back basically unless you absolutely have to which is like obviously not correct. And and I remember girk there were the reason I remember the Gurkhas because as I remember it they had a real hard time and there was there was there was instances of people killed and injured in the Gurkhas because of the misinterpretation of the community down they thought they'd be punished.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:29

But it's not really a misinterpretation it's a poor term courageous restraint means restrain yourself from shooting back. You say to a soldier on the ground we're we're gonna you know you you're gonna restrain yourself courageously what does that mean to you it's it's a poor it's a poor term of phrase it was even in um even by uh being extremely generous to McChrystal and saying um you know it was a it was a noble thing to try and do it was so tactically inept with to trying to engage what he's interpreted what he wanted it interpreted as but his interpreted to what was communicated to British but again poor decision in the first place because it was tactically inept you can't close with an enemy and and and fight with small arms if they're just going to melt away into the background after um you know detonating an IED on your patrol and then uh stand off stand off ambush and then they just melt away how'd you deal with that you can't so that it was a nonsense tactic but the term of phrase could only ever be interpreted by commanders on the ground what does courageous restraint mean you can't say oh does that what it means no the words courageous restraint it was it it was complete I think totally ill thought out on every level um the the difference it was quite a nuanced reason for its enthusiastic implementation in um Sangin under when 40 were there and that's the uh there was ongoing talks with the Alakazai tribe to try and get them to reconcile back to the government and I mentioned the Alakazai tribe earlier about them having a tenuous uh link tenuous relationship with the Taliban they're uh they're in in the two in and throwing of tribal um uh you know how they how they're doing you know some sometimes they're doing better under uh you know a different power in place and sometimes they do worse that the Alakazai always would do better with a more government um based uh leadership of Afghanistan and what they would have done and what they did under the Taliban they lost a lot of their influence in the Upper Sangin Valley under the Taliban so they had a very tenuous relationship with the Taliban um again I I they revolted in 2007 and kicked the Taliban out under Dad Mohammed Khan it was called the Levi en masse so at the time courageous restraint was a term used in 40 commando because uh we were talking to the Alakazai tribe so there was a definite reason behind it so I can understand it and I remember I knew um very few people knew about the ongoing talks um below uh the CO I'm not sure who actually knew but I I I would hazard a guess at less than four people so I knew why and it was I couldn't communicate that to the guys on the ground who had to deal with that on a day to day basis. Now you know in in hindsight it didn't come off um the Taliban were one step ahead but was it worth trying absolutely if the whole upid Sangha Valley if the whole upper Sanghin Valley reconciled kick the Taliban out that had potential to you know kind of to spiral out of control for the Taliban.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

So the deal that was trying to be struck was to get people to get the tribes to a lane to boot out the Taliban yeah um and how were the Taliban one step ahead um they knew about the talks so how did they influence the decision?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

They uh the the person we were talking to um they sent again uh you'd think they would have just killed him but they sent him up uh up to Bagwa um yeah I can't really uh so you lost your point of contact basically yeah exactly that yeah I talk about this a lot in the book because from um I don't the book isn't about Afghanistan the book is about me but is it's that backdrop to what was happening then um um I mentioned earlier in uh I think I mentioned earlier about being a basic handler and doing my first tour as a basic handler and then my second tour started quite badly um for me personally um I was in uh Kandahar and um the hierarchy there were in my opinion appalling but I you you know when you go into a situation and you think that can't be right but he's the debts aren't major he must know what he's doing you know I must be wrong and and it was only that slowly dawns on you no this is completely um arse about face and I and and I'd I'd had it with um uh the special duties and the DHU and human that was that was the final nail in my coffin as far as wanting to be um wanting to be something special and uh I was ready to jack it in go back to the core.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:49

Is it a situation you can explain or is it not?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

Yeah uh but it's a long story. So it how long you got uh yeah um it but so basically they were um there was a situation where we were kind of being forced to just wring uh reports out of the agents so that the oh look since I've been here we've been getting this amount of reports and this amount of intelligence reports yeah so they so the stats were up literally yeah and I was sent I was sent to Sangin I think as some kind of punishment to get me out of the debt really yeah is it doesn't that that go against rule 101 of like intelligence gathering you know it's like yeah it does yeah yeah and I went to Sangin um oh man knowing that that was it I'm I'm done with this this isn't what I thought it would be I tried selection um at 32 this was back when the it was it was joint selection anyway um and uh I fouled the fan dance twice and that was it for me and uh and then Iraq kicked off and for the next year I didn't have time to mull over uh failing and then when we got back from Iraq it really hit me hard and then I then they had my seniors senior command course to become a sergeant and then I started thinking my first tour in uh was in Northern Ireland in 94 and um again I failed talking about failure uh in the questions earlier I failed a snipers course in 93 and um but just getting on the snipers course uh passing the selection at the unit to get on the course there was only two people out of 12 past my snipers course was seen as um a good thing anyway uh and uh I was put in the sniper multiple for the Northern Ireland tour and we were used solely our job was just solely with um JSG the joint support group which became they were the agent handlers in Ireland which became the job that I eventually went and did so from 94 when I done my tour of Ireland I always had um that you know special duties yeah in the back of my mind and when I failed SF selection because there was no upper age limit on um uh JSG uh which became the DHU I I'm aware that I'm just throwing acronyms out of it here. Yeah yeah yeah just explain them that's all you expect so um they you know the uh joint support group became changed its name and became the uh defence human unit uh I applied because you know I I I've always had that kind of drive to try and prove to myself keep proving to myself and um which is basically uh plugging my book the crux of the story of my book is me always trying to prove myself so when that when I pass eventually passed the advanced uh agent handler's course and then went to Afghanistan and it wasn't what I was expecting I was devastated because I couldn't you know I was too old for SF by about three four years I could I couldn't you know I I it was quite you know it was a massive uh slap in the face for me so I put I'd worked for nearly a year and a half to get to that point through you know failing the course doing a a tour as a basic handler going back passing the course and then going out again it felt like this has all been for nothing and then I um I got shipped out to Sangin as kind of a punishment I suppose and um that's where uh everything changed for me um in the backdrop of everything that was going on with courageous restraint and um did you make so in Sangin at that time then did you come to some sort of decision there at that time well I I spoke about Colonel Rackman um what he did is um he was pulling the strings in the background in the tour before which I think was two rifles so two rifles and 40 commandos tour in 2010 two back to back tours were the bloodiest of the whole um conflict and bang in the middle of them bang in the middle of Sangin was this um rackman who was a basically a Taliban warlord from the Alakazai tribe who also double hatted as a member of the government and um he gave himself the uh the rank of Colonel he wasn't Colonel Rackman uh of the National Director of Security so the internal security and intelligence service of the afghan um uh uh Afghan government um so he was a Taliban commander a member of the government a member of the intelligence uh part of the government and also a local warlord and uh he was kicked out uh there was a famous CO of two rifles can't remember his name it's basically the CO before 40 Commando got there he kicked him out because of um and then when I got there there was one of the guards he that it got placed there once so the NDS they'd have about a dozen guards just milling round their local compound think of the Afghan national police but not as professional then you kind of get to the level of so in the hierarchy of um Afghan forces you had the Afghan National Army the ANA they were quite well equipped fairly well trained then below them you had the national police afghan national police who wore these kind of um grey ill-fitting uniforms and were poorly led poorly um supplied and uh they were nothing more than little militias of the local afghan policeman who was the local little mini warlord and then under them was probably the uh the guards for the um NDS I I never thought I'd see sorry I never thought I'd see worse police than the time I was in the times I was in Iraq I spent I spent quite a few years in Iraq and I thought I'll never see police this bad anyway apart from Afghanistan but the um but one of them um he just turned up rackman wasn't there he'd been kicked out but one of the guards turned up and he was the nephew of a uh mid-ranking um fighting Taliban commander in and around for Binkerman in um in uh northern uh upper Sangh Valley and basically all of the NDS sources wouldn't go anywhere near the NDS compound Because of this guard there. And so they lost all of their intelligence, which meant then that calls for the head of the NDS in Sangin, who was Captain Maboob, and I can't remember the other guy's name. And they were calls for him to be replaced. And then all of a sudden, Rackman turns up one day, and then everything changed. He was just wanted to get there because that's what that was his power base. He could have more influence and get up to his old tricks there. So that that was the backdrop to me going to Sangin. So basically, I had no I could report no intelligence. I was getting none from the NDS. So I went out and recruited. I had to go out and find an agent. And you can imagine how difficult that is. And um I recruited two really good um agents. And that uh one of them was was able to give me 10-finger grids of IEDs in um the area. Uh how was he doing that?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:59

Did he have a did he didn't have a GPS?

unknown 1:30:01

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:01

So he was giving a 10-finger grid. That's pretty good going for an Afghan.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:05

Yeah, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:06

10 finger grid without a GPS.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:09

Right, first thing I did.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:11

Some micro map reading going on there.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

Pretty good. Well, I uh I got him in. Um Harold met him. Not a lot of British could do that at a normal standard soul. It's actually actually getting him to come in and finding him. Again, this is a big long story. It's in my book, get me book. And um I've got first meeting, I've got the name of the book? Uh it's called The Rowing Marine.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:36

There we go. We'll say it again at the end, but midway through, if you're on your phone now and you're and you've got it in your hand and you're listening, then you can look at the rowing marine while you're listening. Continue, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:44

So um I get him in and uh talk through everything with him, and uh I show him a air fot, and he looks at it like completely baffled, as all Afghans do. And then you try and explain what it is, and then so I drew a little map of the photograph, right? Yeah, yeah. But I drew a little map of of our room we were in as looking from above. So I sort of pointed out the bin and showed him that. So I said, That's me and you now, and if you were looking from above, he got the map out again, the airport, and he went, Um, ah, so that's the river. I was like, Yeah. And he was like, That's the road, and you know, the 611 road, the main road up past things.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:30

611 goddamn goddamn, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:33

And and then he started pointing out like patrol bases and things like that, and then Navaswaj Canal, and uh sorry, it's Navaburga, isn't it? Coming out from the Sangin. And um, well, this is too good to be true, this is too good to be true. So what I've done is I then gave him a task, gave him a little route to walk as a test to see if he could do it. And uh I bounced out to a fob, gave me, I think it was about three days, four days time. So that gave me time to bounce out to the fob. Um, and it was one of their PBs, um OPs, actually. He just had a camera there, and uh I watched him turn up, bang on the the time that I told him to turn up, done everything to give me a signal that I told him to do, and I was like, this can't be happening, this is way too good to be true. And then off he trotted on his little route, and then he gets this point instead of turning left or right, I can't remember, he went the opposite way, and I was like, Oh, for Christ's sake, it was too good to be true, anyway. Then took me a couple of days to get back to Sangin. Um, got back, and he came in. I was like, right, brilliant. You know, he goes, Could you see me? I says, Yeah, yeah. So I got the map out. I says, right, show me what you done. And he went, right, I got there when you told me and done what you told me. And I went along this path here, and I got to this corner, and um uh I can't remember the goo lab. Uh I can remember his objective name. He was like, uh remember 2006, 2007, there was a I don't know, sorry, 2008, 2009, there was a big thing, big hoo-ha about a sniper in uh it was him.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:19

Hang on, you mean you're talking about being Nadali?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:22

Uh no, he was in uh the Lower Sangin Valley. There was a sniper there that was taking headshots at Sol. No, no, I don't remember that. Well, that was him. He kind of got uh promoted to his like own little cell of uh fighters. Who was him? It was called Gulab. He was the Gulab, okay, right. Yeah I can remember if I told you he's uh I'll tell you his objective name when we're off here, yeah. Okay, and you'll you would have heard of him. Okay. Um anyway, he uh uh he says, yeah, he was there and he was like uh digging in an IED on the bomb in uh Maino, as they would call them in uh Afghan Mainuna in the wall. I was like, where about it? Right on the bang now on the corner. I'm like, give me two seconds, went straight into the uh ops room, reported a 10-figure grid, and uh came back and I went. Do you know if there's any more IEDs about his oh yeah, there's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And where he couldn't bring it down to exactly there, he got it down to like an eight-figure grid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, and that day I I saw he's having an air fought.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:26

Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:27

Yep. Well, well, some of the airphots like so detailed, you could see he pointed out he could see his own compound and he was looking at things that were in his his compound, like his garden, for want of a better word. And you can see like individual things.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:44

When you said earlier on that he was giving he was pointing out IDs with a 10-figure grid, I thought he was giving you a 10-figure grid of that. Jesus Christ, without a GPS.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:55

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. He was pointing them out on the grid, and then I was getting the ten them on the grid.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:01

And then getting a 10-figure grid. I was like nails, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:04

But without a silver candle, I've sat in front of a uh a digital um airfoot of an Afghan gang, and it's sort of like going bali bali bali bali, bali bali bali bali, pointing down, and you're going down and down and down, and it'll point the same and go musicala, yeah. No, bali bali bali bali, bali bali bali bali, musakala, yeah, no, yeah. Bali bali bali bali, bali bali bali bali grishk, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:30

No, that that's actually musicala, but the afghan the Afghan people are characters, aren't they? Like they are, they are they are characters. The I met so many, and even even the the Taliban guy, I'll describe him as or it. I mean, he probably the local Taliban leader, maybe, maybe. Um Rapatullah, even him. There was charisma to him, there was a personality there. We would communicate through an interpreter, but even then it was it was almost like we weren't, it was it, you know, it's not like you're dealing with some empty wetsuit.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:11

And a lot of them, you know, like like we like we are. You get it. I'm you know, I'm I met I had agents that I met every week for months and months and months, um and built up really strong relationships with them. Yeah, people were people. That's that's the thing. People were. Yeah, but there's a difference between a Scottish person and a Welsh person and an English person, but there isn't really. There's little tiny nuances that if you didn't notice, you wouldn't understand, you know? Like the uh a version of anything green to eat, you know. Or uh but there's this you just got what I said there, didn't you, son? Yeah, but there's but that that this is me being a stupid optimist that I am and and thinking that everybody's decent to their call. Um, most people, vast majority of people.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:11

Well, there is a question on that in the chat and a live chat, right? Which is there's loads of questions here for those. We're gonna spend time in the angle for them all. One of those is quite is a little bit relevant, yes. One second, there is me when I scroll through here. Uh it were there Taliban that you thought were morally good people.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:42

Um I'm not trying to think whether they were or not, I'm trying to frame your question because morally good people um it's such an ambiguous assumption because you've got our morals and you've got their morals which are completely different. Um they think we're amoral because we don't have beards that are longer than a fist, you know, so it's it that's a difficult one. I met some of the you can imagine working as an agent handler, you you you often get meeting, talking with, cuddling um when you greet, not uh in any other way. You don't sit there and have a cuddle. Um but you know, some people who who are willing for you to kiss kill their best friend if they thought they'd get a bonus out of it, or they're betraying their families, their their communities often. But then you meet some that uh I ran an agent in 2012, probably the bravest person I've ever met. He used to go out and cut the lines on the IEDs, he sat in a tree with a satellite phone calling in mortars. This this is all true. I'm not making this up. Unbelievably brave bloke, twinkling his eye, loved him. Um, and you got everything in between. Yeah, that is a long rounded way of not answering your question. I do apologize, but I don't think I don't think it is an answerable yes or no question, so I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:41

No, I yeah, there is a challenge with it. Now, and I was trying to think through the same the same answer to it, and trying to find an answer in the same way. And I think that oh god, I think that um ignore what we think is morally good or morally correct or morally right. I think that if I'm thinking out loud, you if I put my foot in my mouth, don't shoot me down, people. But if you were an individual, wherever you are in the world, and you and and you already think there is a there is a there is a greater good which I should aspire to behave for, and that greater good is for the betterment, that is for the that is the best thing for my community, my culture, my people, my tribe, my country. There that is, and you can see that there is a greater good there that you should strive towards your behavior, you should partly strive towards achieving that. So I think that I think just seeing that greater good, whatever that is, whatever the situation is, uh I think that would maybe define you as a a morally good person in your culture, in where you live.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:48

Yeah, okay. So within the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:54

There is sacrifice.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:56

And things things like this change. I mean, um we we I think we're almost conditioned to think that right and wrong is um set in stone, and it isn't. It isn't. And in fact, if you you know people talk religion, and that's whether we like it or not, kind of where our in a Judeo-Christian society, that's kind of where our morals come from. Um, but even you know, thou shalt not kill. But in the uh um Leviticus, I think it is in the Bible, it was, you know, it'd stone someone to death if they wore clothing that was made from two different um threads or two different materials. I mean the the point I'm I'm trying to make here is that right and wrong isn't set in stone, and and you can just go back to I don't know, the Vikings when you know slaves having and owning a slave was completely normal. That went on for quite a few centuries.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:06

Now it's abhorrent and but also in some parts of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:13

Well, it's a yeah, well, it's abhorrent for us, but then um if you know we we look at uh anything that we think of as normal um morality is normal to us now, it would have been different to our parents. Look at comedies, you look at uh um what people call wokeness or political correctness now, you know what you could have said as a a comedian on stage 20, 30 years ago. It's and and actually if you it's not funny to us now, and if you if you actually listen to the to you know what's being said to something that was aired, you know, on on prime time television, and that's only 20, 30, 30, 40 years ago, it's absolutely disgusting. So that's how our morals have changed in just that short amount of time. And the the I I think it's really difficult because you to talk about Afghanistan because it's such a diverse country. We think of uh uh Afghans as just the the pashtons that we um uh sort of interacted with for you know good for good or for bad for talking at them or getting shot and blown up uh by IEDs that were laid by them. But you know, there's like a dozen different languages within Afghanistan. Um you got the Hazawa, you got the Tajiks, um there's there's there's loads of different types of Afghan, and you only have to look back 60, 70 years uh in Kabul, women, westernized Afghan women walking down the street, smoking, wearing um miniskirts. That just that that does just doesn't compute to the Afghanistan that we see now, which almost seems next to prehistoric, you know, in it in not only its morality, but in the way that we as Westerners would perceive as a normal society. Um so it's it's really difficult to answer that question about good or bad. I mean, what we could talk now about good or bad because we've got a shared perspective of what good and bad is within our society, whereas it's really difficult to shift that conversation to something as as bizarre and complex as Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:55

Well, we could yeah, we could talk about this if we talked about the specifics of what we think is good and bad, like literally the granular things, then uh then that would be different. Uh Afghanistan, but but as an example, but I think just considering that there are the right ways to be and the wrong ways to be, but which are bigger than your own personal needs, you know, and you're willing to you're willing to spend effort uh and make sacrifices towards upholding those things for the benefit of because it's better for the tribe. Yeah, yeah. And I think that I think you know that regardless of where that's correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:35

I mean what was the question in the first place? What was it? I think I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:39

Were there any were there any uh Taliban which you were considered morally good?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:45

Yes, the one I get simple answer uh the agent I ran in 2012.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:53

Okay, yeah, he was fantastic and he was brave. And you know I think his motivation was there was a um towards the end, um basically, if you were a young scroat in the village and you went, yeah, I'm joining the Taliban, they'd give you an icon radio, a uh a red uh Honda motorcycle and a Kalashnikov, and then you'd go round knocking on doors asking for zirkat, which is uh one of the pillars of Islam, which is to give. So that you're saying, right, you're giving to the insurgency, to the uh Islamic revolution. Give me some food. And they were just bullies, and he hated bullies. Oh hated bullies with a passion. So yeah, yeah, him. That's probably the longest-winded answer to yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:47

No, it's a good comment, it's a good conversation. That's a you know, it's like what it's a good because what makes you morally good? What makes someone morally good? You know, the specifics of it vary, but fundamentally they used to go off with prostitutes in Kandahar.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:02

Um there were prostitutes in Kandahar, who knew? I need a toilet, mate. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:09

Oh, you need time. You're right. Yeah, yeah, fine. Yeah, right, cool. Right, taking a pause. I'm back in a minute. Right, we are back. We have a minor situation. We're gonna have to cut this, we're gonna have to cut this short, unfortunately. The reason being is that there is inclement weather coming in, and Lee's trains back to where he lives. Lee, Lee Frank, frankly, Lee's trains back to where he lives are about to go pear-shaped. Uh uh before when the storm comes in, they're all being cancelled. So uh, so you're gonna come back in again? Yeah, yeah. We'd go back. Come back in again. We'll also, like I said to you, we've got we've got loads of questions uh in the chat, which we can do on a Zoom QA with the patrons, that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:49

Yeah, yeah, we'll do uh we can do that. Okay, that'll be on Zoom anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:53

That'll be on Zoom for the patrons, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:54

Yeah, I'd love to come in and talk to talk about other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:57

But I'm gonna keep you for another nine minutes. That's all right. I mean, this nine minutes, so uh one of the questions I'm gonna cherry pick here is uh uh so people watching the live are curious, curious to hear your thoughts on Trump's quotes related to Afghan that he made today. Specifically, that uh other than US forces, everyone else made you you what does he say NATO forces basically, yeah, they were in Afghanistan, but they uh they were a little bit back from the front lines.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:29

Well, basically that's a little bit of a concession to what he said before, uh, which was that no country would come to America's aid if if they needed it. Obviously, uh you've got someone in charge of a country who's not even aware that the only country to evoke article whatever it is, article seven, isn't it? Which is an attack on one member is an attack on them all. The only country to evoke that article, if it isn't seven, whichever one it is, is America after 9-11. And so it it him saying, Oh yeah, well you did do it, but you didn't really go on the front line though, did you? It's an absolute abomination. But again, um, you know, you you you pay peanuts, you get a monkey, you you vote in a moron, you don't ex you know, what do you expect?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:27

Entirely different conversation. I take where where he try so I am personally, I am I am taking what he's saying with a pinch of salt, as I do with everything he says, because it's personally, because he is a he's a he spews words for various reasons. Sometimes it is a bad idea, other times I think it's very c very calculated. I think this is one of those times he is just spewing words to achieve it effect, and and quite often he does this, it's always someone or a country or a people on the bad end of it. This time it's UK. British soldiers.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:05

If it's in the middle of a pond and looks like a duck and it quacks, it's a duck. It's only so many times someone who says things that are moronic, you can say, Oh, there's a you know, he's he's he's he's not stupid, he's he's calculated. He's not sometimes things are what they seem. I'd say more times, more times they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:30

Yeah, there's a difference between saying and doing though, right? And I'm I'm I'm not trying to know what he said like bad idea, and and I understand it's very uh would have pissed a lot of people off, would have been emotionally damaged a lot of people, not only people who served there, but also people who lost loved ones and Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:46

I know you have every right to be angry at that. I'm angry at it. I lost friends. You lost friends. And and I, you know, I I think the previous part of this, or the fairly start of this podcast, I I kind of there tends to be a feeling that you know Afghan was a waste, we pulled out, what was it all for? I I think I've sort of argued against that. There was a point to us going in, there was a point to us staying, although we were kind of doomed to fail anyway. But it it there was a moral obligation to fill the void once the Taliban had gone, took our eye off the ball, and you can argue about Iraq. Should we have diversified if that's not the right term, but gone into Iraq? Or you know, these are all questions, but it happened. But though I don't think those that died died for no reason. My service wasn't for no reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:50

No, I think the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:51

I don't think people have got every right to be absolutely disgusted and angered by what he said. And and not only it's not only what he said, the man's a war dodger. He dodged the draft. He's a rich, very, very, very rich individual whose father was incredibly rich and enabled him to be a war dodger. And for for a for someone to talk about, they wouldn't go on the front line. He wouldn't know what front line was if it came and kicked him up his fat useless ass. So anyway, I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:32

Where can people find your book? Where can people follow what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:36

Um oh I'm terrible with this. Uh right. Um uh Lee Spencer underscore RM is my social media. Um on I'm not on X, whatever it is, I came off that cesspit of hate years ago. Um uh if the book, please do um go and buy the book. And if you buy it and like it, leave a review. You can get it on Amazon, uh, Pen and Sword Books, the uh publisher, uh Water Stones. Um if you Google it, uh just Google the Rowing Marine book. It comes up. It's in on sale on various different platforms. Um, yeah, please do buy it. I wrote it. It's me, it's not uh not written by anyone else, not a ghostwriter. I understand. And I'm very proud of it. As a boot neck, I wrote it in crayon. But I'll get that in before you did.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:34

Well, I know that uh at least one coke in the live stream chat has already purchased it about five minutes ago as as we were at the toilet brick.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:42

Oh, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:45

Um, mate, it's been a pleasure. Glad I'm glad, kind of glad it's finished a little bit early because it means you're gonna come back. You've got to come back.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:51

I think we talked about this earlier, and I said it might be two podcasts, one about Afghan and one about uh the rose.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:57

Well, that's how it's worked out, mate. And we're gonna get a zoom QA in for the patrons as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:00

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:01

Let's give you get you to your train.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:03

Cheers, thanks so much, and thank you to everyone who's listening and been on the live stream. Cheers. Sorry, I'm having a cut and man.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:10

That's it. If you enjoy this episode, why not become a Heych hour patron? Patrons will get access to all of the episodes before anyone else, they get advanced viewing of the episodes, and you also get other perks and bonuses. All of the information is on charliecharlie1.com. Just hit the menu item, become a patron. It'll show you everything there, including access to the Heychour Discord community and private patron only channels on there. So go to charliecharlie1.com and hit the menu item, become a patron. Easy peasy. Thank you for being a supporter. Subscribe to the channel, and I will catch you on the next episode. Thank you.