 I'm from a working class background, I was poor, I wanted opportunities. Then we used my court martial to indict them, saying I wasn't obliged to go to the wars because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal and unjustified. Australia, I think people often look at me like I'm some kind of rebel. Anybody who didn't go in was shot on sight. Contradiction stroke hypocrisy. We try and respect the dead by keeping their numbers to a minimum. Joe, how are you brother? Good, mate. Short and to the point? Short and to the point. So Joe, for our friends at home, just a quick, how did we get to this point in our lives? Our friends at home know I've been sort of rallying the Global Veterans Alliance and in that process I get sent a lot of military videos and stuff that kind of show signs that at least the percentage of our military are, quote, unquote, awake and had one sent to me recently and I was just super impressed by it. It was by Joe, not just for the eloquence of his speaking and grasp of the subject. In this case it was the contradiction stroke hypocrisy around Remembrance Day with respect to the military industrial complex that basically promotes Remembrance Day in a nutshell. Joe is obviously welcome to sort of correct me on that and also the fact how people kind of sort of blindly buy into this, like it's some Christmas party or something, when it's actually, you know, I think if you want to honour the fallen, stop sending the next generation off to these conflicts, but anyway that's a bit of a political start, but Joe, I was impressed and when I learned more about you, I learned you're a fellow author, your books were absolutely fascinating and I can't wait to read them and so let's talk about that, but I also learned that you had refused, sorry if I'm not using the right word I've been out so long, but you said no to go into one of these conflicts as a serviceman, I thought it was the right but you've just informed me it's Afghanistan, so do you want to tell us who you serve with and how that came about? Yeah sure, I was in a deeply unglamorous court, I was in the Royal Logistics Court, which I joined which would have been maybe Ordnance Court, I'm not exactly sure when you're in, but yeah I joined in 2004 for probably the reasons most people join, I'm from a working class background, it's a route out of that and loved it, it was keen and green, it was going to stay forever, which is what we all say at the start and then I did a tour, so it was the era of Iraq and Afghanistan, so we went to Afghanistan, did a tour, for me it was like it wasn't a terribly kinetic tour, for me I was in, I was doing the ammunition with the 13 Air Assault Regiment, it was the three Parabattle Group and we were the logistics element of that, went out over the course of the tour, I started to question the kind of, I think that the rationales we've been given about why we were in Afghanistan, we were given lots of reasons, it's about helping women go to school, it's about stopping the opium, it's about humanitarian stuff and I think those started to fall away over the course of the tour and I wasn't a very political person at the time, but certainly that developed, I mean not on tour because you don't really have time on tour as you know yourself, you're quite busy, but after that I think that started to crystallise into a kind of critique, a critique of the war in a very uncomplicated way, a moral, a moral objection to what was going on and I plan to just get out the military and it would never have been a thing and then I was promoted and posted, I'd done quite well, it was probably the first time in my life I've been recognised, I was suddenly a Lance Corporal towering figure of authority and was posted to another unit and they said you want to go on tour, we're going on tour, but there was something called Harmony Guidelines in place, which is this 18-month break between two operational tours and I said no, I don't want to go and it would have been, I would have just signed off after that period and left, but then they said no, you are going, at which point my objection, which had been a quietly helping that I hadn't discussed, started to crystallise into something more serious and I straight, I think people often look at me like I'm some kind of rebel, but actually I was a very well-behaved soldier, I was never even in front of a soldier major and so it's probably unusual for them because I said look, I'm not going and now I'm in a position where you're going to force me to go, this is why and I'd explain to them my chain of command, which was rear party at the time, there was only about 30 of us still in the unit, but I wasn't going and this is why because I didn't agree with what was going on, as you would expect the chain of command frowned upon this somewhat and said you are going and it was like Lance Corporal, Sergeant Major Pingpong, you are, you're not, you are, you're not and eventually they said it was and I said not and we kind of, we kind of left it there and it seems clear to me that they were going to make, try and make me go back to Afghanistan. At the same time, my tour hadn't been very kinetic, but there was, it took years to diagnose, but there was a mortar attack halfway through, so I started to develop post-traumatic stress, which I was, I was uncomfortable with the diagnosis to be honest because I think a lot of people feel like they don't somehow deserve PTSD because we weren't out on the ground, we weren't kicking doors in, we weren't in the infantry etc, but about five years later it was actually diagnosed with PTSD, so there was a perfect storm of things came together and I eventually voted with my feet and went on the run, which, which I mean people do, if you've been in the military people do go on the run, I think normally normally as a result of something going wrong, mistreatment, which was certainly my position then, so I was on the run for like two and a half years, I had my tour money, it was the most money I've ever had, so I went on the run, I knew I could, I needed to go somewhere, I didn't want to hang around the UK waiting to be called or go to Ireland, so I vanished off to Asia and I knew you could vanish there, you could disappear in Asia, so I ended up smoking opium on the banks of the Mekong. Strangely, I went on the run from Afghanistan in Vietnam, which was a weird, a weird irony of history and eventually I ended up in Australia through a circuitous route and I think during that time my, my polity, it started to become more of a political thing, rather than just a moral thing, I suppose I had been a conscientious objector and it became more political, I think I started to look at the conflict and read history, I know you're a reader as well and read, read around the topic of Afghanistan and Britain's military relationship to the world and I pick it and eventually I came back voluntarily, two years and five days later, I walked in the camp gate and my mate was in the guard room and he was like, where have you been, you clown? And there was a list, there was a list of the, it was like the FBI's most wanted and I was top of the list of AWOLs, there was a lot of AWOLs from that unit, it was a, it was a bad unit, it was a toxic unit and I was top of the list like Osama bin Laden, the Osama bin Laden of AWOLs in the guard room and yeah and then I, as soon as I got back, got in touch with some anti-war organisations and started to campaign while I was still serving, because my politics had developed to that point, I was initially charged with AWOL which I never denied because clearly I wasn't there, I was banned to rights where we know that game and that was that was later raised to desertion and then because I was speaking to the media while I was serving, they banned multiple charges, we know they frown upon you speaking to the media unless it's scripted in the military and so they added charge, charge upon charge. Eventually as the court martial day drew closer, my lawyers, I sacked the army lawyer and got my own lawyer and we drew up an indictment basically of the wars, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and my plan was to use my trial to indict the military about about the conduct of the reasons for the wars and the conduct of the wars. And that, we sent that to them and then about two weeks later I rang them up because they had gone very quiet and we said what are you doing? They said right we've decided, we decided we're going to drop all the charges for speaking to the media and the desertion down to the AWOL, so in the end I was just, I just had a sentencing and got, I was given nine months but did five months in Colchester Military Prison, which was in itself fascinating, I write about that in my first book, Soldier Box, that's where the name comes from, Soldier Box, it's like a box you store servicemen in when they've been nancy and I was eventually discharged in July 2010 and then from there, I guess we get into it, long story short, came out, went to university, studied politics, decided I want to be a journalist because there was so much bad journalism around the wars and they were so poorly reported and then found my way into, it's different kinds of left politics, so I was in veterans for peace for many years, did a lot of stuff, I know you've had Spike on who's a good friend of mine and then started making documentaries, so last, to round it off last year I went back to Afghanistan unarmed this time, no air support, we were a very small team to make a documentary about CIA kill teams basically, they're Afghans but the CIA run them and train them and they're doing, taking over the role of house raids and stuff like that and so I found myself back in Afghanistan 15 years later in a much more vulnerable position, driving around in a Toyota Corolla through IED Alley and in, we got lost in Taliban territory but it was a real reckoning, it was a real reckoning, it was a really enjoyable film to make and it was enjoyable to go back to a place where you'd served in a very different role but that's what I do, now I'm a journalist and occasionally I write a book which is this guy I pull the shelf behind him. Yes, yes well come on to your books, I just want to make it clear at this point in the podcast that I have never ever smoked opium in Vietnam okay, I just have them right, I won't labour the point. Mate, what I was going to say, are you familiar with the Belt and Road Initiative? No, what's that? This is, the whole world is in like this mass stupor about like what is actually why all these events are what they are and things like Afghanistan, if you don't understand the Belt and Road Initiative you won't understand why we were in Afghanistan and you won't understand the events in New York and Washington 20 years ago and it's just really important people start learning this stuff because otherwise we're just condemning the next generation to go and get slaughtered for these psychopaths. Sorry I won't go off at a time, I just wondered if it was something you were familiar with, it's basically a super highway, the old Silk Road but in reverse so whereas the old Silk Road took riches from China and brought them into Europe, this is dragging goods, resources, human services, whatever it might be, across into China. When you understand it then you understand why we've seen such destruction across this belt of North Africa and Central Asia, this utter churn it all up, get mass immigration into Europe to destroy the infrastructure of the historic kind of identity of Europe. You see a lot of troop movements now in East Africa so obviously that's because the Suez Canal is going to become a big pinch point in this Belt and Road, it's a seaway and a roadway. I don't want to go too deep for this podcast but it just explains the whole narrative of what we've seen played out for 20 years and I'm not even going to suggest who's in control of it all but I think the more you read all roads always seem to lead to Rome on this, some super elites that buy into agendas that we don't do. Yeah crazy it's just insane because I always find them having double conversations with people they're talking about what they think is going on in the world and I'm sort of yeah sort of over here. So sorry a very brave thing to do to not, I mean you know in your unit regiment there's x amount of hundreds of people and it's going to literally you're probably going to be the only person who says I'm not going, is that about right? Certainly yeah yeah I mean there are other people but it's isolated cases, it's isolated cases there are other guys around different units over that period of time who refused. I think the difference is that I refuse, my refusal became very public and a look there's a certain inconsistency when I talk to other people who've been through that process and I think it's partly because I try and be fair minded about this to be honest because it's partly because unit chains of command don't really know what to do when someone does that and in some cases people are just discharged almost immediately and in other cases it becomes a kind of, they try and make an example out of you or whatever but I always come back to the idea that if there's a person in your unit and I had a good disciplinary record and they're saying this, they're saying I mean if you were a squaddie on the ground would you want that person on tour and also given the mental health stuff which was diagnosed at the time would you want someone who's unfit for the job on tour. My argument would be probably not, probably you don't want someone who's liability on tour and for I mean I would look at that, I would like to think if I was in training I'd be like okay we're not going to take this guy because he's got some problems going on but I think that varies because often chains of command themselves don't know how to respond to that and there were various cases over the course of Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a young navy medic a year after me and he actually made it to the consent, there's a conscientious objection board you're allowed to become, to apply to be a conscientious objector. There is a process which is in place and he made it and then another guy, I know Ben Griffin is one of the founders of VFP, he raised his concerns about Iraq and was just immediately discharged. Of course that's going to be coloured by the fact he was in the SAS and it's probably more of a liability at that level but there's a real inconsistency on how these cases are treated and I think some of that's that the army, the navy, the air force doesn't really know how to respond to it and that's probably a process they need to clarify. People should know it should be in the regs or whatever and easily accessible so I'm trying to be fair to the chains of command here to be honest that they should have the facilities and the knowledge to be able to deal with those situations. Yeah it is a fascinating one isn't it? You know when you serve, your brigadiers and your colonels, they're sort of like the gods aren't they? You know when you're in and you just, it doesn't occur to you as a boots on the ground that these guys don't just know everything and yet now as I sit here now and this is not about me Joe but it's like I know way more about the world than probably all of them put together. I think it's, I've had this conversation a couple of times that I think you make a really interesting point whereas not in like a theoretical way but in a really like lived way ex-military people who are in the ranks have a really strong sense of class. It's a very acute sense because I knew some good officers don't give me wrong and I'm made to have a couple of ex-officers but you spend a lot of time being told what to do by people and you're like you don't actually know you're supposed to be all powerful but you don't actually know what you do. You're just the same as me. You're a 20 year old lieutenant who's just out of Sandhurst or whatever and I think veterans have a really acute sense of that and I think it shapes how we think about the world when we come out. We're conscious of who's telling us to do what. Yeah I'm going to just make a note here of something that I also wanted to ask you because you write, is it the Guardian you've been? I have been in the Guardian. I work for an organisation called the Canary now and I make freelance films for a film called Redfish and the movies are on them, the documentaries are on you'll find them on YouTube and various other platforms. Yeah I'm just going to write that down sorry. Okay before I come on to what I was going to say yeah I was under the impression that there was a sort of understanding through the military that when somebody says I'm going to fight that horseshit that they kind of just I'm that there's a kind of almost like an unwritten understanding that yeah what we're doing is wrong but we're all going to do it anyway so like this guy's actually right so let's just let him out the back door quietly sort of thing but yeah yeah I think that's right but bad apples that's the term but they use that term for absolutely anything absolutely anything like if someone if there's if someone does something wrong on tour if civilians are killed it's bad apples if someone if you find out someone's in like a neo-nazi group which happened the other year it's bad apples if someone refuses to go to a war it's bad apples and it doesn't address the the kind of systemic stuff that people do object and I'll be honest like some I think I think on the guys the guys around me guys and girls because I know women in Michael as well kind of got what I was saying they weren't going to do it themselves but they they kind of understood and they didn't really have an idea like who had an ideological belief in Iraq and Afghanistan I don't think many people did because squad is on inoculated against what's going on in the media the things that being said about the wars the criticism criticisms that being leveled and so it's it's it's much more complicated than people think I reckon obviously some people the true believers will be like oh you're a dessert you're a coward you're this and that but I think most people kind of get got what I was saying around me people around me and on many occasions people but it's a it's a military thing like you say you keep it in house it's off the record that they would come up to me and go well I think Afghanistan is wrong as well but they wouldn't they wouldn't I respect that they weren't going to pursue the same position maybe they're in the pension trap they have to think about their families I wasn't going to try and convince anyone else to do what I was doing it was very much an individual moral position and I tried to not get anyone else caught up in it to be honest out of respect to their own needs there's almost like a Nuremberg thing going on though with you know when I've talked to people on the podcast about Afghanistan they're like oh yeah well we we knew it was wrong but we were there for the guy on the right and the left of and and it like I get it and I'm not just I'm not here to judge anyone I've been a young soldier I know what it's like I mean it was different when I was in conflict I I genuinely thought we were the good guys they're gentle you know I mean it didn't and I'm not saying that we weren't in you know oh whatever but now at least I'm aware that there's actually there's two sides to a story and you only get your only in the military getting literally the one side yeah um and so I get that but like you mentioned with Afghanistan because we had the internet by then as well so there was a lot more information flying about about the sort of illegality of it all and people were still going out knowing it was an illegal conflict they were taking part in but justifying it to themselves by saying yeah well I'm here to fight the smudge and knocker and again this isn't a judgment call it's just geez we're a bit screwed aren't we if that's how weak people's you know our moral our moral code is yeah it's um yeah I think it's kind of a trap that there's an idea there's a concept called the sacrifice trap which is more at the national level where it's like we have to if we pull out now then all the lives would have been wasted and I think that thing is kind of a version of that but it's more individual and it's like I'm going for the guys around me and I and we have to be frank and what I talk about in the book a lot is how is it comes from training that this is drilled in to different degrees I think the depth at which that is implanted is different for a royal me marines commando to a clerk in the raf I think that's probably it's much more intense if you're in the paras or the infantry or whatever but it's the same thing and that that idea that kind of tribalism comes from somewhere and it's been trained in basically by the people who want you to nor question the war I mean we have to see that correlation like it's no good to your commanders political commanders and senior military commanders if you start questioning it and that's one of the reasons it's what actually it's a concept that vfp talk about um in their in their analysis of what military training does and they call it it's like loyalty to the gang and it comes as a former us ranger a colonel I forget his name it's in the book um who who came up with this who became a psychologist and talked about these these mechanisms and how the loyalty to the individual people around you and you're I'm not judging it all I'm trying to I'm like you I'm trying to understand where it comes from but it's really deep seated it's really powerful and we also take it out into the world afterwards which is why veterans I think seek each other out afterwards why why when you leave and you're isolated you kind of seek out other veterans and because they even if it's they don't even if they can't express it they do understand there's a common ground there so there's a lot of really complex psychological stuff going on there I think I think and I try in the book to unpack and I talk about and I talk to other people other veterans about it Joe I want to ask you what was it like then for you on a on a personal level what was the the the pressure and the worry and the stress and the fear of of I mean it's one thing being in Asia backpacking and having the time of your life because you've got a few grand in the bank and you can go to a full moon party and get off your head or whatever it it's another thing to know all that time I I've got to go back and face the music and then when you get back and you have this massive press attention was the attention when you got back yeah when I got back when I got back I started to campaign more publicly but there was yeah it was also there was also post-traumatic stress undiagnosed at the time who's only diagnosed before the trial but yeah and I think like everyone a lot of people go AWOL even if it's like you know some guys go AWOL because they have an argument with their girlfriend or whatever but most people explode and I think it's built into military people that you drink a lot anyway and you're quite fiery because you've been trained to be for it so definitely I exploded and went to Southeast Asia took loads of drugs drank a lot was a terrible a terrible wreck um and that's kind of a part of parcel of going AWOL but yeah I think the pressure built up and then but over the in Australia I think I I kind of sorted myself out a little bit drank less started trying to engage with arguments about imperialism and capitalism and things like this and when I by the time I came back I was kind of not well but better and so I came back with the intention of going well I might end up in jail I probably will but I will you will hear what I have to say you'll hear what I have to say and I will make my point and you will hear it and so in a weird way that process even though it's terrifying was kind of empowering um definitely and then by the time I was actually sentenced then suddenly for the first time in a two and a half year saga then there was an end point in point in sight so being in Colchester and I was in D company which is the discharge side actually there was an end date and I was like actually I'm okay I'm okay and and Colchester wasn't actually that bad because I wasn't in a company which is where the young lads who might have you know been in subordinate go to get reprogrammed but D company was just full of D company of Colchester military prison was actually full of guys who had been done multiple tours guys who had been corporals guys who had been large corporals people much more experienced soldiers who in many cases in a non-political way had kind of fallen foul of the same things as me loads of them had anecdotally loads of them had post-traumatic stress it was drugs it was drinking it was violence related to operational experiences on operational tours so I was kind of in good company then and to be honest because we had a massive laugh I'm still mates with loads of those guys I'm still mates with some of the screws I still talk to some of the people who on a number of occasions were like I only became a military prison guard because I didn't want to go on tour anymore I didn't I was in the infantry I didn't want to do kinetic tours anymore so in a weird way I was surrounded by people who not surrounded but there were a lot of people there who were kind of on the same page as me anyway it was strange it was what I expected it was a strange experience the final thing on this subject Joel wanted to ask is I had quite a few mates who were military policemen in the Marines so so Royal Marines Police and there's not such that massive division in the Marines between our police and the ranks that I think the red is it red caps you call them in the army they're kind of called pigs and all this stuff aren't they and yeah in the Marines it's almost looked at as well we need you we you know these guys are needed they are Royal Marine they they are commandos at the end of the day they've just chosen to go that that way and and there's not that sort of feeling that they sell their own grandmother to get a conviction so at least it was when I was in and my best mate just happened to be one guy the guy that I joined the forces with and uh we were talking about people going A1 he said Chris we don't go looking for them he said literally we you go A well if you happen to rock up I don't know if we're driving down the road in a police van and you're yeah well of course we're going to arrest you but we don't go around you oh they might send someone around your house or something but that that's so I'm just wondering Joe had you not gone back do you think they would have just lost in some there's some sort of I mean at some point the army must just you go into the EFAR and and they cut their losses don't they yeah I think there's a couple of things going on there they sent a guy who was actually a full screw who I was mates with they sent him around my mum's house and she was like no he's not here and that was it that that was the sum so it wasn't exactly Poirot or uh or like the fugitive where they were hunting me down I'd love it if I was like Jason Bourne being pursued by the regimental police it would have been a much better story but it just wasn't it just wasn't like that um but yeah I think it's interesting when I was actually in Colchester Nick very often they would bring these old guys in these older guys in their 50s or 60s and hold them very briefly and then let them go I would be like well what's he in for and it's like oh he went AWOL in like 1982 he's been living in Ireland and these guys would come in and just be just be administrative I don't know what the runout day is but there must be a day after which they I mean you're obviously not going to put the guy back into his unit um and I think as you say because they don't look very often my understanding is that they'll find like a guy will be AWOL for 10 years but he'll get pulled over by the police because his his rear light is out and then his name will come up but it's not a case of deliberately searching for for them like they leave a turn up or they don't I think and I think a lot of them a lot of guys that seem to end up in Ireland um the Republic of Ireland um uh over there and other places like after I my saga I had various people contact me going how like how do you how do you kind of how do I get out of this how can I be processed can I ever come back to the UK and it seems to be really that they're caught for some other minor offence and then their name comes up on a computer and then they're then they're nabbed blimey yes let's um uh can we talk about your remembrance day video because I think just to recap what I said earlier in the global veterans alliance we we honor the fallen our colleagues that died we remember we their name is not in vain and not just them not just our colleagues but the hundreds of thousands and probably millions that went before them and now and we always say that we're not we're not getting into the politics here of the Rothschilds and all the the people that create these wars but but the fact that you know was that John Conlon 14 years old from Wexwood I think he was from somewhere in Ireland in the First World War 14 went over the top to be slaughtered by the enemy machine guns and you know he went down to recruiting office or wherever they went and you know signed on the dot he thought he was protecting my future and and I can't forget that I don't know you know it's not in my nature go well fuck you tough shit it's and so when it comes to remembrance day it it's quite a bit of pill to swallow to see so many people that just I'm just going to say it they don't get it they don't get it and by by it's a complicated one so let's just clear the table I'm not in any way trying to say we don't it's not a very special day for people and I mean an emotionally you know significant draining awful awful day it must be an awful day I mean I was chatting to a squad he wants I can't remember the situation I think it was a part on our paracourse he said Chris I went to and he was talking about one of the big bombs that had gone off in Northern Ireland he said Chris I went to bed in a six-man room and the next night I went to bed it was just me right and we get that we get of course we get that but it's just the fact that you've got these gloating politicians and and all the rest of it it all the ones that send our chats to these illegal conflicts and all it is doing is is is aggrandizing or or setting into cement that this the military industrial complex as though it's something that I guess what I'm trying to say Joe is if you want to respect the fallen stop supporting this evil evil machine and and and the and the the mechanisms it uses to con you into rather than looking at these poor young men and women as victims which they are they've all been duped to look at them as heroes in fallen heroes because it's so valiant to go off to war and it's the right thing to do and it just seems insane in this day and age with the internet where you can find out what all these conflicts are about who who who initiates them who funds them what clever tricks they pull to get the public on their side all that information is available and yet the 99 percent uh just I yeah no you're right I mean we're probably um that I look at that my critique is a critique of capitalism those are my politics so we have different starting points but and that but that is what my analysis of the thing comes from um that remembrance I I can even remember when I was a kid that remembrance was a somber remembrance to me well how I conceptualize remembrance it's supposed to be like a funeral that should be the tone of remembrance that's kind of what we were told when I was a young soldier and it's certainly um the position that that I kind of learned just as a as a kid as well and I think there's a sense that um remembrance has been captured and hijacked and we've moved away I agree I think vfp vets for peace the only organization they march down there and they do their reflame ceremony with a flag that says never again and that was the sentiment that that angry veterans who came back and their families who came back from the first world war the sentiment was never again which obviously didn't happen we know how how history played out um but that and I think some of the ways that expresses now the idea that remembrance is captured is that I used to commute through Westminster Station when I was a journalist and at remembrance time every year there would be a big poster of a fighter jet BAE systems with the Royal British Legion in the corner a raw a poppy in the corner of the Royal British Legion and that the fact that the British Legion remembrance and arms firms have kind of somehow been smashed together fused together bothers me I don't think that the firms who make profit out of wars I think they use their hijacked remembrance to kind of you know how they talk about greenwashing like big firms greenwash their things to make it look more friendly to the climate it's kind of wall washing and to wash away their sins they've tried to hegemonize to take over things like remembrance and they um we did some freedom of information requests we found out they're involved in funding Armed Forces Day um big donors to the charities and I just find that really underhand and I don't think that's I'm I'm a traditionalist in very few senses but I'm a traditionalist in the sense I would like remembrance to be serious again and I feel it's undermined from being a serious personal occasion and a social occasion where you go and have around with your old mates from your unit to being on one level kind of taken over by arms firms I don't I don't want to see Tony Blair standing on remembrance monthly I don't want to see it or David Cameron I don't want to I don't want remembrance to be used um like there was a story a few years ago about an ex-general who had advised he was kind of one of those fake shakes advised the guy said if you can get on the remembrance parade and you want to do an arm still because all the politicians are there you can nudge him while they're all queuing up that's like good access um and this is a former British Army general but that staff I think is is problematic for me and I think a lot of veterans would agree with that and civilians let's be honest a lot of civilians I I kind of want remembrance to go back to being what it was when I was when I was a kid um to be a serious somber occasion with where you remember not just the military people who've died but also all the civilians who've died in war I think it can be expanded I think for a lot of people it has that meaning it's also a thing that remembrance can mean whatever you want it like it's very personal that's what we were discussing but I think the involvement of massive I call them big death Chris you know how you have like big pharma and um big tobacco arms firms are big death they make money out of this thing they make money out of war and conflict and they sell weapons to some of the most brutal authoritarian regimes in the world Saudi Arabia places like that and I think they're they're hijacking of remembrance is really distasteful from it really distasteful and I think it's something we need to talk about more and that's that's what I was trying to address in the video that um yeah you did some of that we need to discuss it we need to talk it's and it's good it's democratic to discuss it we should discuss it yeah when you see you know six year olds and there's armed forces down there playing with a GPMG yeah yeah it just shows you the absolute my my my myopia myopia of the public of understanding what this not just not just what what is going on here I this is a big arms fair basically but also the the the reality of what what war is about yeah you know that weapon there that's that slices through kids it's not supposed to be played played with by kids this isn't a game but of course this is the plant in the seeds of of the next generation isn't it along with the call of duty and and and all this sort of stuff we did I work for an organization which which monitors some stuff about about military recruiting it's part of the remit and we um probably about four or five years ago now we dug up it was a statement by a colonel who was in charge of recruiting and what he said was very significant to me he said it's a recruiting isn't just like uh the the training team turns up at school and then so many people join he talked about a drip drip drip a graduate over many years through the call of duty through the through playing with the GPMG through the gradual process of militarizing people oh my god he also talks about and I think it's it's key to they're not when they talk about recruiting the military talk about recruiting they're not just recruiting people literally to join that's important they're also recruiting the whole of society to have a particular view about war and what the military does and so on so it's a bigger it's a big sophisticated project yes massively um do you remember in I think it was in the 90s these pictures came out and you could buy them like in markets and stuff like that and and it was a normal sort of picture size or poster size and it was all made up of coloured dots no you stared you stared at it and it was just dots oh yeah oh what they call it magic eye magic eye yeah I know what you mean yeah and you'd look at it and you'd go I can't see anything it's just dots dots and your mate would go no no no no look look there's a spaceship and there's a there and life's I think life's like that yeah I once you understand say the role of Hollywood in the military industrial complex and then you it just becomes so obvious how we're all being played and by that I mean that after Vietnam the the the popularity of war was at an all-time low people were literally the students were rioting against being in Southeast Asia on you know under the guises of fighting the evil red communism and yeah and also I mean I started to come in I um I spent a bit of time out in Canada alone in Vietnam veterans and there's um I try and address in the book there's a mythology of which Nixon tried to come up with which was the all the students and the hippies hated the veterans and the author Jerry Lemka who's a Vietnam veteran and a sociology professor researched this and he said there was there was no actual when he looked at media reports there's no actual occasion in which a hippie's found a veteran and when I speak to him and our veterans what they point out is the students were rioting in the streets but so were the veterans a lot of people rioting in the streets and there's fantastic images of Vietnam vets with long hair half in uniform smoking big joints throwing their medals over the front fence of the White House coming back and saying I don't agree with this fascist machine some of them look like Black Panthers with big apples yeah and I met some of these guys and what their testimony is fascinating to me oh I'd love yeah we'll just be fascinating to speak to them I've spent an evening on um Miami Beach chatting with Vietnam there's a lot of homeless Vietnam veterans who take to drink and they just reject society and there was these guys sleeping on the sun lounges and I spent quite a memorable evening just chatting chatting about war with them yeah but after Vietnam the public opinion of war was like we ain't going to it again so the the the psychopaths as I call them through the Hollywood which they own started to put out movies like Rambo and Platoon to get to get the public back on side to get them feeling sorry for these these veterans and I'm not saying that you shouldn't they had a horrific horrific experience as anyone who gets into gets into it in war war does but that wasn't the purpose of these film the purpose of these film was to heroize the veteran and then on top of these films coming in they slipped in that can I buy you a cup of coffee sir hold the door open for a veteran you know and then that then they dropped in the hero word which has now come over here that veterans are you know the the the yeah all all veterans no matter what all all heroes and all that is it was just a build back up for the last 20 years of of of conflict that we saw conflict that was just a little as illegal this last 20 or immoral as it was in Vietnam because they've sugarcoated it through their media the public just you know and of course the public changes the old guys that they understand this they're all old now no one listens to them it's the young generation come up through with their call of duty thinking that this is all heroic and you see it in the podcast I've done some of the best podcasts that I've done completely non-military just with incredible people that have done amazing things it's hard to get it's hard to get people to watch them you know everyone's just deluded about the military they all think it's just so effing bloody brilliant yeah um I think that's really it's strange because the I think the people for whom the hero thing jars the most how long I hope we can edit that it's all right it's time to time to wake up mate yeah that's my weekday wake-up time it's a journalist's life um I think the the the group of people for whom the hero thing is most jarring is veterans like none of I don't think anyone very few people kind of start around believing that about themselves I think because it's not really the mentality I think it's a difference it's the problem of I think basically what they did and I write about in in veteranhood is there's this American model I call it the American model which grew up after Vietnam exactly what you're talking about the thank you for your service model and at some point in the 2000s about 2008 there's a report about this fronted by Gordon Brown they decided to take the American model and just plonk it on Britain and I think the way we think about veterans is very different here and I think it's why so it really catches our eyes when we see a kind of a thank you for your service culture when it's when it happens here when people are kind of happy clappy about it because the way we think about veterans is kind of stoic stiff upper lip over the top boys I think we have a very different conception of what military people are and what veterans are and I think that's some of the reason that so so much of it in the last 15 years looks weird like it looks really weird to me because it's not culturally how we conceptualize who veterans are and what they want and how they think it's just another part of the of the agenda a lot along with confusing our young people about their sexuality about the color of skin of all this stuff they're having thrust upon them they're having this indoctrination into believing in the military it's just just how it is and I get a lot I don't know if you do or maybe it's because of my podcast but thank you for your service and I get it people are just trying to be nice but you can see it's just just indoctrination from coming over it's not that it's coming from America it's just that America was where they had the problem with with the peace movement I say problem I mean the psychopaths had the problem with the peace movement and they had to do something about it yeah um I think it's I think it's interesting here because we've also there have been there have been movements like that here historically around World War one World War two lots of veterans lots of veterans were involved in big in rioted in Whitehall after the first world war over demobilization and housing and bread and butter stuff and they wanted edge they wanted it fuller education and so on but I think we forget here I think those narratives and the stories of those struggles have kind of been lost and it's reduced down to I think the kind of veteran who they the British establishment the British ruling class as I would consider it is a guy who is basically some kind of a Tory and is content to just have a beer with his mate in the British Legion and is quiet and is submissive and actually the story of veterans in this country is very different from that it's full of full of rebellion and full of dissent and it's much more interesting I think it kind of downplays how interesting we military people are as characters that when we're just framed as this quite submissive figure you know I think it's kind of disrespectful in a way it doesn't capture the whole thing no Joe what's your understanding of the EU army is that something you're familiar with at all through your journalism I've covered it occasionally as a journalist I mean I don't know I mean I'm not sure of all the I probably couldn't speak to it that much to be honest mate but I'm aware it's a discussion it's a discussion that's taking place oh it's way more than that now it's a reality again it goes back to this Belt and Road initiative and the need for to mobilise forces to to protect it and more and more now you see the UK military operating under the EU flag um apparently the top bots so I don't know what that name is I don't know if it's staff officers or whether it's there's like a higher level but they they all get swore they all get indoctrinated through a certain program of education probably status isn't it no it's it's it's actually I think it was something that Tony Blair was instrumental in initiating and they indoctrinate you in this certain mindset of the new world order and the higher echelons of our military have passed through this course this is alleged allegedly but this is why you see these senior officers now just they're always standing under an EU flag or they're doing maneuvers with the Germans or they're doing um maneuvers in in East Africa or they're cross training with and uh yeah I just wondered as a journalist if that's if you had any my so most of my work is you very is UK defence rather than where it meshes into EU it's I have occasionally written about that but definitely not an expert but I do see um no some really interesting patterns some really interesting patterns were merged basically since the war on terror withdrawal I mean really the war on terror withdrawal in Afghanistan only happened a couple months ago but like the 2014 official draw down a pattern of pattern of smaller I think the British government is aware it can't do big deployments anymore and so it's become a pattern of drones airpower private military special forces and and there's a couple of strands to it and all of which are a subject to um basically to a no comment in parliament it's a really archaic procedure most of our allies do comment on things like special forces operations the Americans do the Australians do the Canadians do only in Britain is there we don't discuss that here and I think there are there are problems about transparency like obviously as a journalist I would not be like what time will they attack at dawn and then like story about it clearly so I don't want people to die but but I think there are problems about transparency around the military that anything that's folded under the special umbrella which has been expanded with SRR and SF SG and these new battalions they're talking about which will be have the name special on them I think there are big problems about transparency and a lot of that is a is a response by the state and by whoever the government is labor or Tory I don't care for either of them to failure failure in Iraq and Afghanistan that they want to they want to do their military stuff on a smaller level and behind closed doors that's the pattern that's that's the pattern 10 years of reporting on it that's definitely pattern I've seen emerging and I think there are big questions about that that people should ask yes my take on it and this is purely because there's no transparency you've just got to make of it what what what you will but if you imagine this Belt and Road this super highway the GDP of every country involved is obviously going to go up countries like America who are obviously not involved you know geographically not involved because they're an ocean away even their GDP will go up more than anyone else's by or due to the fact that their relationships with these countries that are in the Belt and Road initiatives due to the business relationships is what what I'm saying so ironically America being away having a way bigger population will see a greater GDP I think I'm right in saying that but the point is when when when you have richness you have the opposite don't you you have porness you can't have rich without poor so as all these countries their wealth increases what about countries like Africa whose wealth is going to decrease and as their wealth decreases what are we going to see we're going to see rebel groups aren't we like we saw with the pirates of Somalia who are watching these billion dollar tankers sail past you know 100 meters off shore and they're there living in poverty and these ships are passing through their seaway with all these these riches on board or black gold and so the reason we're seeing is the U army and we're seeing these snatch commando type units with a lot of technology and you can put you know eyes in the sky etc etc etc is they need to be prepared to move when these rebels attack the Belt and Road this is um this would be my my take on it yeah um yeah I think it's there's a tendency now I think to a lot of problems which previously wouldn't have been militarized the problems that there isn't a military answer to um are increasingly being I think the Somali empires example is really good because it speaks to a lot a lot of stuff I can remember right about this a while ago when it was the hike there was like a peak in this wasn't that as I understand it a lot of those people were fishermen and they applied their trade they they've got their boats which they eventually used to stop raiding ships there were fishermen and European fleets have been coming in and overfishing the stocks and in that dynamic there's so much stuff there's like an environmental thing there's like a wildline ecological element there's the economic the kind of capitalist of big big powerful monopolized fleets monopolizing a stock I think so many of the the problems and ruptures we're seeing in the world can be can be it's kind of a it's kind of a lens into those and these people if they had if they could make a living most people I think would would be would not be breaking the law or whatever I think you have to look deeper don't you and it's and there's a tendency now like it's strange having been in the military maybe you know see yourself something's wrong in the education system something's wrong in the prison system something's wrong in all kinds of things in this country I will get the military in and I'm often like what do you think the military does like what do you think we are you know we're actually got quite a I'm sure like military people can do lots of things like it's you know you see the guys helping someone's nan when it's flooded down in Dorset I mean that's nice to see but there's a tendency just to and I think it's about that mythology of the military that we were talking about before that the military is like a cure all for any social problem and it's just it's just not it's just not like it has a limited remit and what you can do and we need to talk about bigger bigger we have need a bigger analysis of how how the world works yeah I think for the public they they obviously think the military are a cure all because they all been indoctrinated think we're all superheroes but yeah I'm sorry I'm not you might be Chris because you're a marine but I wasn't I'm not well as far as the new world order is concerned it is about getting the image of people in uniforms conducting roles that would ordinarily have been undertaken by civilians so yeah and going back to the the European army so you've got this belt and road and let's just say there's a problem in Suez because rebels from Sudan and they're going to call them out bloody kebab or whatever that you know what whatever this group is that's a joke by the way folks but you know when they try and blockade Suez or start demanding this on the ships coming through or whatever it might be well why would England get involved in that because that's that's Suez right I mean although obviously historically we have been involved there but what I mean is it makes far more sense to say no this is European trade this is interrupting therefore we need a European army to go down there and and sort it out this is this this would be my sort of take on it I'm just general boots on the ground everywhere because I think we're really going to see a lot of civil disruption in terms of food shortages you know fuel shortages anger upheaval we all we've already seen a divided society over can we say health choices this has serious implications when you have one group of people that genuinely think it's all right to tie up another group and enforce them to undergo certain procedures and they they don't see any moral or ethical dilemma in that that's a frightening society to be in and that society we're not that far we're not that far I don't believe without far from there's some there's some scary stuff there's some scary stuff I mean some of it is um yeah it's kind of the current stuff you're talking about I also think there's um when I just as a journalist I look at some of the some of the bills that have come through parliament restricting journalism which could potentially see whistleblowers journalists who take information from whistleblowers locked up treat as criminals I think some of the kind of spy cop stuff um there's they're talking about an online bill now I'll be in trouble Chris because if you the kind of thing where if you quote tweet an MP and say what you're saying is silly then you get loads of trouble for it which I did the other day I've got in trouble um but I think on many levels I think maybe we probably have slightly different analysis but but I think there's a problem with and that's fine and but I think there's the starting point is the same it's a suspicion of like being controlled and I think there's a lot of stuff coming even quite openly as well bills and I think the problem is there's a massive Tory majority so they can ram through whatever they want in parliament but I'm concerned concerned as a journalist but concerned as a citizen as well that there's a lot of stuff I don't think it's a concern when we've all been under house arrest for pretty much 18 months that's that's it's like a reality isn't it that there are there are there's some and it's not so much like um we probably we probably have a slightly different position I can see some of the logic in some ways to some of that stuff but also my concern is with any new body of legislation what I'm saying is any emergency legislation that's brought in I think it's when do we get rid of it how long does it stay can we can we question it can we challenge it you know I think that's I think we would probably agree strongly on on some of that stuff and that's with any with any body of legislation in an emergency that comes in I think it doesn't go away that's the thing isn't it one you know once we lose our freedom it doesn't come back we've seen that since the events in New York and Washington that time um you pull a camera out in public now you don't get you don't get you know pulled up by the police for all sorry sir you know rather you did no they they they slap the uh the the teal oars on you don't you and suddenly you're it's yes the surveillance state I wrote a story a few years ago and we're the most apparently the most surveilled country in the world it's probably worse now this is about five years ago but um I can't remember the the level of in fact one of my films is about it that I film about press freedom and Julian Assange the Julian Assange kids um about how I think we're more surveilled London is more surveilled than Beijing I think that was I'd have to go back and look at it but I think that was one of the conclusions we came to in terms of only in terms of security cameras and stuff like that but there are there are serious civil liberties matters at play here yes massively and it um I'm just going to drop what I've got I've got to tread carefully here but but you know to me science is is the reality like the fact it's either this or it's this that that to me is what science is things work like this but they don't work and I think if we understood the science that's been put on this now the way it's been um subversed is that even a word but you know corrupted subverted yeah subverted yeah um I think we'd all be really I think we'd just be further further surprised it's um yeah anyway that's enough about enough about our totalitarian future can can we talk about your books sure yeah I'm saying that my first one in soldier box which you can uh easy enough to remember the the new one is um veteran hood raging hope in british ex-military life had you had you always had aspirations to be a writer had you done any writing when you wrote soldier box I I think I wrote a lot as a kid I wrote a lot as a kid and then I abandoned it because you hit 15 16 you're more interested in girls and drinking in my you know in my case um and um and I kind of um probably felt a little bit emasculated like writing isn't the tough thing to do when you're kids and you want to you want to appear cool I came back to it much later I actually started really writing again in jail so I diarized some of my experiences in jail and that became part of soldier box and then I then I went to uni so I had to write a lot like academic writing is is awful um and then I became a journalist so so I'm much more comfortable writing in a journalistic style which is what I've tried to do with the book is to make it accessible I'm not an academic I wanted to be a book about a lived experience of 10 years as a veteran my first 10 years out of the military um and just speak to some of the the issues which keep keep coming up and speak to perceptions of who veterans are what veterans want are they all thugs are they all heroes my my suggestion is they're somewhere in between that and some of them are both of those things at different times but actually really most of them are just normal people like everyone else um and various other issues I wanted to challenge some of the kind of what we were talking about before because some of the some of the dominant perceptions of who we are what we want what we do what we think I think our names are taken in vain very often um not at least by politicians and I'm very critical I'm not in any political eye and I'm very critical of all of them I think rightly so um so I tried to do it with interviews so I spoke to loads of veterans from all different eras all different cap badges and backgrounds um uh and looked at the big the what I thought were the big issues about veterans today one of the things that comes across to me a lot because obviously speak to a lot of veterans and I think you touched on it with the veterans for peace um information and I've watched some of Ben Griffin's speeches and they're just incredible his talks I should say but it's that years after leaving the military a veteran still worries so much what what other other veterans are going to think about him yeah even though he probably has no contact with you know maybe one or two or or he stands to gain so much by coming on a podcast and being honest about an experience like you have he'll go oh well yeah um can we we'll talk I'll talk about this but I won't and I'm looking to talk about it all it's your life you you own that you're not in the military now you don't owe them anything they ain't going to come looking for you because you said you know you tell about this experience or all that but it's really strong mind conditioning exactly to the point where it's damaging that individual's life it's damaging their understanding of life it's damaging their the the road to enlightenment it's damaging their future achievements everything was that something you picked up on at all it is it is and I drew on um I try to always speak to get if I was going to speak to an expert I try and make sure they were ex-military so I speak to a GP who was um who was uh ex Royal Army Medical Corps I speak to a guy who's a psychotherapist now a really good good guy who's a psychotherapist in the military and I draw on um a guy called Nick Fothergill who you may be familiar with who's um he does a really interesting video it's quite a grainy old youtube video but um it's called you're not in the army now he's an Australian vietnamese see that and I think that that video was was a really important because I think every veteran I've shown that to says this is what it is this is this helps to explain why I feel this way because in terms of training um and I think the conclusion I came to is I think it's important to talk about post-traumatic stress it's real I know lots of people have been diagnosed I've lost friends because of PTSD it's important to talk about moral injury which is like an emerging idea the Americans are much further down the line with the conversation about moral injury but I think what we don't talk about is training military training and I don't mean basic training like the cycles of training and military culture and how those affect your life which is exactly what you were just speaking to that um we talk about war war trauma and it's important to talk about that but some of the things which most affect military people are the experiences of conditioning of mental conditioning and that's why and you can boil it down to it's like why am I sometimes you're like why am I annoyed because my other half's taken a long time to get ready why am I annoyed because I can't get this this place on time why am I why am I so adrenalized because my boss has just had a go at me why do I want to fight him and a lot of those things come down to the responses which are conditioned in because our responses to stress and and I would add perfectly sensibly if you're a soldier those it makes sense to have those responses if you're in the military in a war but when you leave you can't if your boss says why you let you can't fight him and I think some of those and it varies not everyone has them to the same degree some people cope with them better but I think that's what really came out is that we talk about PTSD good we talk about moral injury good we talk about adjustment disorder good but we don't talk about training and culture and we should do we should talk because when we don't talk about it I think it kind of lets the military off the hook in their responsibilities because they trained us like that but they don't and this is what veterans they will have said it to you they don't like detrain you they don't demilitarize you you have a big long process 30 weeks for you guys probably 15 weeks for me in the army you go it's a big long process you have a big pass out parade it's like a rite of passage but where is the equivalent process at the end of your military career where you now you're now you've left here and I think that is what trips up veterans and causes lots of problems after they've left the military it's like leaving prison in a way isn't it just step out that gate you've got your bag over your shoulder and yeah you think fucking hell what we're gonna do now yeah exactly I think it's it's I describe it it's part of the reason why we all kind of love and hate the military like I miss things but I also sometimes I'm like oh the military was terrible like I always tell stories about how shit it was but then when I'm with veterans I'm like I wasn't it funny when Bob got pissed and you know go into trouble or whatever but it's it's the result of any powerful institutional experience could be the prison it could be the cops could be the NHS but is this is the the result of powerful institutional experiences like a weird mix of hatred and affection and they're fused they're fused together and I see that it took me a long time to try and unpick it like 10 years but but when I did and I started to interview people it took me a long time to figure out what the question was I had to ask but that that was what the question came up with that is why we have we all have this love hate relationship but we miss it so powerfully but we're also often quite angry about it how many veterans did you speak to a sort of I don't know really can I just use the term awake they sort of how many have kind of still quite indoctrinated or army bar me don't you yeah yeah army bar me so I've come up with this concept which is about a critical veteran a thinking veteran and my framework for that is basically what their politics are so I'm I'm trying to talk to I'm trying to get veterans who are kind of on the left on the left of politics that's where I am who have an assessment of capitalism of empire of ideology I speak to a lot of broad range of veterans but I really wanted to get those that particular cohort to address these questions I worked to formulate questions and I was like well what do you think about the captain tom phenomenon what do you think about the rise of the kind of ex sas influencer figure the middle turns the anti-magnant what do you think about remembrance what do you think about kind of like I was talking about in the video so I was trying to put these big questions to people and just have a frank discussion just have an honest discussion sometimes they didn't want to be names and you can understand often people don't want to be named some people are in elite units but some people were also just conscious of being like that they don't want their mates to have a go at them you know down the bar or whatever I understand that I understand that dynamic but I try to have as frank as possible in discussion with as broad a range of veterans as I can and to be I interviewed a lot of people specifically for the book but it's also a distillation of 10 years of conversations many snatched conversations moments of interaction with veterans from all different kinds of with all different kinds of ideas and understandings of the world about the big topics the the topics were chosen was quite arbitrary it was things I was interested in but but I guess I'm writing the books so I have that I have that privilege but but I just wanted to have honest conversations about how they see themselves and what do they want what do veterans want really and trying to address that question what about the this element of nastiness amongst veterans or in veterans I mean this might surprise people listening but I was chatting to a close protection guy the other day former Royal Marine PTI and he did stuff you know did the CP thing in Iraq Afghanistan and he just said the worst blokes to work with were Royal Marines said they're just so fucking horrible all the time me you know and it's like I get what I get what he meant it it it's this real I don't know I don't know what what what do you call it like this adolescent mentality that rather than trying to do something good or and support someone just try and just try and tear it down I don't know so I'm an outsider obviously but I have I've always found the Marines actually the guys I know who are in the Marines to actually be quite free-thinking so maybe I'm just I'll probably just like it I mean you can speak to that experience much more than me I've always found it that like for example my having worked with them a little bit on tour like the the gap between officers and men is quite different to the gap between officers and men in the in the army where I feel like the army is very rigid and conservative and the Marines are a bit more forward-thinking I might be wrong I'm going on anecdotally purely anecdotally but it's interesting you say that because I would have thought the Paras would have had a worse press for being aggressive that said I know loads of Paras who are lovely lovely chilled out people so yeah I know you know it's a mixed bag isn't it you know there are many many great great people I don't know what it is about this chap's environment I don't know if it's something to do with CP workers people and I've no doubt other guys would say no no I didn't that wasn't my experience at all but I mean I work with in the global veterans alliance we've got building up quite a few bootnecks now and I think is the nature of what we're involved in upholding freedom you have to be a really genuine person you have to sort of know know know your stuff and know what's going on and naturally they're just the nicest blokes you could ever meet really um but you've got you've got these websites and music like the arse army rumours service I'm not really that familiar with it but I gather it's like the veterans trying to think they're still in the army or something and yeah and and they they all they do is just slag everything and anything I might I might you can correct me on this so oh you're right you're right absolutely that's my understanding of arse as well and a lot of those there's a lot of bitterness on those forums a lot of real bitterness maybe it's just pongoes they are bitter people well this is the thing as well isn't it that I think probably a bit like for yourself I mean I've seen the whole world several times over I've done every adventure sport I ever dreamt of doing I've done all my childhood dream stuff like go to the Amazon and all this I've had a load of you know mental health adventures on the way can we say written a few books crashed a few cars crashed a plane once um didn't tell the person that owned it sorry that's just just an aside but but it's my life has predominantly been outside of the military I mean yeah the seven years I did there were some great adventures in there um do you think a lot of people leave the military and because their life becomes so unfulfilling having to sort of get I mean it's an effort you don't just travel the whole world well that doesn't just come to you have to decide right I'm getting this round the world to get I'm going to backpack through these countries that you know very few people have ever ever been to I'm going to take the risk of it's an effort you don't just get a pilot's license by wanting a pilot's license you've got to find a flight school you've got to get the money you've got to do that and I'd imagine if you come out the minute and go straight into like the mortgage thing or or even just paying for your flat then you get this sort of job that's maybe not it's either not massively well paid or it's a job I mean job's pretty much what three hundred and forty days a year or or and every and I do you think veterans get into that and then life slips and buy and then they end up in a position where they do look back at the service time and think bloody hell that I used to wear a uniform and I was important and this I think there's a strong element Chris if I talk a lot about nostalgia and nostalgism in different ways there's many different ways that's expressed but one of them is yeah I think there's a cohort of veterans and I'm being slightly mischievous here but in the book I formulate it as like being a veteran is their whole personality like that their whole lens the lens which with through which they see the world is all about having been in the military and I think that's I think that's a problem and one of the psychotherapists I interviewed talks about being a veteran as can be like a lived identity like an alive identity that maybe motivates you like the example he gave was if you go to an ex-military charity it'll be full of veterans and they're engaged and it's a positive part of their identity they want to help the blokes it's not a bitter it's not a bitter thing or a sad thing or something you can cling to because you have done other things you know there's other aspects to your life which are fulfilling and I think for some veterans maybe they've convinced themselves and it's a tragedy to be honest maybe maybe maybe they've convinced themselves that those were the best years they were like that I had some good years you had some good years that so some you know some good years but they aren't everything that I've done other things I've I've moved beyond that into into the world and changed and that's part of my character and I try well I try and formulate it in roughly these words it's like the military can be something you've done it doesn't have to be something you are there's more to you than that and I think that's it's important that that people go through that process and maybe some people can't get on that path they can't find the find the start of that path and it's somewhat it's somewhat I try and address in veteran that you are many things you're a sum of many parts and being a veteran doesn't have to be the dominant the dominant lens through which you see well and also it's a problematic lens like we were talking about the training like the military lens some maybe in some ways arguably can help you in your life like make you disciplined or I understand all that but the military is also a very black and white world it's a very binary world it's like it's wrong or right or it's yes or no and that's for a reason because if you're in a conflict it's it's a very you know brutally brutally immoral sphere to be operating it but that lens doesn't capture like the complexity of real life outside the military and I think people struggle with that I think it's some some again which could start to be addressed with some kind of demilitarization process yeah but the military doesn't provide that and I think that's I think that's that's a problem I think it should be provided they make you like that they should not they can't put you back but they should provide a process by which you can you can re-adapt a society and and then you then you're free you can focus on a good bit I had so many laughs like it was an absolute riot the military is rioters we all know that that it's there's a lot of laughs to be hands and I can look on those things positively but I don't need to kind of tell everyone I'm a veteran if you know I mean I don't need to lead with it I don't need to have it you know have it on all my bios on social media like it's different if you're like if you're doing like a veterans if it's part of a brand I think that's a different thing you see that with mid-altern and jockeye and gorgans and all these people it's part of their business but I think um yeah I think some veterans really internalize it and it becomes a it weighs them down to be honest yeah did I tell you that I'm a veteran yeah did you mention I don't know if I mention it um I've got it I've I've kind of played a bit of a I played my cards here really because I put it on all my bios but I tell you what it's because well it's for several reasons I've got big plans for my career that don't involve constantly referring to myself as a former Royal Marines commando it's it's when I left the military I literally walked out the gate and I I didn't look back I was prepared never to think about it ever again not not for any I just saw it for what it was it was a job it serves a purpose for certain people it was some good aspects but there was quite a lot of bad bad stuff um and the way I started to be treated when people realized I was leaving it it it it wasn't becoming of Royal Marines commandos put it that way and it just it when you saw like 40 year old corp rules lance corp rules walking around going yeah well don't go outside mate it's fuck all out fuck all out there for you I'm like yeah you're a lance corp rule and you've been in for like 25 years the it it just I just saw it my cousin left as a colonel right my second cousin joined us up as a 16 year old boy boy soldier uh put himself through officer training so he didn't get like a you know he actually went back did did all the training again which you have to in the Marines if you want a longer career I think left as a colonel they got a gun carriage and he rode the gun carriage out and um like I remember my dad telling me he went the cousin didn't even look back it's like even he'd really you know he'd he'd seen it for what it was you know not he's not slagging it off here now just saying he just just had it all compartmentalized went on to become a barrister right um but yeah the thing is as far as getting a career off the ground if I try to be uh chris for all massively battled drugs and lost my mental health who's going to sign up for my instagram you know it really is how it is you start a youtube channel and you're a really nice guy and you've got great guests who's going to watch that you've got it no no you might get a few subscribers you slap that military moniker on and it's just it's like a free ticket to getting something that you yeah I've got struggling for words here but you get I'm sure everyone gets what I mean yeah and um for me it's just it's like my foot in the door that's what it's been it's been my foot foot in the door something that I never thought about for 15 years of my life honestly I only met two Marines during that 15 years um just never thought about I never thought I didn't think of myself as a Marine or anything like that I was I was just Chris right and then Facebook come around and I started to meet a lot more and then I started I started a big reunion for Royal Marines and that it was quite nice to see so many old faces and then the link the language starts coming back um but but again if I'm entirely honest it's because when I started writing Joe I ain't gonna fail and let's be honest how many writers make it very very few how many writers even make money some just don't even make literally don't sell a book um and I just think sometimes in life you've just got to do if you really want to make it in that area you just got to do everything that's possibly within your power and even then it's not easy yeah and so I just started to help me to sell books to get back into that military you know sort of thing and and then the podcast came along and I just sold even more books and folks this is not about money this is about me not having to go and work for an employer who I fucking hate surrounded by people who the who just the topic of conversation is it it it's just I don't care what happened in EastEnders last night it's not it's not it's just not for it's not for me right so that's why I was determined to make it I don't want to go back to the job is what I'm trying to say um let's hope you get that let's hope you get that it's it's just a reality that we are we we're like prisoners to the logic of the market even if you like if you're a writer you've got an artistic you know you like to write and express yourself we're all still subject to the logic sort of like buy and sell yeah and we have to sell ourselves as well like we're selling ourselves and I'm the same I have in that book I have a critique of of all that stuff we're just talking about it but of course I I will the reason I can write that it's because I'm a veteran yeah it's kind of uh it's that's kind of how it is um so yeah I totally get where you're coming from yeah I think I can say hand on heart and I don't think my subscribers would disagree I think I'm the only veteran in the public eye that's got something of a profile that's actually like I do the morally right thing you know I think all all the others even though I know in private because I'm friends with a lot and I know that there I know them their motivations in private but in their public just go along on a mainstream agenda just make makes their life easy I sort of get it as well because you can't be on television and I think as Ant found out to his cost you can't be vocal and be on tv if you start stirring a pot then then they soon get get rid of you so it's I guess it's a sort of trap but there's a lot of other veterans out there that aren't on telly that still I don't think they're honest about war or possibly they just don't understand it possibly they do think it's all tea medals biscuits and heroes and all this sort of stuff I think I think about this a lot because I try and have there's one guy in my book is an officer I'm really talking about the bloke's however you want to find out the women and the men who serve in the military and I think like it's like a lot of us come from don't come from very intellectual highly educated backgrounds but we don't maybe have the tools of analysis if that's our site a study from King's College in in veteran hood and it says the people most likely to really internalize a veteran identity and really make it like a per whole personality are men particularly men from with lower educational attainment from working class backgrounds which is me that is me not our classes that as well but I think there's a thing where a lot of guys and a lot of people like you say it's a job it's not an ideological thing like I know very few people very few people who are like queen and country really like that's what they really think when you talk to them a lot of people it's like it's it's a job and it's not a political thing and you don't really analyze it and probably don't have the you know you didn't go and do PhD politics you don't have them but you know and so it's it's understandable that people don't analyze it or don't reflect on it that much but it's a totally different way but it's really interesting when you look at the way the public are encouraged to think about military people as heroes and all this stuff as we alluded earlier like I don't know any any veteran who would who would be like yes I'm a hero hello I'm Bob I'm a hero it's just not in it's not in the DNA is it it's very strange it's a difference between the public image and the real life lived experience of being in the military yeah and you can't help thinking when the hero terms bounded around by some you know romantic thinking civilian of when smudge shoved the iron up his ass it's also it's some I also try and speak to his his and it gets me it gets every time I remember it comes around and thousands they flood to their local senate office and they flood to their to the big the big one in London and I'm like like it's nice to see people there but if you knew what we how we thought about civilians in the military like what we said about civilians the way we conceptualize a civilian the military like we really don't like you like I know we're all out out the military now but I sometimes feel military people hate that they dislike other people in other units obviously there's the interservice rivalry and they might dislike an enemy but we don't really know who the enemy is until we get there but we always consistently really dislike civilians um but that's again waving you're here waving a flag going on about the heroes and it's fine yeah I mean again Ben Griffin talks about that and the conditioning behind it doesn't he yeah you know how it all serves a purpose the other one for me is um when people come up go all right Chris yeah I was I was never in the Marines but like my mate's friend Dave his dog right gets walked by this person and their son was a cadet right not sure where you're going with this I feel like civilians put more stock in it than us than military people to be honest yes and I tell people as well when they I mean I get recruits from me and say Chris I'm just thinking of leaving it's just not for me and I and they're just talking through it and I see these are your options okay if it's really not for you unless be honest it's not for me you know I'm not in the military it's not for a lot of people then you've got to leave you know you don't want to be in a career that's not not for you that's it yeah but there's two things here one if you leave you walk out of the gate and you never ever think or speak about it again not in the terms of when I was in the Marines but you know leave it move on and go and live a beautiful life because there's so much more out there than than the military machine yeah so but on the other hand don't be one of these people that says oh I was in the Marines not I left training at week 24 you know six weeks from the end I said because just get to the end just do it get your green lid and then leave you know I don't know back in my day you could just say you were gay and and that was your ticket not not that not that anyone really did that but um I said you if you think you're going to be one of them people that for the rest of your life whenever you meet a Marine in the pub you go you know I've got I've got to week 24 of training and then you then you put your head down in shame it says then just get to the end of it don't be that but if it's genuinely not for you leave and don't think about it again yeah and um yeah yeah exactly Joe you've been absolutely brilliant um I'm looking at both your books now on Amazon is is um is there any better way people can buy them or is it's Amazon um however however it's on Amazon Kindle's on Amazon now the audio book I'll be doing so you get to hear my dulcet tones I'm afraid again but that's not out yet but yeah or you can get the publisher is repeater books you can go on the website I'm I'm I'm mostly a Twitter person and it's at Joe Jake Lenton there's a link tree to the books there's still some we did some special signed copies I think they're running out but there's still a few there's still a few left we're looking at a reprint now which is I'm really happy about um of some more books but yeah but thank you for having me on Chris it's been stuff for a long time and I appreciate you uh giving me some time well no I appreciate you giving me time mate because I'm you know I'm trying to make sense of the unfolding world in the same way that a lot of people are at the moment and I really appreciate a an alternative voice um so feel free to come back on anytime if if come and let us know how the book does thank you man or if anything else is you know crops up in your life cheers and to our friends at home massive thank you to you all too if you could like and subscribe and hit the notification bell that would be wonderful and we'll see you next time thank you