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The Allotment Veteran: Afghanistan, PTSD & Life After the British Army | What’s Your Story? · Whats Your Story With Richy Thrower

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Andy.
0:00
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: Allotment veteran.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: Do I say that right?
0:03
SPEAKER_01: Allotment veteran.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Allotment veteran.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: How are you, brother?
0:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Aye.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm pleased to be here.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: God, mate.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Nice one for coming down.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: We've just done a podcast for the fucking podcast.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Literally.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Literally.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: But mate, no, nice one for coming down.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: Really, really appreciate you coming down.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: And um and we've had a proper good chat then about loads of different things and put the world to rights a little bit.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: But um, but mate, let's go all the way back to the start then.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: Um obviously you served with a couple of different regiments, but what was what was the first one you went?
0:32
SPEAKER_03: So I joined 2007.
0:35
SPEAKER_03: Um I went to 2nd Battalion, Foyer Regiment in the Fuseliers.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: It was my dad's regiment before uh he left in 2003.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: I joined 2007.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: So he still had links to it, and um people knew who I was when I joined.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I went went through training.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: Went through training, that was an experience.
0:59
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, uh I wanted to join when I was younger, when I was about 16, but my dad was like, well, try something first and see if like see if that works first, yeah.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: Like try someone else before you just commit to that.
1:13
SPEAKER_03: So then I joined it um I think it was just before my 18th or just after.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: Um and yeah, training, it was fucking hell, it was an experience like different life in it.
1:26
SPEAKER_03: Getting thrashed, but I knew nothing else.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: So it was one of them where I see people now and they're they're saying like how can I put it?
1:38
SPEAKER_03: So people going for a training now, they're basically just I've lost my training for.
1:47
SPEAKER_03: So the people that are going for a training now, when I went, uh knew I was gonna go to Afghan straight after.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: So I was locked in.
1:57
SPEAKER_03: Whereas people are going for a training now, they're looking elsewhere, they're like, oh well, I should go and do something.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: You don't really know where you're going, do you?
2:06
SPEAKER_03: No, you're not going to be like.
2:06
SPEAKER_03: Like, there's no like active like what are you gonna be doing now?
2:10
SPEAKER_03: And I get a lot of questions asking, like, what do you think's gonna happen?
2:15
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, I think it'll just be regimental life.
2:18
SPEAKER_03: Like, I've still got links to all the regiments because if I was still in now, um I would have been getting out in 2030, that would have been my full time, so that would have been my 22.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: So obviously my peers, they're like sort majors now, and I still meet up with them in that, but I've only started meeting up with them recently due to like getting MD'd, going through a fucking massive depression to the point where I was just like, fuck this.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: Um and then I've built myself back up with help from my family, uh, my wife, the kids.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: I've fucking been through all that alcohol shit, knocked alcohol on the head for 14 months now.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: Go on, something like that.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: Go on.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: But so training, right, yeah, that was fine.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: I then um got sent to Houndslaw, uh, done a bit there.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: I went to Canada, that was my first um exercise I went on.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: So it was literally straight there, and sh we got attached to two Yorkes, there was two sections of us.
3:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we went over to two York's um in the Warriors, and that was that was an experience because I'd never fucking really been in a tank.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: So we were armoured anyway.
3:43
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, we were light roll.
3:44
SPEAKER_03: Right.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: But they just wanted um The experience you're doing it, like some well, a couple of people I think that were short blokes.
3:51
SPEAKER_03: Uh so he went over there, uh, and then when I got back because I'd done well, I got appointed section to IC, and I got recommended well, I got asked if I wanted to do an NCO card, and that was all within four months.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: So I then went to Brecon, done NCO card, passed that.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: That genius?
4:18
SPEAKER_03: No, no, for your landscape.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: So I done that then it was it was a fucking brutal course, right?
4:28
SPEAKER_03: Because um it's eight weeks.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: I think it was eight weeks in Brecon, and the weather was fucking horrify it was it was minus 18.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: Lads were um putting tea lights in their boots to dry them out, and me and me and a lad uh shared a DOS bag because it was that cold.
4:50
SPEAKER_03: Um but who was running it, I'm not gonna say his name, but the sount major of it, people who have done the Queenslive, of course, will know who it is.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: Um so two two got brought in off the ground, seniors got brought in off the ground, juniors got brought in off the ground, and we were still out.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: He kept us out, we weren't performed for freezing, and then he got a massive bollocking by whoever runs the training area.
5:19
SPEAKER_03: The training area, and then we finally got brought in.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: It was absolutely howling, and then so we'd done that, and then two weeks after, I had a week off, then a week in camp, and then deployed to Afghan.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: So I've gone from minus 18 to fucking plus 50.
5:40
SPEAKER_03: Honestly, my fucking toes just thawed out as soon as I got there, done RSOI.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: So that was 2009.
5:48
SPEAKER_03: Um, when I got back from Brecon, obviously, because I was new, I'd literally got the battalion, went to Canada, come back, went on an NCO card, and then went to Afghan.
6:04
SPEAKER_03: So not many people knew who it was because I was away all that time.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: Then I've come back, got put in C Company, we were A Company Group, but we were in Sangin, Fobnole.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I got promoted, I think, a month into the tour to Landstrack.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: So I was still fucking brand new.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And you just been put to your eyes.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: I got there in I think it was the October, and then by the March, April, May time, I was a Landstrack on tour.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: That's wild, eh?
6:39
SPEAKER_03: And the only fucking thing that I'd experienced was an exercise in I think it was Canada, I it was Canada.
6:46
SPEAKER_03: I had some responsibility in it.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was rapidly.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: In singing as well, in all places, yeah.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: And then when we were there, um so I got promoted, and then we got tasked with establishing a PB, PB hand jar, and it was deep in the green zone, and it was fucking brutal.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: Um because you could just hear things, so we hadn't built up any sanghouse or anything.
7:10
SPEAKER_03: Um two platoon had gone in, cleared it, made sure there was nothing there.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: They went back, we then took over, but it was just a section of us, so I'd um I'm not gonna say names, but anyway, um such and such was the section commander, and I was a two IC, but all of our blokes were Wrecky.
7:31
SPEAKER_03: I was fucking brand new, and these were like Wrecky Patoon, fuck it hell.
7:35
SPEAKER_03: So we were there, and then we started finding um IEDs after it had been cleared.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: You're joking.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: What inside the compound?
7:44
SPEAKER_03: What were you doing?
7:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, inside the compound.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
7:46
SPEAKER_03: So the worst one I think we found was uh it was a pressure plate, and it was at the bottom of the steps where we were going on to stag, but it was one of the A, because it was just uh eight of us, I think it was, and then uh Afghan National Army.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: So then one of them had said there's an IED there, and one of the people had told us, then we fucking buzzed it, it was pressure plate, but the battery had corroded.
8:15
SPEAKER_03: Fuck off.
8:16
SPEAKER_03: So the amount of times the lads had been going up and down, wow, the battery had fucking corroded.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: That is insane.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: And then so we found that one, then there was uh another one in the bush next to the canal, and then when we finally got the engineers down to start moving stuff, and um we were filling sandbag stuff right here.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: So they brought forks down, and we were doing, I think it was two on, three off on stag, and it was a lick out.
8:48
SPEAKER_03: So through the day, we were right on the canal.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: So we'll come off stag, like strip, short, go on the river, cool off, then go chill.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: So I'd just come off stag, walking down the steps, engineer, I've then dumped all my kit, I went fucking hell's boiling.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: So I've then followed the forks through this entranceway, a massive like arch.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: It's I'd say about five metres, something like that.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm walking behind this uh forklift truck, boom, fucking he's only gone over an ID.
9:24
SPEAKER_03: I've got blown backwards.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: All this shit has come like behind us.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: The lads are coming running out, it's you alright, you're alright.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yeah, yeah, he's in there, he's in there, the engineer's in there.
9:37
SPEAKER_03: The dust had then settled, and then the engineer was just shook up like it was a massive one, but the folks took all the blasts.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:46
SPEAKER_03: And he was alright, but he was in shock, he was just walking around like lost in that.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: And then once it had settled, like I had a look, I just had like fucking grip marks and shit like that.
9:57
SPEAKER_03: But at the back of the compound, about 20 metres back, there was chunks of shrapnel still smoking like that.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: So I'd only had my fucking Jesus sandals on, shorts, no body armor now.
10:12
SPEAKER_03: Like massive chunks of shrapnel.
10:14
SPEAKER_03: It was still fucking that from the forks, or what was it?
10:16
SPEAKER_03: It was from the ID and from the fork left.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Fucking hell.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, what the fuck?
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Like that that was like how lucky is that the luckiest thing I can imagine.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: The engineer, he walked away, and I walked away.
10:33
SPEAKER_03: That's wild.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: But it was inside the compound.
10:36
SPEAKER_03: Do you know?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: By Recipe.
10:41
SPEAKER_03: But then, yeah, that that PB was mental.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: Um, there was uh a donkey IED, they sent a donkey walking down the canal path, it set that off.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, I've got a picture of uh one of the York's lads because we had a couple of BCRs, battlefield casual e replacements, because obviously people were getting hurt and stuff like that.
11:01
SPEAKER_03: But Hanjar was mental, and then once we had established it, we've got the sangers and that, then uh the platoon started rotating through.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: So we then got relieved from there.
11:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:13
SPEAKER_03: But then uh as soon as I got relieved from there, uh our platoon got sent on Panche's plan, Pamfa's Claw.
11:21
SPEAKER_03: And that was another fucking experience.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: So I was like, fucking hell, when's this gonna stop life?
11:27
SPEAKER_03: So we got the brief about Panfaz Claw.
11:31
SPEAKER_03: Um, they were saying it was one of them where it was like, right, lads, not all of you are gonna come back.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: Um, you just need to like ring your families before you go, don't tell them what you're doing, this, that, and other because this is gonna be bad.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Shit's gonna be bad.
11:48
SPEAKER_03: Um then the rumour went round that people were already putting tourniquets on their legs and arms.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: So when they were patrolling, if something happened, it was already there to tighten, and we were just like, What?
11:59
SPEAKER_03: They're actually doing that.
12:01
SPEAKER_03: So we're we're there thinking, right, well, I'm gonna fucking die, yeah.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: So imagine doing that like at that age, like I was 18 when I first got I was I was I would have been 20.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Like you imagine the Lance Track, imagine like telling people that now, you know, like like and it's madness in it, and you at the time you think, yeah, that's normal, but you know, like looking back now, like how disturbing is that in your head to think a tourniquet on my leg just in case it's and it's probably gonna happen.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: But let me put a tourniquet on my legs and my arms before I go out to save time when I get my legs blown out.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: You're like mentally preparing yourself to go out on stuff like that.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: I when I come out from Afghan, mate, I was so paranoid of my feet.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I had this thing where I didn't I didn't walk around anywhere.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd stay because you you know you go to Bastion and you got all like you know, your climatised days or whatever, and and you get all your briefs and that in the all and stuff, and and they just constantly batter you with, yeah.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: There's IEDs basically everywhere you're gonna step.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: So I like had this thing where I didn't want to fucking walk any, like even when I come home and I was I had this thing where I didn't want to I moved around the least amount possible, like because it's still in your head and it's drilled into you that much, like and you know, trying to explain people's like I'm scared of my or scared of IDs or scared of putting my foot there or like I wouldn't walk on the grass, I'd only walk on concrete and like stuff like that, yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: And like people, you know, you explain that to someone, they're like, You're fucking mad.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Yeah, but you've been fucking brainwashed to death of people saying to you, if you step on you know that bit of disturbed ground or something like that, your fucking legs going up.
13:38
SPEAKER_03: That's it, yeah.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: And it's NDX, and it's like doing that at such young age, like you like we were saying before about you know younger people now.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: You look at like you know, 18-year-olds and stuff like that.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh, younger than 20 looks it's like a child looking.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: You are a child, like you are then.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: You've got all this kit on, you're carrying your fucking ECM, and then you're trying to fucking have a firefight with someone in Jesus sandals and a fucking AK.
14:03
SPEAKER_03: That's all and we're fucking running after them trying to get through compounds, all this kit on, and they're just fucking off the fuck.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Mate, I DCM blue and an LMJ, it was shit.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: It was fucking wank.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Brutal.
14:18
SPEAKER_03: Get about that foot in Pan Fans Claw.
14:21
SPEAKER_03: So we flew out, Operation No Legs, fucking everyone flapping.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: We landed, um, and the I think it was the light dragoons were there with the scimiters.
14:31
SPEAKER_03: But we then got off, went into a compound as a platoon, we're all fucking getting sort, getting some scuff on and that.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: Next thing we know, motors are coming in, the scimiters are firing, it was like it was mental.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: It was starting to get dark as well, and it just went on all night, like bombs dropping everywhere.
14:51
SPEAKER_03: Next morning, for the next week or so, absolutely nothing.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: We're just patrolling, pushing forward, but they hadn't hadn't apparently uh pushed so far in I don't know, from the start of it, I don't know how long it was.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: Um, but as soon as we got there, we were just pushing case and case and c's, and the only contacts we really had was with dogs.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:19
SPEAKER_03: And one of the lads he kicked a compound door in because we were reading the compounds as we go, but there was a hornet's nest there.
15:25
SPEAKER_03: Oh fuck off.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: But we were literally living off the ground because we weren't getting resupplied.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: Because they couldn't they couldn't resupply us for some reason.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: I don't think there was enough Cinox.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Um But they even that we had it a lot where they wouldn't fucking land in a lot of places because of all the IDs.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: They were dropping fresh ECM batteries off, but not taking the old ones.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: So even having to carry them around until the point where we kind of got rid of them in so many so many words.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, we're eating drinking out the wells, because that's only water we could get.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: So we're pumping these wells into into bottles, and then a couple of lads had like them clear ones, them big ones now, the ones with the big lids.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: Pumping it, so we all drink now our black issue water bottles, like standard, the TS ranking anyway.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: And then we look at his clear one, and there's little worms and all sorts, and we're like all that we're doing is dropping pure tabs in.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: And then we're drinking that for I think it was a couple of weeks.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: Horrible, we're just gonna die.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: Mad Wells, then getting berries, watermelons off the farmers.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: It was crazy because we're literally in the middle of nowhere.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: We found like loads of gunk caches and that, but other than that, I don't think we had a contact.
16:48
SPEAKER_03: That's insane, isn't it?
16:50
SPEAKER_03: But uh that night when we first got there, after being told, right, not all years are coming back, this, that another, and then just lying there, and you can just hear all these fucking mortars, all the I don't know, whatever they are, 30 mil cannons firing and that, and you're just like, we are in the shit here.
17:08
SPEAKER_03: Like we're in the thick of it.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: But now it was mad.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: One thing that did happen though, so we're in a in a compound, and uh we had a bang on the metal door.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: I was like, yeah, who's that?
17:23
SPEAKER_03: Because someone was on stag, and then they were like, oh, let us say we're British soldiers, like we're just dressed in like um walking trousers and that or come in and then they said, Oh, who are you?
17:38
SPEAKER_03: And then one of the lads has went SF.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Oh, so are we?
17:43
SPEAKER_03: And then he was like, What?
17:47
SPEAKER_03: Is it your fusilias?
17:49
SPEAKER_03: Then he went, No, we're two two.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: And we're like, What?
17:52
SPEAKER_03: Because one of the lads had said SF the second fusilias, and then so they had come in, they had a chat with us and that, but we were ball mine everywhere.
18:02
SPEAKER_03: It was just them two that just turned up in the middle of nowhere.
18:06
SPEAKER_03: Dead random, like we were like, what the fuck?
18:08
SPEAKER_03: They were piss wet through because instead of like look, well, obviously, all our eds are on the roads and gone through the canal, they were going through the fucking canals.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: I was like, What the fuck?
18:18
SPEAKER_03: Just sat there just listening to them and what they were doing.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: I was like, you're Ali as fuck.
18:24
SPEAKER_03: Like, I want to be you.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: Uh they just well, when you see them in the cookhouse queue and that, you're just like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: There's the boys beard, beard, beard, beard.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: I know your game looked back.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Ali as fuck.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Mate, so I've got uh one of one of my mates, um, he's X22, and it's funny because where he's got a business now, and and he's um where you go to his office, he's got um you know the velcro patches used to have, yeah, he had one in his osprey and it said Alina saves lives.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he swears that and he's still now he was like Alina saves lives.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: If you look you're gonna be good, yeah, literally.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: But it's normally wait, I found I always found that it's the lads that have scruffy, yeah, shit had been in camp, are the best fucking soldiers.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Because they're running around like a lunatic.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not I'm not gonna look presentable, but I'm gonna be shit out of what I do.
19:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because when I was well, so then Afghan, yeah, that's how I'm gonna talk about about that, but yeah, it was naughty tour, naughty tour.
19:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:30
SPEAKER_03: So then I got back and then uh went on juniors.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: So done juniors, and then I promoted straight after that.
19:39
SPEAKER_03: So that was I'd been in what 2008, got a battalion, so three years.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: Three years, and I was on juniors, got promoted straight away.
19:49
SPEAKER_03: Then I ended up um going back and instructing on the NCO card, on NCO card number three, and I'd on the first one, which was my I was on the first one, and now I'm instructing on that one.
20:03
SPEAKER_03: Um decent that, isn't it?
20:04
SPEAKER_03: It was class, I love Brecken Me.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: So then not when it's 18.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Love it as a civvy, but yeah, so then I'd done done juniors and then um went to battalion for a bit, went like done the normal Kenya Canada uh child, then I got posted at ITC.
20:25
SPEAKER_03: Um I believe, but some people have said that um there's others, but I was one of the youngest instructors at infantry training centre, Catrick.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: And even when because I used to smoke back then as well, I'd be in my civvies in the smoking area, and other screws and sergeants would go, Oi, you dickhead, why aren't you bracing up?
20:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, because I fucking work you out, the screw because the thought the thought I was.
20:55
SPEAKER_03: 23, 22, 23, and yeah, then I ended up the uh my first course was uh Anzio course, so it was the lads from Harrogate, yeah.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: They were coming through.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Was that over at Vimy?
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: But fucking hell, they were shocking.
21:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, retrain everything.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what they were doing at Harrogate, but we're doing um an inspection, right?
21:18
SPEAKER_03: Now in like your morning routine on exercise.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: I looked over and I was like, why has he got his fucking top off?
21:25
SPEAKER_03: What's he doing here?
21:27
SPEAKER_03: Walk over, fucking shaving his armpits.
21:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, what are you doing?
21:32
SPEAKER_03: You went, This is what we got taught, hygiene, we've got to shave our armpits.
21:35
SPEAKER_03: Oh, and you're fucking kidding me.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck?
21:39
SPEAKER_03: And then we had a lad, you know, the muesli that you get in the ration plant.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: So he's boiling his fucking water on the mess tin, and then he puts his pack of muesli in, takes it out, starts eating it, eating the dust, because you're meant to pour the fucking water into it, aren't you?
21:56
SPEAKER_03: But he's just warmed the oats up and he's just eating dry or more.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck are you doing?
22:04
SPEAKER_03: It's just like blown away.
22:06
SPEAKER_03: You were eating warm out.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: You pour the fucking water in.
22:11
SPEAKER_03: I was just like, oh my god.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: That's wild.
22:14
SPEAKER_03: Like then um there were a few of them were going straight to Afghan after that as well.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: Because the 18.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: So I so I did junior entry, so I went Winchester for six months.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: I think Arogate was a year.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So they they timed it so that we finished at the same time as Aragor and then went to catcher it for phase two at the same time as them.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: And that was the same as ours.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Like we were we were getting back, and I think there was like a six-month gap, and then I went to Afghan.
22:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Um because that you knew what you were doing.
22:44
SPEAKER_03: You knew like you it was all over the news, it was all over the telly, like Afghan this, Afghan that.
22:51
SPEAKER_03: And then it kind of stopped, didn't it?
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, I so this will make me laugh, right?
22:56
SPEAKER_01: So I flew to Afghan on my 18th birthday, and the trooper flight from what's it called?
23:03
SPEAKER_01: I think we went to Cyprus and then to Afghan.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
23:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I went because I was eight, I was I'd turned 18 on that day.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: So I flew to Afghan at say, I think the flight was at like, or we flew to Cyprus like two o'clock in the morning or something like that from camp.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Um and I wasn't technically 18.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: So I spoke to my dad after, and it's a bit of a funny joke now.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't, I wasn't actually born until like five o'clock in the afternoon on that day.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: So technically, you were still under I went to Afghan when I was 17.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: The only one to do it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: And it it's mad now when you when you look back and you think, fucking how that's mental like when you're actually like how I was fresh.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm fucking young.
23:46
SPEAKER_03: Like even on R and R, I I come back in desert, Birmingham Airport.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: I went to buy a pack of tabs, so we're like, You got ID.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: Are you fucking mad?
23:58
SPEAKER_03: Still need ID?
24:00
SPEAKER_03: I was tanning the fuck because we're used we're using rifle oil to fucking tan.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: Now like you're fucking panic tanning.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh no, every line on the roof fucking full of rifle oil.
24:10
SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: But now it was fucking mental.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: That's crazy, innit?
24:14
SPEAKER_03: It's it's it's fucked.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: So then I then I ended up at ITC, but during the time I was there, as my time there was finishing, after two years was finishing, uh 2RF got um was getting disbanded, which is that was a fucking wrong decision.
24:33
SPEAKER_03: Massively.
24:34
SPEAKER_03: So where were you based?
24:35
SPEAKER_03: Whereabouts in the UK were you based?
24:36
SPEAKER_03: So Houndslaw, then we went to Germany, Sella.
24:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then I went back to ITC Cat Rick, and then um so when I was at ITC Catrick, fucking brilliant.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: Because I'd done the Anzio course, I'd then done another two courses.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: Two IF was getting disbanded, so I just stayed on for another year.
24:59
SPEAKER_03: But during that year, I ended up going to Dubai to train the UAE.
25:03
SPEAKER_03: That's class.
25:03
SPEAKER_03: I ended up going to Belize, stayed there for 11 weeks.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: That I want to go back, but it's too expensive to fucking get there.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: But honestly, it like we're done um part of the J Wick course, which was fucking brilliant because uh we had the I can't remember his name, but he was a Belizean, but he he was the one that was training SF on like the tracking.
25:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
25:28
SPEAKER_03: And uh just the amount of knowledge that he had and how to survive in the jungle was just mental.
25:35
SPEAKER_03: And literally, we had hammocks, luckily, but we were trained, we were running a course for the Belizean Defence Force.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: So we had anyway, so we had then got into a harbour area from the camp, and they normally do it, so they were like making their own beds and stuff like that.
25:57
SPEAKER_03: I w I was then in my hammock, it was night time, and I could hear the floor moving, and it was like boof, boof, but I was like, what the fuck is that?
26:06
SPEAKER_03: Like I was saying, like they're quite, what the fuck is that?
26:09
SPEAKER_03: I'd never been to the fucking juggle before.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Everything wants to kill you.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
26:13
SPEAKER_03: What and then I started going, yeah, anyone hear that?
26:16
SPEAKER_03: And then you can just hear the BDF, the Belize lads just giggling and that.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck is it?
26:22
SPEAKER_03: It sounds massive.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: He's going, it's a possum corporal.
26:26
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck's a possum little thing like that, but because it's fucking silent under the canopy, like everything fucking moves.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: Like you've got your your boots on sticks, so the spiders don't go in, those tranchers, it was fucking mental.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: And then we're training them.
26:45
SPEAKER_03: Well, we're running an NTO card for them so they can promote.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: And I've never been in the fucking jungle.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm learning as I'm going.
26:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm learning as I'm going.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: Like navigating in the jungle as well.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: You've got to like you trust your bearing, but then you hit a fucking summit that you kind of get through, you then gotta take five paces that way, go forward, five paces back.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: It was just effort to get anywhere.
27:08
SPEAKER_03: That's crazy, it was disgusting.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: You're always wet, the humidity, but I loved it.
27:13
SPEAKER_03: I loved every second of it.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: And the BDF are some boys, they are hard as fucking nails.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: So one of my sections, because they could go home in a night time because some of them live local, yeah.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: Half six in the morning.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: Fuck living round there.
27:29
SPEAKER_03: Half six in the morning, right?
27:30
SPEAKER_03: They were all on parade.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: A lad, um I'm gonna call him D.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: Um, he was stood there and he was like, I feel a bit dizzy, Corporal.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: I was like, Why, what's up?
27:42
SPEAKER_03: He went, took his hat off, had a gash down there.
27:46
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck happened to you?
27:48
SPEAKER_03: He went, Oh, um, he had some drama with his sister's ex or something like that.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: Hit him on the head with a fucking axe, and on the side he had a muscle thing there.
27:57
SPEAKER_03: I was like, what the fuck?
27:59
SPEAKER_03: I was like, yeah, get to the med centre.
28:00
SPEAKER_03: He went, there is no med centre.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: I went, well, get to a fucking medic fight somewhere.
28:05
SPEAKER_03: I was like, fuck it.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: He was ready to go on the run if he wow, like like they're just so fucking committed.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: Like nothing will stop them.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Have you said have you heard about the story about when when T2 first came about and they asked the first time Gurkhas were introduced to SF, and they said they they got, I think it was like a hundred blokes or so.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: I might I may be wrong, so don't quote me on this, but um they got say a hundred blokes, a hundred gurkers to say, right, you know, this is special forces.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: We're asking, you know, you lads who would, you know, jump out of a plane.
28:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: And like, I think I'm sure it was like 70 lads or something like that, went, Yeah, yeah, go on, we will.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: So they took them over to the airfield, said, like, right, this is your introduction to what's it called?
28:47
SPEAKER_01: So they took them over to the airfield and he starts sending out parachutes and all these girkers going, what's that?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Well, the parachute went, oh right, we didn't know we had a parachute.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: And they were just gonna jump.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: The lads were just gonna fucking jump.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: And I went like, try and find the video.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And he one of it's one of the two two lads explaining it when it first sort of came in, and he's asked them, and they're like, they are fucking hard as nails.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: They were just three quarters of them were just gonna jump out of a plane and just fuck it, like not knowing the mental, but everyone says that how diligent this, that, this, that, this.
29:16
SPEAKER_03: I found on juniors especially doing a fucking model pit, they are jack as fuck.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: Are they?
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like brought up by Jack.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, you never worked with them, never once.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Never.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: I the only time I ever seen a Gurkha was a Catrick.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because we were at Vinny and then we were still loving that now.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: So I don't I live quite close to Catrick now.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: And when I go to Darlington, you still see the Gurkhas all in their like shirts, you're always dead smart, weren't they?
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Frenchy tracksuits, yeah, grey trousers, shoes, they just look fucking mint and they're so polite, and it's like a privilege to them to be here and they're respecting.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: They see in a total different way, like we would, you know, religiously, a lot of people join the army now in the UK because it's either shit at home or they're facing jail, or it's very rarely now you find somebody who wants to join the forces because they want to join the forces.
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Because the eras are gone where you were joining to fucking deploy.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Whereas they do their own selection to get to the army, don't they?
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Like uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: Before they've even got there.
30:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:19
SPEAKER_03: And they've they've whittle them down and then the good ones come to cat rig.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: But they are diligent and they're fucking really good.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine what that selection's like that they do.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: But the thing on the head in that, don't they?
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Brutal.
30:31
SPEAKER_03: I wait on the head and then I go up the mountain in that.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: I've got a lot of respect for Gurkhas, but them two that I was on juniors with were jackers fucked.
30:40
SPEAKER_03: No beds.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: So what's right, what was what was what would you say the favourite thing is that you like, you know, whether you miss it now or just genuinely like when you're in, what do you what'd you miss the most?
30:53
SPEAKER_03: It's gotta be what everyone says it's blokes, in it.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:56
SPEAKER_03: It is having a crack.
30:57
SPEAKER_03: Because as soon as well, so after then, whole life story again, um, and then after ITC, I then jump ship and I went light screens because I was close family in Catarick.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: So jump ship.
31:13
SPEAKER_03: Um within a year, I'd been in an accident which resulted in his having four shattered discs.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: Um that's all I'm gonna say on that.
31:22
SPEAKER_03: Then um I had a fight, fight and fighting fight, it's um to people get support.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: And then uh finally got medically discharged on November the 5th, 2020.
31:38
SPEAKER_03: So all the fireworks that went off on bonfire night were for me.
31:42
SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm saying.
31:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:44
SPEAKER_03: But from then, I I didn't know where I was.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: I was in between surgeries, I was fucking in rag, depressed.
31:55
SPEAKER_03: Got to a point where I was just fucking like because you go from all the blokes, don't you?
32:00
SPEAKER_03: You've always got people around you.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: And then I'm at home.
32:04
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, people always say, Oh, well, no one's reached out, but you've got to understand that they're still doing the job that you were doing, they're still flat out, like the wood if they could.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, do you know what I mean?
32:16
SPEAKER_03: But obviously, work gets in the way, tasks get in the way, and then after a while you do get forgotten about, yeah.
32:22
SPEAKER_03: And you only really see people at funerals and reunions, yeah, yeah.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people don't like to go to reunions because they've had chew with someone that and it's just shit but so yeah, it is the blokes that I miss the most, but and I think there's a lot of like I and like still now, I really really struggle trusting people, yeah.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: And I've been like that since I left, whether it's because you've been shafted by this, that, and the other, or I think you know, you come out and you're just let down so many times by different individuals.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: But you also hear about people getting let down as well, and that sticks in your mind, don't it?
33:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: And like, and and so I'm so guarded because I always think, you know, maybe someone hasn't got good intentions or can't trust or it's not gonna end well, or you know, whatever it may be.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: But like anyone X4, it doesn't matter what regiment or anything like that.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Like you've rocked up here today and we fucking put the world to rights for two hours before we've done this, you know.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Like you've got that connection straight away that you can just speak to people.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't do that without, you know, not slagging off our fucking series, but you can't do that with normal people, like you physically can't, like it's a total different thing.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: That's why you say well, I went through I'd say four years of hell.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: Um knocked the drink on the head, tried to get my head right.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: The past I'd say eight months has been me.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: Like that's me back from fucking God knows how long.
33:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:59
SPEAKER_03: But what also helped me was the TikTok because I'm talking to people, I am like having a laugh and a joke and that, but a lot of it is meaningful stuff, and people can relate to it, and then more people jump in the bandwagon, and that has been like because I can't run anymore, that was my release, and now I've found that TikTok gives us that sense of that belonging almost.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I'd probably say uh go as far as say that.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: But you like you like you're helping other people as well, but people are reaching out, like there's um people that are aspiring to join the army.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: Like, when I joined, I didn't know that there was other regiments and this, that, and the other.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, I was because we're at into the recruitment office and he was like, that's the only regiment you can join.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, literally, you failed the bar test, yeah.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: But like there is options there, you can do other things, whereas I didn't know that I thought just infantry, infantry, infantry.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: But it took us a lot of time because I was a flat out in your whole career.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: Um, but it took us a lot of time to understand that there is other things that you can do.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: And looking back, I'd probably do the same thing, but I'd look at doing something else.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: If you know what I mean.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I initially wanted to go in as a as a VM, as a vehicle mechanic, like 3D engineers, but because I didn't get the grades at school, because I completely flunked school, I wasn't allowed.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: So they just it it was funny, and then this was in the career's office in crew.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: So I went in and I was like, I want to be a vehicle mechanic, I love cars, this, that, and the other.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, did the barb test and that, give them fucking what I did in school, and he was like, You can't do you can't go anything.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: That's a load of shit in it.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: Mad.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: That's a load of shit.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: I could be a good one.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Because you feel a fucking because I hated school because I didn't want to fucking sit still.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: But like, like that, and then I remember I've never remembered this like it was yesterday.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: So the bloke was like, Right, you can go infantry, I'm in the Mercy Regiment, you can either do that or you can go RLC as you know, whatever you want to do.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: And he and I and I said to him, I was like, What does our what's RLC?
36:09
SPEAKER_01: And he went, It's fucking retards last chance, and you're not going there.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: It was like, all right, sounds I'll just go there then.
36:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's mental, innit?
36:17
SPEAKER_03: But you could be the best of fucking I don't know, make your bridges, yeah, but because you haven't got the qualifications, it's a it's a it's a load of shit.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy, innit?
36:28
SPEAKER_03: And then you've got all these people.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: Well, I know a lad who is like a jack of all trades, he's an infantry, he could go so much further like if he was in a different trade, yeah.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: Like he's brilliant at everything, like carpenter, fucking mechanic, everything.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Just a proper randy lad.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: He's just sat in MT.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Mental, isn't it?
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Just a write-off.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: It is, it is.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: So I like I say it's took us years to get where I am, and TikTok has has helped.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: Um I still suffer with my back.
37:05
SPEAKER_03: Still suffer with my back.
37:06
SPEAKER_03: Um I was meant to go in for uh spinal fusion, but it was they took me temperature on the anesthesia table thing, yeah, and I was 0.2 too high.
37:22
SPEAKER_03: I think it was just because I was fucking shit myself.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: Like they're gonna fuse my fucking spine.
37:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I'm there like overheating, and they're like, oh no, you're fucking 0.2 over, so we can't operate.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: So I took that as a sign and I thought if they're gonna fuse my spine, that's permanently gonna limit your mobility.
37:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: Um so I said to Mrs.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: I went, nah, I'm I'm just gonna sack it like I'm gonna go um to like civic physio.
37:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna like get myself back, I'm gonna get in the gym, I'm gonna do my fucking body weight exercises.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: But I've been told that it um it's uh degenerative and it's deteriorating.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: So it I got told in 2019 by two different um neurosurgeons that I will be in a wheelchair by 2022 permanently and I've smashed that, but I I don't know how.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: How bad is your back?
38:23
SPEAKER_01: Like how like you say, is that I take it that's why you're not running anymore because of that.
38:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, well I can't because if they've I've had three surgeries, um they've done dyskectomies, they've burnt the nerve endings, um, they took pieces away because it was all touching the spinal cord.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: That's what initially done it.
38:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like it from my waist down, I can feel my fucking legs when it first happened.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: Um so emergency surgery, decompressed it off that.
38:49
SPEAKER_03: Um but I've just been taking over.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: That's where the allotment comes in.
38:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:54
SPEAKER_03: And the TikTok, because the allotment is mine and my family's safe space.
38:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: It's where I know that I can sit down and they can be safe.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I've just been taking over doing that.
39:07
SPEAKER_03: I've got a couple of lads that come and help us uh because I kind of lift heavy stuff.
39:11
SPEAKER_03: And I just do it like every other day.
39:13
SPEAKER_03: I'll go up every day to feed the ducks, and that's like my sanctuary.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: That's your reset, that's your that's your like you say, your space.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: It is, but obviously, lads come up and that, and then uh there's been a few people reaching out and ticked up, Oh, can I come up?
39:26
SPEAKER_03: That looks really good.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, Yeah, of course you can, mate.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: As long as you're fucking help us put this fence up and then you can lift the panels.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really good.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: And talking about reset, so I went to Veterans Camp Bath last weekend for the vet fest.
39:43
SPEAKER_03: Um I went there and it's owned by um a blow called Dion, X Power, and his missus, Joe.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: And it is just um unbelievable.
39:55
SPEAKER_03: Like they haven't asked us to promote or anything.
39:58
SPEAKER_03: I'll only talk about stuff that I'm passionate about.
40:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
40:03
SPEAKER_03: Like so what they do is it's self-funded, um, but they've got a campsite and glamper pods on the side.
40:12
SPEAKER_03: Um but it's if a veteran's struggling, they can reach out to them, they'll pay for a train ticket down, and they'll put them in the bunkhouse because there's bunk beds and stuff like that, and it's just it's just such a calm and peaceful, and it's beautiful.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely it looked amazing.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I seen your clip on TikTok about it.
40:32
SPEAKER_03: Unbelievable.
40:33
SPEAKER_03: And the lad Will who uh manages it, absolutely brilliant, Civy.
40:38
SPEAKER_03: Um, and you don't see many Civvies putting all that effort and energy into and why is why why do you think that has he got someone like family or something like that?
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Or is he just I don't know.
40:50
SPEAKER_03: I think he's just wants to be a little bit more than a little bit.
40:52
SPEAKER_03: I never really asked him.
40:53
SPEAKER_03: I never really asked him.
40:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:55
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, he he's in there in a caravan, but then um there was a lad living in the bunkhouse, and she's um Joe, the owner, this is what I got told, has gone to the lad who's in the bunkhouse and she went, right, it's time for you to go home.
41:10
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, What?
41:11
SPEAKER_03: It's time for you to go home.
41:13
SPEAKER_03: He's like, Oh, okay, I'll get me stuff.
41:16
SPEAKER_03: And then I just come out and right, go home then.
41:19
SPEAKER_03: Pointed.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: She'd only bought my caravan.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: No way.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's incredible, isn't it?
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Lived there since I think that's a good thing.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, that's priceless, isn't it?
41:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:29
SPEAKER_03: It's not the not a brand new one, do you know what I mean?
41:31
SPEAKER_03: But it's his position.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: Someone, yeah, yeah.
41:35
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
41:36
SPEAKER_03: I just thought it was amazing, and they're just so nice.
41:39
SPEAKER_03: And that's incredible.
41:40
SPEAKER_03: The the make there's someone that'll um manage the food, they'll make the food on the night time, all the veterans, and all that's amazing.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: It was a lad just come down for a bit of respite.
41:53
SPEAKER_03: So he just he was having dramas at home, so he just come down and he just put his tent up and then that's class.
42:00
SPEAKER_03: Put it away from everyone else, and then if he wants to engage with people, he'll go to the centre, yeah, talk to people, and then he'll go back to his tent if he's had enough.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: And like what we were saying before, like, it doesn't take like religiously, they go, Oh, chuck more money at this, chuck more money at that.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: It's not the money that's the problem, it's the people like if it's these huge amounts of money went to nice people like that who care, who genuinely care, and they're not in it for a business, they just want to do something nice with people.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: They've gone out the way to buy a caravan for that person out their own money.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: With money, they could do incredible things, and I've never understood why these, you know, a lot of people who are giving out this money, why they're not looking at people like is it a thing of, well nobody knows about it?
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Is it a thing of or is it a competition?
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Is it a competition?
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you know what I mean?
42:55
SPEAKER_01: It it it's so hard to nail down the exact um sort of reason for it.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Because I think I completely believe that between a hundred good people, you could literally figure out everybody's problems.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Like you really could, and the money that's been passed around for this amount of years, you know, people are still cashing in off Afghan, and it's like what the f and I think this is why I I I genuinely think well, without saying any names, a lot of the bigger charities cashed in through Afghan, did a few things, and now because there's been no other conflict and nobody else to sort out as such, people only still see them as the main ones.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: Where you know, you look at Afghan heroes.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Can you remember when you when you were in Afghan, did you get the little Afghan heroes tin?
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the little desert tin, little ammo tin with like wristband and stuff like that?
43:51
SPEAKER_01: At the time, one of the biggest charities, X Forces charities in the UK, they won because they were fleecing it.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: And they were sending out thousands and thousands of tins.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: But they went bump or what they got shut down because all the directors were fucking fleecing all the money.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: Like and that's at the highest.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: Stuff like that.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: So in Afghan we were getting uh what they call again, care packages or something like that.
44:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:14
SPEAKER_03: From churches and stuff.
44:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:15
SPEAKER_03: Were you short boxes and the shoeboxes?
44:19
SPEAKER_03: We were getting them.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: Like, why wasn't it money going to them to help them out?
44:26
SPEAKER_03: It was all like people doing it off their own back.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: Churches, schools, shit like that.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: They were getting no funding to do it.
44:34
SPEAKER_03: It was just, oh, people were doing nice.
44:37
SPEAKER_03: Go home, we're gonna send the troops a nice card and some bits.
44:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:41
SPEAKER_03: And then the parents would go out, get the bits, boom, sent off.
44:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:44
SPEAKER_03: And they're what we were receiving, nothing else.
44:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:48
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
44:49
SPEAKER_03: It really, really helped.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: But there's been a pot noodle.
44:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:53
SPEAKER_03: It was like, yes.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: But oh, yeah, there's a story.
44:57
SPEAKER_03: So uh I was waiting for my parcels.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh we nicked a dog from um one of the one of the compounds.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: Lad chucked in his day sack, took it up, took it back to the camp, took it back to the fob.
45:09
SPEAKER_03: Class.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: And we called it Robin because it we got it from Opsbox Robin.
45:13
SPEAKER_03: So that was like the camp dog, right?
45:16
SPEAKER_03: The morale.
45:17
SPEAKER_03: It it was fucking brilliant.
45:19
SPEAKER_03: So I'd do now your your sat phone, you're fucking putting all these codes in and that.
45:25
SPEAKER_03: I was like, Mam, uh, can you send us this, this, this, this, this, um, and some dog treats.
45:30
SPEAKER_03: Uh because we've adopted a dog, stole a dog.
45:34
SPEAKER_03: Um so a couple of weeks later, we yeah, right, the parcels in Bastion, they're gonna come over.
45:41
SPEAKER_03: I was like, Yes, I'm gonna get me Walkman, I'm gonna get me fucking this, that, that all that.
45:45
SPEAKER_03: Next thing you know, the oh what they call iCats or something, the the Russian delivery ones got fucking shot down, didn't it?
45:55
SPEAKER_03: You're messing.
45:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then we didn't get parcels for weeks.
46:00
SPEAKER_03: Then another one when the RR lot come, they brought the other parcels.
46:06
SPEAKER_03: I was like, yes, I'm gonna get my walkman and that opened it, it was all dog treats, and after that, I didn't receive any parcels.
46:16
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
46:17
SPEAKER_03: So the only parcels I got was the ones at the start that were like cut the pot noodles and that, and then a box full of dog treats.
46:24
SPEAKER_03: I was like, where's me fucking Walkman?
46:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: Here's another good one though, uh engineers.
46:32
SPEAKER_03: So we had five or six Sangers, and two of them were on the southern side, engineers had one, and the RLC had one, and the the HQ had gone right, Sangha five, Sangha six.
46:51
SPEAKER_03: Has anyone seen a donkey?
46:53
SPEAKER_03: They're like, huh?
46:55
SPEAKER_03: No, and then they went, so why is the one outside fucking EHQ?
46:59
SPEAKER_03: A donkey had walked into camp past the two Sanghas, and then it was fucking walking round next to the EHQ building.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: It walked through because they checked the cortex after the cameras, and it fucking walked past pregnant donkey.
47:13
SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, called it Dave who could put a desert hat on and then some of the shit like that is fucking one of the lads got done with quick clot as well.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: Now quick clot when for people that don't know, if you get I don't know, shot or blown up, the gauze, it'll it'll it's like dust powder and you pack it in, uh but it burns, it reacts with like liquid.
47:39
SPEAKER_03: So one of the lads was having a solar shower on the back, and another one of the lads has fucking quick clotted him, fucking burned all his back at everyone.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: That was fucking hilarious.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Mate, I'll never forget a funny one, right?
47:52
SPEAKER_01: So you know when you're in when when you're up in the sang and you got all the batteries up there for different bits and rolls, we had these like double A batteries, right?
47:58
SPEAKER_01: And everybody was just nobody had fucking clean up, there's no bin up there.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: So what we just had this full nuts mags and that pile, yeah, sticky pages, and um we had this like massive pile of batteries, right?
48:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just a fucking kid, and I'm I'm sat here and I'm going, I've been on stag for two hours, and the fucking other lads are ill, so I've got to stay here for another hour.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: And I've just sat there, absolutely bored out of my head, right?
48:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, fuck's sake.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: There's like half a bottle of water, so I just sit there and go, I'm gonna just take a battery apart.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: So I'm sitting there and I take these batteries apart, right?
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And I've got like three, and I'm just like, oh yeah, that's cool, taking battery apart.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: So then it's getting close to me coming off stack, so I'm going, right, I'm gonna go in a minute.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: So I got like these two batteries, and I had this open bottle of water.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm not gonna leave them out, I'll put them in this bottle of water.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: Mate, I put two batteries in the bottle of water, the fucking bottle exploded in my face.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Don't know why, because it's something to do with lithium reacting with fucking water or something like that.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: The fucking bottle literally exploded in my face, but it didn't stop there.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: So where the chair was, so you know, like the it was almost like scaffolding the metal scaffolding flooring.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: So we sat on this chair there, and I've got the steps right behind me.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: So this bottle's exploded in my face.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: I've then leant back, the chair's gone, and I've just fucking somersaulted down the stairs.
49:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they chair the sanger.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like it was like a bar stool, it was fucking, yeah, it was one of them.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: We were trying to.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: So we've just gone back, I've gone back, I've gone down these stairs, and mate Danny's it's his turn to come on stag, and I've literally just somersaulted down these stairs and fucking landed pie eyed in front of him, and I just went, It's your turn to be on stagnant.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: But like, you know, like shit like that, like you know, if that happened in a in a civvy different environment, different environment, like a civvy environment, there'd be oh then investigation, why was the batteries?
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Why is he fell off the bottom?
49:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, I watched I watched the TikTok, right?
49:51
SPEAKER_03: And it was only the other day, but it probably related to it, because it was someone saying that like if you do something bad or wrong in the army, you get fucking everyone's like, wee fucking Yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:06
SPEAKER_03: But if you do that in Civvy Street, it's completely different.
50:09
SPEAKER_03: No one talks about it, like, oh fucking hell, she's fucked up.
50:11
SPEAKER_03: Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:13
SPEAKER_03: Where you'd be like, ah you're fucking.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: You're fucking wanker.
50:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, literally, and it fucking you probably get a nickname from it.
50:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:20
SPEAKER_03: But in Civvy Street, it's totally different.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: Man, I got smashed, right?
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely ammo.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: I was fucking raging.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: So one of our one of the sergeant majors from um the what the company sergeant majors from the other from the other um what's it called companies, when we were on the marches after Afghan after 14, we were staying at a place called Swinaton in Stoke, right?
50:40
SPEAKER_01: And I I'd gone for a piss, and all the lads are getting ready to go on parade in the morning, right, to get the fucking buses to wherever it was going that day.
50:48
SPEAKER_01: And one of the lads drove like late, fucking hammered it through camp and just literally read like oh bop bop past everyone, right?
50:56
SPEAKER_01: So I've gone for a piss, come outside, and all the lads are like ready to fucking like everyone started getting felon.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Sergeant Major's come up to me, oh you little cunt, and I'm going, sir, what what what he went, I fucking seen you then, you fucking idiot.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: Right, what the who the fuck do you think you are?
51:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, what are you on about?
51:16
SPEAKER_04: So what are you on about?
51:18
SPEAKER_01: What are you on?
51:18
SPEAKER_01: What are you on about?
51:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't fucking go up with me, you little cunt.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: See that fucking post, get to that now.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'm fucking running.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm going, and all the lads are crying, and then I'm going, what fuck done?
51:28
SPEAKER_01: What the fuck?
51:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, has he been looking at me dick?
51:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, I've been having a pit, like, what all these things going for your head?
51:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, and all the lads are howling, mate.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: I had to run five times up to this thing, right?
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Until somebody went, it wasn't thrower, it was fucking him.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: He's driving and just like, but it was a crack going, Frower.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: It's like, sir.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: He was like, was that you driving through the camp?
51:49
SPEAKER_01: I went, no, sir.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: I just went for a piss and came out and you started ragging me.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: He was like, right, get fell in the what are you running for your fucking idiot?
51:57
SPEAKER_01: What the fuck's going on?
51:59
SPEAKER_01: And then, but I was double fuming because the lad came round the fucking court because the car park was miles away from where we were at, so he's come running up.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: So I managed gone, hurry up, you little cunt and get fell in.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, What the fuck, mate?
52:10
SPEAKER_01: Like you just hammered me to death.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: We need to go just in case we get to wrong base nigga.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, but it's it's funny shit like that.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: And like I look back now and I think that's fucking hilarious.
52:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:21
SPEAKER_02: But some of this shit, man.
52:24
unknown: Fuck.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: But I used to like say if you're getting ranked, I was I was that gobshite who like, say if you're outside the fucking block getting absolutely yammoured in fucking press-up position and that.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I fucking love this, I love this.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: Gents, this will fucking teach you, won't you go, I fucking love this, I love this, is fucking brilliant.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Shut the fuck up, yeah.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: But it'd bring everyone else's morale up, wouldn't it?
52:47
SPEAKER_01: And like you just in the shittiest situ like I look back now and you think, in the shittiest scariest situations you've ever been in, we've been laughing my head off.
52:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: And you just think now, and and then there's also part of that then, but I think you take that into into Civvy Street where like now I don't really have a bad day as such, because you think, Well, this is shit, but that that was really fucking shit.
53:21
SPEAKER_03: You've experienced the bottom, yeah, yeah, yeah.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think I think a lot of it now, almost you know, and and don't get me wrong, I don't fucking have good days every day, but like I think if you can use them experiences that you've had and actually go, well, you know, that was a shit time, but yeah, you know, Civic Street now is is easier, like do you know what I mean?
53:42
SPEAKER_01: What's a weird fit in that mean?
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: You're not back in Sangin, fucking driving thoughtless and fucking getting tracked on the death, do you know what I mean?
53:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, and I think part of like Civvy Street, if you can, you know, be around, you know, like people like me and you and and and other people who just want to see people do well and and get better.
54:01
SPEAKER_03: I think go to work, do your civvy job, but then have connects outside of that that you can actually fucking relate to and release.
54:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, do you know what I mean?
54:11
SPEAKER_03: Because 100%.
54:12
SPEAKER_03: Wait, a lot of us have got fucking hangar issues, yeah.
54:15
SPEAKER_03: Like, and we'll get pissed off at stupid things.
54:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and civvies do stupid things, yeah, and you get wound up, get wound up, don't you?
54:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you're just like, what a fucking idiot.
54:25
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, but then people are losing their jobs because they're losing their shit.
54:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
54:29
SPEAKER_03: But that is how the army was.
54:32
SPEAKER_03: That's just because you care though about doing a good job.
54:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's it, isn't it?
54:36
SPEAKER_03: That is, if you've done it wrong, you're gonna get hammered for it, so you don't do it wrong again.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like fucking if you keep doing it wrong, you're gonna get double hammered.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Literally, or you can't speak to people out, and it's like, eh.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: What are you what are you like what and I think this is where the world goes wrong, and why so many people who exforces get so out up with Civic Street is because it's a total different world, in it.
54:58
SPEAKER_03: Like we're used to everything's offensive, even swearing.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: But it's like you're used to the environment of no matter how shit it is, no matter what you're going through, no matter what your head state is, you need to get that job done 110%, and this is the time that you've got to get it done by.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: When people then go, Oh, I can't get that done, um, me fucking fish has died, and you just think, Whoa, what are you going on about?
55:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, get it fucking.
55:19
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna have to delay because something just minor.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, the wind changed direction, do you know what I mean?
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, change your fucking tire then.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: It's it it it's it is a mad old world, but like like you say, what you're doing, what I'm doing, we're just it we're not trying to no one's trying to reinvent the wheel.
55:39
SPEAKER_03: It's just I'm using it as very simple, yeah, and to relate to people and like get more people on TikTok, talk about the experiences because there's that much history and the people that have left.
55:54
SPEAKER_03: I and I never get the lads that are like, oh, let it go.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: Like some of some of your like the the videos you put up, mate.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: I fucking howl at a lot of them because like you get it, like so many people I like I used to be in time with people like, oh, you left the army years ago, just fucking let it go.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, or like when we go airsoft, people go, Oh, just let it go, mate, like get a grip.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, mate, you're sat at home in your white undies covered in Doritos, does screaming up.
56:21
SPEAKER_01: And you're just fuming about me going out airsoft and having a laugh all day.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, you're the one that fucking needs help, not me.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
56:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, come out with us, yeah.
56:31
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's mad.
56:33
SPEAKER_03: It is, it is, it is a really good app for that.
56:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm not promoting it, but it's one of them where I've like found so many like friends that I've never met, if you know what I mean.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: They're your biggest supporters, like, yeah, like you tend to find, and I don't know about you.
56:51
SPEAKER_03: You get the ones that always comment, they're always they're relating.
56:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like I've always found though, it's people who don't know you who are your biggest supporters.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: None of my family share, share, like, comment on anything.
57:02
SPEAKER_01: Like it's always you know, but then every post I put up, there'll be it's the same five first people that I like and stuff who I've never even met.
57:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's like it's madness, isn't it?
57:13
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Met so many people, mate, from socials who are like now are friends for life.
57:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolute friends for life because it's it's class because people who go, Oh, you'll have TikTok on it, and then it sparks a conversation, and then because if they don't like your shit, they're not gonna come up to you and go, Oh, you're all that fucking no bad, aren't you?
57:30
SPEAKER_03: They're gonna spark a conversation, and then it's it's just talking to new people, 100%, introducing yourself to different people, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Like last last week, um Armed Forces Community HQ put on an event in at Salford Uni, and it was like getting um it was an esports event, so it was about getting veterans into esports and gaming and streaming and stuff like that.
57:55
SPEAKER_03: So sports afternoon on Call of Duty, you know.
57:57
SPEAKER_03: Literally, yeah, yeah, yeah.
57:58
SPEAKER_01: Just doing my skills and drills, and um, but like it was fucking amazing, and I went there initially to like film a load of film some stuff up um to like promote what they're doing, and then ended up fucking doing hardly any filming because the lads were like, Oh, it's fucking rich on TikTok.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, can I have a and then I'd load a quiet words of the lads, and like that was more value than doing the videos, you know.
58:20
SPEAKER_01: 100%, you know.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: I've still speak to every single one of them lads that were there, still been spit, I've literally been messaged on what's that sense like, and how amazing is that.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: And then you know, there was a lad there from Manchester Sean, he does loads of stuff up that way, um, and loads of stuff up by Trafford and Withham Sean, and he's got a load of lads.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: So at the moment, we're trying to figure out all right, what can we do together, whether it's go Snowden or Airslaw or you know, something fun for everyone to go and do together, includes everyone, yeah.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Which then helps everyone else, but and you know, that sort of collaborative working, that's what's gonna change the game, is because religiously a lot of people like you could I don't know like I said earlier as well, though, take the wives along, 100% along, the husbands, the wives, hundred percent.
59:01
SPEAKER_03: Because they've been through the shit that we've been through, do you know?
59:04
SPEAKER_01: Like we did a coffee morning this morning, and and two wives turn up with the partners.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's brilliant, like because like you said, it's a domino effect, isn't it?
59:12
SPEAKER_01: They've been through.
59:13
SPEAKER_03: They think they're supporting him by coming with him, but but actually they need actually supporting themselves 100%.
59:19
SPEAKER_01: They need you know, like like you were saying, like it's it's a massive domino effect.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, not only have we got a deal with ourselves, they've got to deal with you without them selling the kids, the house, the dog, the you know, the job, yeah, taking the kids to school while fucking we're running around like fucking nutcase.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: And then they're worrying what you're doing, exactly, and and it's such a you know, the the family side of it is um is dead important.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: So we're doing something at the moment with with armed forces HQ as well.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: Um if you know anyone by the way, with with this, it'd really help.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: So it's called through their lens.
59:55
SPEAKER_01: So that is a thing for military families.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: So not somebody who is ex-forces, but somebody who is, you know, whether it's the brother, sister, husband, wife, you know, whatever it may be, to sort of go to help other military families to go, you know, my husband went through this, and this is then what I went through.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: But this is.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_03: But they don't even know that they've gone through it.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: A lot of you get so much kickback off there, it's trying to like we're really struggling to try and find people, but because what happened with me is my wife put her life on hold to deal with me.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it was like fucking hell.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_03: It was she was having to deal with me, and she had to put everything on hold to actually sort us out.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_03: But she's missed out on all that time, and then as I get better, she's then gonna have to like try and get better too, if you know what I mean.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of pressure, isn't it?
1:00:52
SPEAKER_03: It's it's a lot, man.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_03: It's a lot, like from going from being fit as out, flying in the career, to then fucking having an accident, shattering four discs, not being to walk, living in a wheelchair, having to adapt the fucking house.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_03: Fucking lot to do, um, and then getting told that I'm gonna be in a wheelchair by 2021, 2022.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:01:12
SPEAKER_03: Then G thinking, fucking hell, he's not gonna work again, this, that, and the other.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_03: And but I'm still I'm still fucking cracking on.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_03: Fucking smashing it.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_03: Cracking on.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_03: But then, but then I'm doing this TikTok and I've met well, I met Corporal Covid last week.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_03: Um what's his name?
1:01:29
SPEAKER_03: Dale Dale Vincent.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_03: Is that the Welsh flag?
1:01:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_03: What a fucking bloke he is, man.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_03: I love him.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_03: Never met him, absolutely love him.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_03: But he's just um he's just smashed someone out because he arrested the police officer, didn't he?
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: And then he went to court and then he's been um he's won that case.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_03: That's fucking amazing.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_03: But like you said, he said to me, when he started doing all that uh with the COVID stuff, like he's been left behind by his whole regiment and all his friends and that.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_03: He's doing it because they were all on his own embarrassed.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_03: Because they were thinking, oh well, he's never gonna win it.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_03: But now he's fucking winning battles.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: They're all going back to him, going, hi mate, do you want to be my mate again?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_03: But fuck it, honestly, what a bloke he is.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_03: And his his pal as well, who I met, uh his wife um or Mrs.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_03: ended up blind after a COVID job.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_03: So they're going through um, they're like best mates with uh Dale.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_03: But what about like such a nice bloke?
1:02:31
SPEAKER_03: I got people give him hate as well.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but he's just trying to do something.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people see him kids.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think a lot of people see him as like Yeah, but there's probably a bit of you're not mentally well sort of thing.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: Some of the stuff he says, people will probably get the wrong intelligent.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can you can completely see it.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_03: He takes his lawyer with him everywhere.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_03: Does he?
1:02:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was mad at all like uh that Vetfest in Bath, his lawyer was there.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_03: Was he?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he took her with him.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_03: Mint.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_03: It's and he was just celebrating because you just had a majority.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's incredible, isn't it?
1:03:03
SPEAKER_03: I was getting that.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_03: He went into one of the guard rooms in Tidworth, I think, and he was um telling the army lads to lock up the police.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_03: Like some of the stuff he does is over the top, but he's he's right.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_03: In a lot of it, do you know what I mean?
1:03:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know much about that, but the stuff he talks is fucking sense.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: It's the video when when I've seen that where he he he gets that cop and he's like, Sir, I'm arresting you.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the cop is like, what are you doing?
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: He's just got the whole spieling there, yeah.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_03: Huh?
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: It's fucking it's Raj, but he's legendary.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_03: He's going above and beyond the the future generations, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_03: He is, he's he's doing it for the right reasons, but I don't see why he's getting that much stick.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_03: No, probably because he's Welsh, maybe, yeah, could possibly be, yeah.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: Whose code is this Jack?
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: Jack is his code.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_01: What boots are those shoes?
1:03:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I honestly I fuck and love him.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: Love him.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_03: Brilliant bloke.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: I've been in a message.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: That'd be good to get him down.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_01: That'll be good.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_01: That'll be good.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: Like he he can talk.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_01: We'll set the set the record straight.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, yeah.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: So what what would you like to do with like the TikTok?
1:04:16
SPEAKER_01: Because I know, like you were saying, you know, a lot of people message you now and and and sort of ask, you know, whether it's people joining the army or is it do you find it's it's more so people who've been in who want a bit of guidance and a bit of help, or like majority of the messages I've had recently are from um people looking to join.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_03: So because obviously I I went through ITC myself and then went back as an instructor, I know, I know it.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I've got pals there now, so I know the formats, I know what to expect, what they've got to do, all the timings they've got to get in that.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_03: And they're just asking for like general advice.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh, I'm thinking about this regiment and then or this trade, and I just I just get uh look at it and I think, right, well, where do you want to live?
1:05:01
SPEAKER_03: These are gonna be based here in the next five years.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_03: Is Cyprus for you?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_03: And if they're like, no, well, I'll be like, well, how about this?
1:05:10
SPEAKER_03: So it's like the same trade but different, and isn't that amazing though?
1:05:15
SPEAKER_01: Because like you'd think isn't it nice that people feel uh more comfortable reaching out to you than maybe going into a career's off and asking it?
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: Because you've probably got more knowledge than a lot of and I'm honest, yeah, yeah.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_03: I've got nothing to you're not going.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm not gonna go, oh, if you go, yeah, you're gonna be able to fly an Apache.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_03: I'm saying like generally this is what you'll be doing day-to-day life.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_03: Um and a lot of cadets reach out as well.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_03: Um, because obviously they're a lot of them are spy at the bean arm.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_03: And um I support the a lot of the cadets.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_03: There's a lad called Cadet Cologne who does um drill.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_03: He's one of your young lads.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_03: I've seen that.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_03: He does drill.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: People giving him pure shite, they've agree on that.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's like But I and I've done a video, yeah.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm saying that that's fucking bang out all that.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_03: Like what he's doing is helping other cadets learn drill.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_03: Like he's going and he's putting himself out there, he's got the confidence to do that, and you think it's alright to hammer him for it.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_03: He's a fucking bane.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:06:17
SPEAKER_03: But I look I love shit like that.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_03: I love people putting themselves out there, all the veterans that um come out, but there's a lot of a lot of RAF people ask, like, do you know where they'll go places?
1:06:32
SPEAKER_03: RAF welcome, which I've never really got.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_01: I think that's probably religiously because they've always been smashed in in like verbally, do you know?
1:06:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_03: A veteran is a veteran who anyone served, like it don't matter if you're RAF, navy, fucking reserves, whatever.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, even if you're a civy and you just like the army, just go to a fucking veterans thing.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_03: Because some civvies do have the military crack.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_03: Like some of my mates know how to take us.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_03: Whereas a lot of them don't.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_03: And they're just like, fucking hell, is he here again?
1:07:06
SPEAKER_03: Why'd you invite him?
1:07:08
SPEAKER_03: He's gonna terrorise me now.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_03: Piping up all the time and that fucking, but yeah.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_03: So what I want to do now is like I was telling you earlier, is I want to try and get people together, not just through social media, but in person.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_03: Um I don't want to start no fucking charity or not like that.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_03: I just want to I want to be, I don't know, an advisory to people wanting to join the army.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_03: I want to be a person that if they're having a hard day, they can message and fucking look out for them.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_03: That's amazing, mate.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_03: Or do you know what I mean?
1:07:45
SPEAKER_03: I just my inbox is open on TikTok, they're a lot more bettering.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: It's open.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_03: I get a lot of messages, but I have a scroll through and I know which ones are.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_03: Because it shows you the first couple of lines, doesn't it?
1:07:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_03: And I do get a lot of messages, but I do get back to people, even if it's a love heart or something like that.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_03: Like, I get back to people, I try my best.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I just want to support those that are joining now because I think it's gonna be harder than ever.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_03: A hundred percent.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: Because if they get deployed anywhere, they're gonna be in shit state.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_03: It's like somebody told me about the red yellow and red cards in training now, is that coming in arrogant when I was at uh I uh cat rate, yeah, but it got abolished straight away.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that was just ridiculous.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_03: Because you're just meeting yourself a target, aren't you?
1:08:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_03: You've got section commander for fucking a year and a half.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're fucked.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_03: You're done, you're on fucking stag first, yeah, yeah, last.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_03: And for you know what I mean.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, there still need there's needs to be discipline.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_03: There needs to be.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_03: And if you can't take getting shouted at for fucking up, then you shouldn't be there.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_03: No.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_03: But there is people that cry on and they're reporting the staff, and most of the staff are on fucking warnings, in there.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, just from telling people they're fucked up.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_03: You're fucked up, so crawl up there.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_03: Right, I'm gonna report you on an app.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_03: Use an app now.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_03: Fuck it out.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_03: Just fucking get back to the room, oh this was wrong.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_03: But how do they know what's right and wrong?
1:09:21
SPEAKER_03: When I was in training, I just listened to the instructor.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you can't.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_03: If he tells us to eat a brick, I'll be sat there.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, chewing a brick.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:09:29
SPEAKER_03: It was one of them, you just fucking listen to them, but now the question everything.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_03: So if you're in a firefight and you say, Right, we're gonna launch card, we're gonna launch, fucking get down, we're gonna crawl up, assault this position.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I'm not.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_02: Like, what?
1:09:47
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not very in it.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_02: No, it I'm not doing that.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_02: It's your red card.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's fucking crazy.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm off.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_03: Can anyone order us a chinook that gets back?
1:09:56
SPEAKER_03: Get us an Uber.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_03: It's fucked like there is people that are joining for the right reasons, but there's a lot that are joining for not.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_03: And I want to support those that are joining for the right reasons that want to make a career, and if something does kick off, they need the support because a lot of people they won't go to the party, they won't go to the section commander, they won't go to the family, but they'll come to me and they'll open up.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_01: Because it's that trust thing, innit?
1:10:21
SPEAKER_01: It is.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_01: You're not being judged by coming to you, you're just telling them how it is, you're not and I'm not linked to anything.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:10:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm just an individual that is there to help.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_03: Basically, and just inform or I don't know, if they're stuck on something, I'll tell them what to do.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_03: Or even people that are fucking planning lessons and stuff that are on Junior Brecken um doing their lessons now, they're asking us.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_03: Oh how did you do this?
1:10:53
SPEAKER_03: How did you do that?
1:10:53
SPEAKER_01: How did you survive in minus 18?
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_03: How are your toes still on your feet?
1:11:01
SPEAKER_01: I can get on for day life.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_03: Aye, but it's it's like that.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_03: There's people from all over just messaging.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, even fucking Americans.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_03: That's mental, isn't it?
1:11:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's crazy that.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_03: But mate, fair play.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_03: I've got 17.7 last time I looked, but the amount of views that I've been getting is in the millions.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_03: So there's millions of people watching my videos, but obviously not following us because you just scroll, don't you?
1:11:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_03: But I don't know, I just I just enjoy it, yeah, and I'm gonna keep doing it.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, mate.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_01: Fair play.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_01: And if only more people were like that.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_01: Do you get much do you get much shit on there from like a lot of people?
1:11:41
SPEAKER_02: Not until recently.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: Not until recently.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: As a sort of follower.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of oh um you were never in, you and ever this.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that never happened.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I feel it's I feel sorry for them the most.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_03: It's oh, what was it?
1:11:56
SPEAKER_03: The comment of our day it was like, oh, he was probably uh 20-year private, um experience and stuff like that.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_03: I was just like, like, what and it is isn't it was fucking I love tanks, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_01: And it's what I feel more sorry for them than the people who are reaching out.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_01: Because at least the people who are reaching out for help know they need help.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those people need help more than those people who have reached out, yeah.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_01: And that's because you're just living in drama life.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's why I that's why I don't keep it fucking serious.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_03: I'm not sat there going, if you need help, there's nothing like I'm having a laugh.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_03: Like, you don't want to go to someone and talk fucking serious, do you?
1:12:41
SPEAKER_03: You want to like try and break the ice by seeing I've knobed.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_01: There was um I won't say who it is, but um I won't say his name, but there's a guy who's in the navy, an older guy, and you'll know who I'm on about by watching this.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_01: Um so when he first came into the office, now this guy, mate, had he's been through fucking hell, left the um navy as an officer, done everything you could ever imagine in the forces, like um, and he tried speaking to, you know, he explained, he tried speaking to people, and this was all over sort of messages, you know, tried the sort of NHS route and this that you I just don't I don't feel it's right.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to come and have a brew with you if if you don't mind.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah, of course, mate, of course.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_01: And he literally sat down and he literally I see him every week now, see him every single week, right?
1:13:26
SPEAKER_01: And he just comes for a brew or comes to all the events and stuff that we do.
1:13:29
SPEAKER_01: But the first time he came down, he says, I said, So, you know, tell me about your background, mate.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, where did you sort of start?
1:13:35
SPEAKER_01: He went, Well, you know, I spent 20 odd years in the navy.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: He went, no wonder you're so fucked.
1:13:39
SPEAKER_01: I said, Fucking hell.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_01: But that was that broke the ice straight away.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_01: And he'd never seriousness and the nervousness is just exactly gone.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_01: And he said, and he and he and he always mentions that bit.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: He said, you know what?
1:13:53
SPEAKER_01: He says, you know the fact that you just said that the first thing, he says, I fucking love that.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_01: And he said, from that day I know I can speak to you, and you're never gonna judge me only about being in the navy, but everything else is fine.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
1:14:07
SPEAKER_01: But like it's that it's that connect, innit?
1:14:09
SPEAKER_01: 100%, 100%, and you know, like what we were saying, you know, you can go through shit and laugh about it.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_01: Like that is the relevant thing that you know you you sort of do.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_01: And it's the same with you know, we went we went shooting the um last weekend, and a lad from the raft came, and you know, on the video after he was like, you know, I'm the only one who's in the RAF here, and you know, I didn't hold the rifle the wrong way, and I came up on time and everything, and like it's just that banner in it, and but they bring it on themselves as well.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely fucking themselves.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_03: Fucking star, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_01: It's because they spent so many nights in the hotel or we're in bracket and they feel guilty.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_03: And we're in a dusty fucking compound, yeah.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_01: But no, I think it's it's amazing what you're doing, mate.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_01: And and like you say, if there's anything I can do to help, you know, whatever you want to do or promote or anything like that.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_01: Like it'd be nice to do um you know, put us in touch with that camp for that thing in bath, and we'll go down and we'll you know, doom an advert or something like that, a video or whatever because it is worth the effort to put in.
1:15:12
SPEAKER_03: Like they haven't asked me to promote it, but fucking I am.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_01: But that's nice, innit?
1:15:16
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a better way of doing it.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_03: How it works.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like I just went there, seen how it works, seen how that operates, see just they're just nice people, yeah.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_03: Helping veterans and all the veterans that uh staying there, they just put her on, they help out with the work and that amazing.
1:15:32
SPEAKER_03: One will cook, one will clean, one will um cut the grass.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_01: It's it's brilliant.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_01: That's class, yeah.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, definitely like, and you know, we'll link up and we'll do some stuff, we'll get some stuff to do.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_01: Amazing, mate.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, nice one for coming down with us.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_01: I fucking loved it.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_01: That's been classy, honestly.
1:15:52
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, mate, and um and fair play, everything, you know, cutting out the drink, like that's fucking incredible because I know how fucking hard that is with other bits, but 100% that you know we're leaving, that's all we fucking do.
1:16:04
SPEAKER_03: But pe people stop, so I'm just gonna say this before we're ending anyway.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_03: Um it took me 12 months to see any benefits.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_03: 12 months.
1:16:14
SPEAKER_03: First six months, fucking just felt down.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_03: Second six months, started putting weight on, fucking replacing the drink with sugar.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:16:25
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, I wasn't like a bang on alcoholic, I just fucking I needed that lifestyle change.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_03: I needed to lose weight for my fucking spine.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but the past three, four months, I've actually seen the benefits.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_03: So talking to people on TikTok, uh talking to people in person, that has been my therapy.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_03: And the past three, four months, it's me again.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:16:51
SPEAKER_03: Like I'm back now, finally.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_03: Sick.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
1:16:54
SPEAKER_03: But if if people are trying to get themselves back, obviously you're not gonna get the same fucking version because everyone's different, yeah.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_03: Everyone's different, and you're you're always gonna have a new normal, yeah, aren't you?
1:17:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
1:17:09
SPEAKER_03: But just fucking keep pushing at it, man.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've I've I've been down, ready to fucking call it a day, but I'm finally back.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, get it, fucking go on.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_01: All I'll say to people like on that is I'll never tell anyone to stop doing something because I wouldn't listen to them when when they were all I can say is we're not influencers, yeah, yeah.
1:17:33
SPEAKER_01: We're realists, yeah, yeah.
1:17:35
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
1:17:36
SPEAKER_01: All I say to people now is I'm never gonna tell you to stop it.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_01: But all I will say is I've done that and now I'm doing this, yeah.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_01: And now is ten times better than when I was doing that.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's it, and that's it.
1:17:49
SPEAKER_01: You will only stop if you want to stop.
1:17:52
SPEAKER_01: You speak to anyone who's been through that and now are not doing it anymore, and they will always tell you it's ten times better now than it was then.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_03: But even if you post right, I'm off the drink one day on TikTok, tag is in it, and we'll fucking support you the whole way through.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_03: It's one of them, and then that's your boost, in it.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_03: That's it, mate.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_03: Brother, nice one for coming down, bro.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, mate.