 So as I imagine screaming towards the ground at night. Hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, observing these MSRs. Trooper Bob Consiglio, the first casualty of the Gulf War. And my patrol, Bravo 30. So it came about that these were suicide missions. Des, how are you brother? Hey Chris, hello mate. And thanks very much for having me on the show. Oh no, no, no. The pleasure is all mine, Des. And certainly my wonderful subscribers. Absolute classic SAS mission you were on, weren't they? Which really harps back to the early days of David Sterling, the formation of the SAS in the North African desert. Jeeps or the Land Rovers, you know, all kind of like loaded up with as much ammo and fuel as you can carry. And lo and behold, you get to recreate that on your mission during the Iraq War. Obviously not North Africa, but was that like an honour to sort of be able to do that long range patrolling? Yes, it was. I mean, in the book, Bravo 30 is it's pointed out. By the way, it's all about the first Gulf War, obviously back in 91. And it talked to that only 50 years earlier that the regiment was fighting in North Africa against Rommel. And of course they made it very, very clear that this was a tailor made for them. And we were going to be fighting out desert warfare again. And they made it very, very clear that this was going to be our war. The SAS was going to be involved in a big way. It was their bread and butter hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in vehicles, shooting scouts, disruption just like it was in North Africa. You know, back in 1941, in fact, when the regiment was formed, July the 1st, 1941. And yes, the regiment made it very, very clear. So much so that we prepared by sending three squadrons out to the Middle East preparing for what was imminent. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and he had made it very clear that he wasn't going to leave. So it showed that a conflict was coming about. And because of that, we saw the largest formation in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia in fact, since the Second World War. Hundreds and thousands of troops were forming up in Saudi Arabia ready to cross the border from Saudi Arabia into Iraq and Kuwait. And the objective was simple, to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And it was as simple as that. I'll tell you in a bit my story of how I was supposed to be joining you actually set sail for Iraq. And I think we got one meter from the dock side and then we went home again. But Bravo 3-0, it's doing magnificently. Your best-selling book was it in partnership with Damien Lewis who we've had on the podcast twice. A very prolific author writes some incredible material on the Second World War and special forces. It's got so many five-star reviews already. You must be really happy. We are incredibly happy both me and Damien. Yes, I was approached by Damien. I asked if I wanted to write the story and we've done it together. And yes, we can't be any more happier. When he asked me if I wanted to write Bravo 3-0, I'm thinking who would want to know about this. But what is the story, as I've just said, is about the First Gulf War back in 91. And it's about the Bravo 3-0. I think most people can remember Chris about Andy McNabb and he brought out a book called Bravo 2-0. And that was after the Gulf War. That sold a couple of coffees, didn't it? I think he did very, very well for Andy. And good for him as well, good for him. But what most people don't realise, Chris, is that they were three patrols, three Bravo patrols, Bravo 1, Bravo 2 and my patrol, Bravo 3-0. And when me and Damien got together and decided to write this story, I had to ask permission first. And we had been given permission, obviously. And we have gone forward to write what I think is a fantastic book. Not only does it talk about the Gulf War, but it talks about the task commissions that I've been on. It talks about my life in the SES. And I think there's something in there for everyone. I've done a few talks around the country now and I've found that people are really, really interested about the book itself. So, yes, answering your question, we can't be any more happier, Chris, of SES, Bravo 3-0. Good. And you said to me earlier, you obviously had to wait until you had an extensive career in the SES, 17 years. You had to obviously wait to write your book until after you left. You probably would have... I can just imagine the... I know how it works. You're always going to set up, set some of the military, no matter what you do. And writing a book tends to be quite polarising, doesn't it? I think it's just probably a lot of petty jealousy if we were honest and schoolboy sort of stuff. But what rank did you leave as, Dez? Yeah, it was... My own military career spanned almost 28 years. I did almost nine years in the parachute regiment and now I'm 19 and a bit years within the SES, so totally just over 28 years. And I left with a rank of WO2. And yes, a lot of people always ask me, how come you've waited this long to write a book? And as you can appreciate, out in the Gulf at that time in 1901, I had been with the regiment approximately five years and I then went on to do another 70 years or so. So no, I wasn't going to get out just to write a book. I was thoroughly enjoying myself within the SES and it was only that I've been out these last few years that I've been approached a few times to write a book. And I wasn't too keen, but when Damien and myself come together, I could see it was a good partnership. And I think if you want to write a book with anyone, if you've got to get all your ducks lined up, Damien is the guy to write it with. Damien has written extensively about the regiment. He's got a fantastic Second World War series that is right all about the SES. Just nothing short of magnificent. So once I looked into what he'd done in his background, I thought, yes, if anyone's going to write it, I'll tell my story. This is the guy. So the book has come out and we are just over the moon about it, Chris, really are. I bet, mate, I'm over the moon that there's a power that can spell. I can see there's going to be a bit of slag in here. But let's call that military banter. And I've got to take it on the chin. Do you know some of it, Chris? Because I come from Parra-Rage, I've had a lot of feedback from colleagues in Parra-Rage. Guys that I used to work with and obviously guys that I don't. Yes, the banter has just been great. As you know, for the people that are listening, the banter is actually taking the mickey out of each other. It's actually slagging each other. It's just great humour within the military. And in fact, as you know, Chris, when you're on the ground and things get a little bit tense, guys tend to just talk a little bit more, don't they? They tend to joke a bit more. They tend to do a little bit more mickey-taking. And that's the way I release intention into it. That's the way I'm just saying, look, I'm a little bit scared here. So you tend to joke a bit more. It's always recognised and it's always received very, very well. And in the book, a lot of guys have said to me, my goodness, there's a lot of humour in there, a lot of mickey-taking, and it's just downright pure banter that everybody has. Within the military, it's just fantastic humour, isn't it? Yes, it is. It is. Yeah, I thought you were going to come back with a comment about... I wouldn't dare. I could see we're getting to some festival, so I thought, no, we better not do that. I thought you were going to say Marines are like parrots, just only not so handsome or something. Yeah, there's a lot of things I could have said, but no. Guess what parrow were you in? Yeah, I used to be in the First Battalion, one parrow. And I really enjoyed myself there. I did, as I said, eight and a half going on nine years. And I just decided that I thought, right, I want to go further. I want to join the SAS. And as you know, Chris, on that, is that once you kind of tell everyone that you're going to the SAS, you are sending out a statement to everyone. You are telling everyone that not only you're leaving your regiments, as in this case, I was leaving the First Battalion, but now I wanted a career within the SAS. And everyone knows that that's a serious move. It's a career move. And what a lot of people don't realize, Chris, is that it's actually life-changing. And it was for me. And I mentioned this in the book. I really enjoyed myself in Parareg. And in a way, Parareg prepared me for the SAS. And in fact, the SAS, it said, arguably, that is 50% of the SAS regimen come from the Parashute Regimen. And so for me, the preparation in Parashute Regiment before I went to the SAS really, really helped me. And then it become life-changing. And I go into detail on that about the book. Yes. I mean, you wouldn't expect anything less, would you, from one of the, well, the toughest selection in the world. I'm wondering now, if now they've, now that they do this joint selection, I'm guessing there's probably far more Marines will join the SAS because not everyone wants to do the diving bit, you know. Yes, on that one, when I first joined up there, it was really difficult for the Marines. I really felt for them. I've got a few friends that are keeping touch with now Marines. They had to go, they had to jump through quite a few hopes. Get out of the Marines, come under the system of the Army and then do selection. And obviously, if they didn't make it, they couldn't go back to the Marines. They were under the system of the Army. Now it's all changed. Now, you know, SES, SBS, we do exactly the same selection. And all you do at the beginning, you just say, this is what I want to do. I want to go SES or SES, but it's exactly the same. That has changed over the years. It's a lot better in answering your question. Yes, there's a lot more Marines because of that. And I think the two regiments, sister regiments of SB and SES, it works together really, really well. But you touched on some of that about selection. I've been doing some talks around the country and I'm always asked about how hard selection is and what it's about. And I'm not scared to say that it's the hardest thing that I've ever done. It's the pain that I got through coming through selection. Selection itself is what it says. They don't call it an SES test. They call it SES selection. And what it says that selection process, Chris, has been there since the 1950s. And what they found, Chris, is that to put a certain individual under physical stress, put them under mental stress and then stress of sleep deprivation. What it does, it brings out the real individual. But you can appreciate going to the SES. It's a very tough job. It's very arduous. The lifestyle is not for everyone. And a lot of people coming up to selection are not fully sure what they're letting themselves in for. So what is good about the selection process is that the selection process is there to pick the right individual. And the instructors, the guys on Training Wing who run the actual selection process is that they just keep the process that it's going in the right direction. And the selection process picks the individual, if you like, as opposed to the instructors, though. Just to give you some idea of what it's like. You do two selections a year. It lasts six months. You have to prepare. I prepared for many years before I went up there. And on my selection, I did the winter selection. So you have a winter and a summer selection. And on winter, I remember the first day, there were about 250, 270 guys there. And they actually say the instructors say, right, everyone look around at each other. So we all have a look at each other. And they say within four to six weeks, they'll only be about 40 to 50 men. And already, you know, you could see guys looking at each other going, what, 250, 70 guys, you know, whatever. And then they say, going then into a month or six weeks after that, that may halve again. And what you realize is that that in itself puts a lot of people off. You realize that this is not going to be easy at all. And you're right. Each day just gets harder and harder. The weeks go on, the months go on. He's broken into three phases. The first phase over the first four to six weeks is the hill fitness and navigation phase. It's exactly what it says. The next six or so weeks is out in the jungle. So you go out, you can go out to Brunei or you can go out to Belize. And you do then, you're being selected out there. And then when you come back, the selection process carries on for the remaining six months is that you have the escape and invasion phase. And you also learn about how to evade being interrogated and what to do and how to go about it. So the three phases are very, very hard, very, very different. And by the end of it, you're left with the guys left out of selection. And then you go off to the regiment. You go to one of the squadrons and you begin your life in the SES. Which troop were you placed in? Well, first what is you go into a squadron and just for the listeners, a squadron or a company can be something of 100, 150 men. And then yes, he's broken down into troops. So I went to B Squadron, actually served in two squadrons over my time in the SES. I served in B and in D Squadron. In the gulf, the story talks about me being in B Squadron. And I was the troop that I was in, was in Air Troop. The squadron is broken down into troops and in each squadron, you have mobility. You have boat troop. You have mountain troop. Then you have air troop. And it's really what it says. Mobility is about learning about vehicles, Land Rover's bikes, and being able out to drive across the desert and deal with everything, even cars and machinery. So those guys in mobility are very, very good regarding that. And by the way, the Gulf War was ideal for mobility guys being out in the desert. And they learn how to navigate from the stars as well. Boat troop is then dealing with boats and the sea, lakes, rivers, dealing out of parachute into the sea, being picked up by a submarine, dealing with ships and canoes and the likes. So that is a very, very testing entry skills. By the way, we call them entry skills because you tend to use these skills to enter into a conflict zone without being seen that you're there being picked up. The other two troops then is that you've got mountain troop and that's how to climb mountains, ice climb, mountaineering. And again, borders, a lot of borders to countries, normally have mountains. So to gain entry into another country, you would use mountain troop to climb over the mountain and gain entry. And then the troop that I was in was air troop. So that's how you deal in high altitude free fall parachuting. Well, it can be high altitude, which is halo, high altitude, low opening, and high altitude, high opening. But it's the deal with oxygen and you normally jump in at night, 25,000 feet, which is approximately five miles up, dealing with oxygen and how to jump with equipment. And again, your entry skill is jumping into that country being not seen or not heard. And yes, so I was in air troop B squadron and really enjoyed my time there. Did you ever jump into any form of conflict, Des? Yes. And we won't be talking about it today, but in the Gulf War, no, we didn't. And even though I talked about air troop and mountain troop boat troop and mobility is that we are all soldiers and all on the same skills. It's just there are entry skills is what we emphasize is how we gain entry to a particular conflict zone. But if it means that it's just simply that you drive in or you parachute in or you arrive by ship, well, then obviously just simple means like that. Well, then that's fine. But when the task in says that, yes, you must use this particular skill, entry skill for certain tasks in emissions. Well, then that is when a particular troop there is skilled in that form of entry as in three, four mountaineering boats and mobility. That is when that particular troop will be used in this case out in the Gulf, the whole squadron. In fact, three squadrons were out there at the time and it was a mobility based type operation. In other words, in vehicles fighting in the desert. Yeah, the only reason I'm asking is obviously for a para to jump into combat is it hasn't happened for what since the Second World War and that's I guess it's kind of a feather in your cat but through the back door, however we call it. Yeah, yeah. And I can only imagine. I mean, the amount of quick. I mean, I've obviously done the basic para course and even to carry that Jerry can, which is just one that was quite safe and secure unit, isn't it? Parachute me. That is a thing to do it with all the equipment that a para must jump into battle with and then to do it with all the equipment that a trooper must jump into conflict. All the oxygen and everything with the supplemental air I think it would be terrifying. Yeah, I mean, just to elaborate on that, just so the listeners can get some idea if you like is that you are normally in a C-130 at 25,000 feet. It could be four, six, it could be eight guys and you are on oxygen. You are carrying all of your equipment and weapons and also you have you can take extra equipment that you can't carry, which she's like on a pallet which when you exit the aircraft 25,000 feet breathing oxygen, this pallet on a drone comes out with you as well. It has a nasty habit in the sky of coming around and bumping into you in the sky. So just to set the scene, if you are going into a conflict zone, you would be at 25,000 feet so that's about five miles up. It's normally at night, you're breathing oxygen and by the way, free fall from that height is approximately two minutes. So just to give some idea people say, so what's that like? And I say, well, probably the longest anyone's free fall is go to the swimming baths and jump off the top splash and that'll be about a second or two. So as I imagine screaming towards the ground at night carrying excess of 150 to 200 pounds on your body and you must deploy your chute obviously at the right time and jumping with equipment with other guys in the sky with also a pallet that is on a drone chute as I said, that has a nasty habit of coming and bumping into you just on a serious note. It's not for everyone. It's very, very dangerous. A lot of things happen and it takes a lot of training just getting the problems with hypoxia at that height is concerned that you can't think properly and this happens sometimes that your equipment freezes up. So you come to the tailgate of the C-130 ready to jump off and your altimeters are freezing up your goggles are frozen up the equipment that you're breathing are frozen up and I'm mentioning this about freezing because there's a story in the book that talks about re-jumping and we were jumping at night in a cold country which was about 30 degrees below and that was obviously very, very difficult and very testing. I won't give too much detail but it talks about how when we exited the aircraft and when our chutes deployed how we had strong winds and nearly got blown into another country. So I'll let people read the story and it's even though we can laugh about it now it was very testing and difficult at the time and just to emphasise all the troops I mean boat troops, I mean to dive and to come out in submarines very testing I mean mobility going across the desert I mean the mountain boys climbing mountains and ice climbing all those environments you know working against the elements Chris as you know is the most testing people always say to me what's the hardest things you do and I say you know fighting against the wind the rain, the cold and when you're out in the environment like parachuting in the sea and scuba diving and mountaineering it's very, very testing it's very, very dangerous and it takes a lot of training it's not for everyone as I said earlier this is the idea of the selection process itself it selects a certain type of individual which is up for this type of lifestyle Yes Des when you said the pallets are dangerous they also didn't they dangerously dropped to the bottom of the South Atlantic in the insertion into the Falklands I think Robin has told us Robin or Bob Shepard told us this story Yeah I don't know the full details but I know there was a book that came out last year very good book by a guy in a regiment that spoke about what happened down in the Falklands and yes I've heard that story and yes you can go in with all your equipment and jump into the sea for example and it does a silly thing like sink to the bottom so you have nothing left then and bear in mind these entry skills of climbing in driving in going in by boat and free falling these are just your entry skills once you get into that country you've then got the task and the mission to carry out so it may sound all really good to do this sort of thing not only is it dangerous but it's just the form of getting you there once you're there to do the job Des did you were you in the Falklands No no I wasn't I was in one part at that time and as you can appreciate two part and three part I went out there and we got a little bit of Mickey take it took out of us so no I went in that one Yes yes one part of course Yeah let's go back to selection so when you're on one of these tabs sorry the names what do they call it on select not a force march but you know what I mean Yeah I mean yeah you can call it a force march tab in marching I know the Marines call it yomping don't you Yeah well we that's our slang but we actually call it load carrying so Okay yeah Can you talk us through that because I'm fascinated I didn't get good at stuff like that I think 48 years old and I ran the length of the country and my backpack was 15 kilos so yes probably a similar Yeah not quite the 40 pounds but not far off it I found that I got really good at it I mean my heart rate for a start dropped so low that when I went to hospital and they checked my pulse one time they put me in the emergency unit because I thought they couldn't believe my heart rate was so after I waited there about two hours and finally a doctor came and said do you do extreme sport and I said well I've just run the length of the UK they went oh that'll be it Yeah but as an adult I was saying adult but as an older person I found my life around it a lot more and hills like that with this back I just I ran up all of them because it was easier to run than it was to walk but I do remember when I was you know back when I was in the mob I mean I left when I was 25 so I was quite young then but I found it really trying to keep up with the truth was just I got my green lid but it was it was really hard work for someone with short legs and I weighed when I joined up I think I weighed about nine and a half stone so so when I I will get to the point the point I'm getting to is when I ran the length of the country I was listening to our Middleton's audio book and he was talking about his tabbing and I thought all I could think was God I could probably handle it at this age but back when I was you know a teenager or whatever I think I had no chance so it's a brave thing to go on selection I mean it's these things not easy do you have to know how good you are at the weight at the load carrying do you just go I'm just going to give it a go do you do a lot of training how is it at that time it's not like today where people tend to know more about what goes off in the regiment but what is good about the regiment 90% of what they do people don't know and that's what it should be back then when I volunteered it's a volunteer process and I put pen to paper is that you still don't know anything what you had to do you had to wait for guys to come back off selection in other words fail come back have a chat with him and go right how did you get on what did you have to do and all the normal questions that you would ask and then they would say well I'll tell you what I'm going to go up for my second go because you can only have two goes so they would say why don't you come with me up on the hills I'll show you what we did to find out what actually happens on selection there's nothing laid down they don't send you any pamphlets at that time there was no way that you could go up and find information I believe it's different nowadays so what you had to do is get information from other guys and when you were up there on selection as I said about it's broken into three phases and the first phase is fitness her work and navigation and then you go back on your backpack and you've got to navigate from A to B so this itself is that selection process of testing the individual physically putting on the physical stress the mental stress of being able to navigate and everything that comes with it and obviously going over hills and you have to do it in a certain time and the other stress that comes in is that they don't tell you what the time is they just say we want you to go from this grid to that grid and it'll either be from one mountain top down into a valley up to another mountain top down to another valley and so on and you'll have an instructor there once you get there and he'll point out and he'll say tell me where you are you're showing go to grid 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and off you go again and you have to read the manual beforehand and you get as much information as you can get yourself as fits as you can get your map reading up to par now you did further things like I prepare myself with more weapon training and in the Paris what is good is that you generally fit all the time you're the soldier and you're expected after 8 or 9 years to be in the Paris that your soldier skills are up to par and you are quite a knowledgeable guy So for me, yes, I'd already become an accomplished soldier by that time and I knew quite a bit and and I brushed up on skills, which is common sense really before I went up there. But in a way, that's the only thing you can do is prepare the best you can, fitness, navigation and just do as much as I can soldier wise. Once you get up there, then you've just got to go for it. Because obviously you come across stuff that you didn't know and it's the only I go into detail in the book, but it is just very, very hard, very, very testing. There's no shouting. There's no encouragement. They just ask you politely to do something you do it. And you are hopefully there by the end of the process. Someone said to me, you know, how did you get on just thinking all the whole of the six months? If you think, my goodness, this is what I've got to do for six months. You won't make it. You've just got to go from day to day. And by the way, when you go up there, when I put pen to paper, when I told everybody that I was leaving Parachute Regime, you've got to go up with the attitude that you're going to get in, not go up and use terminology and saying, I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to see how I get on. I didn't. I just said, I'm going to get in. So the pressure was on already. And it took me two attempts. I didn't make it on the first attempt. I got injured and I come back. And luckily I did it on my second attempt. People said to me, what was harder the first or the second one? Definitely the second one, because you know what's coming. They're very, very painful, very, very difficult. But I was lucky to pass, did my six months selection process, then went on to probation. Probation is about three years. And then I had a life, a full life and career within the regiment itself. And I talk about that in a book. And I had just a fantastic time. And I had a fantastic life within both Parachute Regime and within the SES. Yes. And your, did I gather your growing up, Des, was there was a few challenges? I could turn around and I could say this was difficult. That was difficult. Have you heard of the rap stars? All the rap stars said, well, yeah, I've been shot four or five times and I come from the wrong side of town. And I come from the hood and this, that and that. Actually, yes, I come from Sheffield, which is, you know, big city. And I think when you call these big cities, you have the rough side and the good side. And it's really down to your mum and dad to keep her on the straight and narrow. I can honestly say that I had a good start. You know, it's so easy for me to turn around and say, yeah, Chris, I come from the bad side of town and everything was against me. I had a great family, a great mum and dad. They loved me to bits. Kept me on the straight and narrow. Yes. These, you know, these, so easy, you know, to get involved in all the bad stuff. You know, Chris, I think in the book, I talk about, I got in trouble with the police once as a teenager. I think I smashed a lamp throwing some stones. My mother was so disgusted that I let her down. And she said, this isn't how we brought you up, et cetera, et cetera. And I felt so bad that I'd let me family down that I never got in trouble with the police again. And I think I mentioned in the book about my mother, my father, the grandfather, were obviously great. Just kept on the straight and narrow. My granddad had been in the Second World War. And my dad had been in national service. So I think the influence was already there then, Chris, of, you know, all the morals and virtues that you would find coming from the military service. My granddad was well respected. You know, my dad was because he'd been in national service. And I had a great family. They, yes, it was a rough city. And I talk about that in the book itself and I go into detail how it was easy to go to the wrong side. But I had these people, not just me, my mother, my granddad and my dad, but there was other people in their life as well. And I think that thing, Chris, I think that if you really want something in life, and at that time I had no idea I was going to join the military. But I think once you see that people are making the effort to try and keep you on the straight and narrow and do good things for you, well, then it makes sense for you to respond accordingly. And I think I've seen that all along through my life. I had good people in the Paras that sir that mentioned me and get me on a straight and narrow they were in the Paras and same within the regiment as well. And I talk about this in the book. But I think all way across my journey within the military was 28 years. There's been people all the way along that sir has helped me to achieve my goals and especially in the military helped me to have a great career both in the Paras and the SAS. So, Dave, let's get to the desert. You're out there. You actually made it to Iraq. I didn't get that far. I was on a ship. I think I told you this. I was on a ship at the time. And we're on a paracourse. And there used to be this thing in the Marines. It was really hard to get on a paracourse. And we just rang up like Bryce Norton and they went, yeah, just come. So our ship's detachment. We just rocked up at Bryce Norton. That I think I mentioned this I shared a room with two SAS guys. Won't say their names because I don't know if they want to be mentioned but really solid lads. One was from the same city as me. And they said, do you know Bob Consiglio? He's a Marine that's just joined our lot. And that course was canceled because the Hercules had to fly out to the Middle East. So we only did the balloon jump on that course. And when I got home and I said to these guys, I said, yeah, I don't know Bob Persi but in the Marines it's a name everybody knows because he was in 40 command. And he was the first, we thought then he was the first Marine that had ever joined the SAS. And what he had to do, like you said, he had to leave the Marines, join the Army or something like this and then apply for this sort of route. And when I got home from that course, I was watching Tally. It was the news. There was a coffin coming out of a church. Draped with the Union flag. And the newsreader said, today the people of such and such a place buried the body of Trooper Bob Consiglio, the first casualty of the Gulf War. So you can imagine my, I was gobsmacked, just weird. There was just talking about this man the day before. And actually his sons were at least used to watch my podcast a lot. I should say step sons or don't cause any confusion. So we went back to ship and our ship set sail. I said all my goodbyes, packed all this stuff to go after war. And as we left Portsmouth Harbor, we were just literally sat in our mess deck waiting to leave the side and the captain came over the tunnel and said, to hear it, to hear it. You'll be pleased to know that they're sending the Atlantic conveyor instead. And I should point out that that was the new, the new Atlantic conveyor, obviously. The original being sunk in the Falklands. And all around the ship days you could hear all the Matlos just cheering. They couldn't believe it. They didn't want to go to war. They wanted to stay home with their girlfriends and stuff. And in our mess deck, there was 12 Marines just staring, staring at the floor. Teddy's out of the pram. So to actually, so you made it that far. You made it to the desert. You're there in theater. How did this particular patrol comes around? I'm guessing you have a patrol briefing. Yeah. And by the way, you mentioned Bob earlier on. Bob was just a lovely guy. He made him, he was still living in the block together. And I mentioned him in the book. And he used to like a certain group called the Blow Monkeys. And he always used to be playing this in the block. And yeah, he's just a lovely guy. And it was very sad to hear about what had happened at the end of the gulf. I've mentioned him in the book just simply because we knew each other fairly well. As I said, we were more or less lived next to each other in the block. But to answer your question is that, yeah, the patrols come about, I think, just a little bit of background for everyone. Is that, yeah, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. You had hundreds of thousands of troops forming up US-led in Saudi Arabia. The SES had made it clear that three squadrons were going to be fighting all the way through the deserts up to Baghdad, typical Second World War stuff. And then what had happened is that the leader of Iraq at that time, Saddam Hussein, was very, very clever. And what he started to do, he started to fire rockets, missiles. They call them mobile scud rockets, and he would fire them on to neighboring countries, particularly on to Israel. We're trying to bring them into the war. He knew that if Israel entered the war, it would change the dynamics in the Middle East. And there was a very good chance that all the neighboring countries to Iraq and the Middle East would side with Iraq and fight against Israel. And obviously this would change the whole dynamics in the Middle East, make it completely unstable, and it would cause some real problems. There was another thing that was, that there was worried about as well, is that Saddam had been fighting against Iran on the border in the 80s for about eight years, with a loss of about a quarter of a million troops. And he had used chemical weapons against Iran. In fact, he'd used them against his old people, the Kurds. So we knew that it was only a matter of time that chemical weapons would be used. So Israel coming into the war, chemical weapons being used, and then the region itself, if we could add oil to the mixture as well, there was a very good chance that there was going to possibly be a Third World War. In fact, our commanders were saying that if Israel and chemical weapons being used, then because of that part of the world becoming unstable, there was a very good chance that Third World War would come about. Now that sounds, Chris, very, very dramatic, me saying that here, very dramatic. When you're out there and you see hundreds of thousands of troops forming up, and you see all the aircraft, and you see all the mechanized units, and you'll see my regiment formed up ready to go, and you thought, this is not far off the mark. So what they decided to do was that because the SCS had two squadrons, which were already committed to fight independently from the Saudi border, go all the way up the desert and fight to buy that, is that they decided to use my squadron, beat squadron at the time, and form three Bravo patrols. That's how the Bravo patrols came about. Our mission was pure and simple. Was to go under the miles behind enemy lines, find and locate to these mobile scud rockets, send back coordinates so they could send in airstrikes, and eliminate the targets. And that is how the Bravo patrols came about. Our first role of B Squadron was BCR's battle casual to replacements, and I mentioned this in the book. A Squadron and D Squadron was to fight independently. They were battle ready, did already be prepared out in the Middle East. My squadron, B Squadron, we were there just to replace the injured and the dead of those two squadrons. That was it pure and simple. We was in rear echelon in Saudi Arabia, so anyone that was injured and killed in A and D Squadron, we were simply to replace them. It was only when sit down started to fire rockets onto Israel that Israel said they had battalion of paratroopers on standby. And if it wasn't sorted out, they would parachute onto Baghdad. And then obviously, you know, it would have been the start of World War Three. Then chemical weapons would have been fired and the oil and everything. Just a real confusing complexity of a real bad cocktail, if you like. So the three Bravo patrols put to find these needles in a haystack. And in the book, he talks about the problems that all of the patrols had. Bravo 1-0, Bravo 2-0, and my patrol Bravo 3-0. And we go into depth of what we did in that conflict and the problems that we had trying to prevent Third World War. Yes. But before we come on to Bravo 3-0, can you just clarify? Because obviously, unless people have been asleep for the last 20 years, most people know of Bravo 2-0. But Bravo 1-0, what was their rough role? Yes, it was exactly the same. What it was is that the intelligence told us that these mobile Skid rockets, if you can appreciate it, these rockets are like on a big articulated lorry. They could drive anywhere. These rockets, good rockets, are about 30 feet long and they can drive anywhere. Then they would elevate, fire these rockets off and then drive away. And the intelligence told us that they were main supply roads, MSRs, which are freeways coming out, roads coming out of Baghdad. And they were saying that they were almost sure that these mobile Skid rockets, these missiles were traveling up and down these MSRs. The three patrols, Bravo 1, 2, and 3, was to go and put OPs in observation posts, observe these mobile Skid rockets, final locate them, and send back coordinates over the radio to bring in airstrikes. So all of the patrols were to do exactly the same job. We were all to work independently because we were all in different areas behind enemy lines. And this was hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, observing these MSRs and trying to find and locate these Skid missiles. There was a tongue-in-cheek that was going about that when the Bravo patrols came about. The people started to say that these were suicide missions. As you can appreciate, we were the furthest coalition forces, just three patrols, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. Observing these, trying to observe and finding these mobile Skid rockets and sending these coordinates back was quite a hard thing to do. So everyone was saying that there's a very good chance that if we were behind enemy lines, we'd be by ourselves. We were almost certain to get compromised and therefore get killed. So it came about that these were suicide missions. Even though we laughed about it and it was a tongue-in-cheek, we know along with the same phrases, Second World War stuff, sorry, Third World War, is that suicide missions wasn't far off the mark as well. So we used to joke that there was no pressure on the Bravo patrols at all. We used to joke in Bravo 3 Zero that we're only going hundreds of miles behind enemy lines to prevent World War 3 and also maybe this might be a suicide mission anyhow. Even though we laughed about it, we know that it had a serious tone as well, Chris. Yes, that's what squaddies do best, isn't it? Laugh in the face of danger. I mean, you've got to. How far, I mean, where were you based in the actual country? I've got different sort of pictures in my head here, Des, because obviously there's been a lot of films made about this, you know, were certainly about Bravo 2 Zero over the years. I think the one with Short Bean, they're all sort of camped out in the desert and drinking whiskey from the bottle and it all looked a bit I don't know, a bit hands-on. You might tell me now, we're actually in a five-star hotel in, you know, Q8 or somewhere. No, I'm going to detail in the book, but just for your listeners is that we obviously started from UK. We flew out to Cyprus first. From Cyprus, we went over to the UAE. We, from the UAE, then we flew out down to Al Julf in Saudi Arabia and there was an air base there. So we were in preparation there at Al Julf and that is where a lot of the troops and a lot of the American Air Force were located and then it was from Al Julf then that we were then flown and we started our mission out hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. But Al Julf was the main air base of where we were at in Saudi Arabia and I'll give more detail in the book of how it all came about. I mean, it came about very, very quick. I mean, for example, the squadron that I was in at that time, we wasn't in the conflict. We had a different mission in UK and what it was, we were getting ready to go on Christmas leave, if you like. Then suddenly a squadron came back, took over our role, we went out and so I had Christmas leave and within a few days, I was under some miles behind enemy lines in January. If I've got my dates right, we flew out within, it was round about the 10th or 12th of January. We was on the ground about the 15th, 16th or so. So everything happened fairly, fairly quick. I give details in the book and everything happened very, very fast. We also talked about some of the mistakes that happened and some of the things that, there's shuns have happened but they do. Some of these things happened because the speed of conflict to the confusion but there were things that happened that there was also mistakes as well, you know, weapon systems, less behind certain equipment that we didn't have. We didn't have the right mapping. We didn't have the right vehicles, the right equipment, clothing and the likes. So I go into detail again about that in the book and it's no way of slanking, it's more of a way of facts if you like and when you read about some of the things that went wrong, then you can understand the reasons why. If you don't have the right equipment and the right intelligence, well then when you get on the ground and you realise that it's been wrong, well then it's just the case. I'll tell you what, we've just got to get on with it Chris and it's no use whinging and whining. It's that typical soldier stuff isn't it? Just get on with it. Yes, I heard a story when the, in the second Gulf War, when the first contingent of American, let's just call them politic, you know, sort of leaders went out, flew out there. Their only source of information about the country of Iraq was a lonely planet guidebook. I think the maps you guys were using, weren't they from the Second World War or something? Yeah, you've touched on it. There is our mapping. If I remember right, my map I think had 1945 on it, I think it said the clothing that I had, I had a smock which had 1942 in it. We didn't have battle ready vehicles. We didn't have cold weather clothing. We didn't get the right frequencies for the radios and we didn't have the right intelligence. For example, even though you can't predict the weather, we were told that it was going to be like a mild spring in UK and it actually turned out to be the coldest winter that they had on record and it actually snowed when we were out there Chris. Just to underline that Chris, it was that cold that men from my regiment actually died with hypothermia. Yes, I think that was written about in Andy's book, wasn't it? Yes, and even though, you know, when you talk about not having the right weapon systems or ammunition being left behind and not having the right equipment and clothing, there's some things that okay, we can argue today shouldn't have happened. But for example, we were told intelligence wise that yes, it was going to be a mild spring like it was in UK and the ground was very soft and it was very undulating and actually once we got on the ground, it was like concrete. It was a lunar landscape. It was freezing weather and we didn't have cold weather equipment for out there. I mean, it was freezing Chris. So in fact, at one stage I've written in the book that the RSM of our regiment at that time actually went down to the markets, the soaps in Al Julf actually bought a load of coats and got them on helicopters and sent them out to the actual two squadrons that were out of the ground, A Squadron and D Squadron because they were having problems as well. I've written about them in the book and obviously we didn't get any of that equipment because we were hundreds of miles behind enemy lines and we didn't have anything like that. These things happen, it's just the way it is. When you get on the ground and you realize that everything that you've been told intelligence wise is wrong, well then Chris, as you know as a soldier, you can't win your wine and bellyache, you just get on with the task. And besides Chris is that once you are ordered to do something, you are given a task commission, you've got to carry out the best you can. You can't just say no, I'm not going to do this. This is your job, this is what you do and this is any soldier in any regiment and in this case, I'm telling a story about our patrol, an SES regiment and we have a certain reputation of getting the job done. In fact, most of the situations that we're pouring to Chris and I think this is across the military, you know broadly, is that we most of the time, the British units and especially the SES, we're pouring to negative situations but we are expected to bring about a positive outcome. Hence that goes all the way back to what I talked about earlier Chris, about the selection process itself. You've got to have a certain individual that will see the job through and I think our British military is just fantastic for doing this. You know I've worked with many, many units around the world, many good units and I know the respect that the British forces have. I've worked with many units that say other British forces getting involved in this conflict and the answer is normally yes and they say oh thank goodness, you know we know that a good job is going to be done. So we have a good reputation around the world. That's the British military on a whole, which is fantastic and in my opinion we are the best armed forces in the world. But going back to what I said is that when you're on the ground and you realise the intelligence wrong Chris, guess what, it's wrong what you're going to do. You've just got to get on with the task in hand and just do the best you possibly can. I'm going to much detail in the book and I'm just touching on things today. When people read the book they'll know exactly what I'm on about and I give facts, I give opinions and actually being there on the ground and seeing what's happened well then obviously I can say exactly what happened and didn't happen. So I think people will be interested to read all of what I'm about to say. So your patrol Des, how were you being inserted into this landscape? Yes, we were inserted by helicopter but by Chinooks. We went in by vehicles, we had two vehicles that were carried in by these helicopters. Now people say they go welcome the other two patrols, Bravo 10 or Bravo 2 went in by foot and you went in and used a couple of vehicles. In each patrol you've got eight guys and what they do is that once you were given the mission, the task, the way you deploy, I talked about the entry skills earlier on and what we actually do as FCS soldiers, the expertise is the guys on the ground, that is us. So how we carry out that task and that mission is entirely up to us. The intelligence showed that the operation of finding these mobile scout missiles could be carried out on foot but also could be carried out in vehicles. So two of the patrols decided to go in on foot but Bravo 30 we decided to go in by vehicle. So those two landrovers were inserted by two Chinooks helicopters and we were flown hundreds of miles onto target and by the way on them Chinooks was all three patrols, Bravo 1, 2 and 3 with the two landrovers and we were inserted out onto the ground and that was how it all started. Whereas Bravo 20 had comms issues, didn't they, something to do with the radio frequencies? Did you have good comms from the start? No, in fact all three patrols had problems and this caused some of the main major issues. Just to make it clear to the people that are listening, these are not comms that you can actually speak in. These are actually communications that you send electronically if you like and they are coded messages so there is always a delay. Now we didn't know at the time that we'd been given all three patrols had been given the wrong frequencies so therefore once we were trying to send messages we could say that there was problems from the start. We were getting messages being sent out but we were getting garbled messages coming back and this was down to getting to mistakes that had been made. Bravo 10 had these problems and Bravo 2 especially and it was only when we're on the ground that when we got off the helicopters and our vehicles that we could see that the ground was like concrete and it was flat, it was like a billiard table and we knew that as the days went on we were having more and more difficulties and we had two vehicles and we were thinking well if we're having problems the other two patrols has got to be having problems as well because they are on foot. Now bear in mind we couldn't communicate with them, we were having problems communicating back to headquarters so we knew that all three patrols were having problems and then not only was did we have the shortfalls of the communications but not having proper mapping and not having proper weapons and not having the right ammunition and the vehicles weren't battle ready. We and then it was freezing cold weather it started to snow and then we and we also knew then that the bean fatalities on the ground we could tell by some of the garbled messages that we were having that things wasn't right and then in the book I'll go into more detail of some of the problems that we had and I was asked the question why we didn't abort why didn't we come back and one night we could see in the distance we could see my dad being bombed we could see ours being lit up and we could see aircraft or at least we could see the traces and the likes of explosions and we sat in our vehicles watching this and it was only afterwards that we put our heads together and said you know we we knew that evening that people were being killed possibly innards of people not intentionally but as you know in conflict you get fallout we knew that things were going bad for us then and we had vehicles so we knew the other patrols were having problems as well and we just said to ourselves that what we'd say you know back then getting bombed and we knew that was going to go on and go on we just said to ourselves that we would try everything we possibly could within you know within our mission to try and achieve it if you like before we return to base and we all agreed with that because yes you could say look we didn't have the right frequencies we didn't have this that and the other but we still had a job to do we still had a task we still had a mission and we've been ordered to do this with soldiers we've got to carry out the best we can we can't just give up so that's what we did so eventually we had problems along the way as well I know I keep saying details in the book but yes eventually we got into trouble and the problems our hand was forced to do certain things so yes that's how we come about there there was lots of things gone wrong Chris and in the book I'll go into great detail yeah I'm curious to know how when you're on the ground how you know whether you're going to be able to be extracted or not you know did you I mean were they getting your messages and you're just like fingers crossed or or how was that yes well we in our mission we'd add that we were obviously going to be dropped off at a certain place and we're going to be picked up at a certain place but once we realized that communications were difficult we started to think about well because we've got vehicles you know here there's a we may have to drive back to Saudi there was also other things in the mission as well is that behind us coming up behind us we had two Sabre squadrons we had a squadron and D squadron that had already set off from the Saudi border and was coming up through the desert behind us there was also part of our mission that we was hopefully going to meet up with one of either squadron so we had that in mind as well there was many things within the mission I mean the main mission was to find the mobile squad rockets but within the mission itself there were other things that yes we could have drove back to Saudi if we had to extract ourselves we could meet up with a or D squadron so there was other things in our minds that we're going to do even though we were having problems with our radio what we're hoping is that along the way is that the radio communications we would be able to sort them out eventually and be able to get clear comms meanwhile as I said earlier Chris we had a job to do we had a task to do just because we didn't have comms is it a good enough excuse to say well you know we've got to turn around and come back we got on with a task in hand and and did what we had to do Chris yeah and obviously don't take anything away from the book which I'll put a link friends at home I'll put a link below the podcast so you can grab yourselves a coffee I was reading a bit of it earlier on the the they let you read a bit on that on Amazon so yes extremely engaging from from the start Des can you just give our our friends at home an idea I mean was there any excitement was there any funny moments or what you know what was it like being out there yes I mean yes there's a lot of incidents really in the book and I'll just point out just a few of them on the infiltration when we're on the helicopters we got engaged by their top gun fighter pilot that had a lock on and was ready for shooting us out in the sky so I talked in depth about what happened there we had some real problems we thought we were going to get shot out in the sky even before we'd start our mission we were bumping into people all the time on the ground as you can appreciate we were pretending to be Iraqi troops and we were bumping into them all the time our our signature was is that we had two crappy vehicles we had all different types of uniform on we had Shemags on and luckily the Iraqi armed forces had a mixture of uniforms and troops so we were trying to pass ourselves off as them and we were bumping into them all the time we nearly got shot and blown up by a fighter again that was firing at us on the ground and we that nearly finished us as well and then we had real problems Chris with we knew we were going down with hypothermia all of us so we were getting in a really really bad situation our vehicle started to let us down one of the vehicles broke down itself and we had lots and lots of problems while I was out there Chris as I says in the book I think people will be very interested to hear about this story itself and it shines light on to the other stories of Bravo two zero and and and Bravo one zero but he also talks about other missions that have been on other things that have done within the SES he talks about my opinion all about the Gulf and what happened at that time and he talks about my life growing up and and how I joined the armed forces itself but it's it's not just about the Gulf itself it's there's something there for everyone and I had a talk with some ladies not so long ago of about 200 ladies and I was very surprised how much they liked the book as we can appreciate Chris I mean this respectfully this sort of genre tends to be for the guys doesn't it or in this case the ladies you know really enjoyed the book so I for the ladies out there I think they'll enjoy it as well so I think it's a great book and I think there's something there for everybody Chris. Yes good and I'm sure there is Des what otherwise you wouldn't have had coming up for 500 reviews on Amazon well and so congratulations but to finish off then mate can you tell us a bit about the your close protection work? Yes in the book I've mentioned about when I got out of the regiment the question that's always asked is what sort of work do you do when you get out the SES and when I was in there I used to be on the close protection wing most people know it as body guard and what I did I went into an area in as we call it service street when I was out after the regiment and looking after celebrities and people always asked me to do some name dropping and I've looked after security wise for footballers that would be Jamie Redknapp, Rob Bekeen, Les Ferdinand and I've done security on the pop world that would be Christine Aguilera, Sia, Rod Stewart, I've done security for TV, Jeremy Kyle and Jim Davison and I've also done quite a bit of security on the Bond films so looking after Piers Brosnan and Halle Berry and some of the other films as well that's just the name job just a few people always ask me you know what's it like looking after some of these celebrities and the vast majority on them are good it's a difficult sort of work because celebrities want to be seen they want to be on the red carpet they want to be interviewed and talk so it's not like what I've been used to doing covert operations where you tend to do security and protection where they are not seeing anyone so but yes I enjoyed it is very good so people always like to hear about that before that I was doing security for top media organizations mainly American ones ABC, NBC, CBS and that would be war correspondence going out to conflict zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and that's only because we've worked out in that part of the world so therefore you tend to be more climatized to it and more in the know of what needs to be done regarding security wise so you are asked many times to come and work for these organizations so I did that for a few years I quite enjoyed that but I particularly enjoyed the celebrity the VIPs ones as well and I tend to keep in contact with some of them today so which is quite nice I did just on I know we're doing a podcast today I did a podcast just recently with Jeremy Kyle and I pointed out to him that I did security for him and he went ah yes I remember like so we had a bit of laughter and banter sort of thing and he was a particularly nice guy to look after he's very much up on the military and does a lot for the military organizations which is great to see but so that was my life after the regiments and now I went and people call me an author what about that Chris you know so now I have you know I'm an author or co-author and I tend to live my life between two parts of the world I've lived out in the Middle East for many years out in the UAE and here in the UK and I like both places very very much and I've been very very pleased the response and reaction that we've had regarding the book I mean at first you're always wary about bringing out a book I know we touched on it at first Chris you know and being in the military and what have you but it's been a very very pleasurable experience and I've really enjoyed it so I've really enjoyed working with the people I like their mindset their ethos hard work let's get on let's bring out a good product and of course Chris we've been used to that over the years haven't we working in the military so it's nice working with like-minded people and it's been great experience bringing out this book and I'm doing talks now and meeting people and as you can see I have no problems talking Chris and by the way I've really enjoyed it today it's been fantastic Chris. Oh it's been a pleasure having you Dez I'm still trying to get my head around the fact James Bond as a bodyguard I was a big James Bond fan and that has just ended what a bloody wimp yeah yeah well it's I wasn't as much as a bodyguard more as security and pointing the way to go of what to do and what not to do and I suppose it's no it's not bodyguard as such there's a difference Chris as we know isn't there you know security security bodyguard is different but yes no keep that image Chris you know as far as James Bond I don't want it to be spoiled because I like the James Bond films as well and working on those films was a pleasure by the way I really enjoyed it. James Bond's going to be a woman very shortly so no disrespect to wonderful women but I think like probably most rational people like my Bond to be a bloke. Yes Dez you're on Instagram aren't you if people want to hit you up? Yes yes I am DE so it's Dez.P22 Dez.P22 that's the Instagram and then Twitter is the other way around it's P22 Dez and those are the two that you'll get me on and as I said yes I've been getting some nice response and so it may go on and as I said it's been nice coming here today Chris being good chatting to you and thank you very very much for allowing me to speak about the book it's been very good of you thank you. No problem Dez thanks for coming on the show fascinating story I look forward to getting a copy of your book and I should say thank you to our friends at home as well hope you've all enjoyed this as much as I have if you could like and subscribe that would be wonderful and we will see you next time thank you.