 Chris I'm doing good mate how are you? Yes it's nice to be called mate by an American. Do Americans get that? I mean I know for you who spent a lot of time in England that you get it but do they get that it's an Australian like English thing to say mate or is it lost on people? I think we've seen enough movies, Guy Ritchie movies to know we can you know you guys call each other mate. Yeah because it's buddy in America right? It's brother actually brother's the big one now you know. I like brother you know it's what we all should be isn't it? Yeah we are brothers. I'm always saying this Robert in my podcast do you like Robert or Robert does it not matter? It doesn't matter no. Yeah I'm always saying Rob I've just had the most wonderful time with Americans. I'm proud to have served with them to spend time in Siganella in Sicily with the USMC. I learned to fly in America I learned to skydive in America and bit like everywhere you get you know you you get your bad apple you get your way with apples but for the most part it's just such a wonderfully kind and hospitable country that you've got. Right. Yes I'm not going to talk about leadership now it's not good time to talk about that but anyway I'm so chuffed to talk to you Robert because your resume just reads like I mean boy's own manual. I don't normally do this but I just wanted to for our friends at home. So Rob is a former USMC so American Marine but he served with the British Marines as a sergeant which is I'm fascinated to hear about that nuclear biological and chemical warfare specialist or instructor which I guess you need to be a specialist to be an instructor. Like myself you've done a lot of traveling which I you know I can just talk about that all day. I think we both share a picture by the wailing wall in I'm going to say the Middle East to keep it to not upset the Christians the Muslims the Palestinians or whoever else. Yes a drill instructor my god it just goes on and also you've been a member of the SWAT team. Yes yeah yeah I was with after I retired in 2004 I got on a police department here in Arizona and it's been about six years on the SWAT team so. Wow so this take oh do you like the hat by the way. Yeah I love it. Yeah this is one of our brothers Ken who's massive supporter of me by brother I mean USMC. He's been kind enough to proofread some of my books to me or pre read them and he sent me this hat. Nice. To be honest all I know is that the USMC is huge there's like a lot there's hundreds of thousands of you guys right. Right yeah and we're the small force here in America we're the you know we're the we're the little guys. Yeah but still compared to the numbers that we have here it dwarfs us. Right right yeah a bit like your aircraft carriers do. My aircraft carrier pulled along pulled into Norfolk Virginia once and we were docked next to the USS Enterprise or something and it was about eight times longer than our ship and all ship is the biggest in the. When I when I was over there actually one of your you had just come out with a new carrier late 90s and I can't remember which carrier it was but I told the training team one day I said that we the US was looking to purchase some of your carriers and they were like really mate wow that's I said yeah we need some lifeboats for our carriers. I'm feeling bad now because I don't know what that carrier would have been but when I when I was in I was uninvincible and it was the sister ship of the Ark Royal so Ark Royal I believe was the flagship of the Royal Navy we were ours was an almost identical vessel except that we had we had this machine gun called goalkeeper and it was just insane when it worked and most of the time it you couldn't get it to work when it went off and someone can put in the comments for me someone can do a search on this but it fired hundreds of rounds a second right and the whole shit and this is a big shit just went wherever you were on the ship you felt the deck vibrating under your feet and the idea of goalkeeper was to shoot down incoming missiles obviously and and and aircraft but yeah so Ken thank you very much Ken for sending me this hat again I just feel guilty that I don't know much about the the USMC setup over there other than the fact you're huge so First Marine Division and it's got Guadalcanal on there yeah on their emblem so I guess they've got battle honors in the Second World War correct yeah yeah enough for me talking Robert let's go back to the beginning what did did you have like a hunting and fishing background that we we see on our TV here quite a lot actually no I didn't know I grew up in a small town upstate New York and just just kind of kicked around I really didn't have any any outdoor skills to speak of I was a boy scout for a while and that was about it and then I just always had this this desire to join the the military and I actually wanted to go in the army initially and that didn't work out and then I wanted to be a Navy SEAL but I couldn't swim very well at all I mean I could you know I could thrash around a little bit but I certainly didn't think I could pass pass buds and become a SEAL so I I just didn't didn't even consider it I knew it was something that was just not going to happen for me so in my senior year so I'd been 17 I went down just after Beirut which the bombing in Beirut the barracks were bombed and I went down and joined up and we have something where you can you can be in for up to a year before you actually go so I joined when I was 17 unlike you which you know is strange over there having recruits who were 16 years old which you know just seems so young these were kids but so we could join at 17 with parents permission and then at 18 I went in can I correct can I correct you there Robert you yeah go ahead you can actually start the process or when I was when I served you could start it when you were 15 wow they might not take you an instant until you were 16 but my my friend went on the PRC when we were still at school wow yeah we we criticized other countries were having child soldiers right yeah yeah it's funny right when it then we do it ourselves yeah so I so I went in and and was an infantry guy you know we call him a grunt 0311 which is just a basic rifleman and I was did that for a couple years and I you know the Marine Corps we have we have reconnaissance which is kind of our our seals if you will and so I just saw that as as kind of like I wanted to be a seal so that was my way to become an amphibious war dog and so I just kind of I learned how to swim I taught myself to swim and then I had guys who knew how to swim help me out until my swimming was sufficient that eventually I got into a reconnaissance unit and went to went to dive school and got my swim and then eventually I became a dive or actually became a swim instructor in the Marine Corps we call Marine Combat Instructor Water Survival which was a nightmare inducing school just swimming for hours on end with full kit on thousands of meters crazy Robert how is it then because the swimming test in the Marines for people that don't know you have to jump off the high diving board basically let's just say in your fighting order I can't remember if we wore boots boots or not but basically you sink to the bottom of the pool you've got a scramble to get to the surface it's really hard to get back up and breathe then you got to swim down the pool got to swim back up then without touching the side you've got to tread water with one hand and hand your kit to the guy on the side then take the fighting order off and hand it to him then you've got to back away and tread water for another five or ten minutes right mostly guys passed it first time Muggins here took all 30 weeks of training to pass right I just don't have any body fat and so for me to stay a float Robert it's it's all any it's all energy coming out right yeah fast forward to when I'm 50 I did a quadruple Ironman for my 50th birthday so I swam 10 miles what I will say is the wet suit really gives you a massive edge I mean there's no getting away from it a triathlon wet suit basically keeps you afloat all you've got to do is put put this this bit in but could you give any of our guys out there that were like me that are weak at swimming any any you know any any tips there what what is it that turns you from someone that struggles into someone that can swim or are people like me always going to struggle no I think well I think there are people that it's you know your body fat is so low or you have a fat to muscle ratio but really so what we teach is that an acronym SAFE which is slow easy movements apply your natural buoyancy you know your body has parts that will float more than parts of your legs aren't going to ever float they're going to sink and then full lung inflation which I think is a big one that was the big one for me because I was the same way I would kind of sink and so you learn to just keep your lungs fully inflated and your breaths are kind of short and sharp you know in and out get air back in and those your lungs are your it's like having water wings in your chest and then and then the other ones extreme relaxation so that's kind of the acronym SAFE but I think the big one is for me was the buoyancy keeping those lungs full getting short breaths get it out and getting to get your lungs full again and and just becoming comfortable in the water you know like you said putting on full kit and jumping in the water is it just doesn't feel right you know you start to sink even if you're a good swimmer that weight just pulls you down and so it's just that comfort and just getting after it just get you know I just had to get in the pool as much as I could and just swim and just improve on my skills hmm I think that's the key yeah it's a lovely feeling to get good at swimming isn't it it is yeah yeah it is it feels good when you when you actually can do it and you're it feels uh you know it feels comfortable yeah again for our youngsters listening I I basically could swim and length I could swim too if I had to but but after one length of the local pool I'd just be holding on to the side like that and within two years I could swim 10 miles that's just to just to reiterate what Robert saying here you know stick out things learn from the the people that know how to do it and and have fun is the main thing isn't it yeah so what's this a swimmer scout then what does that is that a marine's position or is that something else so so we have uh you know obviously be an amphibious unit we have um we have different companies throughout the marine corps that are we call them raid companies and they do small boat raids um coming on zodiacs and so in Coronado California which which is where the seal strain actually um and then on the east coast we have another another school house that teaches these units how to do an amphibious raid and how to come in over the horizon you launch the boats from over the horizon navigate in in the zodiac at night uh middle of the night cold wet miserable um and then as we get you get to a certain distance off the beach head you'll you'll put swimmers into the water and they kind of slide over the side nice and it's quite stealthy like and they'll start swimming in toward the beach um while the boats go back out further back out to kind of wait out there safely scout swimmers come in crawl up on the beach uh sugar cookie which is where you roll in the sand cover in sand and then they'll do a reconnaissance of the beach head make sure that uh there's no enemy make sure they can safely bring the boats in look for any obstacles in the water that are going to give the boats problems so the boats aren't going to get hung up or um hit into anything and then and then the scout swimmers will kind of set up the beach head figure out where center beach is left and right flank of the beach and use some infrared chem lights signal out to the boats and then everybody else comes in wow yeah that's good stuff it oh it never ceases to amaze me the bravery of someone that will just swim in open water the thought of it i'll be honest you know i've done it because i've done triathlon so you you've got to get out and see and swim a mile right but you're kind of doing it with loads of other people so you don't feel so scared yeah but i see guys at the beach in the summer and we we very kindly friend of ours hello Karen if you ever get to see this she's given my family um two holidays in her penthouse suite up on the north devon coastline i should say it as a thank you for my charity work she she don't just get given given stuff um and i look out of the the the window of her penthouse and i see people just swimming way out we're talking they're half a mile out and they'll swim all the way across the bay you know two two and a half miles and then summon and turn around and and swim back again um and uh there's a part of me robert that's going what's the tide doing is the tide going to take you that way is it you know is there a current is there is there this is there that how do you get over that fear uh i i find the best way is just not to think about it you know you just focus on the mission right you just you just put it out of your head but every once in a while a guy would get hit by a fish you know or uh you'd feel something everybody start getting the eb gb's because you know that you think about wow this is a big ocean and we're not the only things in it or we've had dolphins um while we're swimming in in southern california you'll have dolphins in the surf zone and they'll be right there with you and uh and that it actually always feels good when there's dolphins because you know they're kind of keeping the the sharks and other things away but yeah yeah did you ever come with a shark no the only time i ever um and i didn't see it but you know we went on we would do dive operations we would always have two pieces of metal and that would be like a signal to come back to the boat and uh we were in hawaii diving once uh military operation and we were down and also i heard the the metal clanging didn't know why but it meant it just means come back to the boat it doesn't necessarily mean shark but it turned out that there was a shark in the water so they recalled us back to the boat just to just to make sure nothing i'm no one spotted except for the guys on the boat in the water we didn't see it but that was it i dived in belize in the blue hole over there beautiful dive sort very very deep you obviously only go down 40 meters as a sports diver um and the dive dive guide turned around and went and i looked over my shoulder and about 12 sharks were just swimming straight at me they literally just swam straight past and the shark at the back was was a bull shark which i'm sure as you know is responsible for the most most attacks on me yeah i wasn't at all panic you didn't even feel very calm underwater i mean you just sense nothing's gonna happen wasn't like my heart was going or anything i was i had a diver's knife but um obviously didn't didn't even need to think about using it but yeah so how what was your sort of career progression through the usmc did you see any action with them or was this kind of peacetime no yeah i was so i was in for desert shield desert storm which i believe you were as well right no desert storm was the first yeah that was 91 irak war wasn't it yeah yeah funnily enough i was on on the first ship to set sail for the gulf war okay for that conflict that that was my aircraft carrier invincible and just as we were leaving the dock came over the tannoy the captain um words to the effect of right ships company we're not going they're going to send the atlantic conveyor instead right i don't know what the relevance was because the atlantic conveyor is a is a um it's an rfa so it's a support ship not a not a warship all around the ship robert you could hear the sailors going yay right because they all just want to stay home with their families and you know leave the wars to the other ships right you know in our mess deck there were 12 marines like that yeah yeah i'm sure yes gutted staring at the floor and um that you know that that was it you're young aren't you you've done that training you don't want to be left behind but so no so no i wasn't how how was it for you over there yeah it wasn't bad it wasn't bad we were we were a foot mobile company we were i think the only ones who walked um in it was miserable uh carrying everything all the all our kid on our back and uh and hoofing it all the way in but it wasn't a bad experience i mean um you know we got shelled out a few times but it was over so quick we sat in the desert in kwate um and just no at that time we sat in saudi you know we were waiting to go into kwate so we were in saudi for months and months i got so good at volleyball i think we were we were volleyball pros by the time by the time it kicked off and then finally we got the word it's getting ready to go and and cross the berm into kwate and made our way up eventually we got truck mobile and we were able to truck up to kwate international um just a few skirmishes along the way and and it was over 100 hours later that's all it was and then we we flew home pretty soon after that we'd already been deployed for i had just come off a deployment to okinawa and so we were gone six months we were home i was i was in hawaii at the time and we were back in hawaii for less than two weeks and well actually while we were flying back from okinawa is when when saddam attacked kwate and so less than two weeks later i was flying back over the middle east um to saudi arabia let's let's just take this a step at a time just checking my map here so okinawa what what were you doing there so we do we do routine deployments there's units consistently that go over to okinawa most marine units deploy for six months at a time so you kind of do a workup cycle where you you're in training phase everybody gets their training um you're getting the unit up to a hundred percent combat capable and then you would go to okinawa and you're there for six months and while you're there you'll do a little mini deployment so you usually get some great ports you'll either float and go over to other areas in the far east sometimes you'll actually leave okinawa and float to the middle east and you just you're kind of like that forward deployed unit ready to respond if anything happens completely combat capable you've got all your equipment all your people and you're ready to go and then you'll do that for six months and then you come back to either camp pelton you know kawaii which i was or camp lejeune on the east coast and we just do a rotation of units over there this is the tough thing you know i speak to a lot of young people and i'm not without going into one i'm not a big fan of the way that military have been used in the last 20 years but when you hear somebody like you robert speaking like this and i think back to you know my time in it's it's just a different lifestyle isn't it you know to even work in hawaii for crying out loud you know this is it really is kind of like the stuff dreams are made of isn't it yeah it is it is yeah well dreams and nightmares right i mean well it's it's double-sided i mean you can be on hawaii or okinawa or um you know i was gonna say we you know we we sailed to barbaedas which was just unreal right but you still got to be on the ship to get the barbaedas yeah but you can still be in such places and be having a nightmare i mean it's worth isn't it you yeah right you're down the hole but by whole i mean you're you're protecting some secret weapons and you are literally down a hole with your with your arm with your you know your your rifle or pistol as we carried um and you're doing that for four days on four days off it's but um just the place as you mentioned it was this kind of your first experience of traveling yeah yeah as a as a kid i really i went to canada i think canada was the only country i'd ever been to live in in new york you know it's it's our neighbor so we just go up and get into canada but yeah i hadn't done much traveling at all prior to uh to join the marines and then from then i just you know you just get to go so many places i mean so lucky just travel all over i think i went to about 20 25 countries while i was in uh far east it least you know in the u.s um travel all over the u.s different schools and different training it's just it's just a blast right and you know we we would always get some time to uh we call it libo or liberty you know when you're off and and they would always try to give us some time to go ashore or to uh go and go into the local town and and experience the culture and things like that although usually when you're in herds of you know packs of 20 guys at a time i don't know how much culture you get to actually get to actually see so i would always try to get off in small groups you know me and a friend or two and just really explore the culture i always like to see in the the locals and experience in the local culture food what they like to do i was going to say for you guys it must be great because you get to drink proper beer yes yeah mobs of 20 and 30 guys wandering from bar to bar but i mean it's just brilliant in itself isn't it it's just a great great experience in in itself yeah an oking hour so that's got a lot of historical military significance isn't it oh yeah yeah yeah there's still um there's still remnants of battles there you know the bunkers and yeah it's very historical yeah a lot there to see and was am i right in thinking that the um allies if you can call them the allies used it as an air base in the second world war after yeah after you know they had uh had landed there and taken it over yeah yeah so they had to they had to fight the japanese there first right then they used that as a launching pad to to dominate the the pacific region i suppose right yeah yeah and the usmc um have they got like battle honors on oking hour or have what have they got like battle honors you know did they fight they fought some fierce battles in that part of the world didn't they yes yep which is the one where they're raising the flag that's that's uh iwo jima iwo jima of course i'm sorry yeah mount surabachi it's not that i don't know it's just i can't i'm getting old robert and i can't just oh yeah i hear you i can't talk about my brain anymore right makes it sound like i don't know anything but some yeah actually one of and one of my deployments token hour we we went back to iwo jima and we did a training exercise there and um i mean just so it's it's a uh volcanic island and so the sand is very fine black sand and uh mount surabachi which is where they raise the flag is just a massive hill we did it as a training exercise and we actually we actually did an amphibious assault similar to to what they did and we had to we had to get up that hill up mount surabachi and just unbelievable the fact that these guys are doing this under enemy fire um you know just attacking that hill and getting up to the top and just it's just unbelievable i mean the the fortitude they had you know being there and just and just seeing it and we and we got to explore afterwards but i think we did a two-day operation and then we had we had like a better part of a day to explore the island and just we found bunkers we found old old rifles um american and japanese rifles where all the wood was gone but it was just the metal left behind uh we found bunkers it still had bones in them still had human bones remains that were in there and just the tunnel system there they had was just miles and miles of tunnels that they would use you know so the marines would would close on a on a bunker and they would just disappear into a tunnel and be gone so when they got up to the bunker sometimes it would be empty you know they had just fought to get this ground and and then they arrive you know they get to the bunker finally and it's gone yeah the the japanese had gone under the tunnels escaped to somewhere else so it was just you know the battle there was just intense i mean we we can't really understand can we those of us that haven't fought with that intensity i mean you could be an 18-year-old marine with a flame thrower and you've got to burn those guys you know they're kids as well and you've got to burn them out of that hole and then you got to carry that memory for the rest of your life it's we don't really put enough focus on that and and i think your experience in america now what we are here in britain is a is a large suicide rate amongst our veterans um a lot of you know issues around trauma and uh yeah these things that probably need to be discussed more more than the the battles themselves really yeah i mean it's the same here mate i mean we have uh it's an epidemic really you know guys come back and i don't think um you know you go in here this young kid you've grown up on a steady diet of war films which funnily enough are actually most of them are anti-war films but we we kind of take them as like a you know a rallying cry you know movies like platoon and full metal jacket which we're actually intended to show the horrors of war and to be an anti-war movie but you know we watch them we would watch them on ship we'd watch you you know watch them constantly and it didn't see i don't think most kids see it as an anti-war movie i think they see it as as a war movie you know as a glorification movie um yeah i say um i yeah i don't wish to offend anyone here but i definitely see a trend of many people and it's not just young people but it's a lot of people they just really don't get what the military and war is um they kind of idolize the forces and they don't really know what role they're used for or what job they actually do in the i'm talking in the grand scheme of the the the world here and and how brutal utterly brutal battle is um yeah sorry i've just gone off on one no i get it i get it and it uh you know and you that sticks with you i think mentally you you can't unsee those things and i think we we have not done a good job at giving guys some kind of an outlet um to talk to people or to to deal with those emotions that you feel from that and it we've honestly we've created a mess in a ways you know we we have guys coming back and they just haven't dealt with it and it's it's those those things do you pick up i think you are just going to carry those along with you and it's just it's just a heavy burden and uh and yeah guys are just not dealing well yeah the other thing that we're realizing especially through doing the podcast is um is the the type of person that wants to join something like the marines is somebody like myself who carries a lot of trauma from childhood you know this was the marines for me was like my get out of jail free card it was like wow what you're going to pay me to do that right yeah i'm i'm going to get into training you know robber i there wasn't a single second sorry my microphones in the picture and it being a perfectionist it annoys me there wasn't a single second in my 30 i think we did 32 weeks training at limestone not a single second i'll ever think about quitting or going home never to me it was my way out of of homelessness and and lack of education and no no options to me in in or this is what it felt like obviously there were options but my my job prior to joining up or one of them was i was an electricians apprentice worked for this idiot got paid 30 quid a week had to crawl under all that loft insulation stuff to you know you're stretching and all this insulation is going down a back of your neck and you're trying to wire up a plug socket or something and then you've got this guy telling you you're not doing it good enough you know so wasn't a difficult one when i got into the marines to you know it was a good option for me all i thought of is i'm going to show the people that told me i'm a failure and there was a lot of them believe me there were people even when i went from a prmc at limestone that when you won't pass that you're not the rule marines won't want someone like you right that what i'm trying to say is isn't about me that i'm trying to paint the picture of this is a quite a fairly typical scenario for a lot of us that joined something like the marines so there's me carrying all this trauma from a battered childhood into the military right right then having the coziness of the military where i didn't really have to think for myself i just had to say yes sir even when i didn't really mean it and then and then you come out it's no surprise that i ended up on my ass when i came out i i had no i had no no skills to deal with everything that just suddenly caught caught up with me and and so for some of our boys and girls now who've been in heavy firefights and stuff they've got all that to deal with as as well right during my service we only in combat so on active service we only lost one guy and although obviously he's my brother he wasn't like a personal friend of mine so it didn't you know it didn't affect me on a on a personal level but for people that have been in the thick of it and yeah i mean there was a guy in there was a guy i spoke to once he was in nor he was in the northern island conflict like i was and he went to bed one night in a room with like let's just say 15 oppos in it so 15 of his brothers the next night it was just him it was i don't know if it was any skill in it was one of these big IRA bombs that had gone off i think it was a secondary device as well um and uh yeah it just it taken all it all his mates out i mean you can't really can't imagine that level of horror you know right yeah no yeah it's it's uh like i said we need to do a better job i think at um at reaching people when they come back it meant to look health wise and and whatever that is and i don't know what it is but uh but it's obviously still an epidemic we still have people here you know we have the 22 you know they say roughly 22 veterans a day commit suicide and i think there are a lot of guys carrying around depression carrying around guilt uh i know i did after iraq and i didn't have a particularly horrible experience in 2003 when i went to iraq which was just before i retired um but but you know there's still i know when i came back i was not the guy that that went over there and uh and it affected me in many ways when i came back to this day you know just decisions i made things i did that weren't necessarily wise choices and and it's just it kind of spiraled downward um until i was able to you know to pull myself out of that and luckily i made it through but yeah i mean i think and then becoming a police officer after that where you again just see the worst of the worst you know you see people you see suicides you see homicides you see assaults uh you just see people at their worst you're constantly dealing with people who have either experienced trauma or um or committed trauma you know and and it just was more baggage added you know more bad experiences that i didn't deal with in a healthy way and uh and you know just brought me to where i am now which is a great place but there was some definitely some low points after i came back from iraq for sure yes a message for anyone out there that's watching or listening to this who's struggling you know hang in there because when you come out the other side you'll be such a a clear-headed person you you'll have it all in frame and you'll understand it and and then you'll start smashing it again smashing life i mean hang in there talk to someone find someone you've been there yeah find someone who you who you can share with you know it does it helps it just so much better to get it off your chest and to find somebody whether that's an oppo or whether that's a loved one whoever it is but find somebody you can talk to and just and just get those things out in the open because inside they just fester and just you know it's just like a cancer it's just yeah it's it's unhealthy for you so find somebody to discuss it with Robert dying to talk to you about your your police work but can we just um talk about your time at limson what yeah when did that take place so i was i just before i went over i was a drill instructor so i had i had been a drill instructor in the us um and this is mid 90s and at the time it was a two-year tour so i was just finishing up my my second year as a drill instructor in the us and um i was getting ready to to go to my next unit and and you kind of have a little say and the longer you're in the more say you have about where you want to go next and i intended to go back to an operational unit go back i was actually going to go back to a reconnaissance unit i had orders um which meant you know i'm ready to i'm ready to move on ahead a move date and everything and i i didn't even realize we had that we had five us marines who are on exchange with the royal marines didn't even know it existed i'd never heard of it and and maybe two months before i was due to to rotate to my next duty station a guy just mentioned it one day and he said that uh he had brought it up that there was someone at limestone who which we call it the drill instructor exchange but really you know as well as i do that the the true sergeant is not a drill instructor by any means you know you have one dl over there whereas we have all our drill instructors are you know the guys with the big funny hats and they're all free and it's such a different system for you for you guys but um so i i inquired to my what we call a monitor which is the person that monitors your career kind of makes sure people get to the right place and all billets are filled and i i asked him he said yeah i'm actually get ready to to pick someone for that i have you know about 10 people who have applied um are you interested and i said yeah very and so i i put in a package for it and uh uh like just before i would have deployed i got word that that i had been selected to go and so he changed my orders and i think it was june of 97 i flew over uh reported into limestone and uh they don't they don't make you go to the all arms course um but of course for me there was no option i was like i gotta i gotta earn me bury you know and just wow so i spent the first month or two because they i think they were just finishing up an all arms course and they just really they set me up for success most day i spent i think i spent three days a week on bottom field um and i would just work out with the recruits so i would do bottom field three times a week and i had pretty much by time i got on the all arms i had done everything i i had done the assault course i didn't do the full tarsan assault um as a winner you know as you do in the course but i had i had gone through all of it i had done the pretty much everything you could do but in little pieces so i felt really good about going on course um of course once it wants that 12 weeks i believe at the time the arms was 12 weeks you know once that hit and you went through it it was just it was unbelievable i mean it was so um just ball busting it was 12 weeks non-stop i lost two stone um yeah i came out the other side and i was i had lost so much weight because it was just day after day relentless doing the commando tests and bottom field pass out and uh and then the exercise is in between you know up in um up in woodbury common or or out in dartmore and and so they really set me up for success so and then uh i got on course which so i passed out on december so i guess i would have started in late october maybe somewhere in october i started the course and uh and i remember so when i had done when i was doing bottom field one of the ptis that was working with me he he was showing me everything and he told me don't the worst thing that can happen to you is that you fail the initial rope climb because you'll get another shot at it after you do the rest of the course but you'll never make it because there's no way yet because you're going to be hanging out so bad now now you've done the whole course you've done the full regain you've done everything else and now you're going to try to climb the rope again and he goes you'll never make it so don't let it happen to you so on the morning it was it was drizzly rainy typical limestone day and i remember i got to the rope i was feeling good i i felt so well rehearsed and everything was good i was in probably the best shape of my life i think i was 31 when i went through and uh i started climbing the 30 foot rope and uh and i just start to slip and i'm climbing and slipping and my head is i just start to just start to psych myself out and i i'm just looking up and i i'm not going to make it and finally i realize i'm not getting to the top of the rope and that pti's words just were just banging in my head you'll never make the second rope climb it's not going to happen so just pack it in you know i mean that's how i felt and of course i didn't um and i did the rest of the course did the regain and so now i've got to climb this rope again and and i remember just it had dried up a little bit the rain had stopped and uh there was just no way i wasn't going to make the top of that rope and so that got the second attempt and i just got up to the top and i got up there i know you had to slap the top and i don't remember what you had to say but you had to yell out something that you had made it and i just i just stood there for a minute i looked out over the over the river x over the flats and just uh yeah i just couldn't believe that i'd made that but that was you know one small piece of that whole course and it just got worse from there i mean you know it never stopped so how how did i i'm gonna do a comparison hint uh thing thing here rob i might actually just put this out as a little clip because it's quite fascinating um was it so was it a massive eye opener to see what the British Marines how they train because of course we're commandos which just you know it's like a different roll from the infantry rolls it's a it's like another thing again um was that kind of a shock to you was that a lot different to the usmc training that you've done yeah especially so you know our recruit training our boot camp is um what is it now i gosh i don't even know what it is now i've been retired so long i don't keep up on much of it but so i think it's uh 13 weeks maybe our our boot camp our recruit training which is about the same as the command of course you know the all arms command of course but uh it's so different it's apples and oranges i watched a video the other day actually of a us marine who was watching a row marines video on recruit training and i i just kept i wanted to yell at the screen because you can't compare the two they're so different um ours is pretty short it's the i think it's the longest recruit training in the in the us military but it's still pretty short and it's designed it's it's you know it's the brainwashing right it's it's that indoctrination of you take this slimy civilian and you just pound usmc into them you know just 24 hours a day everything and you teach them history culture customs and courtesies how to march how to walk how to put their socks on how to eat and it's that's what it is i mean it is that for 12 weeks non-stop you don't get a day off you get sundays in the afternoon you get a couple hours to sit in the barracks in the squad bay and write letters and and you know lie to your family how great it is and it's but there's no time off you never leave you never leave base you don't have any time where you just walk around on your own just strolling about the camp and and get to to relax there's none of it non-stop and you know when i went over there i i didn't have any preconceived notions of what the training was going to be like but i did know it was much longer um and that it was you know it's i look at it in three phases right it's like the initial phase is where you're taking a civilian you're kind of teaching them about the core you know your core and kind of giving them that transition into kind of a basic marine basic soldier you know and then you have the second phase where you teach them how to be an infantryman a rifleman you know how to fight in the field and then the commando phase where you know you're turned them into a commando and ours really isn't like that after you leave recruit training all of our recruits from every different job skill you know every we call them MOS and military occupational specialty they're all in the same place so you've got you got butchers and bakers next to next to infantry guys and so they all do the exact same thing after that they go on to their further school where they learn how to repair helicopters or you know fire javelin missiles or whatever it is and and and so the the schooling later is more of of making you that job skill and i know i know there are other you know commandos what what other skills do they have i mean it's not everyone's in a commando unit right yeah when you come out of rulemarines training pretty much everybody goes to a commander unit because you're kind of expected to have experience as a commando you know for a year maybe do some specials training like up in the arctic where we do warfare training up in the north and norway or you might have a deployment obviously back in my day it was the northern island conflict more recently it's obviously been the middle east and then you can look to specialize as a driver um a shelf a clerk um when you're in your commander unit you might choose to go in the mortar you know you might get a bit of experience as a rifleman and then be up to go to the mortar platoon you know or heavy weapons this this kind of thing right but after you've done your sort of year and a half you can then you might want to be a drill instructor right normally no one wants to do that job it's not really it it the thought of being at limestone and that's your job on that parade square every single day it's not what everyone well i'm not saying it's a bad job or anything i'm just saying back in my day they used to ping you if we call it pinging pinging means you get told you're going to do it at which point a lot of people or many people in my day would put their chit in they they would just leave they'd say sorry i didn't join up to do that and yeah it was it sometimes a bit of negotiation there signaler was another one you know very professional respectable commander job but if you don't want to be a signaler you don't want to be a signaler and there was a there was a derp if that's the right word or you know a lack so people would get ping ping for that and then of course you've got the holy grail which is to join the special boat service yeah so the the navy's version of um special forces um so yeah did you find Robert like for example the endurance course i mean that is it's just hard isn't it oh yeah i reckon no disrespect to my brothers across the water there but i reckon the average american marine would probably not get too far on it before going this is yeah and at the time i i i believe they've put a little more safety features underneath right at this point i believe they have i think i've seen videos where they but at the time if you fall fell off any of those obstacles there was nothing to catch you there was i don't think any of them had netting or anything to help if you fell we actually when i was there we there was one lad he was do you remember the double ropes where you come down the double ropes yeah and i think after that you get on the the beam and then you run into the the jump and punch through the through the netting well he was coming down those double ropes and fell and both of his uh his bones came through his wrist so he fell and landed somehow like this and and uh and he was just screaming but i think that's a good 10 15 foot fall off the double ropes and just had open fractures on both of his wrists yeah that's that the Tarzan Assault course or the Tarzan course which joins oh you were talking you were talking the endurance course i'm talking up on Woodbury Common yes yes yeah that was yeah quite a quite a course i mean and i remember the first time we did it we had just finished a week long exercise where we were digging in uh up on Woodbury Common we had dug in and it rained all week and and so they took us through it twice the first time just to show us the obstacles kind of walk us through it just just the part on the common and then after we had gone through it they showed us how to do each obstacle then we did it again at full speed and then ran back all the way back to Limson and it was just it was i actually passed out on that i had hypoglycemia and passed out on the way back it was it was just unbelievable i should explain for our for our um american brothers and sisters listening so the endurance course you you jog four miles up to the start so you do that in your three-man sec you're in a three-man section you jog four miles to the start then under the timer your your threesome is off you run a four you then run a four mile course cross country and it's all of a it's all either up or down there's no like in between but what is in between are these tunnels some of them are up to a hundred meters long and in my day they were made of corrugated iron which had all collapsed down in so you got mud pouring through you've got a river running down the tunnel so so it's like a stream and you've got to get in there and crawl that hundred meters and at times you've got that much air above the water to breathe and of course you've got to try and keep your rifle right you know you have to try yeah you're doing this in all your fighting order right so not your bergen obviously because it's too small to get through these hulls when you've done that four mile course you then hit the what we call the tarmac the metal road which means tarmac and you've got to run another four miles back to the camp so at this stage you're up to 12 miles i think the course might be a bit shorter than four miles it might it might be about two and a half or something but anyway you're running like 10 miles soaking wet so all of your kit and clothing is now weighing double if not treble i mean it feels like you've got a refrigerator on you on your back it's just insane and you've got to run four miles down that metal road back to the counts rifle range then you've got to quickly pull the barrel of your weapon through to clean it a little light oil but you you know all this is it's it's done in super fast time and then you've got to get 10 shots on the target um which so long as your weapon screen is is the easiest bit right we did it in february so once we hit that first pull that you wade through this uh river up to your neck you've got to have your rifle above your head obviously to keep it dry and you pull yourself along on this rope and it's about you know 50 meters to get to the other side and it's in february in the uk so you're talking it's about minus six air temperature this is um Celsius now so it's cold it's winter the ice on the pool is three inches thick so the first people across have got to break break through the ice um um i'm i'm just trying to sell it here because like yourself robber i've seen comparison videos online and it's it's like this guy isn't really getting this is he i don't think he understands that this is like really fucking hard the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life and most people couldn't it's just the fact most people couldn't do it no that's true i mean we we i remember the the troops that i that i was troop starting for you know you just you just watch guys drop i mean every day we used to have in the initial when they started they would take a true picture of all the recruits that were starting together and and what we would do is as a recruit and i'm sure this has probably been around for years but we would we would color out the face of that recruit and so you start with let's say you start with 50 50 nods you know at the at the end of the troop you may have you know you may have 10 10 faces that have not been blacked out that haven't been back trooped or or just you know just couldn't make it moved on try something else got injured went to hunter troop and you just watched the troop dwindle and then you get new you constantly getting new recruits as well that had been back trooped and they they pick up with your troop i don't i don't know how many i don't know what the ratio is of how many recruits make it on one tribe but it's not very high i mean it really is tough training i would say not to not to slag off us marines because obviously i've been through both but yeah it it's such hard training i mean and these are young kids and and physically just unbelievable you know which i think is why the other thing i really liked over there that you guys do is you start to give the recruits responsibility right from the get go you you know i mean not necessarily an induction but after that once that once they joined the troop and training proper you have you have a recruit who's in charge of getting the other recruits outside in the morning you know you're not like in the US Marine Corps we are yelling at them we literally get them dressed by the numbers you wake them up you stand them online they stand in an open squad bay facing each other and then you send them all you send half to the bathroom on the other half you're getting addressed and then they switch these these this lot goes to the bathroom and then these guys are getting dressed but you're telling them like put a sock on now right sock um trousers on now pants on you know and you're just doing that step by step and and really they don't have any responsibility as recruits until much later in the training in that 13 weeks and so i don't i think i used to say after i'd done both i used to say that we turn out a usmc turns out a great recruit because that's what they are they're still kind of a recruit until they go to their next their next phase and i think by the end of the commando course you've experienced leadership you've been responsible and and had to pay for somebody else's mistakes because you didn't get them ready you know you would you would but you would go out in the morning in a recruit would be there he had got everyone ready and we did that a little bit in the usmc but not as much not to that extent where guys are leading patrols you know actually uh writing an op an op order writing patrol order and leading a patrol and taking that leadership responsibility so i think at the end of the commando course a lot of a lot of those guys are they're ready to to go out into the the commando forces and actually operate and actually you know be a be a leader if they have to robert i've got to ask you because um it's not often you get the chance to ask things like this but full metal jacket yeah i watched the making of it again last night it's just one of those things you can watch and watch and watch um li li uh ur me did i say his name right yeah yeah early ur me um yeah did a fantastic job came on the the film as an advisor and then ended up going no look just give me the part i can i can do it better than this guy right um how for those of us obviously that haven't been in the usmc how how realistic is is that but for what it's actually like for the obviously it's a hollywoodized version but it is uh it's it's pretty accurate i mean it is that's how a drill instructor is there is a stereotypical drill instructor and um i won't give away too many secrets but there's actually roles that drill instructors play um usually you have a three three-man drill instructor team and they each kind of have a role there's kind of the senior guy who we call him the papa bear he's the one who makes the recruits feel good um he can speak to them nicely and and kind of get him to uh respond you know he's kind of the father figure and then you've got the one who's a complete a hole that does nothing but yell he's never never kind and just his job is just to discipline just constantly you know anybody looks around he's in their face yelling at him telling them to keep their eyes to the front and and making them do push-ups and sit-ups and and whatever else and and uh incentive exercises and then there's the the one who's kind of the drill guy and he's the one that focuses on drill i'm getting them to uh because i i think the usmc i think we have we're just some of the best drill people out there i mean we really take drill seriously and focus on it and recruit training as a way to build teamwork and discipline and get guys to work it together as a unit you know we do that through just drill for hours on end but but yeah that's it's how it is i mean you are you are by the end of your first week as a drill instructor you you can't speak anymore you've yelled so much and you're up with them from from basically from dust you're actually awake before the recruits because you wake them up and you go to bed after them and so it's just non-stop for uh for the first i would say first three or four weeks where you are just breaking them down you know as as recruits and you're just instilling that discipline and uh and as time goes on you know you're not yelling as i hopefully you're not yelling as much at the end because hopefully by then you've you've brought them and you see the the transition as they as they make their way out and go out to the fleet marine force and join units but uh but yeah it's it's pretty accurate honestly and these guys that they're rig so they're clothing it is immaculate isn't it yeah yeah you you have several uniforms that you bring to work and if you get anything if you get too wrinkly or if you get anything on it it gets a little bit soiled you're switching it out putting on another one and we would do things like we would put um we would spray the inside so you wouldn't sweat through um and just just different tricks and you would do to always have that appearance and so is it true that if you don't like your drill instructor you you can just shoot them yeah you shoot them and then you and then usually you off yourself on the toilet is that that was um a bit of an unexpected turn in that well i guess you could see it was something not good was going to come out of that relationship right right um it it should be pointed out that people do die in training though don't they i mean i don't know how it was for you guys but we had guys commit suicide we had one chap um shot himself in the head we had another recruit pointed his weapon at someone he was he was piss assing around and and he shot shot the guy dead um guys drowning um and this is just the in training but there's when guys go on leave and they get up to the shenanigans on leave like um car crashes and that sort of thing you you know you lose people there as well is was that your experience yeah we have the same thing you know uh i know once you get in in the usmc i i think it is easier to to kind of get out of the roamerines if you decide it's it's not for you um but the usmc you're there i mean you are stuck there unless you do something really really stupid but i remember there was kids who would try to uh they would try to go you know go ua on authorized absence they would disappear in the night try to get off base which it's it's not impossible it's tough but it's not impossible um i remember when i was in when i joined in 1984 this kid had taken i was at paris island which is you know uh it's it's like an island i mean it's proper island so surrounded by water swampy water and uh this kid had taken all the bleach bottles and emptied them so he could make a raft and he was going to float off of paris island to escape the madness um they they caught him after i think he'd wasted a lot of bleach and that was about as far as he got but um but yeah i mean it's just not for everybody is it i mean some people just get there and and the shock i remember when i was in again we had this one kid and he lost so much weight he was he was overweight um which is rare that you even get in to the usmc overweight but he was a little overweight and we were our first day we went to the the chow hall to uh to have our breakfast i think it was or maybe lunch and he passed out and you know the human the human being response to someone passing out is to go see if they need help well the drill instructor response is to scream at them and they just yell at them for passing out and you know how could they possibly be such a weak pathetic thing you know and pass out and so the drill instructor is just just attack this kid who's laying there just fall and face first on the ground and i remember thinking what the hell have i got myself into you know these people are subhumans and he made it though he lost a ton of weight and and you know i think that when you make it through training whether it's a usmc or the royal marines you know that that feeling of pride it sticks with you forever right it's just something that you know you've accomplished that goal and it's just it's with you forever i think that's why you know in the us we say once a marine always a marine you know it's it's we never say x marine and now they don't even say former marine they just say he's a marine you know for the rest of your life yes it's the same here but but it kind of is it's you know something goes in you you become a part of something and and and that's something that goes in and you become a part of isn't isn't nothing to do with the technical numbers that are written down in whitehall or the mo d right it's um how did you join the police uh so i retired in from the usmc 2004 and uh uh you know i i never really concentrated on anything except uh infantry really and then toward the end as you said i became a nuclear biological chemical defense officer but that was my last four years and i really didn't have i had not learned a lot of skills i mean skills that are applicable to to real life and so um i just decided the police force was kind of a a normal step for me to go to um so i joined and went to the police academy i think i was 38 at the time and yeah so a little older you know most i think most officers join mid 20s i think is normal although i've seen older we had one one guy joined he was in his 50s when he went to the academy which is pretty good i mean you have to be pretty fit it's like anything else um i think a lot of police officers they there there's a lot of strict requirements physically to get in but after you're in there's none and so i think that's why you see a lot of police officers who uh maybe don't look the fittest because they've they've made that initial entry physically and then after that they they uh maybe visit dunk and don't it's a little too much but uh so you know you go through the academy and and then after that you go into what we call field training which is where you know the academy is is scenarios and it's all very it's all very it's just it's fake it's a fake environment you know you're doing these scenarios where you're dealing with a domestic violence or an assault or a crime whatever it is but it's all actors and then so you get into field training and now it's uh there's someone there with you an experienced officer who is watching your every move and he and he's making sure that you're you know um doing things the correct way by procedure and by the law you know i mean there's a lot of laws to learn and so an officer can definitely make mistakes and uh in the early days you know as you're training and then eventually you're out on your own and then you're doing the job and it's uh it's a tough job i i respect police very much i did it for 14 years and um man those guys have a tough job you know it's gotten tougher what's it like being armed then in let's call it civvy street you know the culture here is so different as far as the gun culture um you know not to get political but we are just a country who we we enjoy our our right to to bear arms and to have firearms and you know the the overwhelming majority of u.s citizens that own firearms are responsible they'll never commit a crime um period and they'll certainly never commit a crime involving a firearm here in arizona you can carry anybody any civilian who hasn't been uh maybe a felon you know or someone who's a prohibited possessor they can walk the streets every day with a firearm on their side go to a shop um and and you'll see someone you see it all the time here in walmarts which you know walmarts but they'll have a firearm on their side and it's you don't even think about it it's it's just uh it's it's very historical for you guys isn't it i mean you the right to bear arms is in your constitution right yeah it's a constitution you know it's actually in us robert is it yeah it's the right of every englishman to to to carry a firearm but we're ruled here by well you know state the same bunch of sociopaths that run the planet and they somehow obfuscated our our inhaler is it is that the right word are in inalienable rights so what the rights we're born with as human beings they've managed to somehow circumvent that and replace it with all this crappy european you know and and british though well we're not british i mean we're obviously we're proud to be part of this island and and um and the tip of northern island as it is but we're english at the end of that's our country in england right but we're governed by british law which isn't in our best interest because for a start we don't have the right to bear arms and with what's going on at the moment globally there's never been a more important time than to be able to stand up for for freedom and righteousness and we're loo we're losing all that here now we're literally becoming a totalitarian state um you know you're gonna have to buy everything you want from amazon now because they've shut down all the they've collapsed all the the the small businessman right yeah and they by by playing their playing their games um it's frightening so you don't need to explain to me the the the not just the importance of having the right to defend yourself but also the history behind it like i'm i'm i'm with you you know obviously you have to be careful of people who who might be unwell or or are going to use that those arms for criminal means but when you weigh up the pros and against the cons it's i think you know everyone has the right to to not to not be enslaved yeah and you know we're in a constant struggle here as well with our second amendment rights where i i feel like it's you know every day where one step closer to to losing those um to where they just clamp down on the gun laws um and you know it's it's a tenuous thing i mean i i could see where we could end up where you are eventually i mean you know people say there'd be a revolution and uh but the reality is um it happened to you it happened to Australians and uh and i think it's possible i think you know the second amendment the nra different organizations that support the second amendment and gun owners rights are for us it's important to join those things and just you know to be an advocate because most people don't commit crimes you know most people that own firearms will never use them for nefarious means so it's it's uh the statistics are not that everyone in the us contrary to what the news shows are you know we're killing each other on a daily basis in droves you know you can't walk around because it's too dangerous um but i think sometimes i know when i'm out of the country when i'm when i'm traveling it's you kind of get that impression that people feel like the us is you know one big firefight like it's uh it's like it's an action movie or something and it's just not like that you know you don't your day to day life you don't you don't think about gun crime and gosh i'm afraid to go out because i may get shot today it's just not like that yeah i'm very fortunate because i don't watch the news yeah it's a good idea right i i know who owns the news so why why why and they don't like me and they don't like my family and in fact they don't like anyone except except themselves yeah so why why would i watch their bullshit propaganda which is just one huge lie and i can't even go there robert because when it with respect to uh you know these things i'm seeing stuff on the news that from a service perspective yeah that is that that narrative don't make sense not right not if you know how to use a weapon and the the damage that it can do what you know what our precious mainstream media is telling us now sorry not not you know i have to live in a real real world because i only get one life and i want to keep it real if you're trying to tell me that i'm supposed to believe that no that never gonna never gonna happen but let's move on to your swap days because that it's all it's all getting a bit exciting uh yeah so so i think most police departments you have to do a year or two get a little experience as a as a street cop before you can try out for the SWAT team um and then eventually and again it's a it's a physical test yeah it's you have to have a little higher physical standard which where i mentioned most officers don't maybe have a yearly physical fitness test SWAT does if probably more than yearly probably uh several times a year where you make sure that guys are are fit for that job um because we're wearing heavy you know uh plate carriers and just everything we have on and here in phoenix where it can be 120 degree fahrenheit which again i don't know what that is celsius but really freaking hot yeah and sometimes you're on a on a scene for hours um wearing this kit and it's just it's just balls hot out and you're you know you have to be fit to do that because then at the end of the day um you could be there for five six hours and then all of a sudden that's when it happens you know so it's kind of like you have to be fit to fight when you get to the objective right so we make sure that everybody on the SWAT team is in good physical shape um just extra training every month you know doing uh going into shoot houses um practicing just your your tactics inside a house um and just uh doing uh warrants you know serving warrants we have guys that are trained on gas how to use gas and c s in case we need to use that to get somebody out of a out of a house out of a barricade situation and and then you just you know you're on the SWAT team and now ours was not a full-time SWAT team bigger cities like phoenix they have a full time where those guys are SWAT that's all they do um smaller departments will have it's a it's a collateral duty so you'll be you'll do your your daily job whether you're a detective or a street cop and then anytime that there's a need for a SWAT team um you know you pick up your gear you put it on and now you're now you're a SWAT guy so that's why it's imperative that you train enough and because it's not every day that you train enough to wear when it's needed you are you know you're you're ready for it and you've got the training experience to to do the job so are you saying that your SWAT role isn't all the time that's like when when you're called you're called up to do that yeah so most almost every smaller department just they don't have and there's not enough officers to have them do that full time yeah and so they would do their normal job and then um that would be something they would do on the side which means you got you give a lot of extra time um so it's kind of like a quick reaction force role is yeah exactly exactly in some places even more rural have regional teams where several departments will make up a SWAT team for that that area you know if it's really rural yeah I get I got you and did you get to fire a lot of rounds on the range to yeah we we went to the range way more than your average officer we would go usually we would go monthly we would try to put put rounds down range and just you know you know practice tactics and sometimes we would just work on drills right just your basic shooting skills which is what makes you good is just to work on the basics and then other times we would we would use go to a shoot house and we'd do a live fire shoot house which as you know anytime you're you're in close proximity to other people you really have to trust those people when you're when you're entering a room and you're shooting rounds feet away from other people you know you you kind of bond the SWAT team was to me it was kind of like being back in the military again because you build up that camaraderie where these are guys that you're going to be you know potentially fighting alongside but you're definitely going to be in in situations where you've got to trust them with your life and and they've got to trust you with yours you know and to watch each other's back so did you ever use the the the two two conversion kits for well when we when we were training for the northern island conflict you do that typical scenario where you're walking through a scene and the the enemy or what what what we call the enemy is popping up around you and you've got to quickly you know double tap the target and and obviously if you've got your team and you're all firing 5.56 millimeter it can there's a chance for a ricochet or or you you might just accidentally shoot someone um so what they would do Robert is you get this little conversion kit and you put it inside the breech of your rifle and then it fires two two instead of 5.56 and obviously if you get hit by a two two unless you're really unlucky it's it's it's going to hurt you but it's not yeah most likely not going to kill you right now we usually use we use what was called frangible ammo which would it wasn't full metal it would so we would have in the shoothouses we would have targets that would stop the rounds and so they you would use that and then you would use frangible ammo which would just kind of stop a lot quicker it didn't have the same penetration power of like a full metal jacket or a hollow point we would use those but and we would always rehearse you know we would we would always do a do a dry run first where you have no ammo and you're just working on on kind of it's almost like a dance right you know you come in at our house and everyone has their positions and you know who's going to flow into a room how you're going to occupy that room based on where the door is based on the size of the room and and we would just rehearse that for hours on end before we ever went live with live ammunition did you ever find I mean I was part of a high security detachment for 30 months right and we would um go into compartments of the ship and you have your set routine like like you say but tell you what sometimes the guy the guy that had been designated to be the enemy would just pop up and take you all but you know oh yeah it just happened so quickly you haven't got time to haven't really got time to like react to it did you ever find that yeah well so we actually had we were while I was on the SWAT team in six years we actually were in a shooting we were serving a warrant in Phoenix because we had somebody on a task force and he had used us um he was from our department but he was working with a task force on a government agency of federal agency and so we had served this warrant it was related to the cartels and uh we we had what's called a no knock warrant I don't know if you've heard of those over there but basically you can get an exception from the judge that says hey this is a really dangerous person and if we knock on the door we're giving them time yeah to potentially prepare for us whether that's to you know to flush drugs down the toilet or whatever which is not that big of a deal but but potentially they could be while we're knocking and saying police department they're getting a firearm ready you know to meet us so we have what's called a no knock warrant where the judge says yeah this is you can not knock on this in this instance you don't have to knock you can just open the door you know whether that's with a battering ram whatever but you can ram the door open and enter without giving that person that advance warning that you're coming in and so we had a no knock warrant but we were actually we were going to do a quick knock so we were just going to quickly knock, announce ourselves and then and then ram the door open and go in and so our usually our front guy would have a shield a ballistic shield has a little window in it so he can look through and use and see and use it as a shield in case there's anybody in there with weapons and so we did a quick knock and then ran the door and the shield guy took a step in and he saw movement off to his right so he turned and took one round right in the port so he actually got shot right in the port of the of the shield and then took a second round further down and then we we essentially had then had a firefight with this guy who had we think it was a very small and very tight neighborhood and we think he knew we were coming we were in one of those bear cats which is those armored you know vehicles which are kind of noticeable when you've got 12 SWAT guys hanging on the side driving through your neighborhood so we think they knew we were coming anyway and and but yeah he took two shots at us unfortunately it didn't end well for him we had a firefight right down there in downtown phoenix and you know so that was one of those crazy ones where even though you you trained for it you rehearsed for it and you're prepared for it you really don't expect it you know you don't expect to serve a warrant we've served you know hundred of them and that was the first time that somebody actually you know had shot at us you know that took that action where he said hey I know there's there's 12 SWAT police officers there but I'm gonna I'm gonna see what I can do and try my luck with it and so it was kind of surreal really you know even though you trained for it you don't expect it you don't expect that someone would do that but the team performed brilliantly and uh and we all went home if I'm getting a flashbacks there to again to the northern island conflict when we came under fire it takes you a split second to realize what's going on it's just yeah you know even though you've rehearsed it you've trained it takes to like the third shot bang bang bang bang bang and then your brains are contacts take cover right yeah blimey Robert listen you've been absolutely brilliant I'm I just wouldn't be right not to finish up and talk about you traveling because that's been a big big thing in my life um what it has been a favorite place you visited uh I would say Israel is definitely was definitely a highlight for me just the history um you know I mean you when when a yank goes to the UK we're like amazed at the history there you know the age of some of the buildings but I mean Israel is just you know unbelievable how how much they've managed to uncover as they dig and and you know they look at have different archaeological sites it's just it blows you away I mean how it's not your heritage there Robert no no I just um so I think last year went to like 17 countries just did a whirlwind tour of Europe um and just you know just traveled all over went to Egypt um Israel Slovenia of course the UK France um Germany Austria Belgium which bruise great place if you've ever been to bruise just in Belgium about 80 times I've never been to the capital oh you you have to get to bruise if you can it's bruise capital I'm no no it's Brussels is the capital Brussels of course it is the capital of the European Union isn't it Brussels is it yeah I think or it's where the headquarters are right I don't I don't watch the news so I get a lot of stuff but so I would say Israel was one for the for just the archaeology and just the history Switzerland probably one of the most beautiful countries I've been to and I actually went with when I was over with um at limestone so the you know we have other Marines who are on there there's a royal there's a mountain leader who's down in Plymouth there's a US Marine who's down there there's one at pool who's a boat guy he's down at pool and then there's a marksmanship guy who's also at limestone and then there's an officer he was he's the only operational one is our officer and he was up at four five commando up in our broth right yeah that's right yeah so um and so I so I was good friends with the mountain leader who was there at the same time and they do an exercise every year the the mountain leaders your mountain leaders go over to Switzerland and he invited me along and so for a month we just we just climbed and skied and just had a jolly over there I mean it was all paid for we lived in in Lauterbrunnen which is a beautiful valley in Switzerland we stayed intense but uh but we would just say hey we want to go climb this you know the finster horn or whatever and and a car would take us and drop us off and we would ski down the glacier um and then climb and it was just brilliant so I would say Switzerland as far as just beautiful country it's just amazing the mountains are just so vast and you know it's massive mountains beautiful yeah I've been quite fortunate really I've been to Jerusalem twice now and you know traveled around Israel and Palestine twice um really does feel very uh like the religious heartland of the world there doesn't it right yeah you know I don't know how much of it is accurate and whatever I'm not I'm not really interested to be honest but well I mean I kind of am but I'm not interested in taking to get too much into the religious side it's just a fascinating place to visit in the desert it's so beautiful yeah you kind of it well when you're in Jerusalem and they've got all these kind of you know is it stances of the cross or whatever they call it and oh yeah yeah and the the um the olive grove what's that one called that you got was it garden of Yosemite Yosemite um Yosemite right Yosemite yeah um the Mount of Olives and if you've ever watched a film like Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ you can't help feeling these places there but if there ever was a guy called Jesus like he was here on his last night and then he was over like I say I you don't have to write to me folks and tell me anything I'm happy not to I'm happy not to know some things and um yes wow Robert thank you ever so much um I appreciate it do you want people to come and find you I mean should I put the link for your LinkedIn profile below our video that's fine yeah if people want to get in touch brilliant yeah that's fine so stay on the line so I can thank you properly but from one brother to another thank thank you for just enlightening enlightening us to your fascinating life well I I appreciate I never in my life thought I'd be invited on a podcast so um I I appreciate it and I appreciate talking to you and for everything you've done and it sounds like I mean gosh I would love to uh if I had a podcast I'd have you on it sounds like you've done some amazing things yourself it's uh sounds like you've had a good run yeah you know I'd take the rough with a smooth Robert you know and and I don't I try and use my experiences now to for the for the better obviously I've done some stupid things over the years um yeah so I am trying to avoid talking about the difficult times we find ourselves in because you know I'm gonna say this to our friends at home if there's ever time to be a warrior it's now and it's probably not the warrior in the traditional role that you're thinking of your freedom is being stolen in front of your eyes and most of it will go okay they have no idea what's going on right and it's you know this is what guys like us fought for was freedom if those you're right and people I I just feel like people are laying down aren't they those boys many of the teenagers that gave their life on the beaches of Normandy to fight for your freedom and you're just giving it away because you believe everything you see you see on your nine o'clock news right yeah yeah this is the frustration I I have Robert is I I because of I've lived worked and traveled in 87 countries it is I often say 80 is actually 87 across all seven continents not many people can tell me what what's going on you know have a have a more accurate view of it and it's it's just trying to drop the penny with people isn't it to get them to realize what's going on and and when you're brainwashed you're brainwashed and if all you know how to do is spout what you see in the media that that's not going to help anyone you need you need to develop thinking skills and I wouldn't care if it was just me Robert I'd go and drink myself to death I that's that's what I did for 30 years anyway right but I have family now you know I have a son and you know he needs to know his his daddy is a legend his daddy is a fighter that fought for his freedom right when the other parents just just gave it up and and didn't even know what what they were giving up you know because they no longer read books anymore and most of them are just like spend all their day day day like that right and I don't know what the future holds mate but I tell you what I know I know that I fought for people's freedom and that's a nice place to be um yeah and it'd be great if you know the reality is we're never not going to have wars as nice as that would be like you said the the ruling elite they're not going to ever let that happen and they'll keep us at war as long as they can and and as much as uh none of us want to go to war you know I'm just I'm thankful that there's guys who are willing to guys who are willing to lay it all on the line exactly we we've got wonderful men and women in our armed forces and they need to be treated with respect and not just used as a corporate bully boy thugs to go and you know secure this oil field or to to further the agenda of these sociopaths and for the last 20 years these sociopaths have just written written their ticket and we need to be real warriors and stand up and say no because our brothers now and and our sisters but predominantly our brother they're hanging themselves you know and dying in a pool of alcohol and someone needs to stand up for that and and and and say it how it is so people like yourself Robert I really appreciate you having you on the podcast you know true true warriors not not not not not tokenist that that um you know just happy to maintain status quo anyway so our friends at home sorry if we ended on a bit of a serious note but you know in my 50 years on 51 years on this planet it's never been you know you want warfare it this is it it's never been more serious it really hasn't but putting that to one side massive love to you all please look after yourselves if you can like and subscribe just support this positive message we're trying to put out I'll see you next time and I fought my way back from chronic trauma and addiction to live work and travel in 80 countries across all seven continents achieving all of my dreams and goals along the way now I pass my simple system on to other people but I can only help you if you like and subscribe so please do so because you get one life and if you live it right one is enough