UKSF Operator: "I needed to pass [Royal Marines training] because I had nothing to go back to."

Join the H-Hour community at https://patreon.com/hkpodcasts ***** For H-Hour #285, I welcome Pasha Munro, ex Royal Marine and Special Forces operator, for a wide-ranging conversation on military culture, transition, social class divides, and navigating civilian life after elite service. We discuss Marines vs Paras social backgrounds — I pose my theory that Marines generally come from middle-class stock and whether that drives smoother post-service careers — and Pasha's deliberate two-year transition plan using LinkedIn to build a civilian network before leaving. He explains balancing a high-profile social media presence with security work ("I can't have clients hearing someone shout 'I saw you on YouTube' on Kensington High Street"), the infamous Marines "99.9% need not apply" ad that never matched reality, and why leaving wasn't difficult when he knew his luck was up. We cover the Lad Bible Red vs Blue game show we did together, cross-service cultures, and why all cap badges share the same pamphlets — it's just how you interpret them.  https://champions-speakers.co.uk/speaker-agent/pasha-munro https://www.instagram.com/munro6141/

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:15

Hello, welcome back to Hey Chour. If you are new to Hey Chour and you've come here because you want to listen to uh listen to Pash talk on uh on an another interview, another another podcast, and uh learn more about what he does, what he's done, uh and and the man himself in general, then be aware that there is an episode before this. It's called the Hey H Hour Icebreaker with Pash Monroe, where it's about 20 minutes long. And I asked Pash uh a number of questions which were submitted by Hey Ch Hour patrons ahead of this podcast and ahead of the uh recording date. Uh they got access, they being the patrons, got access to the guest list in advance, they got access to the live link of the podcast, and they get access to um to zoom calls with guests uh after the podcast has been recorded for a private QA session with the guest. So if you would like the opportunity uh to do that, become a Hey Shower patron, and the how to do that is in the description of his podcast. Uh, but also if you haven't listened to that icebreaker, I suggest you go back and listen to it and uh soak up all of the uh insights and uh and uh experiences that Pasha imparted on the icebreaker ahead of this one, or you can listen to it after this one. Either way, make sure you listen to it at some point. Uh otherwise you are missing out. Anyway, on to hey shower number. I don't know what it is. I think it's like 285 or something like that. It doesn't matter what it is, it matters who is on the episode. Pash Munro, welcome to Hey Shower, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Thank you very much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

Yeah, it's good. I mean I'm glad we've managed to make it work. I think I think we met what, uh, two years ago now, maybe we met.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Uh that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

That was fun, mate.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

That was fun. Uh the lad bible thing. Yeah. Where I I didn't think they were that like you'd never know how they're gonna edit things and cut things and put them out. And it was I watched them on the back and think, oh god, they kind of I looked like a bit of a moron there. I looked like a bit of a moron, you know. Um, but it was good fun. And the the best thing about it was meeting great people.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And it it was it was it was good to be open with different branches, uh, which was cool. And everyone was everyone was the same.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Yeah, there was SF there like yourself, there were Marines there like yourself, there was PowerEdge there, there was you know other units there. I think there was rifles there, maybe something like that. Some something like that. Uh something like that. Yeah, it was it was oh the RF? RAF. Yeah, the RAF there, yeah. Uh Liz McCoy. Uh it was good fun. It was good fun. I would do that again, actually. I would do that kind of thing again. Game, yeah, game show. Um uh if anyone hasn't got a clue what you're talking about, just have a look for Lad Bible what's it called? Lad Bible Red and Blue uh Pash and put your name in Pashman Row and that'll bring up the episode. And we're on there doing this like weird quiz show game for Lad Bible. It was good fun, slagging each other off basically.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Just being big kids, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Being big kids anyway, anyway. Enough of that, mate. Let's let's uh let's talk about you and the now. Um uh the icebreaker is really insightful. I I I enjoyed that little chat there, mate. I'm looking forward to this podcast. Um, you know, like I said, we met a couple of years back. Aside from that, I don't know, I don't know you that well, really. We don't know each other that well. And uh an insight into the marine side of life and the and the SF side, uh SB side is like always interests me, but mostly what interests me is the kind of people who get into these things. You know how how like diverse and different everyone is in the military, you know. Yeah and uh uh but to me, you guys are like you're just a different different kettle of fish. You're what they're like like from a different planet, you know what I mean? You just they're very different, I mean the cultures are very different, yeah. And I'm not I'm not just talking about powered marines, I'm also talking about SF and non-SF, and I'm also talking about army and navy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

So um but the weird thing about that is even though we're all all on different cat badges, the pamphlets are all the same. It just depends on how you interpret it, isn't it? Yeah, it's gotta be the other thing.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

I suppose so. I suppose so. It depends how you communicate the lessons, depends what you're depends what the cultures are like, yeah, you know. Um I was it was a it was quite a few years ago now, and someone said something to me, and I thought, ha, I never thought like that, but it makes sense. And they said they said that the main that one of the main differences between Marines and paras is that the Marines are are basically from in terms of social class, uh generally from a middle class background. Now, I don't think that's true for yourself, based on what you said to icebreaker. Generally from a middle class background, and power edge is generally not power edge is generally like working class, you know. Um, and it kind of makes sense to me, and it makes sense to me in my experience. I didn't deal a lot with Marines when I was in very limited service serving alongside you guys, a little bit on operations, not much, a little bit on courses, not much. But in my experience since, particularly since I started the podcast, Marines definitely seem to have a better education on average than uh army, like just it and be and and and because of that, more successful early on, I think, in their post-military careers. Right. Uh like better, just just seem more uh professional, as if they're as in civilian professional, as if they come from a degree background, but they don't, obviously, yeah, they did they as in rankers, you know. But uh what what would you say about that opinion on things?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Well, obviously, gone through that just the latter part, the transition part, I can see that because no disrespect to people who leave the military, but I didn't find it difficult. I knew I needed to leave, my time was up, my my luck was up, that was that was that was me. And I made the decision and I gave myself well two-year point before I was leaving, I went on LinkedIn and I started building up my civilian career, as it were, because in my last job, I wanted I didn't go on social media, so I was a nobody. So in this day and age, you need to be on uh social media for people to do their due diligence and see what kind of person you are, because when you go for interviews, a lot of the interviewees will go and Google you.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Uh but there's a counter to that, but not being on it is not a bad thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Well, it depends what sphere you want to go into as well.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

Okay, what you go on, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

As in if you want to, for instance, the the the data kind of environment or where you're working in that, then to be a nobody, not to be a nobody, but not to have much followers, shall we say, then that you know that helps. But if you're gonna come out and be a project manager or whatever you that that route is, then then that's different. You can go out and build yourself up on on that to find opportunities and you know, get people to find you and since leaving and building that up for me personally, my social media is is getting quite big, and that's where opportunities come in for me and a word of mouth, and people bounce around, and yet again it's the network. What's your net worth worth? And and that's that's the biggest thing you're you're worth is your net worth.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it does depend on what you want to go into, and and having a big profile can be can be quite negative if you want to do normal civilian stuff. But I tread that thin wire, you know. I I I have a I have a career, you know, out away from the podcast. And uh and um it's something we're always conscious of because you never know, you can end up with a company or in an industry where they don't want that, or or or if if you're someone who talks about things like I do, or or talks with people like yourself who may express opinions that someone in a job, like an employer, doesn't like that, and then all of a sudden that is making an impact on career progression, or even you literally employment is getting stopped. You know, um it's like a double-edged sword of sorts, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Because I'm in the security industry as well, I've got to be kind of neutrally careful because I don't want a client seeing me say things or being on the internet where I'm gonna I'm gonna lose my or not get work from it. And or if I'm walking down Kensington High Street with a client and someone starts shouting out I've seen you on YouTube, then that's not I'm getting paid, you know. That my client's not gonna be too happy with that.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is a double-edged thing. What are you gonna do? You know, what can you do? It's uh the thing is that um the thing is it it's it's such a well you think about yourself your background, you know. Oh what the Marines about that that ad, which was 99.9% need not apply, which you fucking happen. But they didn't, that's the thing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they didn't know, but yeah, it's a terrible, terrible campaign, right? But you go forward from that to the SF background, so few people will ever achieve that in life. It's such a I think it it's it's like a it's a unique USP, it's like a unique selling point. It's such an advantage to have that background, you know. Uh I I mean no, you can make it such an advantage to have that background, depending on how you go about it, to help you promote you, yeah, yeah, yeah. But help you in your post-military career, you know, to take you on the on the right path. And like, why wouldn't you let we're we leverage everything else, you know, sports persons who achieved just greatness and like elite levels in sports, like like you've reached like the elitest of elite levels in basically military, yeah, you know. Um uh it makes sense to leverage it to help you in your next career because your life doesn't fucking stop when you leave the military.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

One thing I one thing I did um promise or tell myself when I was leaving as well, from from the age of about 11 or 12, having a paper round, that's when I started work, 50p a week, whatever it was, to leave leaving the military. My wage went up always went up, and my promise was that my worth is a little bit more than that and and beyond. So when I leave, I shouldn't I shouldn't be getting less. I should be always going up, and that's what I have done, thankfully, because I mean I know my worth. And some some employers don't get that and don't want that, which is fine, absolutely fine, but some employers will because what I can give to them and and offer them. But you do see people underselling themselves, and it's it's I don't know. Obviously, we all need work, we all need work, uh and sometimes you might have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

Yeah, I think that's more about people not understanding what they're worth is, as opposed to marking down what they know they're worth. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you've got to take a little hit to, you know, a little bit of pain for long-term gain, whoever coined that expression. But um, you know, but when when we're leaving, military when we're leaving, most of us don't understand what we're worth. And we and we certainly don't know how to communicate what our worth is to ourselves, let alone to anyone else. But so when you left, was it full time? Well, you did full service? I did 27 years. Did you? 27 years? Yeah, I did flipping it. When did you get out? Where did I go? When did you get out?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Uh 2019. Oh, not that not a huge amount of time ago. Okay. So I finished the job in about September 18 because I had so much leave accrued to me. Um my wife wanted me to have time out before the next job, but I'm the sole provider. I was like, I need to get in there and get on it.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

So you had something lined up already?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

No. That's when from that September to the Christmas, I was out and about networking, going to places, going to different clubs, ex etc. Building. And I I I met a guy for a wind farm company, liked me, and on the 7th of January 2019, I started as a project manager for a wind farm um company which services the wind farms and when the break fixes them. So that was that was my first job. And I was still in the military till the 31st of March. So I was getting double bubble and I got permission to do that. So that was that was nice.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

So how come you how come you uh uh wanted to go into like a normal career as opposed to the normal SF part?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

That's what I thought when I left I didn't want to be the person who went down the security route. You didn't want to be no, I I didn't want that at all. I wanted to be and I wanted it to be normal, I want ever what I perceive as normal. I want a nine to five job, I want to spend more time at home, um, and I want to I want it to be local. However, my where I live, there's not much work as a salary I wanted. So I did travel, which was only 40 minutes, and yeah, I started that on the 7th of January, which which was great.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

What was your uh what was your last year in like? Mine was like mine like flew by blink of an eye. I got half of it was on the table.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Oh, I was I wasn't doing anything, so I was left to pretty much sort myself out.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Did you have to be encamped?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

From the September, no, I I handed my stuff in. I still had the room, and then I went back because I think they made me go back. Come they made me go back to leave and do a BFT. I had to find a pair of flipping why is that? I don't I can't remember where you had to be fit to leave, but I don't know what it was. I had to get my boots on, get my rig on, and run the BFT route, and then I could then I could leave. I don't I don't know why they made me do that. Maybe I don't I don't know. You know, it's ridiculous. I don't need to be fit to leave, surely, but that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Uh yeah, checking your physical health. Yeah. Not much else.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Nah.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Flipping ack. Yeah. Um and what was that first? What was the first step into that civilian job? Like, was it did you meet your expectations or it was boring?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah. I was in an office, the hardest part of being in the office was talking. Because the way we talk isn't how you can that you're allowed to talk to people. And that and it was male and female offices, so even that's even harder to talk to female. I never worked with females.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

So trying to have a proper conversation, it's it it was tough. What were they what were they bosses? No, no, just people in the office, didn't you know? The clerks and and the the the administrators, you know, etc. etc. And it's and they're all young, because I was you know, I was flipping full nudging 50, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And try and make conversation. It's all my conversations, you know, all my all my 27 years prior was in the military.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

There's no common, there's no common ground, is there?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

No, and they want a piece of me because oh the SF guys in the office. So I'm getting poked quite a lot to oh, what would you, you know, what have you all them kind of questions that you don't really want to answer on day one, or you don't want to open up to because you don't know how people are going to take that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

Or you yeah, and you don't know how to if you are gonna answer those kind of things, you don't know how to answer it in the correct way.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Not in the you know politically correct way.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

I don't think I I don't you don't get taught that.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, yeah. You don't get taught it.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

No, I I I don't think people realise uh people who are military and or people who are military but are still in, don't think they realise just how different the outside world is. I think it's easier to leave once you once you've been in full time, and maybe you get you know you go a long, long, long way in terms of rank, and in that you are you are involved quite a lot in local community stuff and things like this where there's interaction with the outside world, you know, which they kind of in normal units they kind of get that the CO, the RSM, the C S M and that. You know, they're like doing local school stuff, and they do it, yeah, they're meeting the mayor, and you you sort of get and businesses and things are getting this inkling of oh, this is how it works, this is how they speak, this is how they treat each other, you know. And that sounds crazy because we're all human beings, but the military is a totally different world. It's a totally different world, it's it's a different species compared to everyone else, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

And five years prior to that, I realized to myself that I haven't got any outside influences or friends apart from the people I grew up with back home. So I got invited to join the Masons, and I joined the Masons because, quote, I had another tribe of people out of the military, and I could be in their community and learn from them on how to talk how how that outside works because these guys should be all over it and you know they should be able to help me. And that's that that's what I did because I yeah, I didn't have any outside friends. I used to play football on a Saturday league kind of thing, um until I snapped my Achilles and my wife banned me and I was yeah, I was 41 then and snapped it. Um and I was like, I've I've got no I've got no I don't communicate with the civilian population. I don't go to group or it's just cut off. So yeah, I joined the Masons and I felt I felt that very re reassuring. And throughout the last few years, when I was out around doing exercises around the world, I would actually practice and go to the Masonic lodges in them in different places in the different countries. Oh, really? And that's how I learned to yet again take on different cultures. Why did I think it was only British? No, it's all they're all over the world.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So when the guys go out on the booze for the week, get the weekend off, I'd be I'd meet someone local who take me to their families or take me to the local sightseeing, meet the meet all the guys, have a good dinner. The the lodge, yeah, yeah, and that that was amazing because for the last 20 plus years, I was out boozing until I couldn't walk. That's all I'd do when I visit these places. And when you say I've been there, you're just in the bar. Yeah. So you've been there, you haven't got a clue what it's like. So it opened up a lot for me, and yet again, it was networking.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

Yeah, I know what you mean. In a in a funny kind of way. I I pretty much stopped drinking two years ago, two uh just over two years ago. And obviously, we're in London now, and I've been regularly in London for the last seven years, regularly, you know, like weekly in London the last seven years. It's only the last two years where I've really started getting to know London outside of the bars. Honestly, it's just so and I go, Oh my god, I love the place. I love it now. You know, I I wouldn't live here, but there's so much to do. It's stupid, and for free, like you can have great days out, really cheap in London. There's so much to go and do. I thought, I would never have discovered this. I was still drinking. There's no, like it just wouldn't be outside of the bars. It's so stupid, it's so stupid, you know. You go, ha ha, okay. I was doing it wrong all this time. You've never been a big drinker then, no? Oh, I am a boozer. Yeah, oh okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

But um I think when we're out and about, I I wanted to get away from the guys a little bit, you know. If you're in a close team, then you you do need a kind of break because the stuff that you're gonna be doing is kind of intense. So you need a you need a break. Um and because the the world I was in there, it weren't always available to ring up home or email because the where you were, there was potentially people who was knew you was in them places who would want to find out a little bit more about you. Yeah, so your op sec personal security um would have to be on the bob or who knows what had happened, and and it's your Responsibility because if you're opening the gateway to your family for other people, then that's your fault. And it is it is a serious thing, isn't it? So it's all well and good being together, mucking around with your buddies in a situation, but at some point when you're with your family, they're not there. You've got to you're the you're the protector.

unknown 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And if you look at it the other side, which I I used to think about when I had my down kind of days, is if that person I was going to find got away and he knew kind of where I my cat badge or where I was from, why wouldn't I go for him and his family? That that that triggered me quite a few times in my in the last few years. I'm thinking because I I knew there was a certain person in the UK who we chased. And I was in a meeting in London with an organization who knew that person and knew where he lived, decided to tell me that, but said but but then said you can't do anything about it because you will get into trouble. So I went back home and I'm thinking this is I started spiraling because I was thinking that man, if I was him now, he can walk around anywhere. I'd go and find out that unit and I'd text someone out.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

And that you know, it was it was my dark days, and I had two children then. And from my my upbringing to then, I always wanted the perfect, not the perfect, I had a not so good upbringing. So I wanted my my kids to have a decent upbringing, even though I was in the military. So I got to I got to my last um unit, shall we say, and then I had my family. Now, rightly or wrongly, who knows, but I got to the place I wanted to be, then had kids, and my reasoning was I'd be financially secure and they could have their life. But going back to um the meeting and the person in the UK, I went back home and my my two boys were small, and we lived in a military house. And the back of the military house was the fence to the camp. And I give them SOPs, standard operational operational procedures, that if someone comes to the door, there was wire cutters buried to get on, pick them up and cut a little thing, and both of you run that way and scream. And I I I went through it with them because I was worried that that why wouldn't he? He's got a free free access. When other things are up on top of you as well, it feels more real. So yeah, that's one thing I taught my kids, you know, if mum or dad are at the door and there's a there's someone at the door you don't know, and they're scream, you know, screaming, shouting, etc. etc. You're gone, go, just go. And it's a weird not I haven't ever spoken to my kids about it since since we moved out of that. And I'm I I I don't know if they remember, but yeah, I I taught them that.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

I don't know if it's right or wrong, but well, I mean it may it it makes sense from what you're saying here, but I mean what a way to you know, what a way to exist and what mindset to be in, you know, uh uh with that constant fear. Um which must I must weigh pretty heavily.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Oh, it was horrible because all I ever wanted out of life is obvious apart from my career, was a family. I wanted to be a good family man, I wanted to have to have a a wife who I'd be with forever. And I wanted children to to like me and to be brought up properly of the beliefs I never got. So that was a big part of um my timeline, as it were. Um yeah, I mean, in hindsight, having children and going into that job, I wasn't a dad, and I wasn't a husband because I was out. So did I do it right or do it do it wrong? I mean, I can ponder on that forever, but when I left, I kinda put sounds weird, put more effort into being a dad and a husband and a normal person in the home to bring them up, you know. And yet again, who's who knows what right and wrong is on that, or if I was right by doing that, I don't know. But I've never had negative feedback from my children from that yet. I mean, they're not booze yet, so once they start boozing, they might start finger poking me. I don't know what yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

Uh you mentioned uh at least twice about uh a not so good upbringing. What was the what like why what what what what would you have changed? What was it what was it like?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Well I couldn't change it, but I was I was built I was born in the early 70s in um north north uh Lincolnshire and my father was from Bangladesh, so they they oh my god okay, right, all right, yeah. So Christ almighty the eastern kind of people came over to the industrial um towns, you know, it was full on races at them at that particular well, I wouldn't know, but looking back, you you know you know it was. I mean, there used to be fights in that town between the whites and the blacks or coloured, I don't know what you call it now.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

Whites and non-whites.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Well, I got told off the other day for saying half caste.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

You know, apparently can't say that anymore, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And I said, I didn't even know that.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

I go, but I am half, but you can't say that mixed races.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

I don't just got told off.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

Um so yeah, I grew up in the someone's gonna get offended at every way of saying these things, you know. It's like fucking whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Um yeah, so I got and my first memory was I was about five and coming out the back into the ten-foot, because it's northern, where the the house is you get the backyard, then the ten foot, then someone else's backyard, can't it? So you play in the middle bit. Um like the alleyway kind of thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

And and my dad took me into there. We had a car, he put me in the boot, and he was kidnapping me. Your dad? Yeah, he was driving to Heathrow and I was in the boot. So I drove down today, it cost took me four hours. So in the boot? In the boot. Why was he kidnapping you? He was sending me to Bangladesh.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

And I take it your mother didn't want that arm.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

She found out, and thankfully, thank hope well, it worked because when he got to Heathrow, they arrested him and I was out. How old were you? About five. Jesus. But I never for years and a long time I was claustrophobic and I never knew. You never knew that happened.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

No, but I I kind of forgot it. You didn't know you were claustrophobic, or you didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

I didn't know that happened because for some yet again, what I've learned about myself, I can put things in the hard drive, and at some point it opens. So I'm I'm pretty good at closing that as tight as, and it that's it. And memories like that have gone, gone.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

That's that's like a trauma response. And I'm I'm conscious of the word trauma gets thrown around so fucking much that everyone got trauma from this, trauma from that. But in you know, what you're talking about there, like you know, as a five-year-old mate, that is not a light-hearted experience, you know what I mean? And uh and we end up compartmentalizing things to preserve our own sanity, but then down the line that you're saying, claustrophobia all of a sudden makes sense when you remember the time your dad tried to kidnap you. Jesus Christ, I did not know whether that had happened about you.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Well, I didn't know till probably about five-ish years ago. I knew I had an older brother, and I know where he lives in London, but I didn't know because I went to meet him, that dad had already put him on the plane and he already went.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

So he actually sent him to the town where my dad grew up on his own, and he stayed there for 10 years before he could get out. So he knew he didn't know anybody, and he said it was horrendous until he he until he got back to the UK. He said his life was horrible.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

How much older than you is he?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

I think he's probably about five years or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

He would have been like 10 years old. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

So he he was gone. Um, but the the funny thing is on the other side is uh I do say this in my speaks, if that did happen and my military mindset and I wanted to join the military, I would have been on the wrong side.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, wow, 70s, 70s North Lincolnshire. Um you're not white, and you've got a Bangladesh dad. Uh that would not have been the easiest of places to grow up at the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Just moving forward, probably 20 years. Um, so I did uh end up having a stepdad, Scottish stepdad. Um and that's not mate.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Still a problem in North.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Well it was, it was, it was. And um I'd lived in Plymouth at this time with the wife, and the first that mum and dad came came down to visit. It was at the Sunday uh uh at the Christmas. We're having Christmas dinner, and everyone's kind of boosed up. Um my mum and my dad at the time, there was like your mum's English, I assume. Yeah, months from from them from a town, and they started having a little bit of a I love him more than you kind of thing because they're both drunk. And my dad came out and says, Well, I love him, I did six months for him. I was like, what are you on about? The the whites and the blacks, they used to fight and he stabbed him. Oh my god, he stabbed my real dad and got six months in Lincoln jail.

SPEAKER_04 32:39

Your stepdad, yeah, stabbed your real dad.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

And this was at Christmas dinner when I was about you know 25 years old.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

But how have you hidden all this from me?

unknown 32:50

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 32:51

No, it was like a pasta piece, do you know what I mean? Family it's family secrets, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 32:58

You you just don't Well it's family secrets passion, it's family secrets, you know what I mean? Uh like a kidnapping. Holy shit. I take it you've never heard or seen your dad ever since.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Well, I found out he was back, he remarried in the town. He stayed. He stayed. He remarried and stayed. He was he was kidnapping me and sending me.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

But he wasn't going.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

He wasn't going. So what was the logic there? I don't know. I never asked him.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

That is bizarre. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

But he remarried in the town, um, and I did go try and I did knock on his door a few times, you know, asking him, um your son kind of kind of he closed the door, oh my god. And you know, I'm not proud of it, but then I used to put bacon in his in his letterbox.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

I mean, it's amusing. I got I was only young. I'm not gonna call you wrong.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

You know, so yeah, I yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

Who was giving you the beacon? Your stepdad.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I can't no, he wasn't around at the time. I don't know what I was doing, and maybe my mum was telling me to do it because she used to, you know, my mum the the things you remember as a kid. One thing I do remember, you know, when she used to give me the note to go to the shop, go get this, right? And it was always Dr. Whites. I didn't know what Dr. Whites were. I always have to get Dr. White's sending your kid to the shop to get to get Dr. Whites. What's that about? What is Dr. White's women's flipping um towels?

SPEAKER_04 34:41

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, never heard of it. Really? Okay, all right, flipping that. My god. Um, when you were going and knock on your dad's door, what were you what why? Why were you doing that? What did you want?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

I think I wanted some money for some sweets. Um and I wanted to Are you serious? Yeah. Alright. Um Okay. And I because I wanted to be a footballer. I wanted him to try and because it was I remember it was my birthday, and I knocked Tom out. And I and I see him in the street now and then. He goes, what joint for your birthday? I goes, oh football boots, football books.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

So you still spoke to you then?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Yeah. Weirdly. Um and he never got me anything. So I was yeah. And then when he was 16, and they moved down London then, and I came down once when I was 16, met him, and I didn't like I didn't like it, and so I went went home. That's that's the last time I saw him. And then a few years ago, um his wife had but they had another family, and one of his youngest children, about 10 years younger than me, got in touch. I am your kind of half-brother, and I met up with him. Um and he he'd my dad had passed then. I always thought I'd gotta go say hello to him, but I never did. And I don't I don't ever regret it. Um but yeah, he used to tell me that his mum, the new his new wife, uh didn't want anything to do him to to do with me, which he kind of understand, but I don't know. So that's he never had a kind of relationship with me. Even though he was pretty much around the corner. Decent guy? I don't know. I thought you met him. I did, but I didn't because I wouldn't know. Uh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see him in the street um now and then, and he's because then he had a curry house, of course he did, and everyone knew him, and every kind of half-casty kind of guy knew who my dad was then, because he was the guy on the main road with the curry house. And then me growing up, there wasn't many quote half-casty coloredy people in my infant junior school, so that was that was tough.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Uh how tough we're talking, like what was that what was that experience like growing up up there?

SPEAKER_00 37:20

I think I'd because I was small as well, um, I just get knocked around a bit, I guess. And I think to to get people to stop it kind of thing and respect me, I was good at football, so they kind of let me in their little gangs, not gangs, in their little groups. I was good on the field, I mean athletics and that. So that was my way of keeping people off my back, I guess. I could hang around with them without getting a slap.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Yeah, physical uh physical prowess is a big help, and like sporting abilities is a big help, right? And the thing is, yeah, so I I grew up in South Wales and um uh I was in school, 80s, 90s, I'm younger than you, although you wouldn't think so. You look a lot better than me, Pash. You've aged well, I'm not as well. Uh beige don't age.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Baiges don't age.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

And um when you're in school, like I think regardless of where you are, especially where boys are concerned, if you were different, you were getting fucking picked on. Probably. Yeah, unless it's something else too.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Unless you've got something to offer.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

Well, I was in school in South Wales, obviously, not a lot of not a lot of brown-skinned people, right? Uh now there's hardly any. In the cities, there's some, you know. I say some. In the city is there's a there's a fair percentage, I couldn't tell you what the percentage is, but outside of the cities is not a lot at all. Because, you know, it's a predominantly white country, Britain's a predominantly white place. Back there is even less. And uh, and when I was growing up, there was, I remember there was a in my year, there was a black lad, a Welsh, Welsh black lad, and there was a he might have been Bangladeshi, actually. A guy called Shabaj Ali, Sbaj Ali. And I I was the ginger skinny quiet kid. I got picked on more than Shabaj, and Shabaj is Muslim as well. And I got picked on more than him as I recall. He was actually regarded as one of the cool kids. Wow, he was the fastest sprinter for his age group, the fastest sprinter in Wales. Yeah, he was the first ever Muslim to get a Welsh cap, rugby, rugby Welsh cap. Uh you know, great, great player. Uh in fact, he's got a curry house now in South West Wales. He's got a curry house there. He's had it for years. I think he's still got it. I've not spoken to him for a long time. Uh but of the two of us, if he were just to look at us two, it was me. I would get picked up because of the ginger kid, you know, and and I I was a decent rugby player, I was a good runner, but I was a fucking easy target. I was an easy target. Uh in all of that, I'm I there was there is no there is no uh reality where I would have preferred to have been him.

SPEAKER_03 40:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

Because I'm sure that even the way that I perceive how what his uh pupilage there, his his schooling was like compared to mine. There must be so much that was difficult for him that was not difficult for me, and because of his skin colour or because of background culture, cultural differences, colour, whatever. Again, different worlds back then, different worlds, you know. Uh and I I I don't liken those things, I don't liken these things to racism. I I don't. Uh and the reason I say that is because I liken it to because what I just alluded to. It's just being different, it's being if Chaban wasn't there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

You know, let's say he wasn't it, it's still like me getting picked on. It's just I am different. I was more different, and an easy target because it wasn't much about me, you know, very low confidence, low self-esteem. I think it's one of the realities of that of that um growing up, especially in a different yeah, it's you are very visibly different. You fucked, you totally fucked. Yeah, you know, and how you how you handle it, and how you hold yourself, yeah, and and what kind and also what kind of family environment you've got, what kind of close friends you've got to who are going to accompany you through that incredibly difficult journey. Yeah, you know, it's either going to make you or it's gonna break you, is the reality. And the thing is that is that most children don't go through that, you know. Most children look similar, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

There's a few that look different, yeah, and they're the ones that have a tough effect. The reality, you know, that's even before you get to mental ability, personality traits, it's just what you look like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or it's about how you dress. Yeah, because you're skinned, you're always wearing rags and you're wearing old trainers, or you know, like these kind of things. You haven't got the new Nikes, you know. Or you're wearing, you know, you're wearing trousers with patches all over them, as opposed to buying a new patch.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Hand me down as well.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

Yeah, hand me down, exactly. Hand me down, you know. So um tough man, tough. I'm glad I wasn't in your shoes in your upbringing. I honestly am glad, you know. I I I don't count myself as having a having had an easy childhood at all, but by no means is it difficult compared to compared to others, you know, it's it's so it's so difficult, and it must present you some uh like a lot of mental hoops to jump through that I can only ever imagine.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

It did, but that that wasn't the the um the biggest challenge. It was when me stepdad joined because he was an alcoholic. Oh fucking hell punchy hell, and what punchy okay violent um so that was that was the main effort, survival then, because he'd come back and start throwing his weight around. And he was he was a hard man in in the in the um in the town.

SPEAKER_04 43:17

This is the jock.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, he he he was a big drinker, he had a reputation. Not that they'd go around knocking out uh bad kids around, but he'd like to fight, he'd he'd like to be, he'd run a few bars kind of thing. Um and then come back and I'm not saying all the time, but he'd come back and slap us about or I mean I'd if the taxi came home and I could hear it, I would get in the loft until he went to sleep because I didn't know if he'd be in a good mood, bad mood, or or I'd get some kind of backhand at Well it never it was never actually a backhander, it was a punch. I'm not saying I can I can justify a backhander or a punch, but you know, I when I was 90, when I joined the military, I was eight stone. So if you rewind that when he joined eight. Yeah, I was 52 kilos. Oh my god. So if you rewind that I don't know, six, seven years prior, got you know, I must have been six stones, something like that, for a grown man to punch. And I don't understand it because I'd go to school with a black eye, and I don't, I don't, I don't ever get I know social services were in but I did have a social worker. I'd I'd run away, or I'd go in homes, I'd go in back women's refuge, the whole me, my me, my mum, and my brother and sister was in a room. So I did go through a lot, but I still don't ever understand. And I used to self-harm as well, so you'd have a the the three priest raiser, I'd cut all over my face, and then go to school, and I can't ever remember being pulled to the room. Why were you doing that? I don't know. I I actually don't know. Maybe I wanted I was reaching out or asking for help, I don't know. But I also remember I wanted people, I wanted some attention. So I remember one day coming home and saying, I can't say kind of thing. I need glasses. So I went to the flipping spec savers with mum. I was colourblind, but I wasn't, I was lying. And and they gimme glasses, which I was wearing these glasses, but I couldn't read with them because I was fucking I was normal. I don't know how I got old, I don't know I did that. So I but I had attention and I like that's what I wanted. Um, and there was the national elf glasses, so I looked at even more of a flipping someone that could get more abusive.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

Remember the big black, thick rims, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Well, things are brown, brown, you know, it was just and with the plaster on kind of thing, you know. So yeah, I don't understand. And and you know, the house we lived at, yeah, if if and when dad come home, he he'd never go to bed, he'd be on the settee, so we'd watch him telly round him. He'd snoring there, he'd get up and piss in the corner.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

In front of us, that was normal. No one it'd never get cleaned up, so he'd just get up and piss and then go lay back down on the settee. Um, and we there wasn't much food. I used to go out to the um cash and carry round the corner and go in the bins and get food. And I remember once, yeah, we used to get the school grants for clothes, etc. And you only got, I think it was £27.50, and it didn't get everything, but that's all you ever had for the whole year. And I remember I didn't have any socks, and I went up town and I shoplifted some white um terra toweling kind of sh socks, there's a pack of five or something, and I got caught. And I don't understand why the questions were in if I was gonna catch somebody, why are you stealing socks for a start? Oh, I ain't got any socks on, I ain't got any socks. But they nicked me, and as the police took me to home, they went past my dad, who was going uptown to Booze, and he was at a bus stop. And I go, Oh, that's my dad. All right. So they turned around and went to the bus stop. And well, the policeman got out, went to the bus stop, and he got he came back and sat down with me. He turned around and said, That's the man who we just spoke to said it's not your dad, he's he's his housewife's kid.

SPEAKER_05 47:42

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

So then they drove me back home and mum, I don't know what mum did, but I was like, I mean, how can that it just fucks you up, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_05 47:54

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Um and one but one day I remember it must have been quite late at night. We had a big front room window, and the window went in. Fucking massive smash. What had happened was dad came up in a taxi, whoever had pissed off had got a it was in a car behind him, but a few of them got out and fucking battered him and threw him through the window. So he was on the settee for six weeks, absolutely fucked, which I quite liked it actually. He couldn't do anything. Um I mean, yeah, that's that you know, that's my difficulty, and and that's why I wanted to do the proper family.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

Yeah, it makes sense now. It makes sense now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

And one once, yeah, again, I was upstairs in bed and there was a lot of commotion downstairs. My mother she was he'd come up home drunk, and there was a quilt, and then he he probably got he wanted he got fruity. She got the razor blade on it. No, so I came down, he's I didn't I didn't see that bit, but my step brother had took him to hospital. The cut the the the quilt was red. Just imagine that.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

So my god, you know, you know, it makes sense why you'd want to uh and then he came back and never you know he must he must have been pissed off with that, you know what I mean? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

What was um the the in and out of the the homes and the shelters is something uh it's quite close to my heart. I've got a I've got a I've got a cousin who not a dissimilar upbringing to yourself, uh um alcoholism in the in the parent one of the parents uh and abuse, physical, physical abuse, like horrendous physical abuse, and he ended up in and out of homes, and he actually came to live with me and my parents when I was very young, I can't remember it. Uh he we he ran away from one of the homes and came, but so I know that uh as as amazing as a system that is to be able to provide something for you know kids and and and and families, parents, predominantly women, you know, battered women, battered mothers, uh also how dysfunctional upbringing that still is. It's better than the alternative, but still it is fucking horrific, mate.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

But I I still don't understand I've I'm I talk about this on some of my speaks, depending on what the audience are expected. And later on, one of them one of the guys come back um and says, Oh, you need to go to social services in your area, ask for your file. I'm like, oh I never knew you could do that. So I've I've got I've applied for it and they're taking longer to give me.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

You've not got it yet.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

I haven't got it, but it I'd like to see it from what I thought was happening to what happened or what they did or didn't do, you know?

SPEAKER_04 51:11

If the record's an actual accurate portrayal, yeah, you know. I can't imagine record keeping back then was great across the board with social services. You know, it's from what you were talking about, it sounds like a lot was missed anyway.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

You know, I mean there's an element of you know, going into school with cuts and bruises. An element of that is okay, boys being boys, but also if it's repeated.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't understand how we don't he'd always get us back there. We always went back. How went back to the house, to him. I don't know how that was allowed.

SPEAKER_04 51:45

Oh, what you mean after being oh after being put in the shelters?

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Yeah, so uh we went back at some point, you know, we weren't there all the time. I can't remember I remember it being over Christmas once, because we actually got flipping presents from children in need. Um but I don't understand as an adult now looking back how we we ended up back in the same house.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

My uh my uh dad actually worked at the very the very first women's refuge in the UK. Wow. Uh volunte volunteer work as a as security, as a as a yeah um in London, and I forget the name of it. Uh that's one of the reasons things are close to my heart, you know, it's kind of unfortunately in the in the family history. Uh but um I I it it's heartbreaking you're you're in that, you know. It's uh it's one thing I think it's one thing to see it other other children go through it, but then you know I know you as a like we don't know each other well, but uh I I know you a lot, I know you a lot better now over the last hour and a half than I did before you walked in, you know, but it it's heartbreaking. And um I think uh you mentioned something on the icebreaker, I think, or was it the start of this? Were you talking about that you were talking about dark days and and you were you were talking about uh something about thinking back about yourself and it in my head it sounded like you're being being sad for stuff you'd experienced or what you'd gone through in carton?

SPEAKER_00 53:19

I mean, later on when I uh sought help from the things I'd recently been through, except or and and that kind of world, when I was getting fixed, it actually went back to the childhood because that hadn't been cleared up and I hadn't talked about it. So talking and and getting it out kind of helped the healing process of the whole timeline then rather than just the timeline I thought I was needing help. Do you know what I mean? So so for instance, the the the military um mental health issues, it wasn't just that I'd hidden all the past, so that all that had to be opened up first to move into the there and then.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

So so all right, so the last right the la so because the last unit you're at, uh you I know you talked before off air, you're talking about not the greatest mental health journey there or support, right? Yeah, and and you're saying that a big part of that that was a sort of a culmination of a bunch of stuff you did in your in the military career, yeah, but also legacy, childhood.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

It opened everything, so it wasn't just what I thought I was going through at the time, I'd hidden all that shite before. So it just piling up and piling up until at some point I'm it's the the the hard drives fucking seeping, it just fucking goes, you know. Whatever that trigger is, it you don't know, do you?

SPEAKER_04 55:05

How much of a factor do you think your upbringing was and and uh in your in whatever drove you and enabled you to you know be able to achieve a career, get into special force in the first place and achieve the career you did.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

I th I it totally helped because I had to go out and get everything I need to what I wanted to get on my own. There was no mentor, there was no one helping me, it was me or whatever I'm going for.

SPEAKER_04 55:38

So when I when I joined the Marine It's quite remarkable when you think of it like that. It's quite remarkable when you put it like that, actually, Pash, that that you did it without without what everyone else has. I ain't got you know, yeah, a great father figure, a great upbringing, a great role model, advice, confidence building, motivation, you know, guardrails, guidelines. You know, it's quite remarkable that you did what you did. So when achieved what you did.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

When I joined the Marines in '91, I I turned up at Limpson with everything because every I wasn't going back. And what age were you, sorry? I was 19. 19, yeah. Um I would have it would have been earlier. Um but one of the reasons it took me a long time to go through the application process was I went to Limston to do the three-day thrashing. I got a superior, I'm in. So I went back and then the guy, right, sign here, blah blah blah. And what they looked at, because my name was Pasha Monroe, which is now, and they're like, how many names have you ever had other names? I'm like, I was born here at this, and I've got that. And like, how does that work? And what it was was whenever my mum met someone, I got a new name. So she would change the name? No, yeah, verbally.

SPEAKER_03 57:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

So I had to go through proving this is me from that. I have got the birth certificate, but the changes in my name, I had to go through the deep hole of all them legally before I could join them join the Marines. So it put me back for.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

But you had the chain, the chain of evidence kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

So yeah, that was a bit of a kicking.

SPEAKER_04 57:36

Because so the schools would have been going more off of whatever name your mother says at the time. Because they don't ask for birth certificates, don't I? No, that's a good point, actually. Yeah. Flip and egg.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

And so, yeah, so when I joined Limston, I was on my own. I had everything. Um, and I remember there was one phone box where, like you say, people would ring up for the ment. I rang up, though, no one had answered, they'd be pissed. So I I I had the tough days. Not tough, just training.

SPEAKER_04 58:07

My mother was a drinker as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Not really, but she wasn't so supportive. Um the tough days when you're in training where you you could do with a flipping chat to say, you're doing all right, you this is you know, it's just a shit day. Well, I I never had that. Um and it got to week 15, which in the Marines you do like a combination of uh tests like NBC comms, whatever it was, and I failed and they put me back on month, which was another, you know, horrible position to be in. Yeah, back into a troop of you don't know who they are, um all the unknowns, but you know, in hindsight, they didn't sack me, they didn't get rid of me. I didn't but you don't see it like that anyway. You just like we call it back squad. We get back squad. Yeah, back troop, back squad. And then you know, I I I progressed, and then towards the week 26, when you do the commando test, the training team that says I want you to break records ex because you're fit. And in my own mind, I was like, I didn't say anything, it's like I'm just gonna pass. That's what you know, that's the way I went. Um I was just about to say something then. Yeah, so I mentioned before I was 52 kilos when I joined. That's crazy. Now health and safety have to be 65.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

Really?

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Yeah, really flipping out. So they're doing exactly the same tests I did, everything's the same.

SPEAKER_05 59:36

Yeah, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

So it it's all your mind, it's all in your mind, it's got to be it because if you I was physically not big enough, you but I'm I had I did it and uh uh a a good pat a good physical pass, you know. So people say, Oh no, it doesn't matter what the what size you are, who you are, you know, it's it's if you want it, you've got the mindset, you've got a big heart, and trying to get it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

If if your physical attributes I couldn't keep up with the walk, with the with the burgen.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

The burgen's bigger than me. Yeah, and I remember trying to do the steps. I can't do that shit because I've got a 30-inch leg, and it don't work. Um but I can jog, but then I get told off I'm jogging, you know. When the speed marches, I'm the first, I'm the right-hand man, because I'm the smallest. You've got my but then he's going left, right, whatever he's doing. I can't even keep up with that because I'm flipping, I can't even get stride.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

There was a yeah, there was a guy when I was in depot, Par Regnav, and there was there was a got also a guy in battalion, these are two memorable ones, and the one in Depot the same same thing. He was he was just very short, and he couldn't, you know, you marching with your pack on whatever pace you need to be doing, and he had to double, you had to, he would have to jog like exactly like you, and he would get beasted for it, and he got poor fucker, because he physically it's something you physically can't do, yeah. And it's not that like it's not like you weren't willing to do the exercise, you you were doing it, you had to do it in your way to keep up. Yeah, so much harder, so much harder, so much harder, you know. Um, and then there was a guy in battalion, uh super well-respected guy guy calls it Lane, who's saying you know, a lot of the time you'd be doubling when everyone else is walking, and you go the amount of aberration. People like you. I think it's so much easier, yeah. Long legs, you know. Um, yeah, goodness me, goodness me. That must have been uh that must have been some welcome structure and culture and like a the sort of the male influence that you'd be missing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

So I joined the Sea Cadets when I was about 11, 12, and that's what started it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

Um so that was my tribe. That's where I was with people who who we enjoyed the same kind of things. I I liked being on the on the water, um, and I it was a safe environment for me as well. So I knew you know I'd go down there twice a week, I knew I'd be safe, and people look after me, and everything was right. And then I I actually wanted to join the Navy from that, and I went to the careers office and the bloke says no, and I never knew why. And then I saw the Royal Marines thing, it's like I'm gonna go fuck you, Navy, I'm gonna go for that. I didn't have a clue what it was. So I just put my mind to it. I I think I took about a year to probably two years to train up for it because I knew it was going to be tough, and so I I get up in the morning, do a five plus mile run before work, then come back and do my press-ups, my sit-ups, my pull-ups.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:41

Or I just self-motivated.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Yeah, no, no one was doing anything for me. It was I this is what I need to do. I'd be in bed at nine, nine o'clock at night, get up at five, go for my run, go to do I used to work in a foundry, so it's physical there, and then come back, knackered, do my press-ups and my sit-ups, and that's how I that's how I built myself ready for joining. Because I I I didn't want to be there, and I it wasn't a safe environment, and I was hyperactive, I probably would have got in the wrong crowd, and I probably would have gone or got in trouble because I'm I'm kinda like that. I like that buzz or I like something different. And there wasn't much you know, there wasn't much for me or there wasn't much that the the town could offer me, i.e. it was an industrial town shifts, you know. I wanted to be physical, I wanted to be out, I wanted to be I don't want to be at a factory, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I I was I need to do this because I've got I've got nothing else. But then coming pass on my commando test and then um my passing out parade, obviously the best feeling ever up to that point. You're behind the curtains and the curtains come back, getting my green berry.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:09

What do you mean you're behind the curtain?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

I don't know how they're so so you're on the stage kind of thing. It's indoors, yeah. Yeah. Ah, okay. And you're in the consortium, so they're all sat at the front. Big the curtains come open, you're all in the ranks there, then you go out.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

Was it on a parade square then? No. Oh, I was that was on a parade square. Okay, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

So your family's there, yeah. But my family didn't turn up, absolutely got it, but a couple of my friends did, and if they didn't turn up, I don't I don't know what I would do.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:35

So yeah, what was uh can you so tell me tell me two things? What was day one in um in Limpson like? Horrible, and what was day one in uh the commando like?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:52

Horrible.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:53

Okay, tell me day one of Limston.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

Limston, you're all in a big room, there's 50 odd of you.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:58

We uh hang on, what about the train? What about the train, the train station, and all this first?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

Oh, that's bollocks. You can't no no no no, it's horrendous, as in the fact I I had a day uh a uh a rock site, Bergen, with my life in.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:10

Yeah, so it's bigger than me, yeah, and he runs and it's uphill, and I can't fucking a lot of people don't know about this bit, so explain what you're talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

So the the drill instructor would be Meet you at the train station. Well, the train station's the bottom of the camp.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

So he's out there, you're fucking in your shirt, whatever, and we're shirt and tie, and it's like follow me and then fucking your fucking leg in it. Um I can't actually remember that bit, but I remember getting in the it was a dorm, the induction block, you're all in there, and your beds are not too far, and you've you've got your locker. But when I do my speaks, them two weeks were really good for me because I got given clothes. I got given all this really I got socks, I got I got everything. And I was really, really chuffed. And throughout my Training, I looked my locker was the dog's bollocks because I was so proud of my own clothes, it pissed everybody else off because theirs would go through the window. But mine was I'd spend so much time to make it proper that I did piss people off. And I remember in the first two weeks as well, they gave they gave you a pen and piece, a paper, and uh an envelope to write home because no one had phones. And I remember just writing that it that it started, whatever I read, but I never posted it. I kept it with me the whole time. It done would be bothered.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

What about day one and the commando? Where did you where did you go?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

So I finished on the Friday, I got past. So the Friday we got the train, I went to Arbroath. Now 4-5 commando. So I'm in Arbroath, darkest fucking northeast of Scotland, and I look like this.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

So you went from Limston up there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

So there's a bit of brown coming to fucking Arbroath. There's not many Browns people there. So I went out. I went out and I was getting raped. I was I was fucking having a great life. So the the the Friday and the Saturday went out just boost. The Sunday, right? I went out and I got taken home by this old woman who beasted me, right? And on the and on the Monday morning, day one of being a commando unit, go. I turned up late.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

Oh no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

I woke up in a bed with this woman stinking.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

I didn't know where I was. I broke fucking where's how far's that?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:46

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Oh my god, this acting got I turned up, mate. Who are you? You you could imagine it, you fucking necky, but all this shit was coming to it. I'm brown as well. There's not many brown people on this camp. And I joined Mortatroop, which you can't join straight away. Exactly. How is that happened? Because the mate, I got right steam off, so it's full of old sweats, giving me a fucking hard time. Oh no. So this was half past ten. I'm fucking shitting myself. They're all obviously they're all massive old. They've been to Falklands and everything, these fuckers. They're all hard.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

Um, it's like that, right? The um the two ICs are like, go round the camp, find out who's on duty next weekend and get yourself on duty. It's like go round the camp.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:36

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:37

Looking up, where do I go? I've got to find the the it there's three um rifle troop companies, X, Y, and uh Yankee, X-ray, and Zulu. So however I did, I found knocked on the sergeant major's door. I'm I've just come from Lempston. I am Pisa, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah marine munro. Can I report blah blah blah? Every fucker's pissing themselves. It's not the way you do it in the unit, because you but you don't know, do you? Can I please go on duty? And yeah, I went on duty for the full weekend.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:08

Oh no, you don't need that start, you don't need that start. You don't need that, yeah. I did troublesome, I say troublesome start in my head. I did I did and uh well I got to the battalion and there was a I made a couple of mistakes early on and it just destroyed me, destroyed my confidence. I built it up through demo and destroyed my confidence, you know. And uh I it really I it's hard to recover from that. Hard to recover from that. I had the advantage of looking like most other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

There's um there's a there's a nightclub in in Narbroth, and I remember that weekend, I I was in there and there was a bloke who from Mortars who's the daddy, so he's hard. He's a very, very hard man. And his thing was he he goes in the toilet and beats people up in the toilets kind of thing. I go to the toilet, you know, this man's huge, he's poking me, saying he's gonna bum me, where am I and all his kind of stuff shit, and I'm I'm in the corner crying. I've done a commando, I'm fucking crying, and he's giving it to me, and he's I don't know I've heard his name, but it's fucking huge, and he's he's scaring the shit out of me. And a couple of people came in from the trouble and pulled him off. Yeah, I don't think obviously he was gonna do anything, but he he was terrifying. He terrified me. But after he started character-building fashion's character, oh, it was horrible, but you know, in hindsight, they started looking after yeah, it was yet again because my physical ability was good, the mortar troop as a whole weren't too fit, shall we say? So I was uh very above them, so I got respected for that, and I was kind of let in. And because I didn't go home at weekends, I'd booze with the with the daddies, so I was kind of pulled under their branch eventually, and it was cool. But yeah, you go into a unit straight to support company, it wasn't that's a drama. Yeah, that is a drama.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:10

Yeah, that is a drama. That's that's as bad as getting to a unit who's just come back from a tour.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

Well, yeah, they've just done um I can't remember what it was now. Bosnia or something like that. What year was it? No, it wasn't 91. No, it would have been uh the Gulf.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:31

The Gulf.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

Did they uh you they must have gone Marines went out there? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:36

Find out, Pash. Let's find out. They must have.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:39

Iraq. Yeah, no, they went to Iraq, didn't they? They went to Iraq because they took the fucking snow stuff and it was I'm sure something like that like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:47

They pick as they were.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:49

They took the wrong kit.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:52

Okay, during the 19 okay, it's it's on the screen now. During the 1990s, 1991 Gulf War, Operation Gramby, the Royal Marines provided specialised support rather than a major amphibious assault. Key actions included SPS operations to cut communications, boarding parties for shipping interdiction, and the dramatic retaking of the UK Embassy in Kuwait City on the final day. Uh following the main combat operation, three commando brigade was deployed to northern Iraq to provide humanitarian aid and protection to the Kurds during Operation Safe Haven. Now what I mean, yeah. Uh note large-scale Royal Marines operations such as the assault on the Alpha Peninsula occurred during the 2003 Iraq War. Were you on that? No. No, I was on that.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:50

Yeah, uh, not the 1991 conflict.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

Um, so it was one particularly good time to join as a sprog anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:05

Yeah, the it's like this that day one in the unit, or even week one, yeah, that is something nobody warns you about. You're warned about depot, but they're not warned about yeah, when you finish that thing and you think you're top of the fucking world. Yeah, yeah. Get back down and you've done it all. You buy yeah, exactly. Get back down the lattice and get something from the shop, you're paying, go and fucking get it in. You're the little fish in the shark pond again. Yeah, you know, you have no idea, but you sit in the in the whole not culture, but in in like the the not even just you've got no idea where what your place is supposed to be. You know all the basic aspects of the job you're supposed to be doing. Ice soldiering. What you're meant to know, yeah, and you don't know the newness is the peculiarity.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

I went into mountain training with the fucking motorpiece, I didn't know what it was. I had a bipod, I had a bipod, and I couldn't even fucking bend it in the right way.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:59

And you're a small blood, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

The Anna Keegan Ridge on fucking Scotland, I could die if I fell that way, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:07

Oh my god, have a clue. Oh my god, yeah. The uh were you someone who was who was uh a fan of water before you joined the Marines?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:19

Um I liked water, I wasn't seaganettes, so I did I did a bit of canoeing, I did a bit of um when the the dude the pulling, I was the coxswain because I was I'm the smallest. Um and we used to go down to the canal and just play in the fucking water, so but I didn't think my career had got that way, to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:40

No, yeah, it's uh sometimes not the cold and wet.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:47

Not no no one's the biggest fan of it, but but it's the you you you mentioned, I think it was an icebreaker. Yeah, you mentioned an icebreaker, you had the underwater uh life-threatening situation. It's that part of it. It's like okay, like being underwater at depth, let's just say it's a civilian, you know, risky, not that risky, but risky. And if something goes pair-shaped, you've got a drama. Being underwater at depth, and by the way, it's combat, it's like you it's it you're doing combat operations, combat training. Whole different ball game, man. Whole different ball game. So I I've you know, I've I've heard so many little anecdotes or stories from from people who uh SF people, um on both sides of the f of the uh SF fence of the the uh the the obvious organizations uh who have had water drama oh my god yeah no thank you the thing is it's because it's military gear in it well is it not cutting edge though?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:48

I would have thought so that's it is it is um but yet again things break and it's not soldier proof and yeah environment.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:00

Yeah, it's it was actually just remember, wasn't there about four or five years ago someone down the pool died actually training? There was, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:08

Training the pool in the highest on um um can't remember what you call him. You fly through the water with him, um, and it it took him down.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:17

Oh, I didn't realise that was the case. I thought he was something like that. I thought he was dying, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

It was done, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:23

Yeah, but not on uh not on a um vehicle. I thought he had something on it. Oh, I don't know. You would know better than me, but we won't against our deal either way. Yeah. Um uh you would you mentioned earlier uh a couple of times about when you after you'd left, like uh when you're having dark days. What were the dark days? Like what what what what do you mean? What was what were the dark days? Why would they come on?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:52

So eventually, I mean we join up to to do the door kicking. We think we were gonna do that as soon as we when I'm joining the Marines, that's what I think I'm doing. But like we just like I discussed on the in the 90s, it didn't really happen. But when I got to the unit, I it was happening, it was very exciting, uh, but there's there was consequences um you know, fatalities, um people not coming home with everything they left, you know, things like that. And when you're in them situations, um you've got it's got to be kind of parked because when you get when that bit's finished, you go on to it's something else. So we never got time to, I didn't think to process it. And I don't know if I would have processed it, so I don't know that bit because it didn't, it just got locked away kind of. And when you're going through that different stages, and I remember towards the end of my career, like I I did speak, I was in a situation where um a life and death situation, obviously. Thank I got I got out of that. Um, and I think I was about 45, 46, and I was like, I've had too much luck.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:12

When you're away, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:13

I was like, I've had too much luck now, and I I I I am a lucky man on that battlefield. I've been in horrible situations, but I've walked off. And and there's some there was a part of a a um event where everybody around me didn't at all didn't come back. No, no, I had problems and I never thought people did mention have you got coming home simple, I can't remember what you call it, something that I'm I came home fine kind of thing. But I think I did because I came home um and because I love mountains, I used to be mountain lead and there were marines. I was like, I'm gonna go fucking k climb Kilimanjaro. I had two weeks off, I went up there, nine days. I thought I'm I'm sorted, came back and I thought I'd put it to bed, but consequently I'd hidden it and throughout my further career till the last part um I there was other things happening and then the last bit on the run kind of or getting chased, no support. I was it was promised support, no support, you're on your own. We got out of it, but I was like, I've I'm done now. I I've got k I've got a family, I've had too much luck, I you know, I I I I had the problem underwater, all them ticks, you're like because all of a sudden them ticks, you're like that that's happened, that's happened, that's happened, you know I'm nah, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm out. So at that time I was probab I was very qualified, highly qualified as a diver, i.e. I did so much, so much extra, even in my own time. I was I I was diving and teaching and I built my my um C V, shall we say, on diving. I had so many qualifications um within within that role, but I was doing extras. So I could have stayed I could have stayed a lot longer because I had so much to offer and they've invested in me so much. But after the last yeah, I I I I um put my hands up, I'm leaving. Um so I was going through that process about probably a year and a half, two years out, I moved my family up north back to my hometown. Because if we stayed in that area where the camp was, it was you'd have to have a super salary to live and to pay your bills rather than if I move back up north, I could have a big house. I haven't got the sea, I love the sea, but however, I can afford to go on holiday. And my kids still have a classroom of 15 kids. Well, it's not why why wouldn't you do that? I'm I'm trying to be the best dad. Why wouldn't I do that? So I moved them up and I still had some time on on my camp. Um and I remember one day I got told mum had passed. She still lived in the town. Um so what I did, I went to my troop. Can I get a car? Unfortunately, my car was in the garage. What it was the wrong time to die. Um so I went, they couldn't, they won't give me a car. I went to um MT. People who give you the cars, there's no cars. I went to the welfare. Can I get a car to go and see my sort my mum out? There's no budget, there's nothing. So I was like, that really fucked me up, I guess. So that day, I couldn't get the car.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:09

Well, on one of your worst days, you're not getting any support. That's this is like when you give in so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

Yeah, exactly. And that night, I was obviously on my own, and I came, came back, and I said, and I went around the same bazaars the next day to ask again because I I needed to get home. And there was an American who worked alongside us as a swap kind of thing, an officer, and he was at the motor transport place, and I was just outside there. I must have looked a bag of shit. And he came up to me, he goes, What's wrong? And I goes, Oh, I can't get a car, mate. Mum's I need to get home, blah. And he went in there and got me a car. I was like, How the fuck is that right? I didn't say anything. I was very relieved, but you know, that fucks mine. Fucks a person who's just come on a draft, can walk in there, and I've been here at that particular time over flipping 12, 13, 40, you know, years. I'm a pip I'm part of the furniture there now. Everyone knows me, everyone knows what I've done, but you know, and I couldn't get a car. He gave me the car, I went home, and mum died, they took a body away, and I went to the house, and when they took a body away, the thought well, they left the they didn't lock it, so people had gone in and robbed everything. Oh my god. Oh jeez. She wasn't posh, she wasn't, she didn't have much, but but it's just the thought and anything anything that the family have had for you, you know. You always remember certain things, you know, in the front room. I remember that little thing over there, or you know, the little gizzits and you know, the little things that might have been personal to mum or you know, the family that you want a keepsake kind of thing. There was gone.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

So that spiraled me. And I came home. Sorry, I sorted mum out. Um the the person who looks after everything, the estate, which there isn't an estate, it's just making sure everyone's paid, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:20

Um went back to the camp and I think from the early traumas, the the war fighting, everything kind of got on me. Um and I went into the the the dark place kind of thing. Um I'd know and before that um so I was an MFC, then I was a mountain leader. And just just before this happened, I went on like a command course and I failed it. And I didn't understand why that I failed it. So I was I thought people thought I was dog shit. So I had that to think about, um, and then just before uh mum died, or just after mum died, I came back, and then my boss at the time was gonna put me on a warning because of that.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:26

So I was like on a warning for failing the command course.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:30

No, yeah, uh and and I wasn't I wasn't good enough kind of thing. So I went I got sent to his boss, the the the officer in charge, as it were. And he goes, and I explained mom and he goes, Look, I'm not putting on your on a warning, look, just fucking have some time out. But I was like, all right, okay. So they give me a new job. Go um we've got there's an indoor range, go and start working on the indoor range and work there. Alright. I didn't think anything. Now thinking about it, bizarre. So what they did, I had to go and do the range qualifying course and it was on camp. Now looking back, like I was saying, I was a mortified controller, I was a mountain leader, my map reading was fucking the dog's bollocks. And I know joining the my last unit, you don't really map read because everything's electronic or however you however you get there and whatever you do. But I couldn't do I couldn't plot on a map at that point. I couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:42

Your mind was screwed.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:43

Yeah, I couldn't so I was I couldn't fucking do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:46

And then like a focus, you couldn't focus.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:48

And I was getting it wrong. And the guy who was running it, he was a Marine, obviously his speciality is the ranges and blah blah blah. And and he was just obviously fucking you guys can't fucking even matter kind of thing. You're fucking shit. You didn't say that, but uh you can see it in somebody, do you know what I mean? And I failed, I I I got the bottom um range, whatever it is, but I didn't get the particular one there. I can run a range. And and I was walking round camp then, because everything like that flies around, and people were looking at me as if I was shit. And and I'd walk past people, all right, and I'd walk past like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:30

Ignoring you.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:31

Yeah, even people who I was on the course to join that unit would walk past me, and I'm like, what the and I I didn't have a reason why I'd failed it, so because of all that mush going on, I didn't I didn't understand it. And so that, and then mum, my mum kicked in, and then my family moved up north. I I'm done. I was like to myself. I'm I'm I'm done. So I was in the mess and I was ready to end myself.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:06

Oh, I thought you meant done with career.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

No, I was gonna do myself in.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:10

Jesus Christ. And you in your room in the mess.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

Yeah. So everything I I obviously didn't think about the childhood then, but it's everything from being the war fighter that kind of crept up and crept and crept, and then people thinking you're shit. Then then mum and then how I was treated.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:40

A combination of of a combination of uh negatively impactful events, you know, combined with your past experiences, military and childhood. Gives a lethal concoction of uh in your brain, you know, of uh that is a a a lethal blend there, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:05

Well it's a cocktail, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:10

Why are you still the other? What happened? What went right?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:14

I made I like rope.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:16

I'm very glad you're still the other way.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:18

Oh thanks. I made I made everything. I made it all good to go. And I don't know why. I just wanted to walk around and have a fresh air. I don't know why I did that.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:29

What time of the day was this?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:30

This was about 12 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. So in the military, in that particular place, everyone's going now. Dead, yeah, yeah. No, there's nobody there. And and I walked past someone who he he's really happy for me to say his name. His his name was called it is called Dinger. Um I went to see him and he was busy on the phone. Dinger or Dinger. Dinger. Dinger Bell.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:55

Dinger, Dinger, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:56

He was on the phone and I I sat there for a bit and he didn't when he was on the phone. So I walked off. Eventually, before I got back to the mess, he caught up to me and said, What the f you there's something wrong here, blah blah blah. And I kind of broke down on him. And what he did was right, let's let's try and get something sorted. Um he took me to one of the high-ranking people on the camp who then I went to the medical centre to see a nurse. Um now I remember talking to me, and it wasn't he wasn't really helping me. Um and he he gave me he gave me a standard nurse as opposed to a mental health nurse.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:48

I think well it was a mental health nurse, I think. Well it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um the choice was well, I got pills and did I did he had you told him that you were planning on committing suicide? I don't think I did. But I can't remember. But I must have because thing I got me to take me to the seat bay. I don't know. So he gave me some medication and he con he told me to c I was confined to camp for the weekend. So my family's up north the camp's empty, so I went back to the room, and the room is ready for me to to end it. So I was out of it with the medication. I rang the wife up and I can't remember, whatever she was. She's like, get off that kind of get off the stuff, I'll sort something out. And what she did was she um rang an old friend of mine from Romerie's training who has got a charity. Um she got hold of him and he said to her, Look, tell him to be at the main gate on the Monday morning and I'm gonna take him away. And that's what I did. Monday morning, I got through the weekend, got to him and he took me away, took me to a hotel where um somebody started working on me. I think it I think it was about three hours and I didn't want to do any I didn't want to take him. I didn't want to end it anymore. Whatever he did in that room for them three hours saved my life.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:33

What was he doing? Was he talking? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:36

He was talking to me how I I can't remember the mush. I remember he had loads of post-its and putting post-its everywhere. I don't under I I don't know what he did, but it c it it took me out of that and I I had regular meets with him to keep the treatment up and I luckily he used well he still does, he bounces around the UK seeing people. So I when I was down there, I'd meet him when he was there and he'd he but also when I'd go home he he was in the area as well, so he was in York quite a few times. So me and my wife would go there. And I remember I went in, did three hours ish, whatever it was, and I came out, and then he told me to sit down and told my wife to go in. That was a bit weird. And when it came, when she came out, you know, we we went off and we discussed what's going on there. And whatever I was telling him, he was putting it, putting the calls together, however, whatever he was doing. Because when I used to go to work on operations, whatever I was doing, I'd come back. I wouldn't ever go out on the piss because I wanted to be a dad, I needed to be a husband. Um I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:07

That pressure of the what wanting to avoid the childhood that you had.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:12

I wanted I wanted to quote do it as best I could. I don't want them thinking what I thought about my upbringing. But the the problem was I was going home and talking about my stuff to my wife.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:23

Instead of with the with the guys, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:26

So he had to work on her. She had PTSD from me. And she didn't have a particular good not as bad as mine, but she didn't have a good upbringing. And he had to start from her from the whole process with her as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:49

Goodness me. Uh what was the charity? Rock to recovery.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:56

I've I have heard so many good things about rock to recovery, and I'm I'm sure early on when I started the podcast, I've been in touch with at least one person there about doing an interviewing one of them. They uh yeah, I've never heard of Barber said they do incredible work. Incredible work.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:14

Two of the guys, one's from Paul, and the other guy's Jamie Sanderson, who I was in training with. We was on the Royal Navy boxing squad together as well. And yeah, we'd follow each other in the career, we'd always you know, high five each whenever we were together, and he and he personally came to that camp and got me in personally, put me in front of someone to fix me and save my life.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:46

Goodness me, Fash. That's a journey, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:52

But also, from that though, I mean I've only recently started talking about the mental health bit because I was a bit uneasy about it. But I've over the last few years I've I do talks at schools, college and and uh corporates, but I add that depending on who it is, I'll add that a bit on as well. But the whole part of my talks now, it gives me it it makes it helps me because every time I talk about it, I'll I I might remember something completely different that I've forgot about forever, and it kind of it's helping fix me. And while I'm doing it, I'm potentially helping people as well. Definitely, and the amount of times I've been to a few man charities, and they'll come at the end of that. I've gone through that, mate. I can't believe that bit there exactly, you know, and it's kind it's not nice, but it's comforting.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:55

Yeah, you're totally, you're totally, you're totally correct. You know, it's why uh it's why I it's one of the reasons I asked about the dark days reference when you mentioned a couple of times earlier, and it's not because I want to prod and go, ooh, let's talk about the emotional stuff, it's because it's because people in listening to your experiences, there are people who will listen to what you say either here or on your on your talks or on another podcast or interviews or whatever, and there are people who won't go through what you went through because they've heard you talk about it, they'll spot the signs of immense pressure or stress or something from their background lurking, and they'll deal with it earlier as opposed to when it's too late, you know. When you've gone through like you have, when you've been at the bottom of the barrel, you know, it's it's incredibly important to for people for people who are willing to talk through their experiences like you, and then it's incredibly difficult, mate. I like understand it. Sitting year across, it probably may not have been visible on camera, but I can see there's occasions there I can see you getting emotional. It does, you know. Uh it's so valuable.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:56

The good thing as well for me personally is it it's helping me, but tonight I'll have nightmares tonight. I always have nightmares and hot sweats the night I talk, or when I speak, I'm used to it, but it's I don't know what it is. There must be but I'm comfortable with it, and tomorrow I'll be knackered because it takes it completely takes it out of me.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:21

But I'm happy with that if I'd known that I wouldn't have gone product. Sorry, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:31

I'm sorry, sorry. But it's amazing how many people like I say come up and say, I've I that bit resonates with me, and I've never told anybody, and thank you for sharing yours. Maybe I can start sharing, or I if other people have done it, then I'm not an individual anymore, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think um, you know, m most people who go through their military careers uh are fine, is the reality.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:04

But a lot of people, a significant percentage, aren't you know, and and it when I say fine, I mean in different in varying levels of not fineness, yeah, yeah, yeah. From people who you know they'll have a little bit of underlying anxiety for the rest of their life, for example, which they kind of just get on with, don't even address. I don't think so. They should like in my mind, you know, if you are anything other than mostly content, you know, you don't have unexplainable days of sadness or depression or loneliness, or even on the physiological side, low energy, tiredness. If you have unexplainable days like that or on consistently, you shouldn't be okay with that, even if it's minor, you know. Um, and there's a lot of people who are ex-military. Uh but also outside of that, people who deal with uh who are in uh life-threatening kinds of jobs regularly, blue light services, you know, uh, and they go through life and they don't realize that they're in a a more uh vulnerable state than they should be. Yeah, yeah, because all it takes is the wrong combination, which you don't know what it means. Otherwise normal events, a parent dying is a normal event, as crap as it is, yeah, yeah. It's a normal event, you know, that hits us, but we should be able to cope with that. There's a period of grief, it is it is a shock, it is grief, it is you know, there's sadness, it's like you a lot of the time you lose a parent, you're losing like a almost a companion of sorts, yeah, yeah, you know, and uh but it shouldn't be crumble, you know, and you get the wrong combination of things. You think about your background, right? Uh, and everything you've achieved in your military career, everything you went through as a child, you would think that makes me bulletproof. I can handle fucking anything, and you can, most people can, but but there are circumstances that come together in the wrong way that create a a catastrophic event in your mind, and you end up with a day like you had where you're going, that's it, I'm done. Like you cannot cope with what's going on, it's too much, you know, because of things that have gone in your life and the way you get handled or treated, you know, because it didn't all happen that day, it was a buildup to it, you know, and and a lot of people, mate. Uh a lot of people exist like this now in various states of uh sub I want to I want to say uh suboptimal existence in their mind and don't realize that that's not how they should be. Yeah, yeah, you know, like and they listen to you talking and go, fuck. I like what I feel now is kind of like what Pash described at that point. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I should do something about this. Maybe I should go speak to someone, maybe I should confide in someone, yeah, maybe I should ring that guy I was in depot with, who's kind of the only guy I would talk to, like Pasha did. You know, it's super important, mate.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:16

I I put quite a few, I try and put a couple of posts out a week on various, well, on the same on different platforms, but the same kind of posts. Sometimes to do with mental health and things like that. And the amount of people who I don't know get in touch now and have and ask if they can have a video call and break down on me, and I don't know who they are, but they they feel confident and uh and and comfortable to talk to me. I'm not I'm not qualified for any of that, but I'll listen and it helps them. And and I find I find it that I should do that for somebody who's in that place, yet again, I can't I can listen and I can give advice what how I would do stuff and give them direction where I think they need to to go or ask. But I find it rewarding, I don't know if that is the right word, that they have the they can get in touch to to talk because they've gone through a long a long journey and they've not said anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:26

Yeah, yeah, no, it makes sense. Yeah, but it's you know it's you should be proud of that as well, mate. You should be proud of that as well to encourage that um response, you know, and to be able to and and to have the balls to talk about it. And I'm not I don't want I want to say balls to talk about it. I'm not I don't mean to insinuate that anyone listening to this who wouldn't be willing to talk about it, you've got any less balls, but I think if you if you're able to you know share difficult experiences and how you get through them, it's vital. But it's not for everyone, it's vital, and you know less of a person if you don't want to, but if you can and you should, I think, for you know, because you don't it you you'll save lives you never knew you saved. Basically, yeah, is the truth as dramatic as it sounds, it's absolutely the truth, you know? Absolutely the truth, right? I've got a bunch of questions here, mate. Uh we want to get on to um because I know you're uh you're against the clock, and so am I, but we've got time for all these questions, so let's get through them if that's all right. They're from the patrons. So is that alright, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:28

So uh you okay. This one is you described mountain leader selection as being significantly harder than SF. Would you say overall, mountain leaders are better soldiers that perform better in combat?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:44

I never went to combat as a mountain leader, but they did they did pretty much the same things as I did.

unknown 1:44:54

J.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:55

Cal, SAS J. Cal says says that mountain leaders are the best Green Army soldiers.

unknown 1:45:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:03

Fair comment?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:06

Um what what made so next question is what made mountain leader training so much harder than SF selection?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:13

It's continue, it's continues on the fact that when you for instance the Hills, you'll have a day off here or whatever, and then in between different stages, you'll have days off and time off. And when you've done the Hills, that night you'll have time off.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:31

Whereas the MLs, you mean the Hills phase of selection? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:35

The MLs, once you've done eight days, whatever you're doing, you need to prepare, you need to clean all that crap, which takes a long time, and then you need to prepare because you'll have to give a lectures or something else, and then thrashing's horrendous, a lot of work, they're horrible, and it's continuous from August all the way to the end of March, which is longer as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:01

Oh, it's that long.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:02

It's longer, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:03

Wow, I didn't know it was that long.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:05

So you you you'll go to uh Cornwall for a month, Wales for a month, December for a month, towards the just before the Christmas leave, then you you go on the run. I was on an island, North Scotland for a week, 10 days, fucking eating turnips and limpets. Horrible. And for me, that part on both courses was horrible for me because I can't keep fat. So the bigger guys are fucking love, they're not loving it, but they they they it's it's I won't say it's easier, but when you're skin and bone, it's fucking hard, you know. It's it's your it's your body in it. You can't hide, you can't fucking give yourself a fucking fat.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:56

Battle fat, mate. Yeah, battle fat. Yeah, you can't, and I can be essential, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:01

It's a winner. Um, and I found that was the hardest on the Mountain Leaders course and selection. On the run on selection was hard for me because I was fucking starving. And but weirdly, I did get caught and I went to where to wherever they take you to beast you until I fucking beast you. They fed me. I didn't and I don't know why they feed me. Just give me loads of food and then put me back out. I I'm not gonna say no, but I never understood if I was on the other side as a training team. Why the fuck did he feed me?

SPEAKER_04 1:47:41

Maybe there's concern there, mate, for your health. Yeah. You know. Um okay, next question is uh, do you think the majority of British veterans would have ended up like the Islamic terrorists they fought if they'd been born in their position?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:04

See, I I I said this at the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:07

You mentioned this, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:08

Yeah, so I honestly think from my journey that if I ended up on the Far East running around in flip-flops, I would be coming after the white eyes.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:27

So yeah. So do you sympathize with those groups?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:30

No, that was that was the follow-up question. Yeah. Uh next question. Uh let's have a look. Let's have a look. What's harder? Combat or transitioning into civilian life?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:49

I thought transitioning was fine. Oh, fine, yeah, it was fine for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:54

As in the fact that it wasn't too much of a struggle to find a job. Um, the yeah, the hardest bit was just talking, learning how to talk to a civilian in the proper manner. Yeah, it takes time. Yeah, it's a lot of thought and energy to talk to something.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:16

Took me a long time. Took me a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:18

Oh, it's completely, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:20

It got it wrong royally a couple of times here. What the hell are they doing? Honestly. Um, okay. Next question is a good one. All right, so from Coke, uh, based on your team house interview. Team house, I like I did this, I did an interview with them as well. Yeah, good, good guys. Uh, based on your team house interview, you appear to be wary of diverging combat experiences compared to other SF guys and girls who do talks. Why is that? Presumably, you're allowed to say as much as them. We talked about this slightly off air, didn't we? Yeah, you can go as far. As you want in explaining this, and I think you should explain it fully, your your position on this. So I think it's important. And I you I know you've I think you've mentioned it on something else as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:11

Yes, I have mentioned it. Um I'm not a person and I haven't said anything untowards that would put my fellow colleagues or the military in any kind of um danger of what I'm saying, what I've said, whether that's the places I've been or the equipment or the the way they do things. I'm I am happy to talk about it because it sells me and I've I want to grow on this side, um and I I do like the exposure of the social media, um but I haven't ever said anything I shouldn't have said I believe because if I ever did, I presume I'd be in jail or I'd be um I don't know, some people get away with it, mate.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:15

Yeah, I mean, or or mention your names, the uh aspiring London mayor, or someone would be knocking on the door or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:23

Um so it worries me. Um it it worries me on the fact that I I don't want to say things that I shouldn't, and I I don't I I believe I've never never have. And but also it gives me confidence what I have said in the past that I've spoke to follow fellow um team members of what they thought of what I said, and I've never had any negative feedback or you're a dick coming back at me. It's it seems to be the the people um at the top. Um so because I've quote come out um and said I was ex special forces at SBS, um, I've now been banned um from any um special forces and vo establishments, um, which ironically when I left I just want to point out for people who aren't aware, because there are people who aren't aware that this happens, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:52:32

We talk about PNG.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:34

It is uh it is a pretty common thing these days for ex like there are household SF names, you know, who if you're listening or watching this that you will know of when we think when we talk about SPS, you talk about SAS, and and and they are PNG'd, yeah, simply because they have said what they were they were part of, uh and it's not liked for some reason. Yeah, whereas there are people out there who do the same, talk a lot of shit and completely get away with it when they should have the letter of the law thrown at them, in my opinion. But to be the whole PNG thing, Pash, it it boggles my mind. It's like when you get people like yourself talking about SF background, SF experience without compromising details, you know, and a good uh are good examples of human beings, yeah, of soldiers, you know, marines, SF operators. Uh that can only be a good thing for for the reputation of that unit. The greatest example of that has to be Craig Head. The greatest example of that has to be Craig Head. Uh because it was because of what happened with him, what he did, was so high high profile and positively looked on um by uh by the Western media, yeah, and yet completely trashed by his unit. You know, it's the it's the it's the greatest, most damning example of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:17

When I when I got told from that the the unit who was who was going through this with f against me, um they said it was coming. And I could give them, I can't remember the the call it uh, you know, uh I could go against it on and say whatever I said. I can't remember what it's called. Um so I writ, I I I replied, I said, look, if I've said anything wrong, then I apologize, but I don't know what I've said. I I said, when I left, don't you think it's a good idea to get a brief in what I can and can't say, because that never happened. And from what I've said on social media's mostly podcasts, what's happened to me, which I never planned, is a lot of ethnic people, aspiring military people who want to go down that line of you know, pretty much the same as I wanted to go down, potentially, without asking for advice because they want to do it, and they never realize that they could do it without s listening to my story. So I'm prom I I I said to them, I'm I I believe I'm promoting it. And I and I did say, look, I'm sorry, I don't know what I've and I never got a response.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:40

I mean it it it's like uh well I'm not surprised that you didn't get a response because if because the for most of the PNGs that I hear about, it doesn't make any sense. It's like it's archaic, it's like it's it just smacked this archaic, archaic behind the curve attitude towards uh towards SF saying they were SF, you know. Uh and and like you're saying, you don't talk about anything operational. Look at the way you handle today, like until the very end, like you ever mentioned any unit, you know. Um and um uh and I it's only a detriment to them. They just toe behind the curve. The the thing is as well, is that I think mention it either on an iceberg or the start of this, it's such a it's incre incredible what you've achieved and and what you've done and and the units you're part of the unit you're a part of, the units you're a part of, you know, the Marines and then uh on to SP. Like you shouldn't be not allowed to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:41

And I'm not you know I I'm I believe I'm you know you know promoting it. You know, and when I when I left um to back myself up, I I went and s I signed on as reserves. So within the units I was it was either where I live where I live now to go back to my last unit would have been six hours. So if I was gonna do a weekend, it it would be quite tough to go and do a weekend 12-hour drive. So what I did, I changed cat badges and went to the people up the road, and I joined them, which upset a lot of people down south, yeah. Really did. So I'm I I'm kind of a Walter Mitty, really, because I've got loads of hats.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:35

One sec.

unknown 1:57:36

I'm just turning the mic's off one.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:37

Right, uh, mic's back on so I wanted to check something before footwell in mouth in it. Okay, uh, so you were talking about um oh yeah, you went up the road, uh reservist. Yes, because it's close out and that pissed people off at the old year.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but I've gone through my career by doing things that are not normal and piss people off. But so what? It's my career, it's my livelihood, it's small-mindedness.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:03

But also, I say it's small-mindedness, it's it's if you're still in the military environment and you haven't got out yet, you don't understand the why they were. I was talking to someone, uh, a friend uh who was at the road uh several years ago. And someone I mentioned to this person, Phil Campion, right? And the response I got was I said, Oh, what do you think of Phil? And the response I got was oh, I can't stand those people who sell their souls to the devil, right? This is part of a wider conversation, meaning, and he's this guy was meant people ex-special forces who go and use their ex-special forces to succeed in the civilian world. And I was thinking, wait till you get out.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:01

Your attitude may change, your attitude may change when you leave because it's not the way you think it is. It it is it is something you should be incredibly proud of. It's a huge advantage, even just being part of the military can be a huge advantage, and something to be incredibly proud of. My god, if you if you can use that intelligently to your advantage without compromising people or operations or the reputation of the unit to a big degree, why not? Why not? Exactly, you know. So, anyway, there is one final thing, Pash, here, which is in the comments. It says, Okay, please give Pasha this message for the end of the pod from Daos, an ex-marine who fought in Afghan and is now in 2-2. He's friends with Krish, who Pasha did uh Krish uh uh Krishna Thappa. What a fucking dude, man. Yeah, uh, also on the lab bible thing. He's friends with Krish, who Pasha did a mountain expedition with. Daz says thank you for all you've done in your career and given him and his generation a standard to follow. He prays you have a happy life in Civy Street and wishes you all the best. Wow. Here endeth the podcast. Message from Daz via Co. Thank you very much. Wow. Yeah, yeah, fair. I hadn't seen that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh mate, it's been good, mate. And uh, you know, you've you've achieved incredible lot. Uh an incredible, an incredible amount, mate. And I'm sure there's much more to come. And if I can help with anything in the future, let me know. Uh, how can people follow you what you're doing and get hold of you though if you if they want to?

SPEAKER_00 2:00:50

I am all over social. It's my name. There's not many pashes. If you Google my name, it'll come up.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:56

Pasha Monroe.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:57

Yeah, it comes up. I'm on obviously the YouTube's. Um I'm LinkedIn, I'm pretty big on LinkedIn, I've got over 30,000 on LinkedIn now, which is quite cool. Um, and yeah, um, if I can come uh and speak to anybody or um schools, colleges, corporates, I I you know, if I can inspire the younger generation and stand in front of them, I I get a kick out of that. Um because when I do it in my local areas and there's there's there's kids there who don't have a good upbringing and things are tough, if I can get it over to them that so what? So what's that the world is up to you if you want something, you can go and get it. Um and I I've always said throughout everything, when I get old and potentially um my kids have I'm gonna be a granddad, hopefully. I want to be on there and I want to spin some shit, I want to talk, and I want everyone to listen. And I don't ever want to say, I wish I had had a go or done something, because I I'm only 53, I've got so much more that I want to do that I don't want to be old and say, I wish I'd had a go at this or I wish I'd done that, because we get one chance. And why why wouldn't we? Why don't we all think like that? Because it's it's a big wide world out there. There's so much we can do, there's so there's so many opportunities, there's so many, there's so many ways we can help each other that why why won't we? And and my goal is I want to be I want to have enough income that I don't need to work somehow. I'm still still trying I'm still trying to learn that. And I want to put stuff in, I want to do charities. I want to I'm still physically a nutter, so I want to do stuff that people will pay me to do something like that, that can go to people in the battered wife homes, in in in the foster homes, in in in in anything that can support people to pave them a better a better channel and to get out some shit that that they're in that that isn't their fault, and to get them back on the ladder and get them to get their opportunities and their drives, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:23

Yeah, I do know, mate. Yeah, and uh well it's been a pleasure, dude. Good luck with everything. Uh and uh stay in touch. Like let's just say said some bad things about the Marines on the lab Bible thing, didn't we need to got the audiences? Are you sure, mate? There's a couple of there's a couple of boot necks, there's a couple of marines I used to know who've completely fucking ghosted me since then, mate. Honest to God. I'm like, the timing's going so this is going on a bit weird. Be precious about it, but um no, it's good, mate. And the rivalry is good, mate. The battle is good. So um thank you again and good luck. Appreciate it. Thank you and uh good luck for the rest of the year. That's it. If you enjoyed 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 Heychhour 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.