J. Cal (3:17)

Back in the Middle east, yeah. Yeah. I was quite res. You know, I was like, don't want to go back to, back to the Middle east so soon. I was like, you know, initially, no. But then when this situation happened, it's like, I don't believe in coincidence like you. And I think, I don't like the word universe. I think it gets banded around quite often. But like, there are times in life when I look at things and I'm like, there's too many of these things to have lined up in certain time frames or in certain situations for it to be. There has to be something involved in that. There has to be, like, because it doesn't go that way. And then all of a sudden it goes completely the opposite side. So, yeah, it's, it's quite. Like I said before, it's quite a surreal moment to be here sat with you because I've been watching you for years, even when I was still serving. And a lot of, you know, you know, deeply personal things that good friends of mine have come on the show and talked about. You know, I've seen it, I've seen it from both sides. I've seen how they come across on this, but I've also seen it sat having a beer and had those conversations or on the range having those conversations. So for me to take my turn and to be sat here is, it's really important to me and it's something that I don't take lightly. You know, this is a big, big deal for me. You know, I've been quite nervous, I think, not because of what I'm going to say, but just because it's like I just want to do, do it right, you know. So, yeah, humbling, slightly nerve wracking. But now I'm sat here. It doesn't feel like that now. Now it just feels like two team guys having a conversation. Like you're just a dude from the squadron, so you know that that's cool. And you've made me feel nothing but welcome. And from the minute Jeremy reached out, I was like, yes, this is a good thing to do. I don't do podcasts. I've never done a podcast. It's the first time anyone's seen my face. And I'm completely comfortable with it because I trust you, because I know that you're trying to do good things. And the fact that you have traveled halfway across the world and taken the time to do this makes me feel that the conversation and the topic I'm going to have is worth having. And it makes me feel that it's in safe hands. And, you know, I've got complete trust with you. So again, I'll say it, I'll say it now and I'll say it again. I'm thankful and I'm grateful and I just want to make sure that we take this opportunity to voice some things because there's a lot of people out there that don't get that opportunity. They don't have a platform, they don't have the luxury of sitting in this position, in this chair. So what I say, I want to make sure I get it right. And we try and change a couple of things because there's some stuff going on that I don't think is right.

Sean Ryan (5:49)

Well, that's what we do. And so in this interview, my goals are one, to tell your life story.

J. Cal (5:56)

Yes, sir.

Sean Ryan (5:56)

And, and on top of that, UK is going through a lot right now. We see it all over the news. I have friends over there, our mutual friends have told me about what's going on, especially within the unit, the investigations that are going on. And so when we get through your life story, I want to expose as much as possible about what's happening over there, why it's happening, who's doing it and all that stuff. So, so just sit back, relax. I get nervous for all of these things too.

J. Cal (6:27)

Yeah, so. And again, I think it's, I mean, we talked about it before, but it's like people are very quick to hold soldiers and operators to account. And we get based on judgment this and judgment that or, you know, split second decisions, but we're always, we're always looked at in a negative light and nobody, nobody gets to hold other people account. Like the people that are making these choices and these decisions and pushing these things through and, you know, calling, causing the trauma and the pain to all of us as individuals and our families, nobody holds them to account. And that's not right. If they want transparency, let's have transparency. So I feel like this is a good thing to do.

Sean Ryan (7:05)

You're doing a good thing for yourself and for all of your comrades and everybody that's serving over in UK right now. And just before the interview, I had mentioned a quote. You perfected the quote. But it's something goes. Something evil will prevail when good men do nothing and you're doing something.

J. Cal (7:23)

Trying. I'm trying.

Sean Ryan (7:24)

And that means something. So everybody starts off with an introduction. So here we go.

Jeremy (7:31)

J Cal, a decorated Royal Marine and.

Sean Ryan (7:34)

Special Forces veteran with nearly 18 years of service, 11 combat deployments, and the Queen's accommodation for valuable service. Mastering roles is jump master, tandem master, and lead jumper. With three operational jumps, earned your place in SAS in 2012, you deployed to hotspots like Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa, where you participated in numerous major offensives and covert actions, including work alongside Delta Force.

Jeremy (8:04)

You're also the only SAS operator to.

Sean Ryan (8:07)

Ever become a Green Team instructor over at Dev Group. Now you are the lead instructor for.

Jeremy (8:13)

GBRS group to train the next generation of operators.

Sean Ryan (8:17)

And so before we get into your life story, if you could give me just a brief snapshot of what these investigations are about.

J. Cal (8:29)

2022, my last operational deployment, we deployed on the ground. I was an assault team leader with my guys, a fire team, essentially. We've been targeting known jihadis that had been responsible for multiple assassinations. They were top of the partner forces list in terms of people that they wanted to detain. So we launched a detention operation on those. I was ordered to go and do that detention operation. We planned it meticulously, we executed it professionally. And during that operation, once we got off the vehicles, we were engaged from multiple firing points in the middle of enemy territory. I was with my teammates. I made the decision to return fire to protect my life and the life of my teammates. We were effective. We neutralized two enemy fighters. And then subsequently after that, they launched an investigation accusing me of murder, which is a very damaging thing. Murder, murder, murder. It wasn't anything. That was just straight up murder.

Sean Ryan (9:31)

You know, I've seen this before with the Eddie Gallagher case.

J. Cal (9:34)

Yep. Yeah, I spoke to Eddie about this a lot. He's helped me a lot through this. And, you know, Eddie's a good dude, and he's coached me a little bit in terms of, you know, it's rough. It's rough. You feel betrayed, you feel let down. You know, And I'll say it before I say it again, Sean, there isn't a thing that happened that night that I wouldn't do again. And I could look you in the eye and tell you that I didn't. I did what I was supposed to do that night in the most professional manner that I could, culminating in years of experience, years of judgment, multiple deployments. I know what it's like to be in dangerous situations. And that was a hyper dangerous situation. And we dealt with it. My teammates dealt with it in the most effective professional manner. I was so proud of them, those young guys next to me, some of them never been in a gunfight before, and they did what they had to do, and they did it with exceptional professionalism. And then to get back off the ground and be treated the way that we did is just heartbreaking. There's no other word to say it's heartbreaking, man. Yeah. It's a difficult situation.

Sean Ryan (10:34)

And you get a write up accommodation for that exact operation.

J. Cal (10:39)

Yeah, for the whole.

Sean Ryan (10:39)

That was revoked.

J. Cal (10:40)

Yeah. For the whole deployment. Yeah. My Sart Major and my troop Sart Major told me that I'd been given a citation for it. Never came. They pulled it for whatever reason. Maybe it's because I left the army, maybe it's because I had an Instagram account, who knows? But whatever it is, you know, that kind of hurt. I don't care about medals. I don't even wear my medals. I don't even know where my medals are, Sean. I'll never put that belt and berry on until this has been effectively resolved. I'm still extremely proud of who I am and what I've done. And I love my regiment to death. That's why I'm here. Because there's things that need to change. But you know, on that night, I couldn't be prouder. I couldn't be prouder of the guys around me. Like it was, well, well within rules of engagement, well within what had to be done. And quite frankly, anyone that saw the drone footage and the 50 other people on the ground that all testified to say exactly what I saw and felt all feel the same way. You know, it's as black and white as it gets.

Sean Ryan (11:39)

Well, you should be proud. You should be proud of what you did and you should be proud of what you're doing right now, because I know this takes a lot of courage, especially with everything that you're going through, so. But before we get into the life story, everybody gets a gift.

J. Cal (11:53)

There we go. Thank you, Sean.

Sean Ryan (11:56)

Vigilance lead. Gummy Bears. Made in the USA.

J. Cal (11:59)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (11:59)

Obviously legal in all 50 states and they're legal in the UK, so.

J. Cal (12:04)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm. Thank you.

Sean Ryan (12:08)

You're welcome.

J. Cal (12:08)

Awesome. I've got something for you as well. Maybe we can talk about it later. But it's Everyday Patriot hat. Because I believe you are a patriot, and I believe you stand for the same values that I do. So a small token of my appreciation.

Jeremy (12:20)

Thank you.

J. Cal (12:20)

And these won't get put on the shelf. They will get enjoyed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and my daughter will. Yeah, we'll get into these for sure. Thank you.

Sean Ryan (12:29)

Sean, what does this. What does this mean?

J. Cal (12:31)

So it's Everyday Patriot. So I've had a bit of a hiatus in the last 18 months or, you know, since I've not been allowed to go to the United States. And in that time, I've started a company. It's about patriotism. To me, patriotism is a super important subject, something I feel very, very deeply about. And I think that the small things that we can do to represent who we are, the culture that we come from, our belief system, our values, I think needs to be done. I think there's too much, especially it feels like in. In the uk, but I've traveled all across to Scandinavia, to the United States. It feels like the word patriot has been kidnapped, held hostage by either the far right or the far left. Being a patriot is not about racism. It's not about nationalism or fascism or creating a common enemy. Those are all the things that we fought against. I don't stand for any of that stuff. It's little things. With patriotism, we're very good in the uk if it's like a football tournament, the World Cup, European Championships, or something happens with the Royal Family, everyone puts a flag up and everyone's proud to be, you know, proud to be British. But then the minute that stops, it goes away and it all goes quiet. And then all you can hear is the far right or the far left, and all they want to do is make noise. They're not doing it. I'm not having it. Like, you don't have to be in the army for 20 years or an Olympic athlete to be a patriot. It's for the builders. It's for the people that work in coffee shops. The mothers, the children, the women, all of us, we're all patriots. If you love your country, you should never, ever be scared to be proud of where you're from. And I don't care if you're from Afghanistan, Argentina, Iraq, Syria. If you love your country and have good values, I'm all for it. This is not about creating division. This is not about segregation. It's about being proud of who you are, where you come from, what you stand for. And I think people are scared to do it. I think they're only scared because people keep telling them that every time they put a flag up or every time they are proud of where they come from, people want to jump on it and say it's this or that, and they want to weaponize it. And it's. It's. It's bullshit. Yeah. And I'm not fucking having it. I don't think it's right. You know, I've served my country. I. I was willing to die for my country. I've got 14 poppies on one arm from one deployment, just one deployment. I know what it's like to pay the sacrifice. I've seen it. I've watched it. I've carried those caskets. I've carried those litters. I've seen it. And I'm very proud of my country. Very, very proud. And I'm not gonna be told or made to feel ashamed by anybody that we don't come from a good place and try and do good things. And that's not to say that our history is perfect. No country's is. That's not to say that we don't make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We're not perfect. Far from it. I. I acknowledge that. But it still resonates with me to be proud of my country, and I am deeply proud of it. So everyday patriots, kind of a nod to that. You know, it's. It's not merchandise. It's something that I stand by. It's not just a clothing brand. When it says everyday patriot, I mean it. And that everyday bit of it is we like a grand gesture, a football tournament, a coronation, you know, whatever it might be. But it's the everyday small things that we can all do, wherever you're from, that really make the difference. Because if we don't pay into that culture and we don't remember who we are, then it's not going to be long. Couple of generations. It's gone. Thousands of years of history and pride and sacrifice and service and, you know, all the stuff that we've done as nations, regardless of what flag that is, doesn't matter what color it is, but every country's got their history. And if we start to whitewash that history or change the narrative or make it more palatable for certain demographics, then all we do is we lose our identity. And the minute you lose your identity, you lose your purpose. And before you know it, we're in a bad, bad spot. So, in a nutshell, long story long, that's kind of what I believe about Patriotism. So, yeah, no, it's going well. And you know, Sean, what do I know about making baseball caps and black T shirts? Not a great deal, but it's been an adventure for me. Yeah, I've enjoyed the process. Good people around me, A great team. Couldn't do it by myself. I might have had the idea, but the execution is definitely a team effort. And it seems to, seems to land with people. You know, most people, when I explain it to people, they're like, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like that. You know, and it's all different demographics. Doesn't matter where you come from. I'm selling, you know, T shirts to people all over the world. The United States, South Korea, all over Europe, Australia. Like it resonates around the thing. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's positive. You know, I'm not money orientated. I'm not trying to make a million bucks out of selling baseball caps. I just want to put something out there that people can put on, throw it on, be proud of, be proud of it, you know.

Sean Ryan (17:13)

Good for you.

J. Cal (17:14)

That's what I'm trying.

Sean Ryan (17:15)

I love that.

J. Cal (17:15)

You do? Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's a fun project, you know, keeps me busy.

Sean Ryan (17:21)

How did you. How did you get connected with DJ?

J. Cal (17:25)

So around 2020, I was given, in my opinion, the best job in the British Army. I was given the job of being the lead instructor, chief instructor of the CQB cell. I'd never been an instructor before in that. That situation. I'd been a JTAC instructor before and I know how to teach and connect with people and I love that human connection. But when they offered me that, to me, that's the pinnacle. Teaching regiment guys or helping regiment guys improve their shooting, Making sure the doctrine, the CQB is good. Making sure that we're not drifting off course, making sure that we're not, you know, adopting fads from YouTube and the Internet and making sure that we're maintaining the standard that's been set by the guys that went before us and the hard lessons learned through combat. I mean, we lost a lot of guys. You know, there's that. That g. What generation learnt a lot of fucking hard lessons. And I think it's only right if you become an instructor in one of those roles that you're the custodian of that information. So I took that job extremely seriously. But like I said before, I'd never been. You don't go to CQB instructor school. They just picked me out of the Squadron because I, you know, fairly high standard, personal standard, and was apparently quite competent at it and could engage with people and had enough experience to be able to give that information to people. So I was kind of looking around on like, where else do you find information? Open source. So I was looking at YouTube. I was watching all kinds of stuff, trying to find drills, equipment, just little, you know, then 1%, then 1%, so you can try and make incremental improvement. And I like kit, dude. I love my kit. To me, it's important. Like, I judge a guy on how his kit is, you know. So I'm trying all these different types of belts. I'm like buying this belt and that belt. And I tried all of them, you know, and some of them are good, some of that. And I stumbled across gbrs. It was actually DJ setting up a weapon. And it was like, damn, that's how I set my weapon up. And how he explained it, I was like, yep, that works. That's exactly how I would do that. So I became interested and anyway, I. I ordered something and I messed up. I got the wrong size or whatever and I sent an email back saying, is it possible before you ship it to the uk, can you just change the size, whatever. Cole ripped me back straight away, within minutes. So we had a bit of correspondence there and I just reached out to him and I said, listen, mate, it's so cool, and it gases me up to see guys from the squadron that have left the squadron are doing something different, that aren't just going to work in the Middle east and security or this or that or the usual part. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not trying to degrade that, but I didn't want to do that to see other people out there doing something different, doing something unique. So I just hit him up and said, thank you. And I told him, I said, there's guys in our squadron that are running your equipment both domestically and overseas. And he's told me a bunch of times, but that's the why. That's why they do that. That's why we do what we do, because we want to try and help guys that are still in a fight. We're not in a fight anymore. I'm not in a fight. Probably never be in a gunfight ever again in my life. But it doesn't mean I'm going to turn my back on it. I still want to give back. So that's kind of where they were at. And I just recognized it and I acknowledged it. I sent them A squadron plaque. I didn't put a name on it or anything. And we just carried on talking. Then I deployed body. Body a couple of years later, after my last deployment, I was kind of in this weird situation, weird headspace. I don't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't really feel like I wanted to stay. I didn't really know if I was going to leave. Like, I don't have many transferable skills. Sean, people talk about all this, you know. Oh, yeah, it sets you up for this. And that is like, there's not many jobs in civilian street that require a good breacher or a good lead jumper or somebody that can do a good build drill. Do you understand what I mean?

Sean Ryan (21:08)

I know exactly what you meant. Reinvent.

J. Cal (21:11)

Reinvent the wheel, you know, but it was like, the only thing I've got is a shirt on my back and the skill in my hands. That's all I've got and that's all I've ever had. You know, I don't come from a. You know, I don't come from a lot. And I've worked very hard to build my skillset and, you know, try and improve my own personal ability. And it felt like a good idea, or the only idea for, you know, for want of a better word, to try and use those skills in the civilian market or in this, you know, to try and train people. Basically, that's what I wanted to do. But I didn't really know how to go about it. It's very confusing, period for me. I was like, yeah, head was all over the place. And then through a mutual friend, Chris Craig had the boys. DJ and Cole were in Hereford visiting one of their distributors. And they'd already met a bunch of times anyway, so they were already familiar with each other. And at first I was like, I don't wanna just go and meet these guys and turn up like some sort of fanboy and be like, hi, thanks for the T shirt. So I was like. At first I said no, and then he was like, come on, just come and meet them and I treat them and that exactly how I'm treating this. Just meeting two guys in the squadron. And as soon as we sat down in Hereford, we went for a cheeseburger or whatever. It was me, Christian Craig, DJ Cole, and a guy called Baz. We sat down and straight away we connected. It was just like that. It was like we were already on that sort of. That wavelength, so to speak. And me and DJ got into it about cqb. Me and Carl were Talking about this and talking about that and you know, I was just, it just felt good. And we sort of wandered around the town for a bit, had a coffee and I think it was dj. She said to me, so what's your plans now? And I was like, well, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I've invested everything, this is all I've got. I don't have anything else, like this is it. But I'm at a point now where I'm having to walk away from it or, you know, considering walking away from it. It's like, well, what are you going to do? And I was like, I don't know. I really don't know. I want to teach people, I want to continue instruction, I want to continue passing on the knowledge, the hard fought lessons that I've had personally and watched other people do. So he was like, well, if you ever want to come over to Virginia beach and hang out with us, then, you know, here's my number, let's make it happen. And I kind of sat on it for a little while. You know, this, you know, I didn't have an Instagram account, I didn't have a social presence. Like all that was a big no, no to me. So this is a, this is a massive departure from my normality. You know, I'd lived in Hereford for 12 years, same house. I don't know anything other than that, the squadron, the life. So to, to break from that needs to be something pretty solid. I've got courage and I'm, you know, I like to think I'm pretty bold when it comes to making decisions. But this was a different ball game. This was not like an operational thing. This wasn't like a tactical problem that needed to be solved. I don't know the solution for this. It's not like problem solution, it's like this is a departure from my normality. But I did feel a level of connection and trust straight away. So fast forward a few months, I like hit him up. I was like, okay, dj, I feel like coming over to Virginia Beach. Is that still cool? He's like, absolutely. He's like, whenever you want, here's some dates, come over. So I booked a plane ticket, booked a hotel hire car, turned up in Virginia beach with some clothes and a set of air defenders and a range belt basically, and got to the hotel late in the evening, messaged dj. He was, ah, cool. Do you want to do fitness in the morning? I was like, yes sir. He goes, cool, I'm in from five, we'll Train at seven. I was like, cool. Turned up at half five. Pitch black, Virginia Beach. You know, I'm a long way from home at this point. See, DJ comes walking down the stairs, gives me a big hug. He's like, welcome to the building. Show's been around. We sit upstairs, we have coffee, we go work out for a little bit. And yeah, they were like, let's go to the range. And I think, like, as far as an interview goes, I think it was done at the 7 meter point on a flat range. I think that was pretty much, you know, it's easy to talk the talk, but you need to be able to walk the walk. And as soon as I could see that I could, you know, shoot to a fairly high a standard, they were like, yeah, this could be a thing for you. And they offered me. They offered me everything that I could ever ask for. Basically, it was the perfect transition. You know, know, still shoot guns, still teach, still mess with parachuting, still be around team guys. Like, when I walk in that building, it feels no different, you know, from walking into the. The. The ready room. It's the same conversations, the same jokes, the same talking, the same, you know, the same feeling, you know, camaraderie, camaraderie. That was my biggest fear when I left the military. It's like, when you leave the military, you don't just leave the. The job and the role. You leave your physical and emotional infrastructure. Physical infrastructure being like, you need a dentist appointment. You go and see the dentist. You need to go and see the doctor. You go to the doctor. The gym's over there. I need a new jacket. Stores is over there. All that goes away when you leave the military, and all of a sudden you're like, how do I get a doctor's appointment? Like, all, like, normal problems that normal people deal with. I've never had to do any of it. So I'm like, what, 35, 36 at the time? And I feel like a. I feel like a teenager again, trying to work out how to do basic stuff, you.

Sean Ryan (26:26)

Know, so you alone making a living.

J. Cal (26:29)

Let alone trying to. Yeah. Let alone make a living and, you know, provide a future for, you know, a young daughter. You know, I want to. You know, I want to give her more than I got, you know, so it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of stress. You. You lose the. When you walk out of that building, you don't just lose the job, you lose your emotional infrastructure. My teammates, like, that train moves so fast, dude. You know what it's like. Like, you're out the WhatsApp group. You're out there, you know this. There's no information coming on. No one's telling me where I have to be or what I have to do or what's coming on next. I'm on my own now. And, yeah, it's scary as it's. It's the most scariest thing I've ever done. DJ said to me, he goes, transitioning out of the military is the hardest thing you'll ever do. And I was like, nah, it's all right. I've dealt with. Dealt with way worse than that. Legit, like, no, it's the hardest thing I've ever done, like, emotionally. So when they came along, it was kind of the perfect thing, right? It was like all of the stuff that I'd been worried about losing, my purpose and my identity, which I think is the biggest problem for veterans, had gone away. It was all still there. It was just the perfect job. I felt like I was valued. I felt like I could give something back to our community. I'm around equipment, I'm around guns, more guns than I've ever seen in my life. Better kit than I've ever seen in my life. You know, I've got enough money to keep a roof over my head. Like, I'm landed and I'm blessed. You know, I felt so grateful and so blessed to be in that position and. And people go, oh, you're lucky you got a job at gbrs. And I'll say yes and no. It offends me when people say you're lucky. It's not luck. It's the fucking years of hard work. I put on a flat range or in the CQB house or whatever it might be, perfecting my craft. You can ask anybody about me, they might say a whole bunch of stuff, but one thing they won't say is that I didn't pay into the job. That skill set, those hard skills, were the most important thing in my life for the best part of a decade. And I worked hard to get as good as I could. So to have somebody recognize that and go, yeah, that's not luck, like. And that's not to sound arrogant, but it's like, you ask Christian. We spent days, weeks, months of our lives in the freezing cold, rain, shitty ranges, just banging away, trying to get better at our job. You know, just perfecting the basics, the skills, the fundamental aspects of marksmanship, and then teaching each other, showing each other new tricks or not tricks, but, you know, like, you know, I've seen this. What do you think about that? You know, just cross referencing information and just trying to just try and prove ourselves. You know, I wanted to be the best version, the best operator that I could be. And I spent years trying to do that. And then somebody recognized it and was like, this is the spot for you. So I felt very, very, you know, blessed. But it's not luxury and it does, it kind of winds me up when people are like, oh yeah, it's all right for you, you got a job at gbrs. It's like, I earned that job, you understand?

Sean Ryan (29:37)

Well, I know DJ very well and he is only interested in working with the best, the best in the world. And I'm very similar. I have, I have no respect for anybody that's not trying to be the best, the absolute best at what they do. And so they saw something in you and you've surrounded yourself with some great people.

J. Cal (30:02)

So I really have. And I'd like to just take this opportunity now to, just to say a thank you to Cole and to DJ for that trust. After that first couple of days, we went and had breakfast just before I flew out and they said, listen, we think you're the guy and this is what we're going to do. We're going to pay for your legal fees, we're going to provide you with a home, we're going to give you a job, we're going to, going to give you a 401k or whatever it's called, a pension system, dental, like the whole thing, like the full package. You can't. Like the gold standard, as I'd like to say. And we trust you and we believe in you and to have that changed my life, it changed my life. And without that, and I've said this before, and I deeply mean it, so I'll look you in your. If it wasn't for those guys there, I'd either wouldn't be here or I'd be in a ditch in the Ukraine somewhere. That's where I'd be. Because I didn't know anything else. I didn't have any other options. They gave me a lifeline and I'll never, ever forget that as long as I live. And I'm deeply, deeply grateful, not only to them individually, but the whole GBRS family and how they've treated me, everyone. There's too many to name, but all of them, Davis, Manny, Jared, you know, they've given me so much, Patsy. They welcome me into their home. Can you imagine how that feels? Standing, you know, Patsy. And Patsy's a rock star, man. She's one of the most incredible, strong women, woman I've ever met in my life. Like, she's a fucking idol to me, you know, She's a superstar in my eyes. And to be welcomed into their home and sleep in his bedroom, spare bedroom, you know, eat dinner with their children. Same with Renee and Cole. They did exactly the same thing the last few times I've been over to the States. I've been living with them. They welcomed me into their home. I'll never forget that. They've shown me more love and more hospitality than people I've been in gunfights with and known for 10, 15 years. Let that sink in. Great people, good people. Good fucking people, man. And I'm deeply, deeply grateful for them. And, you know, when I put this shirt on, it means the world to me. That's my uniform. I don't have a call sign patch anymore. I don't. I gave that up. But I didn't give up being me. So when I do that, I represent it with pride, you know, and when I deliver training or whatever it might be, I do it with a full heart and knowing that I'm trying to represent something good, and that means a lot to me, you know, and I'll die on that hill because it's important to me. So, yeah, and I digress slightly, but I just want to get that out there and say a massive thank you. And if they, you know, if they watch this and see it, then they know it already, but I'm sure they'll watch it. I want everyone else to know that.

Sean Ryan (32:47)

Thank you.

Jeremy (32:48)

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J. Cal (33:55)

Yeah? Here we go.

Sean Ryan (33:57)

Ready?

J. Cal (33:57)

Yes sir.

Sean Ryan (33:58)

Where'd you grow up?

J. Cal (34:00)

So I was born. I was born in Oxford. My mum was quite young when I was born. So when my mum and dad met, my dad was how young? Just over 16. 16 and 9 months. 16 years old? Yeah, 16 and 9 months when I was born. So she was a. She was a child herself. And that's not without its difficulties. My mom's a fucking rock star, dude. Like she didn't have. She come from a. She had five sisters. There wasn't really her a strong sort of father role model in that situation. So they grew up. It was hard for those girls, you know, they didn't have much, they had nothing. They didn't have much, they had nothing. And she was super young, super young. When I was born they met actually it's quite a nice story. My dad and that side of my family, they were publicans so they owned pubs and restaurants and all that type of stuff in my hometown. And she just asked for a job one day, you know, in the kitchen washing up dishes and that sort of thing. They kind of met and one thing led to another and I was born. They weren't together. So I've never. I don't come from a typical or what we call normal family background. My dad and my mum were never a thing. So I don't know what that looks like. But yeah, she, she is an incredible, incredible woman. Super young.

Sean Ryan (35:26)

They were never together.

J. Cal (35:26)

They were, they were never in a sort of relationship, in a, in a structured relationship. I mean they were in a relationship but by the time I was born they'd kind of drifted away and all the rest of it. But, you know. Yeah, so I don't know what, you know, I didn't grow up in a situation where it was like mom, dad, dog, all that type of stuff. That, that's not me, dude. I didn't come from that. My mom brought me up, she raised me. I remember very early on she wanted to become a carpenter of all things. So she did. She went and got her degree. Obviously she missed out on all the school and education because she was being a mum. But then she started to do like part time bits and pieces and she started to learn her trade. She's an incredible, incredible carpenter. Then she started building boats. She's a bit of a. My mom's A bit of a hippie, bit of a free spirit. Right. So, you know, my early childhood up in Oxford was, you know, up until about 4, 5, 6, was fairly regular. I wouldn't say it was traditional or, you know, conventional, but it was stable, it was safe. You know, I had good people around me for the most part. And yeah, it was. It was a nice place to grow up for the most part.

Sean Ryan (36:39)

How was your relationship with your father?

J. Cal (36:45)

My relationship with my father is probably one of the most important things in my life to date. I would not be here if it wasn't for him. I lost him. He died. Yeah. He had a difficult relationship with alcohol and ultimately that kind of. That killed him. That's what it did. It killed him.

Sean Ryan (37:04)

Sorry to hear that.

J. Cal (37:05)

No, me too, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. I can't kind of get my head around it, what, 20 years later, kind of 25 years later. But he was a kind man. He was a nice man. He wasn't a bad drunk. He just had a fucking. He had an illness, man. He just fucking couldn't fight it. We were close. We fought. I grew up a little bit older. The last time I ever saw my dad or the last conversation that we ever had was actually in Spain.

Sean Ryan (37:35)

What do you mean, you fight?

J. Cal (37:37)

We fought physically on a couple of occasions. Physically, yeah. And that was down to me, you know, I'm a young guy full of ego and testosterone, wanting a bit more and, you know, all that type of stuff. You know, just normal regular father son stuff. But it did get out of hand a couple of times. And it's probably my fault. He never hit me or anything. It was more, you know, just bullshit, you know. But the last time I saw my father was actually on a. A beach in. In Spain. And I'd started to look at being a raw Marine. That was where it started to come. I was around 15 or 16 at this time. My grandfather was a Royal Marine commando in the Second World War, all the way up through Sicily and Italy. So it was always something that was in my mind. I'd always loved guns. I'd always loved the military. I'd always been very close to my heart, you know, I'd always wanted to. To do that. And my dad used to work for a company called Brownham Route, which then later turned into Kellogg's Brownham Route, I believe. Kbr. So anyone that's ever fucking deployed anywhere on the planet knows what KBR facilities is, all the dining facilities and all the logistical stuff. So he did that. He was actually involved in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. So he worked for the US Government as a foreign contractor, essentially setting up the chow halls and the logistics and all that. That was coming from a catering background. It was. That was what he did. I remember very early on watching my dad come back from Bryce Norton during the first Gulf War. And in my mind as a young child, I thought he was a soldier. It made no difference to me. I didn't understand what was going on. He gave me this call, Desert DPM hat. Said Sergeant Jamie on it, and I've still got it. And it says, desert Storm, Mission Accomplished, and all this sort of stuff. I used to wear it and it's cool, like a boonie hat type thing. So in my mind, my dad was a soldier. He wasn't. He was just in and around it. He went on to do K4 and I4, which is Kosovo. Did some stuff down there, Implementation force, Kosovo force, all that sort of stuff. And then later on, he started to work for civilian companies. ExxonMobil, oil companies and onshore rigs, basically. But he was all over the place, like Tajikistan, you know, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, all of these places. Mines, oil, all that type of stuff. So I'd kind of grown up with him thinking he was that kind of guy. And so when I decided that I wanted to join the military, he was like. He said to me, I'll never forget it. And it's the best. Best thing that he's ever given me. And I look back on it now with nothing but love. And I. You know, I don't want to get too sentimental about it, but I choose. I choose to believe that he said what he said to me that day because he knew what he would do. And he said to me, he goes, I was getting bitten by mosquitoes. I'm one of those dudes that just fucking. No matter where. He goes, I'm the one that gets bitten. Everyone else in the room doesn't get bitten. I get bitten over. I was complaining. I was like, I keep getting bitten my mosquitoes. He's like, you want to be a Royal Marine Commando? You'll never make it as a Royal Marine commander if you can't take being bitten by mosquitoes. He goes, you haven't got it in you. That's what caused this big argument on the beach, you know? So, yeah, probably the most powerful sentence anyone's ever told me.

Sean Ryan (40:38)

And that drove you?

J. Cal (40:40)

Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did.

Sean Ryan (40:42)

Let's backtrack a little bit.

J. Cal (40:43)

Yes, sir.

Sean Ryan (40:44)

What were you into as a kid?

J. Cal (40:46)

Guns.

Sean Ryan (40:47)

Guns.

J. Cal (40:47)

Guns.

Sean Ryan (40:48)

In the uk yeah. How'd you get into guns?

J. Cal (40:52)

I don't really know where it come from. You'd have to ask my mum. I remember.

Sean Ryan (40:54)

Real guns or toy guns?

J. Cal (40:55)

Toy guns. Toy guns. Never shot a real gun until I joined the military. But I was obsessed with it, you know, just plastic guns, water pistols, just guns. I was always playing with guns. I remember I went to Disneyland once and I bought this, like, metal fucking Walther ppk. It was metal, like James Bond, right? You know the old school one.

Sean Ryan (41:14)

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

J. Cal (41:15)

And I put it in my. Like, in my bag, basically. My dad was like, don't take that to the airport. I went with my grandma. Do not take that to the airport. I was like, okay, I did take it to you. I put it in the thing. We're going through the scanner, the alarms are going off, everyone's going there. It was like, yeah, the whole. The whole thing. But I used to, you know, it'd be cool if my mum will back this up. But I used to come home from school and she was a carpenter, right, So I used to draw out these guns on wood, on bits of plywood. And I'd draw them out, like, to the minutest detail, like, you know, front sights, magazine wells, stocks, trigger guards, the whole thing. I'd get a picture from somewhere and I'd draw these guns out, you know, with a pen and she'd cut it out with a jigsaw. And I'd go out and I'd take these guns and all my mates were running around in the woods playing with these things. I was obsessed with guns for the most part of my childhood. And then kind of football came in. I started playing football a bit more and I sort of got a bit older and. Yeah, but. But football and guns was, Was. Was all I ever really wanted to do. Which is ironic when you look at where I ended up. You know, there's. There's. There's a few things that you can look back on and be like, nah, you could kind of see that coming. And my obsession and love and passion of firearms and, you know, weapons manipulation is still there, you know, But I was doing it. I was. I was practicing high readies when I was 6. And I'm not joking, I'm not high readies, but, you know, I was running around with guns from a very, very early age, and they've always felt natural to me, you know, and it wasn't, I want to kill people, it was just like, I just liked it, I just wanted to play with it. And maybe it was A. Maybe it was a sort of something to do with my old man and him being in that career and, you know, going out to these places. Like, it was always something that I knew I wanted to do. I always wanted to be in the military. I always wanted to be a soldier. That's all. That's all I ever want since as an early age and I kind of got distracted for a few years and life happened, and all the rest of. Then when I lost my dad, it was like, right, boom, now's the fucking time. You know, let's. Let's. Let's double down on this. But going back to that conversation, you know, when I lost my dad, it fucking broke my heart. It fucking broke me, mate. It did and it still does now, you know, More to the fact that I just wish that he could have seen what I did, you know? I mean, he would have been the proudest person on the planet to see me get a Green Beret, to get into the regiment. More importantly than all of that bullshit, you never got to saw my daughter play football. Not once. Never got to see it. She put on an England shirt last year. She represented a country.

Sean Ryan (43:44)

Wow.

J. Cal (43:44)

Three lines on her chest.

Sean Ryan (43:46)

How old is she?

J. Cal (43:47)

15.

Sean Ryan (43:47)

15 years old.

J. Cal (43:49)

She's 15. She's a fucking rock star, dude. She's gonna be a professional footballer. 100%. I've never been more confident or more sure on anything. Then she will be a professional footballer and she will represent her country. She'll be a lioness one day. She's phenomenal.

Sean Ryan (44:04)

You're a proud dad.

J. Cal (44:06)

I could, yeah. Take everything I've ever done in my career, military and swap it for that. If I could watch him watch her for five minutes, I'd swap it all.

Sean Ryan (44:21)

If your dad was here today. Here, here, alive.

J. Cal (44:26)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (44:27)

If you could say anything to him and you had 30 seconds, what would you say to him?

J. Cal (44:38)

You were wrong. Look at your granddaughter. Look at her. I tell him I love him, I miss him, and I hope he'd be proud. I think he is. I know he would be. But, like. Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (45:03)

Sounds like you were a bit of a hellion as a kid.

J. Cal (45:06)

A bit of a.

Sean Ryan (45:06)

A hellion.

J. Cal (45:07)

Hellion.

Sean Ryan (45:08)

Got into some trouble.

J. Cal (45:09)

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Sean Ryan (45:10)

When did that start?

J. Cal (45:13)

So I moved around a whole bunch of. So in order to answer that question, you have to kind of go back to the beginning.

Sean Ryan (45:20)

Well, you lived in India for six months?

J. Cal (45:21)

Yeah, we traveled around India. So my mom. This is my mom's. She's the bravest woman I've ever met. And yeah, in about 1994. 1995. I was about six. She must have been well early 20s. Took me out of school for six months, like, right, we're going to India. Cool. So six months we traveled around India, but you have to bear in mind.

Sean Ryan (45:40)

She just picked up and said gone.

J. Cal (45:41)

She just picked up and left. Done.

Jeremy (45:44)

Why India?

J. Cal (45:44)

She just want to go traveling. Free spirit. Right? She's a hippie, which is ironic because I'm not, but yeah, mate, she flew out to India. No iPhone, no Internet, no. No nothing. A Lonely Planet guide, two backpacks. I had one, she had one. And we just went traveling around India. And I'll never forget that experience. The first, first couple of days we got there, there's speaking before. There's a place in Delhi, I think it's called the Red Fort. And it's this big picture. I've never ever had an experience of extreme poverty and desperation as I've seen there. And she took me out of a fairly regular, comfortable city in the UK and parachuted me, not para, you know what I mean, into that situation. She did that for a fucking reason. She wanted me to see what it was like, what the world is like outside of our bubble. Bubble, which was the best thing she could have done. And she, she hit me hard with it straight away. She was like, it will never get worse. You will never. Like. We had a lovely time in India. We saw all kinds of beautiful things and all kinds of, you know, incredible experiences. But straight off the bat she was like, this is, this is what it's like. And I'll always, you know, I'll love her for that because that was, that was an eye opener. Imagine being a six year old child walking around seeing children with no arms, children with no legs, poor people that are begging for their lives. Like, literally you're watching people sit on the side of the road, like circling the drain, hungry as, you know, like that was like, oh, okay, cool. The world isn't a nice place. The world isn't all, you know, roses. And that was good because she did it straight off the bat. So everything that I saw after that was easy, you know, but we traveled around the whole place. We spent, you know, most of it in. Went up to the Himalayas, we went out to Taj Mahal, we spent Christmas in Goa. I was playing with GI Joe. Figures. That's what I got for Christmas. Little GI Joe Figures. You know, GI Joe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like building little sand forts and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, so that was cool. So still the obsession was still there. And in terms of education, I wrote a diary every single day. I still got them. Like maybe it was a paragraph, maybe it was a bit more, maybe put a picture in there. But my reading age went through the roof. I was reading Michael Crichton books, so Jurassic Park, Sphere, what else was there? All those types of books from a very, very early age. So when I got back to the UK and went to school again, my reading age was like a 14 year old at the age of 6. I was always a reader and I could write. I was writing my diary every single day. So I didn't come back academically in any worse place than any of the kids of my age.

Sean Ryan (48:18)

When did you start your diary?

J. Cal (48:20)

Every day when I was in India.

Sean Ryan (48:22)

At six years old.

J. Cal (48:23)

Six years old, yeah.

Sean Ryan (48:23)

We still have that.

J. Cal (48:24)

Yeah, we still got them. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (48:25)

Amazing.

J. Cal (48:26)

Yeah, they're cool. I mean like some of it's illeg, some of it's complete bullshit, but it's like all pictures and it's like we stick something in or you know, when you open up the book, you can smell it, you can smell it, you know, it's cool, you know like incense sticks and all sorts in that. It's crazy. I look, I've not seen them for a few years. I spoke to my mum before I came, when I was like, have you still got them diaries? She's like, we don't have a lot, I don't have a lot of stuff from my childhood. We moved around a lot and a lot of it get lost in the fire, so to speak. But we still got them, they're still out there and hopefully I'll show them to my daughter one day and you know, but it was, it was a life changing experience, it really was. And I think it set me up for my future career. I think it set me up as a person. I think it gave me a broader, more wider perspective on life to see that at such an early age. It was a lot of difficult things. The first time I ever was in proximity to somebody that got killed, I remember that happening pretty, pretty vividly. We were getting off a train and transit into another train, but there are no bridges.

Sean Ryan (49:25)

Where is this?

J. Cal (49:26)

In India.

Sean Ryan (49:27)

In India?

J. Cal (49:27)

Yeah. We had to cross the platform, platform to platform and they just used to go, the trains were there and they just literally just walk across the platform when there wasn't a train and cross depth to the next one. And she lifted me up, she jumped up and about two people behind us crossing the train track. The train that we were crossing, shunted like that and dragged the woman underneath it and killed her outright. And I remember sitting there thinking, fucking hell. That's quite a surreal moment as a 6, 7 year old, 6 year old kid at this time. My mom was great. She just took me away and was like, but it's hard lessons, you know, it's like life lessons. It's like life's short and never ever take for granted what you've got. And even when I'm in the UK and it feels like I've got no money or this or that or whatever, like it's a lot better than being outside that fucking fort with no arms, like, you get me? So that kind of give me a good education. And I would love to do the same thing with, with my kids or with my daughter at some point, you know, if I have children in the future, damn straight we're taking them traveling. I want them to go and see the world, see what it is. You know, not to say that if you don't do that you become insulated, but I think it just gives you a broader, a broader perspective on, on the world and how it is the reality of it. But yeah, it was, it was a crazy experience. Fucking really cool. I was speaking to her last night about it and I think again there's a lot of what happened on that sort of. It's almost like a deployment. It's almost like a six month deployment. It's like my first deployment, you know, that's kind of how I feel about it now. But I had my own rucksack. Nobody carried my kit. My mom would carry my kit. I had a sleeping bag in there, all my books, everything was in there. That was it. And I carried it. And we used to trek around the Himalayas like in Thailand, trekking with elephants and all kinds of mad. And I was like, I carried my own fucking pack from the age of 6 years old and no one fucking helped me. And my mum gave that to me. And that's something that I've carried on. Like I can do that, you know, I know what it's like when your back hurts, when your feet hurt, you know, when you're cold, hungry, tired, hot. You know, I was experiencing that from a very young age. And as I looked forward into my life, you know, I think it gave me a strength. It gave me a strength that allowed me to have a certain level of self confidence that I could do that type of stuff, if that makes sense. So, yeah, super grateful for that experience. When we kind of got back from India.

Sean Ryan (51:46)

Hold on. A sleeping bag?

J. Cal (51:48)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (51:49)

So were you guys sleeping out of the bush for six months?

J. Cal (51:52)

No, we were staying in hostels or hotels or beach huts or whatever. But like we brought my own sleeping bag, my own mosquito net, all that stuff. We were self sufficient, you know. It was a snug pack, little purple snug pack, like a Softy seven or whatever. It was a super lightweight one. I remember she lost her mind once we, I can't remember why, but we got out on a bus and the sleeping. I don't know what I'm telling you this, but it's just come to my mind. The sleeping bag comes in like a little compression sack, right? And for some reason we'd taken the sleeping bag out of the compression sack and it had fallen on the floor. And when we got off the bus she was like, where's the sack? It had been stolen. That's what had happened. Somebody had just found it cause it was foreign and new. So they took it and she was so upset because it was like. We've had that sleeping bag sack for years, you know. Well not years, but months at this point. It's been every part of our journey and now it's gone. I remember she was like kit and equipment, kit awareness. I was like, yeah. So you know.

Jeremy (52:42)

Are you serious?

J. Cal (52:43)

Yeah. I'm not joking mate. Yeah, yeah. Sean, if you ever meet my mom and I hope you do one day, like she'll tell you all about this and she, she knows more detail than I do because I was a child. So she's got like an incredible level of, you know, insight into the whole thing. But that whole experience was, was great for me like and you know, it was such a cool thing to do. We came back from India and then she moved to Wales. We were sort of in the middle of mid Wales, so roughly a little town called Ryder, which is near Bilth Wells, which is in between sort of the Brecon Beacons and the Eland Valley. Now the Elan Valley is particularly disgusting place, which I'd find out on selection a few years later. But I remember clearly all the trucks coming in and out. The four tonneurs, we call them four tunnels but you know, like the troop vehicles. There's a lot of military presence around there. It was in the woods and you know, from about 6 to about 9, 10 years old it was all guns and football, guns and football, guns and football, guns and football. But that period there was probably the most stable, happiest part of my childhood for sure. And I look Back on it with nothing but fond memories. I love Wales. It's very dear to my heart. At some point during that period, my mother decided that she wanted to go back and get education because she didn't get the chance when she was a child, a young woman, because she was being a mum. So she went back to her hometown, Oxford, and did further education. So she ended up getting a first degree in international development and politics in third world countries. So basically she went on to work for Oxfam and Save the Children and other kind of charities. Like, her passport had more stamps of dodgy places than the mind did. At one point. She's like, you know, she's all over the place. She's a cool woman. But this is where I sort of started to rebel a little bit. Because, Sean, you have to. You have to. You have to realize from my perspective that I never really had a consistency. And I don't blame her for this because that was just the situation. But I never had consistency. I didn't have a mum and dad at home. I never really stayed in the same place for more than a few years. I was constantly making new friends, constantly putting down roots, constantly having to rip them up and build again. And it got to about, you know, 10 years old, we moved back to Oxford. I was like, okay, cool. Like, we've had this whole experience in Wales. We've been traveling. We're back to my hometown. Like, I don't know anyone. Like, this is my hometown, but I'm going to a new school. I've got like a couple of people that I used to know when I was like four or whatever, but I don't have any friends there. So I built a new network of friends. And I'm there, I'm happy. I was like, football was my thing now. Football, football, football, football. And then she's like, right, we're going to move. We're going to move again. We're going to go down to the south coast, because that's where the university that she was studying offered the course or the next phase of her course. And I was like, dude, I don't want to move again, you know? So we did this whole thing back and forth. I stayed with my dad for a little bit while she went down there. He was in the pub, he was working in the pub. People that drink a lot of alcohol and working in pubs is not a good combination. It wasn't really the right environment for a small child to be in. I was kind of like not fending for myself because that's not fair and that's not true. But I was, I had a lot of time where I was just like my dad was busy and I was doing my own thing. So eventually she was like, nah, you're coming. So I was like what, 12, 13 maybe at this point. And I did not want to move again. And that's when I started to really rebel a little bit. You know, I stopped going to school, started I still playing football, but not as, not as much as I should. And hanging around with the wrong people, girls became a thing. You know, it was like, you know, sitting in the park drinking cider was more appealing than going and playing football because I didn't have. I didn't really have anyone to tell me no, which was my biggest problem. I didn't really have a dad to be able to be like, I didn't have a dad. That sounds terrible, but he didn't grip me for it.

Sean Ryan (56:35)

He wasn't around much.

J. Cal (56:36)

He wasn't around much and he was doing his own thing. You know, he was abroad working or he was doing this or whatever. And my mom was consumed in a pursuit of her degree. Like she's like me, she gets the same as my daughter. Exactly the same. One thing that our bloodline has is the ability to become obsessed. When we become obsessed on something, on lock in on something, there's nothing on the planet that will stop them. So she was doing that. You know, she's still young at this point, like. So I kind of didn't go off the rails completely, but I was definitely drifting. I was definitely drifting and I was definitely not gonna join the military. It wasn't something I'd thinking about. I was too busy trying to be cool. I was too busy trying to be that guy, if that makes sense. And it was never me, do you know what I mean? I was hanging around with kids that were like from rough estates. Like we were going out and you know, there was a bit of fighting here and there and all that sort of stuff, but I was never that. I thought I was but like as a little. But I'm not a tough guy. Fucking hell. Like some of these kids come from fucking nothing. And they were, you know, violent backgrounds, violent places. And you know, there was a lot of violence around, especially in that time in my life. And I kind of thought it was for me, but it wasn't. And it wasn't until I got to about 15 years old where I was offered a job Again. Talk about pivotal moments, things that change the trajectory of your life. A friend of My mum was a tree surgeon. You have a different. It's like an arbor.

Sean Ryan (58:06)

Arborist.

J. Cal (58:06)

Arborist. There you go. But you know what I mean. He gave me ten pounds. He came, I was, you know, he goes, I'm gonna give you 10 quid and that's for a train ticket tomorrow you're going to turn up here and I'm going to give you a job. So I left school at 15, you should leave at 16. But I left at 15. I didn't turn up.

Sean Ryan (58:25)

You dropped out of school at 15 years?

J. Cal (58:26)

Yeah, 15. I didn't get a qualification, not even a basic qualification until I was like mid-30s. And the army was like, you're a sergeant now, you. You got to do the thing. And I was like, I can't, you know, like, I write a bit now, you know, sometimes I write a little bit and people. Oh, you're good at writing. I'm like. Knows where that came from because it didn't come from school. Like, I'm not educated, I'm not stupid and I'm not unintelligent, but I'm not educated. Hey, seems to do all right so far. But, yeah, he offered me that money to go and do that job and I didn't. Spent it on whatever, cigarettes probably. And he fucking turned up the next day. He was like, hey, I'll give you 10 quid yesterday, come and work. You're not going to go to school. You need to get out there and work. And I was like, okay. And I'm grateful for this guy for doing that because he could have just been my, you know, give up. Yeah, just fired me or give up on me, but he didn't, because I'm gonna give you another 10 pound and you're gonna be there tomorrow. And I did. I got up, went on, got on the train, traveled to wherever the place I needed to be was, got off the train, walked to his thing. And from that moment on, I've always earned my own money. I've always provided a roof over my own head. And it was hard work, man. Those. I learned hard lessons. There was like, I was dragging. So, you know, when they cut the branches down, I wasn't able to climb with a chainsaw. I wouldn't even use a chainsaw. For the first few months. It was just literally just dragging, putting it in the wood chipper, splitting logs, putting the logs on the truck. Just hard graft, you know, just manual labor from a very early age. I did that for a few months with him and then somebody else took me on and was like, I'm gonna give you a full time apprenticeship basically. So by the time I was 16, I was a fully qualified tree surgeon, MPTC, which is all the qualifications that you need. So I had medium felling, large felling, small felling, aerial rescue, use of chainsaw from radio, rope and harness, all that. Maintenance of a chainsaw. I'd learned it all, I got all the qualifications, paid for them all myself. I had all my own equipment. I owned two chainsaws, rope, harness, silky saw, secateurs, the full thing. I was pretty much self employed tree surgeon at the age of 16. I did my qualifications on my 16th birthday, which by def. Unless that's the earliest you can do it. So at one point I was probably. Unless somebody'd done it a few minutes before me. It's probably the youngest qualified tree surgeon in the country. And that was good, dude. I was happy. I was living in a caravan on my mate's driveway. I moved out home, I was living closer to work so I had to get the train and all that other. I just explained. So I bought a caravan for like 500 pounds. Tiny, you know, caravan. Yeah, like a, like an RV. Like an RV.

Sean Ryan (60:54)

Okay.

J. Cal (60:55)

Yeah. You seen the movie Snatch? Yes, yeah, like that. On a caravan with no wheels.

Sean Ryan (60:59)

Okay.

J. Cal (60:59)

No one had wheels, you know what I'm talking about? So I bought this tiny little caravan, put it on my mate's driveway and I was living in there. I was working every single day, getting up, going out hard days coming back. I look at it now, it's like fucking. I was surviving on like noodles and chicken nuggets. Like, you know what I mean? But it was cold, it was wet. My boss would pick me up every morning and it didn't matter what. And I learned a valuable lesson there. It was like two things. Number one, you don't go to work, you don't get paid, you don't get paid, you don't eat. I was like, ah, cool, I can live with that. And the second one was the ability to crack on in terms of. It did not matter to this guy that I was teaching. He was one of three brothers, their dad was been in the forest for their entire lives. His hands were like this shovels, you know. He was a tree surgeon, in and out, you know, that's all he'd ever known. Three boys, they're all tree surgeons now. So he was like, he was top tier at that. But he was a hard man, but a lovely man. And he took me under his wing because he, I guess he kind of knew that I needed it. But it didn't matter if it was snowing, didn't matter if it was raining. Like we're talking about getting picked up in the 5 o' clock, 6 o' clock in the morning, sideways rain, dark, I'm coming out of my caravan, van's there in the caravan. So into the truck drive, tree surgery, work all day, come back five, six o' clock, go back, eat, sleep, repeat. Did that for a couple of years in my free time. Probably spending it doing, you know, chasing girls and drinking beer. Like, what the fuck else am I supposed to be doing? I'm 17, 18 years old. I'm just happy, I'm earning money. I'm earning 50 pound a day, which doesn't sound a lot now, but back then that was a fucking, you know, £250 a week, dude. I'm only paying like 25 quid for rent on this caravan. Like, the rest of it's mine. All my own equipment's mine. So, like, I'm living the dream to a point. But it was almost like, I don't know if I want to do this forever, but right now it's good. I was seeing my dad fairly infrequently, sometimes more than others. But one thing that me and my dad always had and always, always, always shared, and the one thing that for the most part he always showed up for was taking me to see football. We'd always go, I'm a West Ham supporter, he's a West Ham supporter, so we'd always go for football, you know. But as I started to get older, my tolerance of bullshit or what I would consider, you know, think when you're a 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 year old kid, going to watch a football match and spending half the day in the pub is not a problem. But when you're 15, 16, 17, and you kind of need a little bit more, like, you start to understand these things, you start to recognize it a little bit and be like, you know, hell, like, give me some more, I need more attention, I need more, you know, and that's kind of where that, that friction started that was talking about before. So, yeah.

Sean Ryan (63:41)

So did your mom move while you were, when you became, when you, when you, when you left at 15, did your mom continue?

J. Cal (63:48)

So she stayed in, she stayed where she was working and doing her degree. It's probably about half an hour away, so not far. But yeah, she stayed there doing her thing. She knows me. She was like, I can't control this anymore. Not control it, but She's a free spirit. She raised me from 16 years old. So when I'm rebelling at that age, there or thereabouts, she's like, okay, as long as you're safe, you're working, you're providing for yourself. I'm here if you need me. Go and do your thing. Go and get it out of your system. And to be honest, if she hadn't done that, it wouldn't have worked because you ain't controlling me. Not, you know, when I met. Do you understand what I mean by that? Like, I was away for it, you know? But, yeah, yeah, then. Then the whole thing with my dad happened and, yeah, that kind of changed my life. That was the point where I was like, I ain't cutting trees no more.

Sean Ryan (64:43)

So your dad passed before you joined the military?

J. Cal (64:45)

Yep, Yep, about a year before.

Sean Ryan (64:49)

What was it that triggered. What was it that triggered you to join?

J. Cal (64:54)

That.

Sean Ryan (64:55)

His passing?

J. Cal (64:56)

Yeah. That conversation that we had on that beach, when he told me that I couldn't, was like, I didn't do it to prove him wrong. I did it to prove him right, if that makes sense. And it's on a bit of a contradiction, but I just wanted to show him I loved my dad. I fucking adored him, worshiped him. He's a fucking superhero to me, you know, So I just wanted to give him something, you know. There you go. The proudest moment of my life, mate, was when I got my Green Beret. Fuck the regiment, fuck all that stuff. Not fuck them, but, you know, that Green Beret, when I earned that from becoming a civilian after all the shit that I'd been through in my childhood, not shit, but all the stuff that I've been through to get to that point, just to get to the start point in Royal Marine training, let alone finish the commando course and get that Green Beret on my head for the first time, was, yeah, I gave that Green Beret to my grandma. She's still got it. Well, she's passed away now, but that Green Beret's there and. Same as my regimental beret, the same one. They're both side by side. And I remember next to my dad's ashes, there was my Green Beret, my Sandy Beret, and they were both there. And I remember thinking, yeah, job fucking done, you know. But that was the trigger. That's why I did it. I joined the Maurice with my dad. I joined a regiment for my daughter. Wow. But, yeah, that's kind of where it all started.

Sean Ryan (66:10)

And how old were you when you joined?

J. Cal (66:13)

19, I think. Yeah, 19.

Sean Ryan (66:15)

19 years old.

J. Cal (66:17)

Yeah. And that was again, I talk a lot about setbacks, that interim period of losing my dad and joining the Marines. So it was like a year or so gap and I inherited a very small amount of money. It wasn't an inheritance, it was actually an insurance payout. My dad died in Africa in Chad from a heart attack. And yeah, we can talk about that if you want, but like, yeah, a few thousand pounds. I spent that all on football, clothes, beer and whatever the fuck I wanted. I didn't do anything useful with it at all. But I really went into football at that point. I was going every single game home away religiously because maybe on some level it made me feel closer to him a little bit. I think that was the one thing that we always had. You know, it's a fucking funny coincidence. If we believe in coincidence, I know we don't. But my football team is awful, Sean. We never win all. We never win all. But that year, 2006, we reached the Cup Final. We're never going to win the league. It's never going to happen. But we might win the Cup. There's one thing we might win. And it was, yeah, it was that year. We fucking got there that year.

Sean Ryan (67:34)

No kidding.

J. Cal (67:35)

2006. Went to Cardiff, watched us play Liverpool. We lost the game, but it was like that was the one thing that we always wanted to do together, if that made sense.

Sean Ryan (67:44)

It does.

J. Cal (67:45)

And I got it. I got to see it. And you know, I don't know why or how or where, but it felt like. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It felt. It felt like he was there and he saw it. But yeah, all we ever wanted to do is go to the Cup Final, dude, fucking got. I got there. We got there, you know, so. Yeah, I'll never forget that.

Sean Ryan (68:04)

Well, Jake, let's take a quick break.

J. Cal (68:07)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (68:07)

When we come back, we'll get into your military career.

J. Cal (68:09)

Yes, sir.

Sean Ryan (68:10)

Perfect.

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Sean Ryan (71:27)

You're getting ready to join the Royal Marines. But you one thing we didn't cover is you had a setback, you had an arrest.

J. Cal (71:35)

Yeah, so I was. So I was at a football match in Norwich of all places. Now Norwich. You probably never heard of Norwich, have you, Sean? I haven't for good reason. Not a lot happens there. But yeah, it wasn't anything crazy. There was no, you know, it was just a little bit of, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Eventually the police were like, yeah, you're drunk, you're being obnoxious, whatever. Just football stuff. I was a kid, man. Like I just lost my dad. I'm not making excuses for it. It wasn't the best behavior, but it wasn't serious. It wasn't. I wasn't you. I wasn't doing anything that bad. But they did arrest me and they released me very shortly afterwards for like breach of the peace or some, you know, I can't remember what the charges and bullshit like that. Just football stuff basically.

Sean Ryan (72:15)

What was it, a fight?

J. Cal (72:16)

There was a bit of a fight before and then we'd gone to another pub and they were like, yeah, those guys. And I was one of the ones that didn't manage to get away. Basically it was, you know, handbags, we call it handbags in the uk. It was nothing serious.

Sean Ryan (72:29)

But you hadn't perfected your E strategy yet, huh?

J. Cal (72:32)

No, I had not. No, no, no, I definitely not. Yeah. So lessons identified but the consequence for that was that you have to run out a year, basically. There has to be. It was a conditional discharge. There was no charges brought other than the fact that it had happened, but no further charges, so to speak. So it was like, cool. Happened on this date, one year later, it's all gone, off your record completely. It was a minor thing, you know, trivial minor stuff. So my dad's died, I've gone back out to Spain because my dad was living in Spain with my grandma and I didn't want my grandma going back out to Spain on her own. So I went out there and I started to think about the Marines. That kind of was a thing. I was training quite a lot. I was starting to run, starting to get on the pull up bar, starting to lift a few weights, you know, just trying to, you know, just gradually doing it. Still trying to process the loss of my dad is this. It rocked my world, I'll be honest with you. And then I came back to the UK and then the worst thing possible could have happened is I got a little bit of money and was like, okay, I'm back to being distracted again with football and all the rest of it. So that kind of ran and then it wasn't until basically the money ran out and the season finished at the end. Of that cup final I told you about. When the cup final finished, I was like, okay, cool. You've had a good run. Now you've had, like, six, seven months of, you know, getting out of your system. What's next? Do I want to go back to trees? Not really. Now it's time to join the Marines. So I went back to Spain and started training for the Marines. Training hard. Started to really focus in on it. My mom was completely supportive of it. I'm her only child. Like, I don't have any brothers or sisters. So for her, and this was like. I think what's important to note is that when I joined the Marines, Sean, I joined the Marines to go to Afghanistan. I wasn't looking for a career. I wanted to go to war.

Sean Ryan (74:19)

What year was this?

J. Cal (74:20)

2006.

Sean Ryan (74:21)

2006?

J. Cal (74:22)

Yeah, 2006. So the war was happening, Was busy. I remember watching pictures of, like, it was a parachute regiment. They were in Sangin, a place where I'd go, and you could see them. They're all like, oh, those coolest ever. They're all body armor, no T shirts, all skinny. Because all they're doing is scrapping every day, you know, eating rations. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's. That's where I want to be. I want to be that guy, you know? So I go, careers office. Everything's good. Go through the first phases. A guy called Corporal Darling was his name. I'll never forget. It's a nice name. He then came. Came up to me, and he was like, have you got a criminal record? I was like, no. He's like, what have you got? And I was, I've got a conditional discharge. And he's like, when? From? And I gave him the dates. He's like, dude, you're gonna have to wait six months before you can come back. So that was the first setback, really, in terms of. I was locked in. Remember I told you about that obsession thing, that I've got this weird thing where if I'm obsessed on something, I'll achieve it. And I was obsessed, and I'm proud of myself, and I am. I don't give myself enough credit for this. You know, I don't sound like a prick, but I am proud of myself for this, Sean, because I stuck to my guns, and I was ending up, like, picking up random jobs. I was working in, like, this little tiny place selling, like, ice creams to people and making coffee, anything just to afford a gym membership and stay on track. And I did. I stayed on track. And then I finally got the opportunity to turn up at Lympston. And the Commando Training center at Lympston is a hell of a place. It's a hell of a facility. And I remember turning up on the train in a suit. I'd worn that suit three times. I'd worn it to my dad's funeral, I'd worn it to a court appearance, and now I was turning up to the Royal Marines in it. So it felt connected to me, you know, the whole thing. And I remember turning up with my ironing board, shaved head, and I was ready to go. I was a true believer. You know, when you talk about there were kids, probably 60 or 70 of us joined that intake, and you can tell the ones that aren't going to last a week, you can tell the ones that are on the fence, off the fence. I'd been fairly independent from a very early age. I'm used to hard work. I know what it's like to be cold, I know what it's like to be wet. I know what it's like to have a pack on. I've traveled, you know, so I think all of those things put me in good, good position, in good stead. And I was doing it because I wanted to do it for my dad. That was my superpower. Like when discipline goes, when motiv, motivation goes, when you're cold, wet, tired, hungry, those, those things are real. But obsession, obsession never left me. And it was that obsession to do that, to get that green Beret that drove me. And I never once ever felt like, this is not for me or I'm going to quit. I got another setback during training, probably mid to halfway through. It's a 32 week course. I think it was about 17 or 18 weeks in. I jumped off a wall on the assault course, the O course, and I basically broke my foot. Well, not basically. I broke my foot, carried on for another week or so, went on an exercise and basically broke one and fractured the other one. So that's what you, you get back troop then, essentially. So you don't stay with that intake, they don't kick you out, but they just put you in a holding place, rehabilitate you, and then you have to go again. That was hard, dude.

Sean Ryan (77:37)

Start all over.

J. Cal (77:38)

No, start where you left off. Start where you left off. Yeah, start where you left off. But that was hard because it was like, that was my dream gone. I wanted to be an original. I wanted to. It doesn't mean anything, but to me it meant I wanted to pass 32 weeks in one go. And then I'm in this indefinite period of rehabilitation until you're better, you can't go back in. So I remember watching my troop go. They were like six, seven weeks ahead of me. They passed out, you know, all those guys. And I remember I broke down in front of my troop sergeant, a guy called Baz Weston. He was killed in Afghanistan a few years later on. But he was a. He was like a superhero to me. He was everything that you'd imagine a Royal Marine sergeant should be. Short guy from Reading. He liked football too. He was a Chelsea fan. A big scar on his face. He was a mortman. But he was hard on us. We got wet every single time we were in the field. We got smashed a bit. Everyone on that camp knew that our troop 939 was. He was making monsters. He was turning us into commandos in quick order. And I look back on it at the time, I was like, this dude is just smashing us for no reason. But when I look back on it, I respect him and love him so much for what he did. Because he fucking knew full well. Like, you take ownership of training people, these are kids off the street from all different backgrounds. And he knew full well we were going to Afghanistan.

Sean Ryan (78:52)

Had he been there before?

J. Cal (78:53)

Yep. He'd done his tours. Yeah, he'd done a bunch of tours. He was a senior guy. And he knew he was. He's not creating camp commandos. These guys are going to go to war. And he knew that a lot of us would see it and some of us weren't coming back. And we knew that. We got that feeling from the very fucking minute we stepped into that building that this is no joke. Like, when you leave this facility, you are going to go to war. So we were like, cool. Unfortunately, he did get killed in Afghanistan, which was a fucking massive shame. And it hit us all really hard. But he provided, what he did was produce good commandos, good war fighting commandos, young men that were ready to go out there and fight and do the business. And I look at some of the guys that I passed out of training through and they're phenomenal. Like, you know, so much respect for the Royal Marines.

Sean Ryan (79:43)

What was his name?

J. Cal (79:44)

Baz Weston was his name. Sergeant Buzz Weston. He got hit by an I.D. directional one. Yes. If I can stand a chance. I remember actually going to digress slightly, but where they used to fly the bodies in back from Afghanistan, they used to land in a place called Prize Norton, which is about 10 minutes from where I lived. And they used to take the bodies straight to Oxford, up the hill to the John Radcliffe Hospital. And that's where they used to do the examinations of the bodies and do all the necessary medical stuff before they released them to the families. So for years, I remember every time somebody got killed, I would go and stand on that hill because everyone would come out and they'd watch the coffins come up and I'd watch that. I remember on R and R watching that. And I remember the mother of my child watching that. I remember my mum watching that. And, you know, we lost 450 odd people during that conflict, which doesn't sound a lot if you talk about, you know, other conflicts, but every single one of those people had a family, every single one of those matters. And it just felt like we couldn't escape it for a long time. It was everywhere. It was, it was consumed. Everything that we did as a group and as a family, it was, it was a very, it was such an intense period of my life. It was, it was mental. But Baz was a good guy. Baz gave skills to us that no doubt saved my life for sure and made us combat effective, combat ready Marines that went out and did the business. And people talk about, you know, this generation's doubt or that generation, I'll always put it like this. And my old sergeant Major said it in the squadron, he was like, experience is a luxury. It's not a necessity. I think people are like, oh, these guys have got no experience. They haven't done this, they haven't done the gwap. So what? Nobody had any experience when we went to Afghanistan, nobody had any experience when we went to the Falklands or wherever we've been, like, it's okay. The training works. Believe in the process, trust the system. And if you've got good instructors, and this is again, what I'm trying to carry forward, forward. If you've got good instructors that have been there, that have got the right reasons about them, they will give you the information that you need to survive. You might get unlucky, but, you know, if you stick to the process, you don't have to have done 20 tours or, you know, that mission or this hostage rescue or whatever it is to be a good soldier or a good operator or good anything like, trust the process, trust the train. And it annoys me slightly when people look down at this next generation of guys and go, oh, yeah, they've got no experience. So what, you know, instead of, instead of saying that to them, why don't we gas them up? Because I'll tell you what's going to happen in a few years time. When we were old men, sat on our sofas and couches at homes with our families, these young men that we're quick to criticize and go, oh, they're not as tough as we are. They're going to be the ones out there losing their lives. They're going to be the ones out there sacrificing. So the next generation is super important to me. But he was the one, the first one that really sort of made me think about that I got back into training. So I finally got back into my troop and I passed out and it was the fucking proudest moment of my life, mate. It really was. I remember you do the last test you do is a 30 miler across Dartmoor and it's like the culmination of 32 weeks. You do the commando test and the last thing is you stop and then you go over this bridge. And when you go over this bridge you get given your green beret and it's the first time you can put it on your head. And it's, you know, it's what you, it's the whole thing, it's like this isn't just 32 weeks or you know, 40 weeks of training for me. This is 19 years, this is nine. This is going back, playing with guns. When I was a kid, everything I ever did for my dad, it was all in this one moment, you know. And there was a lad in my troop in my section called Luke and he lost his brother. And we stopped and I saw him and he had a tear coming down his face. What's wrong? And he goes, oh, I wish my brother was here to see this. And I said, dude, I wish my dad was here to see this. And I remember that. I'll never ever forget it. We sorted ourselves out, wiped our faces down, tucked up, pouches in, you know, let's go across the bridge. And again I was like, I'm quite emotional at this point. I start, there's a corporal called Luke Carey. He was particularly professional, diligent corporal but he was hard as fucking nails, hard as woodpeckers lips, you know. And he said, why are you crying? I said I'm just proud. He goes, bootnecks don't cry. And he was like. And they give me a wink and that was it, you know what I mean? I was like, there you go. So that was a really, really big moment for me. It was something that I'll always look back on as probably one of the proudest Bar the birth of my daughter. Probably the best moment of my life, bar none. So there I was, Green Beret training's done and there's no pomp or ceremony about it. When they tell you where you're going. There's a bunch of different commando units. Okay, so there's 45 commando, 40 commando and 42 commando. Those were the fighting commando units at the time. 42 and 45 were deploying shortly afterwards.

Sean Ryan (84:34)

Real quick, what did your mom think?

J. Cal (84:38)

She knew exactly what it meant to me and she was fully supportive of it. She knew. She knew that I was chasing a dream. That's all I ever wanted to be. Since I was a small kid, I always wanted to be a soldier. And now I was, you know, and she was proud of it. And she's done 11 deployments. My daughter's done 10 deployments. I count my deployments as their deployment. They've done the same thing. They've been through every single piece of that. Never once has my mom ever done anything other than support me and back me and gas me up and have me, you know, have my back. Like, never did she say, don't do it? Never did she say, you sure? You know, she always, always, always supported it because she knew deep down that's what I wanted to do. That's love, you know, and it's unconditional love and support. And that's, you know, that's what she gave me. And again, she's such an incredible woman. I was like, you know, if you're telling me I can do it, I can do it. I'm. God, my dad's not going to tell me to do it. In fact, he told me I couldn't do it. She went the other way. So it must be hard for her. It must have been. Especially in that sort of time frame between 2008 to 2012. It was like every week we were losing people, man, every week. And they were coming right up, right up the road, right up the street. Like my hometown was where they took the bodies. And I remember like it was on my. And we'll get into the second deployment. That's the most important one for me. But the second deployment, I remember coming back on RR, I had a 10 day period in the UK and for five of those days I would go and stand on that hill and watch people come up, man. With a brand new baby in mind. You know, she was two weeks old when I deployed, so, like, she was two weeks old. Yeah. On the second deployment. Yeah. But we can, you know, I gotta Cover some stuff on the first one before I get to the second one. But the second one I really do want to get into. But because I think that's. To me, that was the most life changing deployment I've done. And nothing I've ever done in Special Forces comes anything close to the carnage and the war that that 2010 Sangin deployment had. Because that was fucking total war. That was real, that was raw and it was every fucking day. And we lost a lot of people. My company suffered a one in three casualty rate. One in three, imagine that that's dead or very seriously injured, like limbs, eyes, testicles, you name it. We lost a lot in that deployment and nothing I've ever done comes anywhere near that. But that first deployment was, it was different, it was a slightly slower tempo because it was a winter deployment.

Sean Ryan (87:20)

Where was it?

J. Cal (87:21)

Sangin. So I went to Sangin in Helmand province and we got called onto the landing before we just finished training. Everyone's gasp, you know, where are we going? Where are we going? Who's going to four, five? Who's going to four, two? And it's just like said my name, yep, four, five Commando. And I was like, ah, yes, yes, we're going. Finally, you know, I'm not here to be a camp commando. I want to go to war. And they told me. So I go up to 45 commando, which is right at the top of Scotland in the middle of nowhere. Solid unit. It's like, it's a war fighting unit. Great pedigree, loads of stuff from the Forklunes and you name it, four or five commando's been there. And it's got a reputation for being a hard unit, a war fighting unit. So I was gassed. I was so excited to go there. And we did the whole pre deployment training and it was. We're in that kind of crossover now, Sean. And you'll understand this, where it went from like early sort of Afghan days, sort of 2005, six up, it was a lot of firefights and gunfights and then it kind of pivoted to IEDs and it went real quick. Not to say that the gunfights weren't still happening, but the IEDs went through the roof. So we were very aware that that was what was coming, that was what was waiting for us. And my company got split up. Some guys went down to FOB Gibraltar down in Helmand province and we went to Sangin district. Now Sangin, for those you're probably aware of it, Sangin was the epicenter of the Helmand conflict. We lost more troops in Sangin than anywhere else by a fucking disproportionate amount. It was like. It was urban, it was rural. It was everything in between. And it was dangerous. Really, really dangerous place to be, especially during that time frame. But for young Marines, it was like, yes, that's where I want to go, you know, Because I was naive and I was stupid, and I'd never felt the blast of an id. I'd never seen someone get shot or bled out. I'd never seen it. I didn't know. But I wanted it. You know, that naivety was a superpower, but it was also foolish. But you grow and you learn. But, yeah, that was where I really cut my teeth. The soldiering was hard there, Sean. We lived in a patrol base, mate. There was no. There was no electric for six months. People talk about, you know, there's no electric in there. There was no shower in there. The toilets was a metal. A metal, you know, oil can with a seat over it. That's what we had. We lived on rations for six months. Like, legit. When it rained, the compound that we had occupied because we'd fortified the roof so much with sandbags and guns and all kinds of other shit would start to collapse. Like, we walked around. We did Sanger patrols. So, like, you know, there's four or five static positions for security. So if you weren't manning those for 24 hours, you were on patrol for 24 hours for six months. So you would do four and a half hours of, you know, stagging on sentry, and then you would have three hours rest. You'd do that for 24 hours, and then you would go on patrol. And we got in multiples of like, 12 guys maybe, and the amount of kit that we had to carry, electric, you know, countermeasures, like the ECMs, they're fucking heavy. The batteries, the link. I was a mini me gunner. The metal detectors, spare metal detectors, spare batteries, back breaking, pain, mate. There's like hard, hard soldiering. And then you come back and live in a mud hut. Essentially, that's what it was for six months. All the while, you're working in a minefield. Every single time you step out of that gate, you're effectively in a minefield, and the enemy was never anywhere to be seen, but they'd smash you from anywhere. And then we'd smash them back, and then we'd go back. And that was what it was. It was just that for six months, it was the first time I ever engaged anybody was on that deployment. It was the first time I got blown up by suicide bombers on that deployment. Deployment dealt with casualties. On that deployment. It all happened, but it was quite steady tempo, if that makes sense. Unlike the next deployment where it was just straight off the bat, full send. But I did learn a lot.

Sean Ryan (91:15)

What was your first engagement?

J. Cal (91:18)

It's actually quite a funny story. I mean, I shouldn't say, but it's quite funny. So we were given a warning basically, that there was a suicide bomber on a motorbike dressed in black, shaved head, and there was two of them. And we were told to stop anyone that looked or fit that description. Now you've been to Afghanistan, that's not uncommon. The shaved head's a little bit rare, but apart from that, you see that shit all the time. So it's very difficult. But I remember I was on a sentry position overlooking this big dust bowl. It was probably about 6, 700 meters open area. And we had a patrol, a satellite patrol that had gone off. And this motorbike blew through an Afghan checkpoint across this open ground. And someone had fired a pen flare, you know, the little pen flares. That was the escalation. We had an escalation process. So it was like pen flare, warning shot, lethal force, et cetera. So the guy on the bottom, Sanger, had done that whole thing. He fired the pen flare, fired a warning shot, and this dude was driving across and it was the right people. So I'm up there with a mini Me. So it's like a saw, right? So I'm like, fuck it.

Sean Ryan (92:20)

Like a belt fed machine gun.

J. Cal (92:22)

It was a fucking belt fed machine gun. Yeah, and I was good with it. That was my weapon so system. Like, I'm pretty good at dishing out the shit with a belt fed weapon system. And that was my gun and I knew what to do with it. So I'm out. Boom, boom. And I see. It's like something out of a film. Like you just see the rounds coming up, all this dust bowl coming up, all this dust would go and the bike would keep going. And I'm like, fuck, dude, I'm not even hitting this dude. I'm like. So I unloaded the belt. It was a 50 round belt. And you can just see it was like someone out of a cartoon. It was like every time the rounds would hit the ground and the dust would come up, the bike would come out the end of it, and I'm like, I'm there, so I'm not leading it. I can't be missing that there's no chance I'm not hit this. And it drives off, goes through the thing and I'm like, this is my moment. I've been waiting for this. Not waiting for it, but this is what I've been preparing for. I'm training for this. And I fucking missed the dudes. I didn't get them. So I'm like, I'm fucking embarrassed. My patrol or the other half of the patrol comes in and they're all laughing. They're like, fucking hell, what the fuck were you doing on that sanger with that machine gun? And I'm like, fucking hell, dude. I'm trying to hit. This is about 400 meters of moving target. It's not an easy shot, but I have got a belt fed weapon that I do like to use. And I'm like, fuck, dude, I don't know. I was leading it. I had it on my sight. It was on iron sight. I had it. I just can't believe. I'm sorry. He goes, no, we did see some blood when they came through this little gate. There's a little entrance where the bike went. He's like, yeah, there's blood there. You might have got something. It wasn't until that night we went out and did a patrol, overwatch patrol for these convoys that used to come in and we'd just have to basically picket the line. It was a pain in the ass, but we had to go and do it like six hours. Just sat on a roof sometime and the, the ANA commander came up and he was like, yeah, you killed two. Two Taliban commanders. I was like, what do you mean is that. Yeah, they, they turned up at the local mosque and they'd been fucking riddled all up the side and on the legs. Fair play to do on the bike. He kept going, but like, yeah, we got him. I got him. And it felt like a bit of a weird one for me because I was like, you expect to see the results of, of that? Does that make sense?

Sean Ryan (94:16)

I know exactly.

J. Cal (94:18)

Do you know what I mean by that?

Sean Ryan (94:19)

I know exactly what you mean.

J. Cal (94:20)

It was a weird one.

Sean Ryan (94:20)

What caliber was it? I'm just curious.

J. Cal (94:22)

556.

Sean Ryan (94:23)

See, that's something we learned when in what I think it was 2006 is we would be hitting guys and we wouldn't realize that we were hitting them because, you know, the velocity and the round, the green tip rounds, armor piercing rounds, just highlight through them and then you would see them and they had the little, little bitty pinholes.

J. Cal (94:42)

Yep. It's not what you Think, you know.

Sean Ryan (94:44)

And then, and then we, we started stacking our magazines and doing two green tip, 177 grain. Two green tip, 177 grain. And once we switched to 77 grain. A whole nother ball game.

J. Cal (94:57)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (94:58)

But, you know, it's interesting that.

J. Cal (95:04)

It.

Sean Ryan (95:04)

Took so long for those lessons learned to kind of percolate throughout all of the military.

J. Cal (95:12)

I had no idea all of it.

Sean Ryan (95:15)

And it's like nobody was communicating that we shouldn't have been using green tip. We weren't fighting guys with body armor. And so actually I think we were doing two 77s and one green tip. That way we could punch through a car easier. But so how long was it until you found out that you had killed him that night?

J. Cal (95:37)

It was that night, yeah. Yeah. Which for me it was more a sense of relief, I'll be honest. Like, I don't, I don't attach much. Certainly no empathy for them, but it was kind of a bit of, it was anti climatic in a, in a weird way. But it was more relief that the guys in the rest of my platoon didn't think I was no good with that machine gun. It was like, I fucking told you. I knew I did. And they're like, yeah, no good effort. But yeah, it was a bit of a surreal moment. They're like, yeah, they went to the mosque and they bled out. And I was like, okay, cool, I'll take it. You know. But it didn't feel real because I didn't, I didn't later on in my career.

Sean Ryan (96:17)

You didn't see it?

J. Cal (96:18)

Didn't see it, didn't feel it? No. I've been as close as you and me are multiple times with live engagements. That's a different feeling. You can see the rounds rip through a human being that way. But like, in this case, it was distance. If you've ever read that book on killing, if you ever read it, it's about proximity. A lot of it isn't in the different natures and types. It's like artillery guys and mortar guys. Don't, don't bat an eyelid, but if you're this close, it's slightly different. That came later. There was a couple of other engagements I had on that deployment. I dropped a couple of people that were engaging us or maneuvering around us. But again, the rules of engagement were very strict and professional. It was like we had an escalation process. Now, I don't want to talk about this too much, but what I will say is that coin theory shit about winning the population to win the war and courageous restraint, it cost people's lives because it was not understood and it was not employed. And you're fighting an enemy that does not give a fuck. So whoever came up with that, well done, because I think they've got blood on their hands, in my opinion. Because what you did was you restricted a bunch of young Marines, paratroopers, infantrymen from all over the coalition and you put this stuff in their head, which caused them to have doubt, which then caused them to lose their lives. And I stand by that.

Sean Ryan (97:41)

It slows the decision making process, slows.

J. Cal (97:43)

The decision making process. And we'll talk about this later on. But you cannot put doubt, doubt in people's minds. You've got to trust people to make the right decision. Like the Commando Training center is exemplary as a center of excellence for producing professional soldiers. Do not, do not start to limit them or put their hands behind their backs and send them into these situations with that doubt in the back of their head that if they do something wrong, they're going to go to prison. This is some, some real stuff and we'll talk about it later, but this is some real bullshit that needs to be addressed, but because it costs people's lives, you know, it was a hard tour. It was a long tour. It was the first time I got blown up with a suicide bomber on that one. It was right towards the end of it. We were coming down. Do you ever go to FOB Jackson in Sanger? Did you ever make it up there?

Sean Ryan (98:29)

No.

J. Cal (98:30)

So there's this bridge, basically. I won't bore you with the details, but we were on a long patrol, we were coming back and it was towards the end. Usually we're very good at keeping distances between people. But this kid walked out, he must have been 13, 14. I walked past him, I walked right past him and he looked like. He looked like he was some sort of disability. He didn't look full ticket, if you know what I mean. And I kind of like watched him walk past and I remember it going bang behind me. And I'm gonna be honest with you, the first thing I thought was, fucking hell. I'm glad that whatever it is, I'm glad it wasn't me. That's my first thought. I don't care what anyone said. I've suffered with this for a long time. I've been in a bunch of ID blasts now. I've been blown up with suicide bombers on three occasions. Four or five IED blasts in close proximity. And it took me a long time to get over the fact that the first thing I ever thought was fucking, oh, I'm glad it's not me. And I hate that. I hate that about me. I hate that I felt like that, you know? But it was. I'll be honest, that's how I felt. Luckily, we were all right. The suicide vest was of shit quality. It was. It did more damage to him than it did to anyone else. But we took some fragmentation and some injuries, but nothing catastrophic. Everyone walking wounded for the most part.

Sean Ryan (99:44)

I mean, a lot of times they would use people with disabilities for that.

J. Cal (99:50)

Oh, yeah. Of the three times I've been blown up with suicide bombers, I think they're all under the age of 15. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (99:56)

I remember in 2005, they would line bicycle tires with explosives and have a kid ride up and try to blow it.

J. Cal (100:08)

When you're dealing with an enemy that's got that mentality, it's so, so difficult.

Sean Ryan (100:13)

Especially when your hands are tied.

J. Cal (100:14)

Especially when your hands are tied. You know, like, as my career progressed, the proximity between me and enemy forces is a hard line for me. Like, you'll get a warning if there's time and it's appropriate. But if you come within proximity of me in those situations, then you can stand by because I know what's coming. I don't need to be blown up again to learn those lessons. And that's what I'm talking about. You have to transfer experience, hard earned experience into learning, you know, and sometimes that, that takes a little bit of adjustment in the mindset and the mentality that you had or have. But yeah, I certainly learned a lot. That was a good deployment for me and a good deployment in terms of learning my trade, cutting my teeth, so to speak. And I got back from that and I just wanted more. I wanted more. I wanted more of it. I loved it. I was like, that's exactly where I'm supposed to be. Right at the end of the deployment, a guy called Steph Moran, who was our SART major at the time, put out a thing for recce troop. Recce troop in The Marines, especially 45 recce is considered to be like the top level, you know, of marines. There was a course, normally you have to go and do some horrific two week, like pre course to get on it. But because we were deployed, he was like, do you want to go to reckit? I was like, yes, sir. And he was like, okay, cool. He goes, I'm going to put your name forward. I'd had a good deployment, I'd worked hard. I was a good Marine, all the rest of it. So I was like, okay, cool, I'm going to just put you on the course. So I came home from that deployment. I had about six weeks off leave, post operational tour leave, and I spent all of that training. I did not. I didn't go to Thailand. I didn't do any of the other stuff that everyone else was doing. I just trained and trained and trained because I wanted to be a recce operator. And I just ran and I ran and I lifted and I ran and I lifted and I just kept doing that until it got to the point where I was ready to go on the recce course. And it was probably about midway through, I came back one weekend, I disappeared. And I got. My mom came back and staying with my mum at the time, and she's like, have you spoke to my girlfriend at the time? I was like, no, I've not spoke to her. She goes, you need to speak to her. I said, why? She's not pregnant, is she? She just looked at me and she went, speak to her. And I was like. So I speak to her and she's like, I'm pregnant. So I was like, well, that fucking changes things a little bit, you know? But it didn't. And again, I regret this about myself because I just absorbed it and dealt with it. If I was as good a father as I was a marine, I'd be perfect. But I wasn't. I was a better Marine than I was a father. And quite frankly, it came as a fucking shock. We did the whole thing. We were like, okay, cool, let's make this work. Let's build a family. All the rest of it. My whole time, I'm like, I need to get to wreck it. I need to deploy. I need to deploy. The war's still going. The bodies are still coming up the hill. I need to be back. Back out there. And then right towards the end of the course, they were like, right, who? We need volunteers. And you know what it's like, Sean? Nobody volunteers for anything in the military. Nothing good happens for it. Like, what's it for? Who wants to go to 40 Commando and deploy? Boom. I do. Cool. There you go. 40 commando, you're going to go and deploy.

Sean Ryan (103:34)

Let's backtrack for a minute. What's the recce platoon?

J. Cal (103:38)

So, the recce platoon. Yes. Yes and no. It's not primarily snipers.

Sean Ryan (103:42)

It's.

J. Cal (103:44)

Well, not exclusively snipers. It's half snipers, half recce operators. So the recce operator course covers all kinds of things from op so Observation post subsurface, you know, not so much technical stuff as it is probably these days. It was very sort of rural digging in like green army field soldiering, high levels of physical fitness, small team tactics, operating in front of the main commando units to set up lines of departure. We did a lot of work with ropes and aerial access to, you know, cliff faces, et cetera, commando stuff basically. Like they are the epitome and it's all run by Royal Marine mountain leaders. And I don't know if you've ever come across Royal Marine mountain leaders, but it's a nine month course and I would argue that it's probably the fucking hardest course in the British military, even more so than selection.

Sean Ryan (104:31)

Wow.

J. Cal (104:31)

It's ridiculously hard. They spend months in Norway, they spend months climbing, they go to Scotland, they do mountain training. Bergen are OP burgens. So they've got, they're heavy but unlike selection. So on my selection course, 220 people started and we roughly finished with 20. 15 people might start that MLS course and probably 13 people will pass because it's a course they want you to pass, if that makes sense. Whereas selection, they don't give a if you pass or not until the end. So although it's harder and longer in aspects, it's easier to pass because they want you to be there, if that makes sense.

Sean Ryan (105:10)

Does that kind of forgiving?

J. Cal (105:11)

Yeah, it's more forgiving. It is more forgiving, yeah. Whereas selection isn't. It's very cut and dry. But you're talking about the best field green army soldiers that I've ever seen or worked with from any country, bar none. Like these guys are impressive. So they're like the corporals and the sergeants. Then underneath that you've got all the recce guys, sorry the sniper guys and then you've got the recce operators. So recce operators, natural progression is to be a mountain leader. So that was my next step, but I never went that way. I went on the selection route itself. So it's a small platoon, maybe 30 guys there or thereabouts, but they are the top 1% in that unit. They're the fittest, they've got the best skill set. We'd spend a lot of time doing map reading, navigation, military knowledge, you name it, we were all over it. But these are your true believers, if you will. Everybody in that platoon or that troop really wants to, to be there. And I've had to have gone through some selection courses inside of the marines to get there. So for me I thought I Was like. I thought I was like Seal Team 6. Do you know what I mean? It's like we're recce operators, like, slightly different kit. Whenever we walked around camp, everyone was like, oh, they're the recce guys. It felt good. It felt like we were in a good spot. And what was good about that troop is that every single individual there was all pulling in the same direction. You know what it's like in a company? You might be in a company with 100 people. Some people, it's like a 9 to 5 for them. For these guys, every single guy in that troop was, you know, dialed in. So when we were about to receive orders for the second deployment, it was like, we're gonna be doing some cool shit. We're a recce troop, right? We must be doing, like, driving around in the desert and advance to ambushes and all this cool stuff. Negative. They were like, you're going back to Sangin. You're going back to a patrol base, and it's just regular stuff. So I was like, dude, why the fuck have I just put myself through all this to get here to do a different job? And now I'm just doing the same fucking job that I was doing a year ago. And literally, you could see from the patrol base that I was in, you could see my old patrol base, which was a good thing for me because I had ground knowledge, I had experience of the terrain. But things had taken a shift. 2008, 2009, I think we lost nine guys on that deployment. Nine raw Marine commandos died on that deployment, which is nine too many. And it fucking affected all of us. But what happened in the sec, the second deployment was this. Yeah, no joke. It was a fucking no joke summer tour. So when we got into that. That patrol base, the guys that we taken from over were the rifles infantry unit. When they'd got there, they'd written all of the names of the guys in the sections. One section, two section, you know, hq. And when we got there, half of those names had aligned through them. They'd all been. They'd fucking got smashed to bits in those patrol bases. They were getting killed regularly when we got there. You could just see in their eyes the relief that this is done and they were going home. And we were going out on familiarization patrols where, like, they would take us and show us the thing, and you could just see that there was just a nervousness that they were not broken because their infantry and their fight, but they were hurt and they were suffering. So I already knew, okay, cool. This is not going to be like the last one. And sure as hell, within a few days of being there, we started to take casualties and it pretty much ramped up from there. The first one we took was a guy called Jace. We were building, fortifying or rebuilding a position on the roof in the day. Questionable, but we had to. I was behind the gmg, you know, automatic grenade launcher thing, so I'm behind that 40 mic mic. We're just sighting it in, building the sandbags, just about to come off and go back down at sort of last light and I just hear one round and I hear a scream and then I hear man down. And I'm like, fuck. And then it was like, medic. So what had happened? Again, this is super fortunate, basically what had happened. He's the own and people say it couldn't have been the only. He was the only guy in that troop that wore side plates. The only dude. It hit the top of his side plate and then ricocheted up underneath his tricep and blew him off the roof. He survived, he came back, he went back to Camp Bastion for a few weeks and then got back in the fight. And I look back at that now and I'm like, that's hardcore. How'd you get shot like that off a roof by a sniper? And then two, three weeks later you're back on patrol. Like, that's commando. That's what being a commando is about. But unfortunately for the guys that had engaged my mate, they didn't realize that I was still up there because there was a cam net and I was underneath the cabinet. So I'm just like, ah, cool, rack it and start sending it with this 40m mic. And I, every firing point, every position that could have been there, I was just sending it one, two shot, boom, boom, boom, boom. Good mate. And after about a box and a half, the troop commander came up and he's like, remember, courageous restraint. Courageous restraint. I'm at. Yeah, roger. I PRD the firing point, which they are, they're likely firing points. Suppression of enemy, likely firing points. It's doctrinal, it's what you're supposed to do. So we did and then there was a whole gunfight that went on. They started to attack the our patrol base for multiple firing points. The second patrol base down the road, they start getting smashed. This whole thing went for about an hour and we'd only been there a few days. This was like within the first week. And I'm up on the roof getting it, like I'm just sending it you know, and everyone else is like, the patrol base has become a porcupine. Barrels everywhere, you know, just sending it. And eventually. This is funny, eventually the kazavak came in, right? So the kazavaks come in. Everyone's new in theater, so we're all still. They were trying to figure it out and, you know, all the rest of it. So they drive these vehicles down because you couldn't put. You couldn't put a helicopter where we were. It was. There was no place safe to land it, so you'd have to do it by road, then get in the helicopter. So the Sark major and everyone else comes back in these vehicles, we call them jackals. And they come driving down the hill and, you know, into the patrol base. And as soon as they get in the patrol base, you know, they have dispensers of flares, you know, for the Foss smoke, so they can smoke the. Somehow he pressed the wrong button, he disarmed it or armed it, whatever he'd done. But he fired out Foss or all over the patrol base. So you've got this scene, right? I'm on the roof in just a pair of shorts and body armor. Everyone's shooting everything everywhere. There's a dude down there who's a casualty. The cavalry comes and then fusses the entire patrol base, like, this is a small patrol base, okay? And I'm in the cam nets on fire, like everything's going on. And my mate who ended up being in the squadron, a different squadron to me, but he went on selection as well. This is his first deployment. He's like belly crawling up to me with another box of ammunition. And I looked at him and I was like, I told you it was going to be like this. He looked at me, goes, I don't like it. And I was like, I know. And we carried on sending it. But I'll never forget that, like the whole. Everyone's just. It was good. It was good because it was like, bang. All right, fellas, reality check. This is what it's going to be like. And it didn't slow down. It really didn't. And yeah, it was. It wasn't that long after that. The. Our troop sergeant guy called Lee. He got hit again. This is quite another funny story. They went out to patrol a place called Cemetery Hill. They went out, got caught out on a forward facing slope and got ambushed. And he was pinned down. He got shot through the face, shot through the arm, shot through the leg, and was basically in the open and couldn't move and the guys were trying to get to him. It wasn't my half's patrol day. I was back in the patrol base on Sentry. But I was the designated quad driver, so it was my responsibility to go and pick up this casualty. So I go tearing out the gate on this quad. Troop commander's out screaming at me to stop that, slow down and do the metal detector thing. And I'm like, fuck that, let's go. Do you know what I mean? And eventually I did stop. And we got there and we had a litter on the back of the quad trailer. And I drove up to the collection point and they put him on a stretcher. And then they put that stretcher on the back of the trailer on top of another stretcher. Does that make sense? So it's not what you should be doing. And obviously they're like, jay, go. So I'm at copy. So I'm now fucking driving this quad as fast as I can. I remember going over this bump like that and thinking, oh, shit, I forgot there's a casualty on the back. It's my troop sergeant and he's like a gnarly old dude, you know what I mean? And I stop, slam the brakes on and look round. And he stood vertically at this point. He's fallen off the train, he's bumped off the thing. He stood vertically, still strapped to the litter, like ankles, like thighs and chest. He's just stood there looking at me going, you dickhead, slow down. And I was like, yeah, I'm so. I was so. I was, I was embarrassed. I was sorry. I was like, fuck, I'm so sorry, mate. Like, please, like. And the medic's on the floor and it's just a whole fucking shit show. And he was like, you did more damage to me throwing me off the back of that quad than that geezer with a PKM did. And I was. I never left. I felt we've addressed this afterwards because I did feel really bad for a long time, but, yeah, funny. And I mean, this deployment you did.

Sean Ryan (114:08)

You experienced 160 gunfights in three months. Am I correct?

J. Cal (114:14)

No. 160 gunfights in one day. On election day, that was in one 24 hour period. Our company group and satellite and call signs, 160 contacts recorded in one day. The elections.

Sean Ryan (114:23)

One day.

J. Cal (114:24)

One day. Which sounds impossible, but it wasn't. And we were handed. So when.

Sean Ryan (114:30)

Holy.

J. Cal (114:31)

The back end of that torsion, we handed over to the US Marine Corps. And when that Three seven combat team. Combat team Three seven or three five I can't remember which one it was, but when the US Marine Corps came in, those boys were not playing games. And it was good to see because they were like, we ain't doing courageous restraint, we're doing extreme violence. And we were like, fuck yeah. But, yeah, that 160 recorded contacts within a 24 hour period on election day. So right at the back, it was literally the last thing that we did on deployment. It was. They were having local elections and it was the first time that they had local elections in Sangin for. Since the Taliban took over, I imagine.

Sean Ryan (115:10)

How do you even have enough ammo for that?

J. Cal (115:12)

It was everywhere all day, just all different. There was probably about five or six platoons on the ground, plus the patrol base itself, plus the main FOB and it was just all day, just sporadic. All day.

Sean Ryan (115:21)

Were you getting resupplied?

J. Cal (115:23)

So we were out in a field. So check this out, right? So they put Recce platoon out as a blocking force. So we were like 400 meters away from the actual main patrol base itself. And again, when people talk about what it means to serve and what it means to serve the United States of America and the bond that I've got, we fucking told them, dude, we said, do not go in that compound. We went out together. There's a US Marine Corps patrol. And our patrol, our job was to literally go out and provide a blocking service or a blocking screening service. And we fucking told them, do not fucking go. Badger 10, don't go in that compound. It's a known firing point. It's fucking rigged. Do not go there. And they were like, we got orders, brother. And I was like, do your thing. And they went out there and sure as fuck, they fucking got blown up, dude. There was like fucking two dead, I think, and three or four lost limbs. And initially we were just helping out on the Kazavak. I'll never forget. It was just like an endless supply of just fucking people just coming back on stretches and we were just taking. Just doing what we could, like. I fucking carried Marines off the battlefield and they fucking come and got me when I really needed it on multiple occasions. Like that US Flag, when I had the fucking privilege of wearing that to war. Means the world to me, Sean. And I'd fucking die for that as soon as I die for my flag, you know. But those young lads, mate, they're fucking those young lads. I was one too, you know. That was a fucking hard day. That was just the morning. That was before the whole thing fucking got going. I'll Never forget it as well. We're in these cornfields on these blocking positions, and it was like. You just see, like, twos and threes. The whole platoon had just been fucking decimated. It was like an IED went off, killed a bunch of dudes. Then the fucking kazavak, the guys that went in to get them, they got fucking blown up. Then all hell broke loose. And it was just like, once we'd started to ferry the stretchers back, we went back to man our positions, and it was like something out of Jurassic park, man. You see these cornfields, and it was just like. You could see the. The. The leaves moving, you know, and we're on the guns. Like, I need to. Like, something's getting shot in a minute. I'm scared. Do you know what I mean? And a squad would come out or two or three guys and just be like, have you seen, like, you know, this guy or that platoon? And we're like, where the have you been, bro? And he's like, your guys are back there. And I was like, okay, cool. And they just run out. Ten minutes later, there'd be, like, a lone Marine just coming out the cornfield. You're like, I don't know what the fuck's going on over there, but this is not a good spot for him to be in. And, yeah, we just fucking hunkered down. That was the first time I've got properly mortared as well. Like, people talk about, oh, you know, I watched. I think you'll find a generational difference between g. What? Guys that didn't do conventional tours and guys that did do conventional tours. Like, I know the difference between being mortared and properly being mortared, like, in front of you. Like, 50 meters, 60 meters, which is close for an 81 or whatever they're using. Then one comes behind you, you're like, okay, cool. We're being bracketed. The next one's fucking coming into our position, and sure as fuck, we're in this field getting mortared. And it's like, that's no joke. Like, we're in a fucking field, there is no cover, and Troop Sergeant's like, fucking digging. And we're like, what? What is this? The fucking. You know what I mean? This Iwo Jima. I didn't think war fucking fighting was like this. Do you know what I mean? This was not what we were fucking used to doing. So sure as fuck, we dug shell scrapes. And I've got some great pictures of it. All the boys in shell scrapes and we fucking dug Shell scrapes. And then we started getting more.

Sean Ryan (118:37)

What do you mean, shell scrapes?

J. Cal (118:38)

Like a small hole in the ground to lie into, basically just below subsurface, so that if it does detonate, it goes at ground level and you're just underneath it. The first ones we did were quite shallow, but when we started to get incoming accurate mortifier, we were like, oh, we need to dig these in a bit deeper. And I'll never forget, like, me and this guy Gaz, we were sat in the shell scrape line and they're just laughing like, we're going home in two days. This, the election day. This, the whole day that I'm talking about was literally the last thing that we did. And it was like, I cannot believe after six months we're in this hole in this field getting mortared. It's like, come on, do you know what I mean? This is no joke, but I'll remember it again. Goes back to the thing of respecting the US Military. We had a cowboy call sign. It was. It was a Cobra and a Huey pair, and they were fucking smashing the mortar point. And we're in this shell scraping this cornfield, just fucking hunkered down, getting mortared, and this fucking helicopter comes over with its partner and they're just fucking strafing just like rockets, 12.7 millimeter rockets or whatever. They are fucking 30 Mike. Mike, whatever they got on there. And the fucking shells are landing all around and we're just laughing at each other at this point. We're just like, fuck me, dude, this is fucking cool. But it's not cool, if you know what I mean. It's like. But we liked it. We're Marines. It's what we're supposed to be doing, you know? But, yeah, if it weren't for those dudes turning up that day, fuck knows what'd happen. But that was the end of a really, really severe tour. And I'll tell you what, the worst thing I don't want, you know the worst thing for us, mate, was that every single time an ID went off, it was a fucking good chance it was somebody you knew, you know, like. And that radio, never in 80 days. I think it was like seven or 82 days or whatever it was. We lost 14 people. And they were all the same guys. We knew everybody. We're Recce troop, you know, we knew everyone. And it was like, you hear the blast, man, they're so close. You feel it, that awful sound and you're just like, okay, cool. And then the radio, it's like, yeah, contact id. And then it's like the state of the casualties, like what tier they are. You hear the missed reports coming on and it's like, you just listen out for that Zap number. You're like, I know a guy in 6 troop. And you're just like, you're just listening for that zap number. You're just listening for that name and just being like, is it him? And it might not affect you that day because it might not be somebody. But then you see a guy in the corner of the patrol base and he's just in floods of tears because that was his best mate, you know, that was his mate. So, yeah, we were fucking, we were surrounded, man. We were in a bad spot. And it was, it was heartbreaking to watch and feel and listen to it. And that fucking radio never stopped, man. It never, never stopped. And I just wanted to go home. I got. Before I deployed, my daughter was two weeks old. Two weeks old. I remember just as we got to Camp Bastion, before we flew out to that patrol base, there were two guys that were from 4, 5 Commando that had done exactly what I did. And they, they went to, they went to 40 Commando 2. And I remember I didn't even know these guys, man. And we were sat eating our lunch, doing like the pre deployment training that you do in theater, like zero and weapons and all this, getting briefs and all this stuff. ROE briefs, whatever. And there was just three of us in this like, basically in this like shell of a compound having lunch. It was, oh, I was at four or five, I was, oh, I was at four or five and there was three of us. I'm the only one that came home. They fucking both died, you know. And it's like brand new baby, two weeks old. Like, the writing's on the wall. I'm like, I'm not coming back from this deployment. I'd given up. I knew it was coming. Like, I'm not a super religious man, Sean, but every time I left that fucking patrol base, I prayed. Because it doesn't matter how good you are. We were getting fucking ripped apart. And it was dangerous and it was scary and I was scared. I was scared for six months. And then it's like one of the most significant things that's ever happened to me in my military career is I was about. From me to that wall away. When an ID blast went off. My troop commander lost both his legs on an arm. I was the first guy to get to him. And there's a, there's a protocol for this. You're Supposed to do the metal detector and go up to it and you know, make sure there's no. I just fucking ran straight to him and just started putting tourniquets on him and I was just like, I remember his eyes. I was up at his head. Tom, the medic was working on him and I was just holding him. I had a flashlight on. It was early on in the morning. It was a fucking 400 meter patrol, Sean. We were down at 400 meters. Do you know what we were doing? Do you know what they made us do? They made us fucking hand out a radio. He lost both his legs and an arm to hand out a fucking wind up radio to a local that we thought was friendly. Hearts and minds, they said. So we go out at 5:00 in the morning, near pitch back in a fucking minefield and he loses his arms and legs for a fucking radio, you know? I was so angry, mate. I was so fucking angry. And I remember looking at him and I remember him trying to close his eyes and I was saying, john, just fucking look at me. And I put this fucking flashlight in his face and I'm just like, do not fucking close your eyes. Do not fucking close your eyes. And we got him out and he, he, he's still, he's like incredible. He's got kids, he's got a life. He's a incredible kayaker. He's represented his country in that. He's got this incredible story. He goes around the country motivating people like, what a hero, what a rock star. But I'll never forgive them for putting us in those positions because it was like, we know this is why the. Are we going out there, you know. And yeah, that, that there made me angry. I was like, nah, I'm not, I'm coming back. Like a lot of people went the other way. Most people left the marines after that deployment. I didn't. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I was like, nah, I'm joining the Special Forces. I want to be part of that. And one of the main reasons for that was halfway through, because we were getting started, smashed the squadron, the regiment squadron, D squadron sent a guy out to our position to give us fire support to bring the assets to, you know. So he embedded himself with our troop. And this guy was like an older guy, super wiry northern, you know, not what you'd expect a regiment guy to look like. But me, he was the most impressive person I'd ever met. He was like a superstar. You don't come across regiment guys especially not if you're in the Marines. It's not something that you don't operate together. And he came into those patrol bases and he wore the same kit that we wore with no airs and graces. You'd be like, ah, he's a sergeant in the. In the regiment. And I'm a. I'm a Marine 2IC of A troop and I'm doing like, lists for who has to go on sentry. And he's like, what time do you want me on? And I'm like, what? Like, you don't have to do this. He's like, no, put me on there. Two to three. Two. Two o' clock in the morning. He's out there in the fucking sentry position doing it. Came on every patrol, he's like, give me some link, give me a battery. And I was like, fucking hell. He did not need to do that. He did not have to do that. But I was like, that's the gold standard. That's the fucking epitome of what I think a fucking regiment guy should be like. And he actually, it's quite a nice story. He gave me a recruitment brief in the main patrol base back in Sangin, and it was for Hereford and typically recover. Royal Marines don't go to Hereford, they go to Poole. The sbs. So they don't go to the SBS to go to sbs, typically. Not always, but I always wanted to join a regiment. I'd always been fascinated by the regiment since I watched a VHS copy of the Iranian embassy siege from my dad. Actually, when I was about 10 years old, that was the first time I'd ever really seen it. And I was like, what the fuck? The dudes on the balcony with the gas mask. I was like, whatever that is, I want that. But it's the first time I've ever met one in the flesh and he's a fucking rock star, you know. And he gave me the recruitment brief. And I remember I went back to my chew on my accommodation. I packed a Bergen with 55 pounds, which is test weight, and I did a CFT, which is an eight miler, basically just perimetered the thing. Just kept doing that and doing that. From that moment on, I was like, I'm going on selection. And I've heard somebody else say this, and it must be a fairly common thing, but I remember sitting one night on one of those sentry positions and it was super late And I hear 247s go into the green zone. And you know what 47 sounds like? And I was like, well, that's not us, and that's our fucking ao. So what the fuck is it? And then all hell breaks loose. You hear the fucking gunship going and all kinds of bullshit. And then two, three hours fucking 247s come in and they fly away. And I was like. Got back off and go, what the fuck? I was like, yeah, that's just one of the squadrons gone and done a fucking. An offensive action on a target just for everybody listening.

Sean Ryan (127:03)

47S are dual rotor helicopters.

J. Cal (127:06)

Yeah, the Chinooks, the CH47s, you know, the big fat ones, you know, with the double thing. Sorry. Yeah. But yeah, so I was like, okay, these people are getting after it. Do you know what I felt in that deployment? One day? Fucking helpless. I felt helpless. I was like, just fucking wander around in minefields fucking watching people get blown in half. It's like I wanted to affect it. And the only place that I could affect it was what it felt like was to go on selection and join the squadron.

Sean Ryan (127:30)

How did you adjust your mindset from the beginning of that deployment to the end to deal with all that?

J. Cal (127:38)

I didn't deal with it. I just boxed it up. Just fucking compartmentalize it. That's all I could do. And it wasn't 10 years down the line, it fucking blew up. I got blown up again. Another suicide bomber. And I was actually with. With C squadron at the time. From the unit? Yeah, from the unit. Yeah. I was attached to them for a year. And I remember getting blown up one night, side of a building, watching my whole team basically just get. Fucking whole building went on top of them. I was fucking for sure everyone was dead. Turns out that everyone survived. It was one of those fucking Pulp Fiction moments, you know, I mean, talk about that in a bit more detail later. But like that. That blew the lid off the fucking box. Basically like that. After that, I just unraveled, slowly but surely unraveled to the point of. Yeah, to a fucking dark place. But for 10 years, I just didn't look, forgot about it. Just carried on to keep going. One more deployment, One more deployment. One more deployment. Just keep putting in a box. Put it in a box, put it in a box. Box gets full, box breaks. I broke. But yeah, to answer your question, I didn't deal with it. I just fucking carried on. What else gotta do? Like, I kept running. I kept running because I knew if I stopped and looked back, I wouldn't. I would never stop, never start again, you know, I came back from that deployment and it's like even. Even coming Back on R and R, man, I went back to the, the main patrol base and a dear friend of mine who I was in training with a recruit, we were recruits together, a guy called Rhian, everyone calls him Twiggy, dead skinny guy. He was a machine gunner. He was a fucking, you know what I mean? He was a good machine gunner. I remember our patrol base. You had to go back to the big base because that's where the helicopters were and that's how you flew back and went on R and R. So I was out of my patrol base and into the big base, relieved as fuck. Four months into the deployment, handed in all the fucking necessary equipment. I've just got basic ammunition, my rifle about to fly, and in 24 hours I'm home in the UK with my brand new daughter that I've spent two weeks with, right? And they go out on patrol and we sat in the, the sort of chow hall which was the tent, and the first one goes off, boom. And you're like, yep, that's a ied. And then everyone's up, QRF are out, the whole place is going. And we're on rr, so we've not really got a job to do at this point. And I was with a couple of other guys and we were like, it, let's get our body armor on and get on the wall. Everyone's on the wall now. Everyone's shooting from the wall. We're trying to provide farts. And about a couple of minutes later, boom, second one goes off. This was a joint patrol, U.S. marine Corps and guys from Charlie Company. And they went out first IED struck command, command wire. They waited for the guys to come in and try and recover the casualties and then they pulled the next one. So we lost two guys that day, a US Marine and a guy called Jonathan Crooks. And initially we started fighting from the war wall. Like, dude, I'm going home in 24 hours. I'm on the wall now fighting. And then it was like, we need people to help bring the casualties in and all right. Again, I feel guilty for it. I was like, I hope it's not Twiggy. And I knew it wasn't because I could hear his machine gun going. I was like, yeah, he's all right. He's sending it. So I'm like, yeah. And then we go to the back gate and we're just carrying the bodies. We're just carrying these dudes back into the. Back into the med bay, basically where they're getting treated and there's four or five different casualties, different categories of categories. You've got, like, ones that are clearly no longer with us and then other guys that are all fucking fragged up and all the rest of it. And I remember clearly, I still can't get my fucking head around this. Like, we put the guys in stretchers and in the bags, and the fucking dude in the med center, I don't know what his problem was, but he's like, they've got to go on head first. And I'm like, dude, it don't matter. And he's like, they got to go on head first. That's the way the helicopters are set up to deal with casualties. And I'm like, I get it. I know. But it doesn't make a difference. Do you understand what I'm saying? And he's like, they've got. And I'm this. I don't know what. What. I don't know what. What ends to head and what's not head. You know what I mean? How the am I supposed to do, you know? I mean, when I open a. I have this to and fro, and we put the guys on the. We put the guys on the fucking helicopter. Everyone goes away. Go and sit back down. And they're like, R and R. Flight's coming in in two hours. And you're like, now what the fuck do you do? 24 hours later, I'm at fucking Bryce Norton with a brand new baby in my fucking hand. I'm like, I was not ready. I was not ready to be a fucking dad. I was not ready to deal with that. I just wasn't ready. And I fucking isolated myself because the only place I felt like I could have any control was being on operation, which is a weird one because I was helpless there, if that makes sense. But it was a pain that I knew. Do you know what I mean?

Sean Ryan (132:42)

It came home. It became home.

J. Cal (132:45)

It became home. It became what I knew. It was so intense for me that I gravitated towards it. It was easier to be a fucking marine in that field than it was to try and learn how to be a dad. I got no template on how to be a dad. How the do I know how to do that? You know what I mean? You're talking to me about washing machines. Like, how the. Do I care if the washing machine's not broken? We've got to go grocery shopping? The fuck. Like that's where I'm at with it. I didn't fuck. I was uncapable or incapable of acting like a fucking normal human being. Because my brain was not there. It was in that fucking field, and it took years to fucking. To sort that out, you know? And I'm not. I don't think I'm ever over it, but I'm at peace with it now to a point. But that deployment there was your mind.

Sean Ryan (133:39)

Was your mind. I mean, did you have any emotional connection to your daughter after experiencing that?

J. Cal (133:55)

Other than the fact I loved her, not really. And I hate. I hate myself. I do. It was really hard to build that bond. You know, I. I was a shitty dad for a long time. You know, I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't. If I was as good a dad as I was an operator, I'd be perfect. But I wasn't, and I'm not. And, you know, that young girl did 10 deployments. 10 deployments. She did. You know, And I look at her now and I'm so proud of her. I'm so impressed. She's got such grace and kindness about her. I look at. Yeah, and that's why when, you know, that's why when some of the stuff that's happened to me recently, I look at it and I'm like, you know what? You. For putting me in this position for her, you know, she deserves better than that. She does. You know, there's still a piece of me in that field. There's a piece of my soul that will never come out of that field. And I'm sorry for her that she had to miss that. But I hope, you know, she sees this and grows up. I did that for her. I want to protect her, you know, and she was. She kept me going, dude.

Sean Ryan (135:05)

But do you want to mention her name?

J. Cal (135:09)

No. For some reasons that we've talked about before.

Sean Ryan (135:12)

I understand that.

J. Cal (135:13)

Yeah. What changed?

Sean Ryan (135:16)

When did you start your bond with your daughter?

J. Cal (135:21)

It took a couple of years. Took a couple of years to start to build back up.

Sean Ryan (135:26)

But did you feel guilt?

J. Cal (135:28)

Yeah, still do. A lot. You know, it's. For guys like us, there's a prescription, Right. It's like, there's the problem, there's the solution when it comes to emotional stuff. And, you know, that there's. I. I don't have. I don't have a template. I don't have a reference point. I don't know what being a good dad looks like. Not to say I didn't have a good dad. I just didn't really have that in my life. You know? I just hope. Pray that one day she'll grow up and go, okay, cool. That's what my dad was about. That's why he was there. That's why I missed the birthday, that's why I missed the football match, the Christmas, whatever it might be, you know, because I felt like I was trying to do something good. I was trying to make sense of a hopeless, chaotic situation. And the only thing I could do to stop myself from drowning was go back to war. Because the only thing I knew. And it's just, yeah, it's a shame that she's had to do that. But I just. And I think, you know, she's. Her mother's fantastic with her. Like, she's. I've never had any problems with my mother, my daughter's mother, in terms of, like, when I'm away, I always know that home's being taken care of. And I'll always be fucking grateful to those women for that. You know, my daughter's mother is a fucking exceptional mother and she's had to deal with a ton. It can't be easy watching your daughter with her father on rr, staring at bodies coming up the hill like. And I was there for every one of them when I was on rr. Like, that's a intense place to be. And she's ridden that swarm. And I want to say this, and I want that hundreds, thousands of families have been through that from the British Army. So when people say we didn't fight this or we do that, like, that fucking upsets me, Sean, because we fucking paid in blood in those fields and we fought side by side with the US military and we'll always continue to do that. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. And if it wasn't for, you know, the support and the coalition and the brotherhood that British and US soldiers have, I wouldn't be here. And I fucking damn sure know a lot of other people wouldn't too, you know, but there's a lot of families. You know, the Afghan generation have paid a heavy, heavy price and they don't get enough credit. Everyone wants to see Special Forces dudes with night vision and Panavision doing fast roping and all the sexy stuff. Like, I'm here for it. I fucking love that shit, trust me. But what about that young Marine who got shot off a wall? What about him? They deserve more credit. Like, I'm gonna be honest with you right now. Like, nothing I did in Special Forces was anything, like, as dangerous as that. Imagine going on a 10 hour patrol in the day with no assets, no dedicated JTAC, no ISR, no Gucci weapon systems, no night, night vision, no tactical advantage, and back breaking loads in 45 degree heat for six months in a minefield with a shitty ROE and no experience for the most part. That's harder. Those guys deserve more credit. All right? It's not sexy. Everyone wants to know about the big mesh and all the cool, but what about those dudes, you know? So I try and talk to that more because it's like I think about.

Sean Ryan (138:51)

That all the time.

J. Cal (138:52)

You do, I do.

Sean Ryan (138:54)

And I, I remember I interviewed this guy friend of mine, Cody Alford, who's a marine.

J. Cal (139:00)

Y. Is he a dude with a tattoo on his neck? Is that him?

Sean Ryan (139:03)

He's got tattoos everywhere.

J. Cal (139:04)

That's the dude. I do know the dude. Yeah. I don't know him, but I know who you mean.

Sean Ryan (139:07)

But when he described his experience in Fallujah, very, very similar. And I think he would say the same thing that you just said about conventional guys. And they don't get enough credit.

J. Cal (139:25)

No.

Sean Ryan (139:26)

And they don't get the recognition they deserve. And they have it harder than everybody.

J. Cal (139:32)

Fuck yeah, they do.

Sean Ryan (139:33)

With less gear, with less training, everything.

J. Cal (139:37)

Yeah, man. I see some of these guys now and I'm just like, I'm so proud of them. I am, I'm so proud of them. Such strength those guys had, you know? You know, you're looking at 19 year old kids dealing with that and that's. That deployment isn't the end of it. You've got to go and live 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years after that, you know, and nothing, nothing can take that away. And people will go. You're all Marines. You joined to go to war. Yeah, we did. And we did a good job of doing it and we were impressive. But there is a price to it, there is a consequence to it. You know, most guys left after that deployment. I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't because if I had then I probably would have ended up taking my own life like my friend did and a bunch of other people I know because that's what happened, Sean. They, they stay in those fields and they don't, they don't ever deal with it. And then all of a sudden they just put their uniforms on, put their medals on and they fucking hang themselves.

Sean Ryan (140:47)

Is that what your friend did?

J. Cal (140:48)

Yeah, Ash, he did that, yeah. There's too many of them, man. This fucking feels like one a week at some point. These fucking guys aren't getting no support, bro.

Sean Ryan (141:01)

I know.

J. Cal (141:01)

They're just fucking not getting enough support. And it's.

Sean Ryan (141:08)

Is that the first throw that you lost to suicide.

J. Cal (141:13)

The first one that I allowed myself to feel any pain for yet, if that makes sense. I've lost a bunch. And again, it goes back to the same patrol base, like, mentality. It might not be somebody that I know well, but I know somebody that does. And it echoes through our community. Like, it reverberates. And they're fucking still doing it, dude. They're fucking. They're still doing it. They're fucking killing themselves. And it's like, fuck, I don't. I don't know how to get my head around that, you know? It's like me and my best friend, who were. My best friend, was way closer to Ash than I was, but we were all recruits together. And it fucking nearly killed him because he felt guilty about it. He was phoning him that day. They were fine. Everything was all good. Checking up on him. Everything's good. He goes home, puts his uniform on, puts his medals on, puts his beret on, hangs himself in the garage. That nearly fucking killed my friend, you know?

Sean Ryan (142:16)

I'm sorry.

J. Cal (142:18)

Me, too. I'm sorry. But it's. That's the reality of it, you know? And I don't know what to say. I don't. We went to his grave not long ago, Sonsa. How the fuck do you explain that? Have that conversation, you know? It's fucking difficult. Those young Marines deserve more credit, I think. You know? They deserve more. They deserve more support from our government, from our veterans, minister, from all of it. That war's not done. Still going. They're just fighting it in their own heads now, you know? But it's across the board, isn't it? It's not just us. It's not just the Marines. It's not just the Brits or the Americans or Swedes or, you know, Norwegians or the Danish or the Estonians or everyone else that paid into that thing. I mean, obviously the Brits and the Americans, Canadians.

Sean Ryan (143:15)

It's everybody that had to experience that.

J. Cal (143:17)

It's everyone that experienced it. Not just the fucking cool guys with Panavision and fucking Blackhawks, you know, I think we should do better and we should pay more credit to these guys, because it's fucking real. That's my opinion on it.

Sean Ryan (143:30)

Thank you for saying that.

J. Cal (143:33)

Don't thank me, Sean. It's f. I thank them, you know, and that deployment galvanized me. It didn't break me at the time. It's not broken me now. It set a foundation of solid concrete that I built a mansion on. You understand? Like I wanted didn't deter me, it motivated me. I was like, nah, I'm never gonna feel helpless again. Next time it's on my terms. I'm coming to your house at night, I'm gonna be in your bedroom and you'll not have a clue that I'm there. That's the kind of mentality that I took from. I don't know if that's a positive thing. Psychiatrists would probably go, yeah, we need a fucking chat. But it worked for me. That's what I did. I put it all in a fucking box and was like, cool, I'm gonna use that for fuel, I'm gonna use that for motivation. That's my reactor, you know, and that's why I decided to go on selection. I wanted to have an impact and effect. And I think it's very important that this is said UKSF's primary objective, as far as I read it and we were briefed in Afghanistan was to provide security and to fucking stop these people killing British troops. I've been in those fields, I know what it's like. So now I'm motivated for it. We were trying to protect the British Army. Every single one of those guys in those squadrons knew somebody in the Marines, knew somebody in the parachute regiment was affected by it. They're watching their mates get killed, mutilated, you know, we wanted to have an effect. That's what we did. We had an effect and we were professional as when we did it. And it was such a cool thing to be a part of because it really did feel like we were making a difference there, you know. So when I see all this, these allegations unfounded about this and that question and professionalism, it upsets me, Sean. I saw nothing but professionalism. I saw nothing but dedicated professionals doing the right thing for the right reasons. And it's disgusting how people are trying to turn that and make that look like it's something else, because it wasn't that, you know. But again, yeah, that's something. Digress slightly, but yeah, I think that does need to be said. And that was a massive motivator for me. There's a difference between revenge and retribution, isn't there? Revenge is, is revenge. Retribution is the rightful and lawful, you know, action towards something that's been done. It's not revenge, it's retribution. That's the difference. And we were out there in the squadrons trying to do what we could to protect those fucking guys in the patrol bases, that 19 year old. We're trying to fucking do whatever we can and yes, we are going to bring all the fucking toys to the party. All our gunships, all our sexy night vision, all of our ISR assets, our jets, our dogs, our charges, our experience. Yeah, we are. And we're coming for you. We're coming to get you, you know, and that was the only thing that kept me sane. That's how I dealt with it. I doubled down. I didn't go the other way, you know. But, yeah, I talk a lot about that 2010 tour on this because it's affected me more than anything else I've ever done and it changed my life and it still does. I told John, the guy who stepped on the id, that I was coming on him and I said, can I mention you? And he said, yeah. He said he was fucking proud. He does speaking engagements now. He goes around the country. My friend bumped into him randomly. He said he mentioned me by name. That's my proudest merchant. Playing a small part in saving that man's life that day. No one's ever taken that away from me, you know.

Sean Ryan (147:27)

How's he doing?

J. Cal (147:28)

He's fucking thriving. He's doing really, really well. Yeah, he's like a. I think he's representing Great Britain in the kayaking. He's a mad kayaker. I'll show you afterwards, mate. He's such an incredible fucking dude. Positive. He's got kids since that happened.

Sean Ryan (147:47)

Wow.

J. Cal (147:47)

Yeah, he's fucking living life to the full, man. I'm not. I'm not a fucking good person, man. Well, I could be better, but, like, I made every mistake a guy my age can make probably more than once. And there's a lot of I've done in my life I'm not proud of, but I'm proud of that, you know, I'm proud of that there's a person out there that's living. There's a person out there that's a father. There's a person out there that's enjoying their life. And I had a very, very small part to play in that. And I like to remind myself of that sometimes when I feel a bit shit or, you know, whatever, because I think, you know, war's fucking ugly. But that was a good thing, right? Yeah, you know, but yeah, after that tour, it was full steam ahead. Then it was just fucking deployment, deployment, selection, deployment, deployment, deployment, deployment, deployment. And that carried on for 10 years.

Sean Ryan (148:48)

How was it getting into selection.

J. Cal (148:53)

For me? I came back off that deployment and most people would have been like, did you just chill out and bond with your daughter? I didn't I put a fucking rucksack on and went to the Brecon Beacons, climbed up a mountain. That's what I did to get away from it. I didn't deal with it. And I ran away from trying to be a dad because I didn't understand it. But what I did not have to do was move from A to B with weight on my back, because that's all I wanted again. I became obsessed with passing Selection and I threw everything to the side because the only thing that mattered was getting back out there. The only thing that mattered to me was getting a seat on that helicopter. You know I told you about that helicopter that went in. I wanted to be on that helicopter more than anything. And I don't. I'm not proud of that. But that's what I had to do. That's why I'm not hanging up in a garage somewhere with mighty metals on. That's what I did. But selection was. Anybody that sits there and goes, selection wasn't that bad, or this is. This line. It's hard. It's very, very hard. But one thing I did have was the ability to know that I will never, ever quit. That was. You know what I mean? I'm not quitting on this. So you're gonna have to pull me off or tell me I'm not good enough, but I'm not quitting. And I think that kind of mindset, that mentality, that burn the ships mentality that we talk about, I was obsessed. There was no going back. I'm not going back into that patrol base. I'm not going back in that field. This is what I need to do to get to where I need to be. And you have to understand, Sean, that during those deployment times. Do you know how much money a Marine makes? Do you know how much money a Marine makes a month in those deployments? Have a guess.

Sean Ryan (150:29)

A month.

J. Cal (150:31)

A month. In Sangin, do you know how much they pay you for dealing with all that? 4,000 USD. Less than that. 1,600 pounds.

Sean Ryan (150:40)

1,600.

J. Cal (150:41)

Which is about two and a half. Yeah. $2,200 a month. That's what we get paid now. I come back and I'm trying to raise a family. Trying. I got washing machines to buy. You understand, like, I have to go on selection. I have to pass my wage doubled. I can. Then you understand, like, that's a motivator. Like, didn't come from a lot. It's important to me that I'm trying to give my daughter a better life. You Know, that's what I'm trying to do. More opportunity, you know, a better standard of living. That fucking motivated me, for sure. I'm not gonna quit in the jungle because I'm a little bit hot or a little bit tired. There's too much at stake, you know, Way too much at stake.

Sean Ryan (151:27)

What was the sentiment of the citizens in UK while this was all going on.

J. Cal (151:37)

At the time, Sean? The whole country was behind it. Help for Heroes was a big charity. People were behind it. Everyone was pro forces supporting everyone and, you know, felt like everyone was in the same situation together. But then the war stopped and everyone quiet, which is when we need it. Arguably, we need it more now. We need more of it now than we did then, you know, and it's all good for people to. Whether Help for Heroes banned or, you know, go and do an expedition to Everest. Good. You should be doing shit like that. But at the same time, you need to do more, and it needs to happen, you know, it needs to happen now. Like, we need to do more as an. I'm a civilian. I'm a civilian now. Do you understand? I'm trying to do what I can to train the next generation. I don't have a lot of money. If I. If I was a millionaire, Sean, I'd fucking give as much money as I could to charity, but I ain't. What I can do is I can train the next generation. That's what I'm trying to do. That's how I like to give back, you know, but again, it's not about money or anything like that, but we. We do need to do more. We need to recognize it. That war's not done, and it's not cool and trendy to be like pro troops, pro Afghanistan generation, You know, it's. Oh, it's an old war. It's a very British mentality, isn't it? But I think. I think we need to do more because everyone wanted to fucking jump on a bandwagon a few years ago, and now you never see anything about it. There are good people out there doing good things. There are plenty of good charities out there. And, you know, there's a lot. There is a lot, but it's not enough. And it's, you know, it's generally the community serving the community, if that makes sense.

Sean Ryan (153:05)

Yes, it does.

J. Cal (153:06)

Do you understand what I mean by that?

Sean Ryan (153:08)

Yes. Yeah, it's a shame. I mean, it sounds like the people want to help, but, you know, as we discussed at the beginning, and we'll get into more detail at the end, the government's doing the opposite. They're making it worse.

J. Cal (153:24)

They're making it harder for us. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (153:29)

Let's take a quick break.

J. Cal (153:30)

Sure.

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Sean Ryan (156:27)

All right, Jay, we're back from the break. We're getting into tier one operations.

J. Cal (156:31)

Yep. So, yeah, I went on selection 2012 as soon as I'd completed selection. It was like the perfect thing for me. Finished on like a Friday belt beret. End of the process. Couldn't have been prouder. Like, honestly, it was such a. It felt. Some kids wanted to grow up and be an astronaut. Some guys want to be soccer players or play in the NFL or be a quarterback or whatever it might be. I just wanted to be in a regiment from, you know, from a very early age. I was aware of it and it was always seen as the pinnacle in my opinion. And I think there's something to be said for achieving a lifetime goal at the age of 24. It's great. But then when that wears off, you're like, now what do I do? You know, there was a little bit of that, but it wasn't an anti climax at all. I finished. I then went out to the States, the first time I'd ever been to the States. Flew into LA and then went down to El Centro and did a bunch of jumping out there because we couldn't finish the jumps course in the UK because of the weather's fucking shit. So we went out to.

Sean Ryan (157:42)

Oh, you had to go to California?

J. Cal (157:44)

Yeah, we do that quite often. I've probably done maybe, I don't know, 20, 20 or 30 odd trips to California.

Sean Ryan (157:49)

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

J. Cal (157:50)

Go jumping. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sean Ryan (157:56)

Real quick. I actually do have a question.

J. Cal (157:58)

Go.

Sean Ryan (157:58)

We don't have to go into SAS training and all of that, but I do want to ask, I mean, with that deployment that you just described, you know, 180 contacts in one day.

J. Cal (158:11)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (158:14)

Did they know you were a part of that?

J. Cal (158:17)

Yeah, you make. It's a very good question, Sean. It was interesting because when we turned up on selection, that sort of generation of guys, the cadre, we call them ds, the directing staff, who obviously, you know, paid up members of the regiment Hereford and Paul, that oversee the selection process, they've all got a wealth of knowledge and experience and they. I look up to them like gods still do. All super impressive guys and they're there to do a job, they're there to select people to get into there. They're the gatekeepers of this regiment and what it's about, you know, and they're looking at everything from you Know, skill set to character. But it was only a little bit further on a couple of years actually down the line when I was speaking to one of them as a friend. They're no longer an instructor now they're friends, you know, the people in the same squadrons or whatever. And they said they were very wary of our generation because they knew that we'd been in the fucking mixer and we'd done stuff that they hadn't done. You know, I think if you got to the. I think if you missed that conventional period, not to discredit anything that they'd have done, but we. We never. We weren't kicking indoors in Baghdad in 06. That wasn't our war, you know. But you're now dealing with a bunch of guys that have got serious decorations, guys that have done serious operational deployments, that have been in gunfights, that have been blown up, that have dealt with all of that stuff as Marines, paratroopers, infanteers. Like, we're not green soldiers, we're not blooded, but we're professional and we're experienced. So although they still have to treat you a certain way on selection, because it's selection, they were very cautious that the guys that they were training were. They're serious dudes and they've done some serious shit, and they were respectful for that. They were. They were respectful for it. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (160:14)

What do you think? What did you mean when you said they were weary?

J. Cal (160:18)

As in wary? As in, like, they didn't want to. What often happens on courses is, and I've seen this myself, the people that are in that unit don't look down on people that aren't in that unit. But it's like, well, we've done this, we've done that. But there wasn't too much of that, if that makes sense. They were like, you can't treat people like shit because these people have fucking done a lot, you know, and they've been around, and it just wouldn't have been right. So they were cautious that they didn't want to be disrespectful. They've still got to be the way that they are, and the line has to be toed, and the standard is the standard. But they were still, you know, aware that you need to treat these guys with respect, because some of them have given a shit ton to their country. Some of them have been through a hell of a lot of stuff. And just because that guy might not fit the mold or pass the standard, don't disrespect them to the point where it's like belittling them or undervaluing their previous experiences. And I think they navigated it quite well, if I'm honest. I think they did.

Sean Ryan (161:22)

I mean, it's almost. I mean, there are not many people on the planet that have experienced war. And out of the people that have experienced war, there is a small, small fraction of those that have experienced what you just described. And so, I mean, even though the experience is radically different, they could have treated you with a ton of respect, or it could have become a jealousy issue.

J. Cal (162:11)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (162:11)

An inferior complex.

J. Cal (162:13)

Yeah, there is. There is a little bit. There was. I wouldn't say a little bit of that creeping in, but there were certainly some people that just didn't acknowledge it or didn't want to acknowledge it because that wasn't their situation, that wasn't their.

Sean Ryan (162:25)

War, or because you had done more.

J. Cal (162:28)

Maybe.

Sean Ryan (162:29)

Maybe. Maybe that's you being humble. This is me telling the fucking truth.

J. Cal (162:35)

I think I've done. I'd done quite a bit, you know, I'd done my part, I think. You know, I don't know how. See, it's a weird one for me, Sean. And I know it sounds like I still don't feel like I did anything, and I still don't. Like, people will look at my career or, you know, you could do a bullet point on my resume and the CV and all the rest of it, but it's still. I still. There's still like, an emptiness to it. As in, like, it didn't feel like I actually did anything, if that makes sense. It was like I was there and it all happened, but it doesn't feel like that.

Sean Ryan (163:03)

But it's experience. It's experience that carries you to the next level.

J. Cal (163:08)

Absolutely.

Sean Ryan (163:09)

100% having been in that experience.

J. Cal (163:11)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (163:12)

Nobody's been in that experience.

J. Cal (163:18)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's. To me, I think it helped me. It gave me confidence. There was. When I checked in, I felt like. And again, this might sound arrogant, but I felt like I could sit at the table with any one of them, depending on. I don't. You know, my squadron had just done a hostage rescue. That first four weeks of their deployment, they knocked out a hostage rescue and were cooking on gas. We're talking about guys that had done multiple, you know, Afghans, Iraq. So you're talking about some serious operators that have done some serious stuff and are highly professional. But I still felt like I could sit at the table with them because ultimately, we're all serving. We're all trying to do the right thing. We're all part of our nation's military. And I feel like, although I missed out on the big mish maybe or I hadn't, you know, I wasn't on that 06 tour in Baghdad when, you know, this or that or I didn't do the host. But I felt like what I had done was enough, in my opinion. I felt like it was, it validated me and I think that was a good thing. And it's a hard line to tread without coming across as a know it all or arrogant. But I did feel like, and I saw it later on in my career, I definitely did. When we started doing more conventional stuff on the flop, you know, you know, big offensives into like places like Sinjar and Iraq and all kinds of places like that. The guys that had done it, you could tell, were comfortable operating at reach. You know, I've had people before. It's like, you know, being in a small team and in the day and no gunship, that's not a big deal to me. I'm used to that. Like I walk around in a field and sanging for eight hours with a, you know, £100 on my back and a belt fed machine gun. I'm good. Like I, I've been, I've lived that, you know. So to me, I never really felt like that. And it was interesting to me to watch people that hadn't done that, although they were very senior now and you know, in big command positions, you look around and you're like, you're not comfortable with this. You're, you're not, you're not. This is new to you, isn't it? There's no, there's no night vision now, dude. There's no, there's no AC130 up there. There's no, you know, there's no QRF. You know, there's all this stuff. I think it helped me because I was used to not having it. So it was interesting to me when you see those guys that are like, very specific skill set, extremely experienced, very, very professional, really good at what they did, but they hadn't done that, you know, they hadn't done that thing. And, you know, I know the difference between having morts fired at me and being mortal. I know the difference between, you know, when rounds are close or when you're under contact. Like there's a difference. You know, firefights generally don't last that long in tier one operations and they're not always. I don't care what I say, but if you do it right, it should be one way for the most part, you know, or it should be very short lived. You've got so much, so much to bring to bear and so much, you know, skill and talent there that we generally get used to winning. All I'd ever known was losing. All I ever did before we got to the regiment was be on the receiving end of stuff, you know, so I'm comfortable with that. I'm comfortable in that situation and I think that kind of helped me. I think it definitely did. I think it was definitely a good thing. But I do think that, you know, that conventional side of life is important. I think like it pays out when you do a very, if you do a generalist role like, you know, crew served weapons. I can operate a 50 cal, I can operate a GMG, I can be a JTAC, I can do this, I can do that. You know, I'm not saying I can do everything, but like I'm comfortable doing things that aren't just assault and building at night with night vision on. You know, we didn't have night vision.

Sean Ryan (167:17)

I'm asking because even, I mean I only had six years of the SEAL team, actually a little less than that. And you know, even as a young guy, I mean, you know, before the, before 911 happened, there was obviously a long stretch in between Vietnam and 911 where there was very few things, you know, there was Colombia, there was Panama, Somalia. There was very few people that participated in that. And so you know what happened. And I'll probably get blasted for saying this, but I don't care. Cause it's the fucking truth is my generation, you know, when I joined the SEAL teams, I was 18 or went to Buds. I was 18, I showed up at I think 19. And you know, the war had kicked off already at the very beginning of it. And so you got guys that are coming right out of BUDS going straight to war. And it created this kind of, like I said, inferior complex. And instead of embracing, you know, the younger generation that's getting that experience and that's able to pass it on.

J. Cal (168:32)

It.

Sean Ryan (168:32)

Demoralized a lot of guys, you know, because they would not acknowledge what you've done. And then it became the one up.

J. Cal (168:41)

Game and I hate that.

Sean Ryan (168:43)

And a lot of the good guys left because of that. And the guys that had no experience just kept rising through the ranks and it has created this fucking rot.

J. Cal (168:53)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (168:53)

Inside of the SEAL teams. And now you have, and I'm not saying everybody, not saying everybody, but you have brass at the very top who have never done A fucking thing. Never been on an operation. They've commanded operations from the talk.

J. Cal (169:10)

Yeah, that's familiar, Sean.

Sean Ryan (169:14)

And then, and then they judge you and then they put you under investigation and they want to know about how the op went down. It's almost. It's almost. It's not almost. It is. They are fucking working against you because they never had those experiences and they feel inferior because they are.

J. Cal (169:37)

Yeah, no, you're bang on, mate. You make a good point. And I think it's something that I've seen before. I said to you before, didn't I said experiences? It's a luxury, it's not a necessity. But there's definitely an element of command that if they don't have it, they'll lean into it when they need something or when they want an opinion on something, but then they'll shy away from it a little bit. And it's almost like you become punished because you've got experience or you're over experienced or you're overqualified or, you know, these types of things. It's like everyone's entitled to an opinion, but when it comes to a lot of what we do, experience is useful and it should be tapped into. And I do think that you don't see it too much on the sort of non commission level, but when you've got, you know, especially certain, certain elements of the officer type, you know, the officer class, if you will, like, I think they find that quite difficult, especially the, you know, in conventional, conventional forms, it's not that noticeable. But when you get into higher, higher levels, like I'm now putting forward a tack plan based off experience, based off having done this for over a decade at this point, you know, on my last deployment, or, you know, I'm coming up with a course of action in order to effectively execute an operation. And yet the points that you're bringing back to me are nonsense. And you're just showing your inexperience there. Now, it's fine that you haven't done all the stuff that other guys have done, but I think it would be, you know, very naive sometimes to not tap into that and listen to it. You might outrank me, but you definitely haven't done this as much as I have. And it might pay for you to listen to what we're saying. Not just me, but, you know, the collective. Because what we're saying is experience based. We're not making this up. Like that's important. Like if there's a right way and a wrong way to do it and we're trying to select the right way, then just because you haven't done it or seen it doesn't mean it's not going to work. Does that make sense? And I think especially certain types of offers, depending on the personality, they want control of it and it wants to be their idea and has to be done their way. And that's fine. If it's the right way and it's the good option, or if it isn't, then you're going to get challenged on it. But then there's almost this like, well, I'm in charge type mentality and it's like, it's quite frustrating. It's quite frustrating.

Sean Ryan (171:57)

Well, it's detrimental to the country as well.

J. Cal (171:59)

Yeah, it's detrimental to the outlook you.

Sean Ryan (172:01)

Have for your country. And for my country, you have this wealth of knowledge and all this experience and then. And then they become demoralized because of the inferior complex and they leave. And then. And when they leave, you lose all of that experience that could be passed on to the next generation 100%, which lessens our capabilities. Which.

J. Cal (172:31)

It's sad, it's frustrating.

Sean Ryan (172:32)

It's sad. It's a fucking bureaucracy that needs to change. And so anybody that's listening to this, from UK government, American government, any government, anybody who wants to have an effective military, you need that experience. I could go on forever. I mean, we interviewed Captain Brad Geary, who was an amazing human being. Dallas Alexander, the Canadian soft guy that was on the sniper team that took a 2.1 mile fucking shot. It was the world record shot.

J. Cal (173:09)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (173:10)

And they kicked him out. They kicked him off the team. Some world record sniper kill. And they just took that experience and brushed it off.

J. Cal (173:21)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (173:23)

Nobody in the world has taken a shot like that.

J. Cal (173:25)

One of one, One of one.

Sean Ryan (173:28)

And that experience is gone.

J. Cal (173:29)

Yeah, I felt that. I felt that towards the end. Yeah, there was a few things that happened in my career that I got punished for that. I was like, what the fuck are we talking about here? Like, this is. This is like minor things, right? Like, do you want me to be good at being an operator? Do you want me to be effective on the battlefield? Do you want me to have, you know, the ability to change something? Do you want me to provide solutions to problems? Do you want me to go and be effective and do my job? But if you do, then you have to know that it comes with the whole package. You know, the reason that I'm able to do that is because of these things. So if you know, for example, I mean, slightly digress, but like, yeah, no, I'm drinking too much. No, I'm probably spending too much time, you know, doing whatever. Or maybe, maybe I'm not, you know, maybe I should have had a bit more respect for somebody or shouldn't have said that. But like, if you want me to be. If you employed me to be this person, you've selected me because of the character traits that I've got and my ability to be effective on the battlefield. But you can't have it both ways. Like, do you want me to be a camp commando or do you want me to be a commando? Which one do you want? Because they very seldomly link up the best operators I know and have worked with and seen. Like, none of those are those squeaky clean white knight types. And those types of characters very seldomly have the experience to back it. I don't believe in white knights. I think everybody's got something going on at some point. But those that try and take the moral high ground on stuff or, you know, give us a culture review or this or that, or try and pull like the moral high ground, it's like we're out there trying to have an impact. We're out there trying to have an effect on the enemy. That's what, that's what the British army is for. That's what any army is for. It doesn't matter what unit you're at. It's about having an effect against the enemy. Like, and I think it's worse in peacetime. I think in peacetime the army doesn't know what to do with itself. So it just creates bullshit. You know, it's, oh, this or it's that, or it could, you know, it's trivial stuff. Don't wear those shoes. You gotta wear that. Shave your face.

Sean Ryan (175:33)

Like, that's how they hide behind the inexperience.

J. Cal (175:36)

That's what they.

Sean Ryan (175:36)

A good leader. A good leader will take that experience from their subordinates. They'll embrace it, they'll utilize it, they'll acknowledge it.

J. Cal (175:46)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (175:47)

And then become a phenomenal leader.

J. Cal (175:49)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (175:50)

But the ego gets in the way.

J. Cal (175:53)

You took the word out of my mouth. And it's something that I definitely have learned to come to terms with and something that I was fucking not aware of. Ego management. Ego management would be my number one thing that I would say to a new guy checking into a squadron. I'd say, you need to manage that shit because it will fucking take you down a path that you don't want to go down. And if you're not even aware of It, I haven't got an ego, dude. We've all got egos. We've all got one. Male, female, doesn't make a difference. But if you're not aware of it and you don't keep it in check, then it's, it's going to be about, it's going to be a problem, you know, and my ego management was non existent for a long time. And I wasn't arrogant. I wasn't, I try not to be arrogant. I was very sure of myself. But it gets to a point where you realize that you are capable. You realize that you do have that experience. You realize that you are quite, you know, able to, you know, you're able to do a whole bunch of different skill sets. You get comfortable with it and at that point there, that's when you really need to keep it in check because it can be quite easy to let that run away with you. And then you can come across as arrogant or, you know, overhyped or all these things. And I think, you know, ego management is something that I've definitely learned the hard way through and I'm still not perfect, far from it. I'm just trying to manage it a little bit better these days.

Sean Ryan (177:16)

Well, I think you're doing a damn good job. I mean, you know, at the beginning of this, you were hesitant to talk about these type of experiences. And I'm the one that's pressing you and I'm the one that's pulling it out of you. I know you don't want to talk about this shit, but it's important.

J. Cal (177:30)

Yeah, it is important. You know, like I said to you before, Sean, like, I'm no. People will look at it. I'm no poster boy, dude. I've fucked up so much stuff in my career. I fucked up loads of stuff professionally, emotionally. Yeah.

Sean Ryan (177:46)

What's the biggest fuck up you think you've done?

J. Cal (177:49)

That's a good question. That is a good question. I think I got carried away in the life and the status of being that guy for a little bit longer than I should have. I think I went through a period of being over the moon to have been in the squadron. And the first six months, two years, was the best start I could have got. Lots of deployments, lots of gunfights, lots of everything, and it was all good. And then I think I kind of got a little bit comfortable with that and rested on my laurels a little bit. And I think I spent probably between two years to probably about four or five years not being as professional as I Could be because I was always at the standard that I needed to be. And I wasn't trying to, you know, I wasn't trying to really get that 1% out, really trying to squeeze it. And it's not to say that I was lazy or complacent, because I was far from lazy and complacent. But I was probably a bit more interested in driving a nice car or having a nice watch or, you know, a pretty girlfriend than I probably was about making sure that my CQB was the best it could be, or my jumping was the best it could be. My CQB was good enough, my jumping was good enough. That kind of good enough mentality, I think I had that for too long. And then when I really did ramp it up, it was because I decided not to drink alcohol for a thousand days. I decided one day, that's it, I've had enough. You know, it makes me feel like shit. I don't want to live that life anymore. I need to make some changes. I'm hurting people, it's having a detrimental effect on my career. I'm making bad decisions. I was a fucking loose cannon for a while in the squadron, for sure. And no matter how good you are, how effective you are, you still gotta be in harmony with the group. And I don't think I was necessarily. And I think I was. I think I had a mentality of I'm fucking doing it my way, because that's the only way I know. And I think I should have slowed down a little bit on that and, and just. Yeah, I mean, I got in. I was reduced in rank once. I had a couple of three month warnings, like I was a handful. And I got to the point, and this is not making excuses, but I just didn't want to listen to people anymore, listen to people that I knew to be less experienced or of a different mindset to me. And I should have been more accommodating to that and I should have had more emotional intelligence to be able to navigate that better. Where it was like, if you didn't agree with my philosophy or my sort of my ethics, I suppose then it was, you know, it was a kind of a you type mentality, you know, that didn't serve me well. I don't, I don't regret anything I've ever done in the military. I don't. And when I look back retrospectively, yeah, I could have done some stuff differently, but I also know that's part of who I am and why I did it. And if I Hadn't have done those things or behaved in certain ways or, you know, been reckless, maybe then I wouldn't be the person I am today. And I'm good with the person I am today. You know, we've talked a lot about stuff that's happened in the past, but, you know, bottom line is I can look myself in a mirror, and I'm far from fucking perfect, dude. You know, if I practice what I preached, I'd be perfect. But I don't. I'm human. And I'm trying to relearn how to be an actual human being. I'm not an operator anymore. That's a difficult thing to do. So I'm more in touch with that, if that makes sense. I'm more connected to my own process and to my own sort of emotions, if you will. But for a very long time, I was just trying to be that dude, you know, and it didn't really serve me.

Sean Ryan (181:56)

Did you come to a realization that you needed to change?

J. Cal (182:00)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (182:03)

What triggered that?

J. Cal (182:08)

If you want me to be honest, I put a pistol in my mouth a couple of times, and that fucking changed my life. It got to a point after a bunch of deployments, a whole bunch of shit had happened. Yeah, my grandma. I lost my grandma. Matt got killed. Close family friend got killed in a weird accident. I fucking watched a helicopter crash. Been fucking blown up, the whole box, just. And I was just at the lowest point I'd ever been. And it was almost like the one thing. The one thing that I had that kept me. Kept me going, had stopped working. The deployments, the combat, all that shit was what kept me alive. And I started to become immune to it. And I just didn't fucking feel anything. And I didn't look forward to anything. And I didn't really see a way out of it, if I'm honest. And it just seemed hopeless for a long time. And I fought it and I fought it and I fought it. And then one day, I nearly gave up fighting it. And I didn't, thank God, but that sobers you up pretty fucking quickly because that was ready to go. I remember at Clear as Day, I was at the end of a range. I'd just been. I'd been punished for some bullshit at work. Fucking doesn't even. Doesn't even grant a conversation with you. It doesn't even warrant it. But I'd basically been told that, you know, promotion prospects were zero. You know, I was probably looking to get out of the squadron. I didn't feel valued. I was made to feel like, basically. And I was heartbroken about it. And I was like, well, if I can't do this, the one thing I dedicated my entire life to, the only thing, the only thing that I really truly loved. At that point, it felt like it was all gone. It was all been thrown away. So I nearly fucking did it. I nearly went there on two occasions.

Sean Ryan (184:34)

Two times you had a pistol in your mouth.

J. Cal (184:36)

Yeah. What? Not once it was in my. Once was in my mouth and once was just sat on my lap. Both loaded, made ready, one in the chamber. Both times in the same situation. Once, the first time I got a phone call. That was the closest time, I think.

Sean Ryan (184:54)

Which time was that?

J. Cal (184:55)

The first time was that in the mouth? Yeah.

Sean Ryan (185:00)

You got a phone call while you had a gun in your mouth?

J. Cal (185:03)

Yeah, I'd played with it. Huh.

Sean Ryan (185:06)

Who called you?

J. Cal (185:08)

He was a good friend of mine at the time. He later went on to betray me. There was a girl involved. I'd come off the range, I was going back to my house, gonna drink. Like, I did a lot to feel something. I was like, you know what? I don't want to keep fucking doing this. So I'm sat there, I'm in the car, closed up the range, signed the book, about to go and hand the guns in, and I just did it. I just fucking made it ready, put it underneath my chin, felt that, Put it down a little bit, thought about it, Put it in my mouth, thought about it. I don't have the fucking balls to do it. I wanted to. I fucking wanted to, you know? And yeah, I get the phone call. What time are we shooting tomorrow? You want to come to the range? Cool. I'll see you in the morning. Live to fight another day, right? Stay in the fight. I don't know what would have happened if that phone call hadn't come. I'd like to sit there and tell you that I would have talked myself down. I don't know if I would have or not. Maybe, yeah, I was dealing with a fucking lot of shit, and I was dealing with it really, really badly. And I was throwing alcohol at the problem. And the one thing that made me feel good about myself was my job. And my job was not long, no longer making me feel good about myself. So at that point there, I'm like, ah, what is the point? What is the point in all of this, you know?

Sean Ryan (186:59)

You know, it's interesting you had mentioned earlier that, that you don't have a strong relationship with God.

J. Cal (187:10)

There's no atheist in a trench. I know.

Sean Ryan (187:15)

What do you Think that was. I mean, the timing. You think that was a coincidence of that phone call?

J. Cal (187:21)

No, I don't think so.

Sean Ryan (187:24)

What do you think it was?

J. Cal (187:26)

I don't know. I don't know. It's a very difficult one to. This is a conversation I've not even had with myself for a very long time. So if I'm stumbling through it, you have to apologise. I don't know why that happened that day the way it did, but it did. I don't believe in coincidences. And the more I look at it, the more there must have been. There has to be. You know, things happen for a reason, don't they? You don't always understand it or even acknowledge it or recognize it. Sometimes.

Sean Ryan (188:05)

The timing of that is a miracle.

J. Cal (188:07)

It's a fucking nothing short of a miracle, mate.

Sean Ryan (188:14)

That came from up there.

J. Cal (188:17)

Came from somewhere, brother.

Sean Ryan (188:19)

It brought you here today.

J. Cal (188:20)

I would not be fucking sat here if that phone didn't ring. That's a fucking fact.

Sean Ryan (188:26)

You know, and what you're about to get into, you know, after we get through your SAS career, it brought you to this point. You're the one that's supposed to fucking do this. You're the one that has the courage to have the voice to stand up for all your teammates, all the people that passed, everything that's going on, all the investigations brought you here.

J. Cal (188:54)

It feels like it's for something. It really does.

Sean Ryan (189:00)

And who knows what else is to come?

J. Cal (189:02)

Yeah. Who knows, brother? I said before, it feels like for the first time in a long time, there is no black cloud on the horizon. And I feel truly free. I'm a little hurt, as they say, but I'm a lot more free than I was, you know? And I think sometimes you have to fight through, you know? And I think to myself how lucky and how fortunate I am to have good people around me, people that help me. And if I can, in some small, insignificant way, help somebody else or do something that has a positive effect on our community or an individual, then that's worth staying in the fight for. That's worth going up. That's a hill I will die on, you know? Um.

Sean Ryan (189:52)

What was the gentleman's name that called you?

J. Cal (189:55)

Ben.

Sean Ryan (189:56)

Does he know?

J. Cal (189:58)

No. No, he doesn't.

Sean Ryan (190:05)

He does now.

J. Cal (190:06)

Now he does, yeah.

Sean Ryan (190:09)

Do you think you'll have a conversation with him?

J. Cal (190:11)

No. Never. No. No, I don't think I will. I probably should, but. Ego management, right? That's right. We just fucking talked about it, didn't we? He fucking hurt me, dude.

Sean Ryan (190:31)

He also saved you.

J. Cal (190:33)

Yeah, he did.

Sean Ryan (190:36)

Indirectly.

J. Cal (190:37)

Indirectly for sure. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it, how things go like that? Yeah. We were fucking super tight at the time, man. I was like, fucking hell. Yeah. That was just a. You know, I feel like I was one thing away from. From fucking breaking, you know, at all times. I felt like that for a long period of time. And then when they took it. Felt like they took it away from me. They took the one thing that fucking gave me purpose. And I felt lonely and I felt fucking scared, and I didn't know what to do, and I just didn't want to fucking be there anymore. I didn't want to be there, you.

Sean Ryan (191:25)

Know, I don't know what happened between you and Ben, and I don't want to go into it, but I can tell you one thing that I've learned in life. You want to be free? You have to learn forgiveness, because it probably affects you a lot more than it affects him. And when you let that shit go, it's gone.

J. Cal (191:51)

I need to work on that. That's something that I'm. You know, I don't know what it is. I've got a very unique capability to be able to shop people out of my life that have been close to me in a fucking heartbeat.

Sean Ryan (192:07)

We all have that.

J. Cal (192:08)

Yeah. Oh, I'm world class at it. I'm a pro at that. And I look back at relationships and friendships and people. I don't know whether it's because I moved around quite a bit. I did move around quite a lot. I don't know whether it's because. Is it because I'm an only child? Is it because I went to a whole bunch of different schools? But my ability to detach emotionally from something, regardless of whether it's after five minutes, five years, or whatever, I can do that very, very quickly and capable. And it's a toxic trait that I've got. And I hate it about myself because I can do it. And it's. It's. It's running away. It's being a coward is what it is. I will. I won't deal with it. I'll just block it, deal with it later, move on. And it's hurt. It hurts people. And I don't like that about myself. It's necessary to be able to do that. I learned to do that really well because that was the only thing that I could do to cope. You know, like, I don't have time to deal with that. You know, it's like when John got hit. It goes Back to that, doesn't it? I came back into the patrol base, I washed the blood out of the quad, and I went and sat on that sanger over watching the exact position that it happened. And I remember feeling that I can't. I can't. I can't stop. And I remember looking and watching. It's a very dark thing when you can see a pack of wild dogs up there and you know what they're doing and you know why they're there. And you see people up there, you know, picking stuff up. Like, that's within minutes of this happening, certainly within an hour. Like, that was my reality. There ain't no fucking time for this. You ain't got time to sit there and cry. You ain't got to sit there and fucking mourn. Like, I don't give a fuck about people's feelings sometimes because that was a coping mechanism. Emotion was not a fucking good thing. I'm a fucking quite an emotional person, but I'm either one or the other. It's like no emotion, completely indifferent, or I'm all in, you know? And I hate that about myself. I do. But at the same time, it's been a necessary tool, you know? Like, we're going out on patrol tomorrow. That's what we're doing, you know? And that's fine until you're not going out on patrol anymore. And now you've got to deal with it, you know? And again, I'm just trying to. I'm trying to improve, man. That's all I'm trying to do. And I'm trying to be a fucking better person. I'm trying to learn how to be a human being. I've not been a fucking human being for the best part of 20 years. I've been a fucking warrior. That's what I've been doing. But that's not. That's. That's not an excuse. That's not an excuse to be a shitty dad. That's not an excuse to be a shitty boyfriend. It's not good enough. You have fucking. It's not good enough. I've got high standards, but when it comes to emotional stuff or empathy or people's feelings, I need to be better. I know that. I recognize it. But it's fucking not easy, dude. It's a hard, hard thing to do. But you are right, forgiveness is fucking important. I don't pay it too much mind. If I'm honest. I'm kind of dealt with it mentally. I think I've gotten over it and got past it. I hope you call them.

Sean Ryan (196:04)

Or text him or write them or email them. Doesn't mean you got to be buddies with them. But then you can put it behind you. Truly put it behind you.

J. Cal (196:19)

It serves as a reminder to me. You're right. I should. Maybe I will. I can't promise what I'll do, but what I can do for you is I promise that I'll think about that and I'll let you know.

Sean Ryan (196:33)

Please do.

J. Cal (196:33)

I will. I will.

Jeremy (196:36)

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Sean Ryan (199:00)

So let's talk about checking into the unit.

J. Cal (199:04)

Yeah. So two weeks after I finish, I get my beret, go to America, I start jumping, everything's good, I check into the squadron, I turn up, arrive in the middle of the night, squadron's out, they're on a job. So I go, the Stormman picks me up. There's four of us. Four of us checked into my squadron for my course, all in different troops. I got air troop, which I fucking didn't really want initially, I'll be honest with you, because I fucking had a horrific time on my basic chomps course. And I was like, I don't really want to start getting into this, like, fucking free fall stuff and all the rest of it. But they were like, you're going on a trip. So I was like, cool, I fucking guess I better go free fall, you know. But I checked in, went into the building. We're in Kandahar at the time. And I was fucking blown away. From day one, I was in love with that job, that place, that fucking. It felt like I'd landed. It felt like finally that I was where I needed to be, you know, the guys came back in the next day, and it's a weird fucking sensation because I want to say nobody spoke to you because you're the new guy, or nobody did that, but that's not the case. Everyone was so good to me, like, and they were like that because they knew that they had to be. We were going on operations regularly. We were out most nights, day, vis, night, vis, detention, operations, raid, you name it. We were fucking going in all directions and new guys were on everything, you know, So I had a lot of time to fucking gain respect and gain trust, and that's exactly what I tried to do. And, yeah, I was just fucking impressed by the. What was most impressive, actually, was the. Was the how slick that whole operation was. Everybody knew what was going on, but nobody was asking any questions, if that makes sense. Everyone just knew. But I was always made to feel welcome. It was like, you know that old saying, there's no such thing as a stupid question. It genuinely. And you did feel like that. And I just had so many people to look around and learn from. It was just an incredibly intense experience. And I think you gain trust quite quickly in an operational environment once people Knew that I was a professional and I was there for the right reasons. People like you, you know, you start to feel part of it. And once I felt part of it and felt loved and felt part of the team, which happened pretty quickly, I felt head over heels in love with the whole thing. I didn't want to do anything for the rest of my life. It was just. There was a long period of my time. If you could have just left me in that compound in Kandahar, just hitting targets every night, going to the gym, I would have been fucking, I would have done that for the rest of my life, you know, I was actually happy. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. There was nowhere else that I needed to go and chase. I was exactly doing what I was supposed to be doing. And I'm surrounded by people that all felt and did exactly the same thing as me. One of the first guys that I met the morning after, the night that I arrived, we had a bunch of welcoming briefs. Basically, Chris Craighead sat me down. He was running the partner force at the time and he told me everything about the partner force, how it works, what his job was, where I would fit in, you know, do's and don'ts, things that they, you know, things that make them work well, things that don't make them work well. And it was just so impressive to me, you know, all of the team leaders were fucking rock stars to me, you know, I looked up at those guys, still do for the most part. For most of them, like they were gods, you know, I was just like, wow, like there are levels to this stuff. I'd come from a fairly high level of soldiering, but when I got to this position and these guys, I was like, okay, there are levels here that I didn't even know fucking existed, you know, and it was just a pleasure to be around. It was a, it was a happy time in my life. You know, come back from that first deployment, we'd done a whole bunch of cool shit, you know, loads of VI's, fucking loads of gunfights. It was good. It was so, so impressive to see the level of professionalism and efficiency being executed by so many people. Not just the guys on the ground, but the Special Forces support group, the marines and paras on the cordon, the helicopter pilots, the targeteers, the, the signalers. Fuck, dude, even the cooks, even the chefs, man, the whole thing was just well oiled. And it was a strange feeling because you're now sat in a One man. Air conditioned room with WI fi, hot showers, three square meals a day, good gym, secure location, no sentry, very little ID risk. Like, I was like, thank fuck for that. This is exactly what I wanted. It was everything that I thought it would be and more. And I just wanted to be good. I just wanted to be as best as I could. And I think I did that for a little while and then I got comfortable after a couple of years and then I kind of didn't stop trying. I just stopped trying so hard, you know, I just let it roll. Then do you think it.

Sean Ryan (204:06)

Do you think the fact that there's nowhere else to go, there's no level up, you're at the pinnacle?

J. Cal (204:13)

Correct. That's the problem. That was a problem that I suffered with because it was like, well, what the else do I do now? I'm 24 years old, I'm. Got my dream job. It's not a job, it's a way of life. And I kind of not took my foot off the gas a little bit, but I kind of enjoyed it a little bit too much than I did. You know, I was drinking too much, going out, you know, chasing girls and trying to be that dude, man. And it just. It just didn't really. I thought I had it. I thought I had everything that I could ever want, you know, I'm 25 years old, 24 years old, whatever, driving around in a fancy BMW. I've got multiple Rolexes. I look in good shape. But all that, all that and all that stuff that I thought would make me happy didn't make me happy. It didn't. It was poison. It was toxic, you know, and it took me a long time to realize that. A long time. So, you know, if I was to look back on that career, I would just say just have a bit more. I should have been more humble with it, I think. A bit more humility and a bit more intelligence when it comes to diet. And I don't mean carbs and fats, I mean everything that you consume is diet. The music that you listen to, the people that you hang around with, the decisions you make, the drinks you have, the drinks you don't have, the clubs you go to, the ones you don't. The time you go to the range, the time you don't. My diet wasn't good on the outside. It looked like I had it all on the inside, I was just hollow. And it was just about deployments for a long time. It was just about, how many. How many bombs can I drop? How many how many bad guys can I get? You know, how many jumps can I do? How quick can I put a charge on a door? Like that was it. That was. You know, that was the only thing that I valued. That was the only thing that mattered. And that's all good and well, but it does wear off. And when it does, you need to have something else, you know? I don't like the person I was back then. I don't. I feel like I was a fucking good soldier, a good operator, but I was a fucking shitty dad. I wasn't there. Not always, because I. There were times where I was too preoccupied in my own existence than I was, and I should have done more. I missed out on a lot of those years, I think, by being too consumed in my own fucking hype, man. That's what it was. I was too fucking too consumed in it. And I. Drinking a Kool Aid too much, you know, And I don't know if that's just part of growing up or what it is. And I see it now. I see it, and I see it in the young guys. Not young guys, but the guys that have come through. They do the first two years where they're, like, panicking that they're not at the standard, then they get comfortable, and then they take the foot off the gas and all of a sudden it becomes more about all the other bullshit than it does about being a good dude and a good soldier. It's a weird one.

Sean Ryan (207:22)

I think it's because, I mean, people that are as driven as you are, or anybody that operates at that level, I mean, where does the drive go? Where does the drive go when there's no next step? There's nothing left to work for. All you can do is. And I'm not saying this lightly when I say all you can do but is work on perfecting your craft more.

J. Cal (207:50)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (207:51)

And so, you know, when you reach the pinnacle of whatever you're doing, I think there's an aspect to everybody that becomes boring.

J. Cal (208:06)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (208:07)

And then you have to reinvent because the drive never goes away.

J. Cal (208:11)

Yeah, it doesn't. I think for me, it was.

Sean Ryan (208:18)

It becomes confusing.

J. Cal (208:20)

Confusing is exactly what I was about to say. It comes. It's. It's very difficult to. To see the wood from the trees. You know, I was. I didn't see it. Now, when I look back retrospectively, it's easy to go. Of course, if your diet was the out, if your input is. The output is going to be right. But when you're in it, it's very difficult And I was always very confused about, you know, what priorities were. It was. It was like a boom or bust period of my life. Like, everything was disposable. Life was disposable. Relationships were disposable. I was living to go on deployments. I was coming back from deployment just to get ready to work up on the next cycle to go again, you know? And when that stopped working and it stopped making me feel good about myself, it's like you become, you know, dependent on this drug, this thing, this chemical reaction that you get to doing that job. You know, when that wears off, you channel it in other ways. You channel it in other ways. I used to drink a lot to feel something. Not to drown out the pain or to numb myself or any of that. It was just to feel something, you know, I'd just become indifferent. It was like nothing really mad. And it was depressing, man. It was dark. And I didn't really care what people thought. If I didn't like someone's opinion, I'd tell them, you know, I wasn't a decent person for a long time, and I wasn't. I wasn't that bad. But I was pretty fucking far from being the person that I want to be at that point. I think that sort of middle period of my life or my military career. I was an exceptional soldier, but I was a fucking shitty dude. I think I might be being a bit harsh on myself, but I definitely do things a little bit differently. So when you ask me what my biggest fuck up was, was not managing my ego and not channeling my drive and taking things for granted and not prioritizing the right things, I think that was what I did.

Sean Ryan (210:41)

Sounds like you found it now.

J. Cal (210:43)

I'm trying. I'm trying, Sean. I'm fucking trying real hard, mate, to be better. And I get dragged back there sometimes.

Sean Ryan (210:52)

Well, just talking to you before the interview, I mean, sounds like you're really trying to figure out how to be a better father for your daughter.

J. Cal (211:00)

I'm trying. That's all there is left to do now. There's no selection courses. There's no more operations. There's no more. It's gone. It's not there. And I'm just trying to build and be better. And it's fucking hard. Like, it's the one thing I don't know how to do. And I'm trying to navigate it the best I can, and it's fucking hard. And it makes it even harder when I'm trying to shield her from all this fucking bullshit in the Newspapers and all this sort, you know, all these types of things. These people that don't care about me, don't care about my family. And I'm trying to rebuild that. And I want her to see stuff like this. One of the reasons that I do this or I put stuff on my Instagram account is because I want her to know who I am and I want her to see all of it. And I want her to know exactly what it is that I've been doing and why I've been doing it, you know, and she hopefully when she grows up as a young woman, will see that and she'll go, I'm not perfect, but I fucking love her to death, you know, And I hope she sees that. I think she will, I hope she will. I pray. That's all I need to do now is just that, you know, that's the only thing left to achieve.

Sean Ryan (212:08)

Is there anything you would say to her right now?

J. Cal (212:10)

I love her. I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry for all the fucking birthdays and Christmases and I'm proud. I'm so fucking proud of her, man. She's gorgeous, smart, a fucking athlete, you know? And I just look at her and I just think, that's why I didn't press that trigger. That's why I did it. I'm ashamed of myself for almost being that selfish. Because I was selfish for a long time. And it fucking breaks my heart, it does. But I'm still in the fight and I'm not stopping. Okay? I'm gonna try and keep going and improve and be better. I'm gonna fuck it up again. I know I am. At some point. It's natural. I'm not perfect. I'm just wanna be better, you know? So I'd say that I'm sorry and I'm proud.

Sean Ryan (213:23)

You're off to a damn good start. Let's talk about your first operation kinetic operation NSAs in Afghanistan.

J. Cal (213:35)

I remember it very clearly. We was. I was in salt, three different assault teams. But my job was basically to run out if there were any. We call them squirters. But essentially that's people for people that don't know. That's people that run away when the helicopters land, move to fighting positions or try and escape capture or whatever it might be. So we were Runner Control, call it Runner Control, Squirt Control, whatever you want to call it. I remember getting out of the back of the CH47 and running towards target when those birds landed. We were on the X. And for those that don't understand what on the X means. It means we were landing on the target and running straight to where our assault positions were and we were locking down the compound and you know, whatever the enemy decided to do then we were going to have our say. But I remember getting off in the first. I wasn't even out of the brown out and I can hear suppressed rounds being fired. And this was in seconds of me being boots on the ground for the first time. I walk out of the brown out. Still a bit more of a gunfight going on just up above from where my position was probably about 50 meters in front of me. And I fan out like we do in the jungle. There's a very specific drill that you do in the jungle. And that's what I'm going back on my jungle training. And the guy behind me just like, basically grabbed me and just stay in the line. And I was like, oh, okay, cool, don't fan out. Basically I was like, oh, things are slightly different here. I moved to my position, step over a dude, he's got a long barrel weapon system. Face down. He'd been brassed up. There was another gunfight going on in another compound around the corner. And I basically just went to the position I was supposed to be in and awaited further direction. Basically there were no runners. That guy didn't get the chance to, to run. He was trying to fight. He'd fired some rounds. I didn't hear that as I landed because of the brown out and the rotor wash, but he'd engaged the task force on infill as they were coming out. And as he went down, the lead guy just dropped him in place. And that was the first real time. And I'm, I'm, I don't mind saying this, that was the first real time. I was like up close to a dude. This is not Afghanistan 2010, where they're ghosts and you don't often get to see them. I mean, I'd say seen plenty of dead bodies before, but not, not guys that are armed and ready to fight there and then, do you know what I mean? That was. The proximity of what it was, was completely new to me in that, you know, I'd been in a lot of gunfights till then and you know, I'd made a lot of engagements. I say a lot, half a dozen or so live engagements with people that I know for a fact I've hit. But it was all at range, whereas this was super close. And I was like, that's kind of what I was looking for, you know, I was like, yeah, we've landed. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And again, everyone's just so calm about it. Everyone's just like, yeah, like, he shot us, we shot him back. That's just the way it does business. And I know that sounds super basic, like, of course that's what you're there to do, but it's when you see it for the first time, you're like, ah, fuck, this is fucking. This is cool. This is cool. Like, this is. This is why I went through this whole process to get to this situation to get that stuff seat on that helicopter. And then you're into like sse. And I don't really want to do it. And I'm like. It was a strange one because I was like, we're doing ssc. So sse, for those that don't know, is basically making sure that we get all of the right information. You know, whether it's in, you know, documents, hard drives, USBs, anything that we can take off target that will then feed into the targeting cycle. So it's a super important job. And it's down to the new guys, basically, because it's hard work. And I look around and helmets off, dudes have got helmets off. Assault weapon, you know, rifles are just lent against the wall. Dudes are smoking, talking. All the new guys are running around like crazy trying to bag everything up and all the rest of it. And I'm like, how have we gone from being super hyper professional to being like standing around smoking with the helmets off? I was like, do you understand what I'm saying? It was like. It was a bit of a strange experience, but that was just what feeling out the squadron was like. And then you just, you get used to like, I'm like trying to pull sentry and pull guard. And I'm like, you don't need to do that. Is that why is that gunship's up there? And I'm like, oh, oh, okay. Do you understand? So it was a bit of a shift in that way. But yeah, that was the first. Within literally within seconds of stepping off the bird, shots were fired. Enemy engaged. Gummed up. I was like, yeah, this is exactly what it's supposed to be. And it just carried on, Just carried on like that.

Sean Ryan (218:02)

Do you remember the fire the first time that you killed somebody for close range?

J. Cal (218:05)

Yeah, I do, yeah. It was on a nighttime vehicle interdiction. We were hitting the narco, so that basically they were taking heroin, opium and all kinds of other shit from Helmand province down to the border in Pakistan, and then they were swapping it for guns and then bringing those guns back up to use against the British Army. So we were just smashing those as best we could. We were doing them day and night. It was a dog, actually, that fucking saved me on this occasion. We got off. So there's multiple birds, but the bird that I was on was in charge of again, runner control, basically. So we had to stop a bird and then a bird that would essentially, anyone that ran, we would then vector towards that. And then the 47s at the back would be the sort of assault force that would then go up and clear the vehicle. So I was like on, you know, what's the word? Reserve, basically. But these guys had run out, they were gunned up and they'd gone off into the desert. Bird goes down. It was on the. On the 60s, so the Blackhawks American cruise. And I get off, my team leader's just like that, and I'm like, ah, cool. So you see this sparkle? So it's like this IR pulse in the desert, which the drones have captured this guy running and maneuvering away. So they're vectoring me towards this location, but it's not specific to the point where it's like, I know exactly where this dude is. It's a general area and it was all sort of shrubs and bushes, and I'm just sort of closing down. I've got a couple of guys behind me, the dog handlers there, and it's a bush about sort of this high. And I'm coming round and I'm starting to clear it, I'm starting to clear it. And all of a sudden the dog comes from my position over to the right and goes right across my front and hits the bush on the left. And he fucking locks onto this dude. And I can see him straight away. He's got the gun in one hand and he's got a fucking dog on the other arm. And I just swing round and it's almost as if we had that. It was like. I'm not going to say it was super professional. I was like, holy fuck. I nearly just got lit up there. I need to slow down. It was more shock and panic than it was anything else, but we're pretty much as close as we are now. And I don't remember a sight picture. I don't remember anything. I just put a late red laser on his chest and dumped four, five, six rounds into it, and that was it. And I'm just like, hell, like, thank God for that dog. You Know anything? Those were dicey. Those VI's were dicey. Especially when you're closing down with people in those situations because they've got the drop on you for the most part. Obviously we've got night vision, all the dogs and all the tools to get it, but it only takes one burst, you know, but that is close. That is proximity. Like, you can see the dude. Like, from me to you. And it was like, yeah, over and done with. No one bats an eyelid. No one's like, well done. Or you're right. It's just like, yeah, one time. Zka, weapons found. Search him, take a picture. DNA. Gone. That's it. Onto the next operation. Like, yeah, surreal. But I'm not going to say it didn't feel good. I was indifferent to it. There was no emotional attachment to it whatsoever. It was like, that's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. It was. It wasn't like I didn't feel good about it and feel bad about it. I didn't feel anything about it, really, if I'm honest with you. It was like, well, if you're going to smuggle drugs and kill British soldiers and then you're going to run around the desert with a gun in your hand, then what the fuck do you expect? You know, you bought a ticket, you voted, that's the outcome. But it was.

Sean Ryan (221:28)

Did you feel a sense of accomplishment?

J. Cal (221:30)

Yeah, 100%. I felt like I was proud of myself because I did what I was supposed to do, you know, and it wasn't an ego thing. It wasn't like, yeah, I've done this, I've done that. It was just like, oh, good. I reacted the way that I'm supposed to react and I didn't hesitate and I did exactly what was supposed to happen. And the end result was, right, this guy would have fucking killed me if I'd have given him the chance. I learned some lessons to it. Slow the fuck down. Like, be careful. Be a bit more cautious. I did feel bulletproof for a long time. I did have that sense of. I've done two tours of sanging like that. Carried me on for a long time. I was like, I can't die. I'm bomb proof. I'm literally bomb proof. I've been blown up a bunch of times, shot a bunch of times. Like, I thought I was indestructible. And that was a little bit of an early warning there. Just to be like, jay, just chill out a little bit. Hold your horses. Because it only takes one round, right? And they Don't. They don't have to be surgical. The application of violence that we do in those squadrons is surgical application. And it's extremely, it's extremely detailed in terms of the level of proficiency and the application of it. It's hyper professional. Whereas these guys don't need to be like that. They're just one round, two round here, there, and you don't, you know, I've learned that lesson before, the hard way. It doesn't matter if you're the best operator in the world, it doesn't matter if you're the best Royal Marine in the world. If you step on something or you move 2, 2 inches to the left or 2 inches to the right, you don't get the chance to be good, you're just gonna get, you're gonna get hurt. So that was a gentle reminder to myself there that you're not indestructible and always fucking clear your corner. Right? So, yeah, it was, it was strange, one bit surreal. I'm grateful for the dog, grateful for the dog, Ambler. But yeah, I learned a lot of lessons on that. But yeah, I don't feel any empathy for it. No.

Sean Ryan (223:18)

What were you guys doing in North Africa?

J. Cal (223:21)

So I was on a small team, six man team. We were operating at rich people talk about our med timelines. There was like 24 hours, like there was nobody else there. But I flew into the airport on a British Airways flight and we were gathering information, we were working out which militias that we could potentially look to use partner forces for, for further operations down the line. We were trying to find and recover potential chemical weapons that had been left after the fall of the regime. We were on a fact finding mission, essentially. We were just. It was a low vis operation, no camouflage. Everything that we needed was already there. They'd taken it out there. So you didn't fly into country with guns, you didn't fly in with nods. It was all there. And when I flew in, it was on a British Airways flight and it was all good for about 10 days. And then the country imploded. Two militias, one from the east, one from the west, that just basically went to war with each other and everyone flee, everyone fled the country.

Sean Ryan (224:27)

What year is this?

J. Cal (224:28)

2014. Yeah, 2014, I think. I think if I'm right, we are probably, if not the only team that's ever had to deny a safe house in time, like in situ, like real time. We got rolled up by pure luck or bad luck, depending on how you look at it. Basically our compound was situated in the Middle of a long road, about a kilometer in length, and on one side of the road you had one militia, on the other side of the road you had another militia. And they were just going at it, but they were going at it with everything from grad rockets to ZSU 234s. I've never seen weapons like that, you know, that was all out scrapping. And we just happened by pure bad luck to have a safe house in the middle of that location. It wasn't targeted at us, it wasn't something that they knew about. But half the team are in the other side of the country doing a meeting for three hours away. And I'm in the safe house with one other guy, one other operator, a signaler, a pool boy called Ali, who's a local national, and another sort of expat guy who was probably late, late 60s, early 70s that we used to employ to, like, paint stuff and, you know, odd jobs. Basically, he was a Brit. So we've got this mix match of people inside of this, inside of this house when all this is going off. And it started off quite, quite gentle, you know, just a bit of gunfire here and there. It wasn't. It wasn't normal, but it wasn't anything to be worried about. But then throughout the day, it just ramped up and up and up, and the guys were racing back as far as they can or as fast as they can to come and help us out, basically. It's a fucking funny story, like we're dressed as diplomats now. These safe houses, you know what they're like, they're supposed to be low vis, but after each team comes in, they're like, oh, we need this now, we need that and now we need this. So basically, before you know it, you've got a room full of machine guns and suppressors, you've got Dems charges, you've got maps, you've got fucking secret equipment. You know, there's a whole bunch of shit in there that we cannot afford to let be stolen or give to the enemy, you know, so it wasn't that low vis at this point. And I'll never forget this, there was a, like an armored personnel carrier that was like sat. There was an outer gate and an inner gate and it was sat at the outer gate. And we made the phone call back to HQ in Hereford and we were like, this is on top. There are rounds hitting the building at this point. It's like, what do you want us to do? And they're like, well, don't do the destruction plan. Yet just wait out and see if it goes away. And we were like, thanks, that's great advice. Like, give me an asset. And they were like, oh, we haven't got any assets. It's like, you just, just ride it out. The team's on the way back and then they're like, is the. Are, are the rounds in and around your position? And I'm like that, holding up the phone, like, yeah, you can hear them smashing the side of our building. Said like, well, okay, cool. Speak with the guy who's the team leader. And on your call, if you need to do the destruction plan, do the destruction plan. The destruction plan was a chisel, a metal tin with some fuel and a lighter. That was it completely. We learned so many lessons there. We got it completely wrong. But there was a whole bunch of equipment there. Secret equipment, secret terminals, computers. Never mind all the fucking machine guns. Like, I'm trying to be. We're trying to pretend we're diplomats, Sean, right? So I've got a fucking double breasted jacket on, do you know what I mean? And a shirt. And I'm pretending I'm a diplomat. I'm covered in tattoos and there's a room full of machine guns. Like, you make that make sense. It's not a good look, is it? And we don't want them people coming into the house to find that. Cause they're gonna think we're up to no good. So they breach the outer wall and now it's like, okay, cool, we need to start this destruction because there's one more gate, basically. And if they get into that gate, they're into our compound. Worst case, they'll kill you. Then it's like a sliding scale back up. There's like, the best case is they'll steal everything in the house. They'll probably capture you and hopefully give you across to, you know, some sort of friendly unit. Maybe they'll. Maybe they'll hurt you a bit, maybe they won't. Or they'll sell you to, you know, some extremist group. You don't even know who these dudes are. They're all high, they're all full of adrenaline. They've got a bunch of dudes that are clearly military with a bunch of, you know, military equipment in a house. Yeah, it was a very dicey situation. There was the teams driving back as quickly as they can, and then we were like, we've got to do the destruction plan. So it's funny, you've got like the pool boy, Ali, the pool boy with a chisel doesn't speak a word of English. Smashing up like top secret hard drives and all this sort of stuff. And we're trying to like work out what's got a serial number on it. What can we leave? What can't we leave? The guy next to me, he's like on the loudspeaker now. He's broken. Speaks broken, you know, Arabic. He's like, we're diplomats this, we're diplomats that. These guys are outside like that. And it really hit home. We had like a ring doorbell, you know, like the camera and this guy turns up and if you were to draw like a radical Islamist terrorist, you draw this guy like British DPM, trousers, chest rig, AK47, big beard and a football shirt, like a red and white football shirt. And he's ringing the doorbell. Cause our compound looks different from everyone else's compound. It's got high walls, it's got security on it, it's got barbed wire on it. He's now ringing the doorbell, ringing the doorbell. And you just see him look up, he sees the camera and he just shoots the camera. But it was about as close as that front door is over there. Not only did the camera go black, I could hear the weapon report. And I'm like, we're in a fucking serious situation here. Because if these guys come through that gate, we're gonna have to. We've got, we've got a couple of options. One of them is you fight to the death, which was my preferred course of action. I had a machine gun by the door and I was like, I'll fucking, I'll barricade myself here and if I have to, rather that than get captured. I'd made that decision in my head. I was like, no, I'm not fucking letting these dudes take me. No fucking way. I'll die on my sword. You know, they're not going to expect the level of violence that I'm going to give them when they come through that door. They just won't expect it. And I might get away with it for a while and hopefully somebody will come and help me. But I was fully prepared to go the whole way there. You know, I resigned myself to that was going to happen. Another course of action we contemplated was breaching a hole out of the back door, basically, and running across some open ground. Which again, was not a great option. Not a great, not a great option. Luckily for us, they kind of gave up on trying to get in that compound right then. But they got into the other compounds that had less fortification. So now we've got three houses. We're the middle one. Houses either side have now got guys on the roof. I remember looking out the window and there's a dude with a dragon off up there. And I'm like, that's not good. Because at some point, the guys that he's shooting at are going to realize he's on that roof and they're going to start smashing all these buildings. So I was like, me, this is not ideal. Meanwhile, the guys are driving back as fast as they can, trying to navigate through all the. The checkpoints and all the rest of it. But how they do it is they've just got lines. Basically. The first line will come up, they'll expend all their ammunition, then the next line will come up. And they just do that all day. And then they build the berm and then they get behind the berm, so on and so forth. So this is not going away. This is a very, very. This is the first time I felt helpless. I genuinely felt like, there's no one coming to get you now. There's. This is it, you know, if they come through that door, this is, you're going to fight or you're going to die. So it was dicey. And, yeah, we're carrying on with the destruction plan. Then on the jtag, it's on that we're going to throw you an asset Africom. We're going to send you an asset. And I'm like, thank God for that something, you know. And they sent me a P3 Orion. Do you know P3 Orion is, I don't suck, a surveillance bird. But it's not armed, Sean. So I'm like, yeah, cool, check this dude in. At least I've got some Hellfires or something or do a show of force. And it's like, yeah, we have to stay at this altitude. And we've got no munitions. I'm like, no good to man the beast, me that. You know what I mean? I need. I want jets not coming. So, anyway, long story short, the guys finally make it back through the Terps. They, you know, the fixers basically negotiate through the militias. The militias then give us a guide. They take the guys all the way to the front door and they pull in through the gate. Basically, they've spoken to the guys that are outside. They were fairly friendly. They were a little bit pissed off. They had to stop their gunfight to get us Brits out of the situation. But they sort of coming through the gate and the team leader's like, we've got two minutes. So we have to fucking empty that house in two minutes. Anything with a serial number on it. Dems charges, fucking rockets, fucking belt fed weapons rifles, NVGs, suppressors, comms kit. It's a lot, you know, this is a fucking established safe house so we're just fucking throwing everything in the back of these Land Cruisers. And then the fucking, the old guy, he's like fucking having a heart attack almost. He's not in a good way, he's panicking. Ali, the pool boy's running around with chisel. The still, you know, the Sigma's losing his mind because he's the one that signed for all this equipment. So we were all bundled it in and just as we're about to go the two, I see a guy called George comes running back. We had this Alsatian, he bought this Alsatian from somewhere and had a bad leg. His name is Rick. So he comes back and now he's got this fucking stupid dog in his hand, he's throwing the dog in the car. And it was just such a weird, surreal moment. But it was like, that was my first taste of like low vis operations and they're not really my thing, if I'm honest, Sean. It wasn't really something that I was excited about. If I couldn't put a plate carrier on and run around at night, you know, sorting buildings, I wasn't really interested in it, but it was definitely a good education for me. We conducted a NEO which is like the evacuation of entitled personnel. So we had to do all of that. Interesting story on that one. Completely not our fault and random, but we, one of the people that we brought off and put onto a British warship that had docked up. HMS Enterprise it was called. He ended up being the bomber of the Manchester Arena. No, yeah, he was, he was the guy, he was, he would have. This was probably a few years before, but we, we got him out. Yeah, and it's. I don't feel bad about it because I can't. If I let my head go down there it would. But yeah, it's just mental, isn't it? That like he escaped that country because he had a entitlement to do so we put him on a British warship, sailed him back to the UK and then a few years later he clacked himself off and killed a bunch of kids at a Ariana Grande concert. That's the mentality of these people, you know. But yeah, it was a really, really interesting deployment. A lot of, a lot of good lessons I learned from it.

Sean Ryan (235:11)

I Know exactly where this was at? Yeah, there was US personnel there as well, right?

J. Cal (235:15)

Yep, there was. They left. In fact, we secured these.

Sean Ryan (235:18)

This is when the CIA evacuated.

J. Cal (235:20)

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Ryan (235:21)

Two friends had led that evacuation.

J. Cal (235:23)

Yeah. So, yeah, it was exactly around that same time frame. We actually secured the embassy, the U.S. embassy. When, when they decided that the country's imploding, they withdrew from the embassy, basically. And the US Marine Corps led that and they took everyone out and they basically said, if you're, you're the only remaining team in country. We were the only guys there was like, everybody had gone at this point. Serious, yeah. And they said to us, can you secure the embassy for us? And we were like, oh, there's like five guys and a dog. Do you know what I mean? What do you want us to do? And they were like, you know, just, just go down there and speak to them through the, for the fixes. Because there was thousands of hundreds of thousands, not hundreds of thousands of thousands of people like outside the embassy. As soon as the, the dudes had left, as soon as the staff had been evacuated, they were like this big building. There was ISO containers or Conexes, Connexes full of equipment, like everything from black, you know, not good equipment, but everything from Blackhawk knee pads to head torches or flashlights to medical kit, like shitty plate carriers. But like, there was a lot of kit there and they didn't want it just getting, you know, what's the word? Looted, basically. So our team leader went down there and, you know, they were about to jump over the fence, basically. Basically. And he's like, who's in charge? And, you know, spoke to this guy, he was quite pissed off at being, you know, who's this, you know, Westerner turning up in a blazer and a pair of deck shoes telling me not to raid this embassy and, you know, fair play to him. He navigated the situation quite well. He was like, we're watching. If anyone crosses this thing, we're going to kill you all. And it worked for a period of time. And yeah, the guys actually did go in there. I've got a US Ambassador to the city. I've got a coin that he left in his desk that one of the lads gave me, which is pretty cool. But yeah, it was a super interesting time. It was, it was. The country imploded. Yeah, I talk about it because it's different from a kinetic operation, but as far as low vis operations go, that one was probably the most kinetic one for a while. And like I said before, it's the first Time. I think we've ever. Well, first time in a long time that we've actively had to deny a safe house, like under fire, in. In quick order. But I did. I learned a lot about, you know, moving around in those sort of situations. You know, I was. Always had a. Always had a pistol on me, always, you know, covert carry, all of that type of stuff. We're under the guise of diplomats with diplomatic plates. We're not doing traditional operations, you know. But I got back from that deployment.

Sean Ryan (237:48)

Well, hold on. How the fuck did you get out of there?

J. Cal (237:51)

Me personally or that house?

Sean Ryan (237:53)

You personally, how did you get out of that country?

J. Cal (237:56)

I flew out about four months later when they opened up the airport in the city. I flew out on an Afrikaea.

Sean Ryan (238:02)

You were there for four months while that shit was going on?

J. Cal (238:04)

Yeah, four months, five people and a dog. Five people and a fucking lame dog. Yeah, it was cool. It was cool. It was cool. Yeah. Holy shit. I flew out via Malta. So I flew out on a. On a. They'd opened up the commercial airline, dude, that was probably the most diciest thing I've ever done. An Africa flight from the city to Malta landed. We'd actually recovered a hostage. So there was a guy that had been captured, David Bolan was his name, by militants, and he was like an expat teacher. They told him to leave a bunch of times and eventually somebody captured him and was holding him ransom. They figured out that situation through a third party. They released him and organized us to go and pick this guy up. So the guys we picked him up from weren't the militants, they weren't the guys that had held him captive. They were somebody else, basically like a third party and like a mediator type sketch, you know. So we drive up, we get this dude in the back of the car and he's like, he's older guy, you know, he's in state, his body's. We've got a medic there. So one of the guys was a medic, so he's like looking after him. But they flew us. They flew us a jet from Malta and it was. It was a. It was a government jet. It was one that the Royal family had used. It's like a small private jet basically to recover this dude for. For UK government. And the guys went back to Malta with him to escort him back. And the ambassador there was like, this is the best thing ever. We're so grateful. And basically gave him keys to the city, but. But we used that jet a few more times to do we took a guy called Jonathan Powell who brokered the Northern Ireland ceasefire. He was like a, like a big political guy that was good at negotiating, you know, truces and ceasefires. So we were chaperoning him around whilst we were going to these meetings and all this, this type of stuff. So the boys flew out on that, but I didn't, I flew out early, two weeks early before the rest of the guys, they decided to go back for a course, the JTAC course. I need to do a refresher or whatever it was. So, yeah, I flew back out. But when I landed in Malta, they just, they were at his, I think it's a Marriott down there by the, by the sea. They were like, you know, down by the port. I don't know if you've ever been to Malta, but it was like pen, it was like this, a room like this. It was like, there you go, everything's on the house, complimentary. So it's surreal. One minute you're in, you know, North Africa dealing with all that stuff, the next minute you're in Malta, which is a holiday destination, this. And then five, six hours later you're on a civilian plight, the civilian flight back into London Heathrow, like with a bag, like straight down to, you know, back to Hereford in the pub with the boys for a few, you know, a few days and then onto it, like, no, no, no time to process or, you know, absorb what's just gone on. It's just constant, constant, constant. And then it's like, yeah, I was off to the fire cell. So this is where I started to become a jtac. So I did, yeah, started doing back to back tours of JTAC. And this is 2014, 15, 16, 16. So like the war was popping in Iraq and you know, in Syria, those places there, and we were just smashing, smashing ISIS on the flop, basically.

Sean Ryan (241:05)

This is where you worked with Delta.

J. Cal (241:07)

This was prior to that. So I did three deployments of those and there's, there's. We can talk about them, but it was just a lot of bombing. It was just a lot of kinetic stuff. One of them's quite interesting. We were the first guys to, to cross the border from Iraq to another country. And we drove all the way along the Turkish border. It was like we left on Christmas. Christmas morning we left, we woke up, we had a champagne breakfast in Erbil and then we packed our vehicles up and we drove fucking for three days, land, move. And we set up a fucking patrol base basically in a cement factory. But when we got there, there Was nobody there. I went back a couple years later and the whole thing was like the US military had got hold of it. There was fucking CV22s, med bays, fucking marines, all kinds of shit. When we got there, there was our six man team, a bunch of unit guys, probably about 20, 30 of those. About 10 of them were operators, the rest were support guys, Seabees building all the infrastructure up the comms guys, a bunch of local militia that were our security force or partner force, and a bunch of random French dudes. And these random French dudes were nuts, dude, like really cool guys, but like, they were so industrious. They're building all the time. Like we turn up with like two Land Cruisers, one of which has got a gun on the top. So it's essentially, it's a technical, let's call it what it is. A bunch of Javelin missiles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and a green box full of booze. That's what we had. And the French are in there like building all kinds of stuff, you know, and we wasn't laid back, but we were like, comfortable with it. I remember on New Year's Eve we were all sat around, we had like a little fire pit outside. The whole team was in a room this big. And we were outside drinking rum and you know, shooting the ship. And this guy comes up out of the, out of the dark like they were full body armor, you know, nods down and he's like, he walks up and he goes, is it safe? And we're like, it is. Now if you're patrolling around like that, you crack on, mate. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, yeah, New Year's Eve, have a drink. But yeah, no, it was, it was, it was a cool, cool experience to do that. I was jtacking for them as well. So I was jtagging for the unit prior to that was working in the Siflik, which is a big two star strike cell basically. And you know, you're operating in a room with 100, 150 people, red card holders. You've got coalition jets from all over the world dismantling targets all over, you know, all over Iraq and, you know, targets in Syria. And you're just basically controlling all day. You do an eight hour shift and you might drop, you know, thousands of pounds worth of ordinance. Not. Yeah, like I dropped a shit ton of bombs in those deployments. A ton, like metric shit, tons, you know, and that's not an exaggeration. I Winchester like B1 bombers, like on a couple of occasions down At Sinjar, they just give me like an A4 piece of paper with a bunch of grids on it. You send them to the plane, and then as the plane's checking in, it will give you a system read back on the bomb to make sure that, that, that coordinates been put in the bomb. You get them reback of like 20 desired mean impact points, DMPIs, whatever you want to call them. And yeah, they're just like, yeah, cool, that's eight away. Go back for a re attack. Just doing that. F15s. Just laying waste to all these positions, like serious amounts of ordnance. It was a really good education for me. But then I started working for a strike cell for the unit, which I can't go into a lot of detail about, but it was a completely different ball game. We were operating, operating. We had all of Syria and it was just us and we were just hunting basically. And we were getting a lot of information coming from the partner force. And then we'd verify it with a drone and then we'd strike it. And it was all going back to. Back to Bragg, where the sort of red card holder was. So every time we'd do a strike, we'd have to get it approved. We'd have to go through all the CDE and all the modeling and make sure the partner force was happy. Then we dropped the ordinance and then we'd go on to the next one. And I was just shadowing, watching how to they did business. These like 24sts, JTACs. So they're like dedicated, professional. All they do is Jtax, whereas I'm an operator, but I can also JTAC. So they're at a different level and I'm trying to learn, but I was just going in there and hanging out with this guy for a while and we were just learning. He was a, he was a B squadron guy. And one day the JTAC was like, do you want to get on the mic? And I was like, it was a quiet night, nothing going on. Everything was good, legal permissions wise. I'd done all the spins and stuff. So I was, you know, I'm sorry. It was completely above board and they trusted me, you know, and I was like, yeah, cool, I'll jump on the net. And he was like, yeah, cool. Just have a look around this area, see if there's anything, you know, this is where the forward line of enemy troops is. This is where the forward line of own troops is, or friendly forces. And like basically anything south of that line is bad. And I was like, ah, cool. So I'm just like scanning around with the drones and all of a sudden I see like this minibus basically. Well, it's a flatbed bongo truck but it's got like 30 dudes on the back of it and it's just driving up the road, driving up the road, stops and all these dudes get out and they start fanning out. And I'm now checking, now I'm speaking to the strike director, I'm speaking to him and I'm like, these aren't our guys, are we? I was like, no, it was that, right? Go for the partner force. Let's make sure these are not our guys because this is looking nefarious as right? So these dudes are now lining up and it's almost a textbook ambush. So they've got like a main killing group, then they've got cut offs and then they've got like a rear element to it. It's all down the side of this one MSR that the, whatever they were called, were they Peshmerga, SDF or Peshmerga were going up and down this road basically and they were waiting for them to come up and they were going to light them up. So I'm there spinning up a strike. I've got. What did I have? I had a 10s. So I had a pair of a 10s. And as I'm about to start spinning the strike up, I'm starting to read them the nine line and get to, you know, this, all this Jtackery gunship checks him so I'm like yeah, yeah. He's like we want to do a coordinated attack. So what that means is like basically the jets will come in or the A10s will come in and drop bombs and then as soon as those bombs have hit the ground they'll disappear in a different direction and the gunship just goes in an orbit and just cleans up basically. So that's what we did. Like this is my first control I've ever done for these guys. This is like a unicorn control, right? You've got like 30 troops in the open, you've got an AC130 gunship and you've got two A10s. And it doesn't get much better than that, you know. So I start to spin up this strike and I'm just, I'm in the zone. Like I am now, you know, just talking away and like before I look at there's like a whole bunch of dudes behind me that from like the command sergeant Majors there and all kinds of people. And they're just watching, they're just watching. Like the JTACS are like making sure that I'm doing it all properly. And I'm like, are we doing this? And I'm like, yeah, send it. So we did. We smashed them all to bits, mate. It was brilliant. Two bombs went in, took the main body out and then it was just gunship after that it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yep, send it. It was like, yeah, I've got runners away. Yep, do it again. We ended up putting a GB31, which is 2,000 pounder straight through. They were in like a culvert underneath the road. There's about six of them that like squirted away underneath there. So it was like, yeah, put a 2,000 pounder on that. And I was like, boom, job done. And it's weird because you do that like, I don't know, 25 eka, 30 eka ekia, whatever it was. And then you get back into a. A Land Cruiser and you drive back through Herbal to your accommodation because it was. We weren't co located with them. It was a separate location, you know, past the coffee shops downtown, back into the thing, go to bed. It's like we talked about that book on killing. That's extreme violence at distance and at reach. And I did that for fucking three deployments pretty much. And I didn't pay enough attention to how much that affected my fucking headspace. Cause it was, dude, I've shot people from here to you away. I've been in all that stuff, like we all have. And that was different because it was on an industrial scale. Like I got a Queen's commendation for valuable service on one of those deployments. Just for sheer, just for sheer volume of people that we're taking companies, battalions off the battlefield. But you're doing it from reach, you know, you're doing it from a telephone or a computer or a radio in an ops room. Like, weird.

Sean Ryan (248:56)

How did that affect you?

J. Cal (249:00)

I got fucking blase about it really. I didn't really. It didn't really. I think it didn't affect me. It didn't do me any good. I know that, you know, I kind of became immune to it, which wasn't a good thing to do. I never had a civic allegation once. I was super diligent. Like, I don't fuck about when it comes to making sure that those bombs are going on the right place. And neither did the units that I was working for. It's extreme professionalism at all times. The pilots are on board, the targeteers are on board. The CD modelers are on board. The league ads are on board, like red card holders. It's not. We're not just bombing for the sake of it. It's extremely precise, accurate fires. So you get really good at it. You do. You get really dialed into it and it just became a process, really. But then I look back on it as, like, I've literally watched thousands of people die on tv. Like, and sometimes you'd get given a list of paper, like I mentioned before, bomb that, and you're like, cool. Or you'd go out. Like the other incident, I talked with a gunship, like you're hunting. Like, that doesn't happen unless you put the jets where they need to be. But I don't get any satisfaction from it because it's like, that doesn't count. It's like drone warfare now. Like, all this drone warfare shit. I don't like it. Drones are IEDs, and I fucking hate IEDs. And I don't care what anyone says, it's a shitty fucking way to fight a war. Like, there's no honor in that. And I kind of feel a bit like that with the JTAC and stuff. I don't take any satisfaction from it other than the fact that we did a lot of good for, you know, partner forces and we did shape the battlefield, like, and ultimately it fucking got. Got rid of a lot of bad people. But it is quite. It's quite an intense job. You'd be doing that for three, four months. Intense. And then you come back and you're back in Hereford and you're in the pub and you're drinking and then all of a sudden you're back out and then you're back in Hereford, in the pub, drinking, trying to manage being a dad, being a soldier, doing that, you know, it's a. I did that for a year, pretty much back to back to back. It's a lot, mate. It was a very intense period of my life. And then right at the back end of that, they were like, ah, there's a posting coming up to the unit for one year. Do you want to go? I was like, ah, of course I do. So I did. They sent me over to Bragg. I lived in Pinehurst. Southern Pine, sorry, not Pinehurst. Lived in a house there. Embedded myself with a squadron. I was made to feel super welcome. Like those guys were fucking rock stars. Honestly, I have never been so impressed by a team as I have with those guys there as assaulters. And I say this with the utmost respect to everyone else. The best assault team teams that I've ever worked with, just primarily on shooting in CQB and assaulting, there's nothing on earth that compares to those guys in that unit. And in my team, I had like four first draft picks from otc, so they were rock stars. Yeah, it was super impressive. I remember being humbled the first day I got there. It was like we went and shot Bianchi cut, pistol shoot. And I was okay with the pistol. With a long gun on Hold My Own one Hold My Own. But at the time, pistol shooting wasn't really something that we did that much. We didn't have red dots like it was there if you needed it. It was very much a secondary mentality. Whereas these guys are shooting pistol all the time. They shoot more pistol than they do rifle. So 5 meters, 10 meters, 15 starts to fall off a little bit. Now I'm back at 20. And guys, it's comedy, but they're like handing me magazines. I'm trying to knock these plate racks over. Trigger discipline, shit, fucking all over the place. And I was like, fuck. Every day we'd have a shooting competition. For the most part, half the day would be cqb, half the day would be shooting, or we do some climbing or some fitness stuff in between. But for the most part, shooting and CQB is what we did every day, which is why they're so good at assaulting. They're not around training guys to be JTACs or, you know, surveillance operators or any of that stuff. They're just thoroughbred assaulters. And they are, in my opinion, the best guys that I worked with, hands down. So it was a pleasure because I love that. I love being an assaulter. When people ask you what I'm an assaulter, that's what I do. I'm CQB instructor. You know, that was my bread and butter. So I realized very quickly that I had to up the game. So for the first four months, I used to turn up early at work. I used to go on the ranges on my own. I used to stay after work on the weekend. Saturday and Sunday, I'd take a thousand rounds and I'd go on the range and I'd just press that trigger, press that trigger and just learn how to press a trigger and hold the gun properly and just pistol, pistol, pistol. And I stopped finishing sixth, and then I finished fifth. And after a while, I might finish fourth. Some days, fuck it, I might even come second or I might even win one. You know, and it was just that, that constant having to improve, like, that's where I really started to dial into the craft. That's where it really happened, because my pistol shooting was not where it needed to be. And I felt a lot of responsibility going over there, representing my regiment in front of the unit in a team of All Stars. It's a lot of pressure. So I threw myself at it. And you know that. I think that gained a lot of trust and respect in the squadron, because they knew that I sucked a pistol, but I was out there fucking working to get better. And none of them made me feel like a dick. None of them. There was no ego, no bullshit. They adopted me as a brother straight away. They treated me like one of their own, invited me to their homes, met their families, like I was part of their team. And I am deeply grateful and deeply impressed by the organization as a whole. But the individuals and the level of compassion that they showed me was second to none. And I'm deeply, deeply, deeply proud of my time with the guys at the unit. And, you know, fast forward a few months. This is coming up to deployment time. And I'm like, I remember one of the guys came over to me and he gave me a US Flag. He's like, are you gonna wear that? And I said, am I allowed to wear that? And he was like, fuck, yeah, you are. So I put my fucking US Flag on my chest, and I wore that with fucking pride. It goes back to my association with the United States military. I've been in those fields with those Marines. I've been in those positions where them helicopters, if they don't come, your casualties don't get out. They're putting in those Pedros. They're putting in those call signs on a, you know, tiny, little hot landing zone. The RAF weren't coming to get us. US Pilots come and get us every single time. You know, the assets that they gave us, standing side by side with U.S. marines, fighting, watching each other bleed and die like, I fucking respect that flag to death, and I'd die for it. So to be asked if I would wear it was one of the proudest moments of my military career. And I fucking wore that with absolute pride. And I took that flag to war. And, yeah, I'm proud that I did that. I've got some fucking cool pictures from it as well. It really did mean a lot to me that I got to wear that flag. And initially, my deployment was kind of strange because my team went to Syria and I didn't have permissions to Go to Syria, which was a weird situation to be in, but they were looking at a different target set than the one that the UK had permissions for. Bullshit bureaucracy. All bad guys. What's the fucking difference? That's kind of was how I looked at it. So I spent all of that time working up with that same team, like for months, as tight as we could be. Those teams are way tighter than our troops for sure. We eat together, we train together, we shoot together, we lift together. Like everything together, together. Six man team. Six man team on Bravo 6, right? So I'm Bravo 6 and they all go. And I don't get to go with them. I have to go somewhere else. So I go to Iraq. So I'm in Iraq now. My team's over there and I'm dislocated from them. So I'm out there doing a job down in Suleimani. We're doing bits and pieces with a partner force down there. Ctd, ctg, all those guys, Great time. And then troops. Art Major comes and he's like, do you want to go to the etf, which is the task force? They're the ones doing the real sexy missions, right? The raids, the high value targets. Not the stuff different from what the team in Syria was doing. This was different troop, different task, different mission set. But it was really what I wanted to be doing. And he was like. I said to him, do I have permission? He's like, there's a helicopter coming in tonight. I suggest you get on the helicopter, get up there and we'll figure it out. And I did. I got welcomed into the team like a fucking brother. They put me in that chew and I became just one of them. And again, we ate together, trained together, watched Netflix for hours together. And then we went on operations and we tore it up together. It was a really, really. It was probably the best deployment I've ever done. We were flying around in Black Hawks, smashing people up, and it was great. And it was everything that I wanted and thought that that unit would be about the level of professionalism, not only from the operators, but from the 1/60th guys all the way down to the targeteers. Those fucking aviation boys. Pilots are incredible. Like those Nightstalker dudes are so, so impressive. And it was felt really, really close. It did. I remember on one. No, it was the second. It was the second one. It was the second job that I did with them. The troops are. We've been looking at this compound and the troops are. Sorry. The TL of the team was like I need you to be off the black orc and I need you to secure that window on the west western side of this compound. And I'm at. Roger that, Sarge. I've been in the regiment for about seven, eight years now. Like, you want me to run off a black Hawk and just cover down on that one window? I can do that. You understand? I'm like, fuck, yeah. So I do. I get out. We landed like, as we're going on in infield, sorry, on infield, the daps are lighting up this guest house. They're like, literally as we're coming in, doors are open. Like we're fucking on the ramp. Sorry, on the tailgate. Essentially, it wasn't a little bird, it was a black orb. We're sat on the edge of the bird like this. The doors are open and you can just see the whole thing. Daps are coming in shooting with rockets. I was like, this is cool. If you can take a, like a snapshot that you do with an iPhone and just have that picture in your head, it would be like, yeah, this is, this is cool. I come straight off the bird, straight to where I need to be. What we thought was a window was not a window. It would just look like that. From the IR signature, it was actually a piece of like polystyrene and there was a heat source coming out of it. So my aperture is not a aperture, it's. It's a. So I'm. I'm now redundant. So I'm like, I need to get in the fight here. As soon as we're off, there's a gunfight happening. People are getting engaged on two way gunfight, unsuppressed weapons going back towards the assault force. And yeah, I sort of poked my muzzle through the, through this piece of polystyrene. Styrofoam, right? You call it, you know? You know what I mean? They make cups out of it. You know what I'm talking about? So I like punched this through. It was the wintertime, so they used it for insulation in the summer. I think they pop it out for air, but I punched it through. And the guy that we're after pops up like this out of his bed from no different from me to you. Away three, four meters. And it's our guy. Clear as fucking day. He's got the same shitty haircut, same scraggly beard, like, and he's got this. You can see his weapons right next to him. He's got a chest rig right next to him and he's kind of like this between helicopters landing and me being at that aperture seconds, it's that fast. And I'm there, and I see him, and he comes up bolt upright like that. And I can see him just about to do that. So I just dump three or four rounds into him straight away. As soon as I do that, somebody else in the room pops up, and he's now trying to get to that weapon system. So I lit this dude up as well. So this is like within the first minute of basically being there. Then a fucking huge explosion goes off in the front of the building. This guy had brought his family into the room that he was in. He called his family out. So they ran across the frontage of the building where all the guys were stacked up, a wife and two kids. He brought them in, called them into the room that he was in, and then clacked himself off. So the guys are dealing with that on the front side of the building. I'm now maneuvering around the back side of the building where the rest of my teammates are locking down the backside. And then it happens. The fucking explosion happens. And I'm just like, fuck me. The whole wall just goes out and goes back in. It's like, you know them slow motion, surreal moments, it was really like that. It was almost silent, but my whole team was stacked up on that. And I literally walk around the corner and it just goes. And there's a fucking whole bunch of dust and smoke. I get hit on the head with this fucking big rock. My ears are ringing. This is a crazy fucking two minutes. I've just jumped off the back of a helicopter, shot a couple of dudes. Now my team's been blown up. Like, this is fucking nuts. Yeah, it's crazy, mate. And what had happened is somebody in that building had clacked themselves off. There was a whole bunch of sves in this building, but because of the thickness of the walls, it had absorbed most of the blast. And instead of crushing on the guys or blowing the guys up, what happened is it actually just blown them out, if that makes sense. But I didn't know that. So the team leader's looking at me, and I'm going, where's the boys? And I'm like, I don't know where the boys are. They've got to be under there. So I'm now trying to dig out this rubble. There's tons of rubble here now. And I'm like, my. The dudes are underneath there. My team is under there. And I'm. And I'm like this, trying to dig Out. And I just see one of them come wandering around out the doubt of the dust completely the wrong way. No helmet on, no rifle, no. And I'm like, I grab him and I'm like, are you good? And he's like, I think so. He's like, where's my gun? Where's my helmet? And I'm like, dude, don't worry. I then send him over to the team leader and then, then where's the other two guys, right? There's a five man team and the team leader's accounted for, I'm accounted for, he's accounted for. Two more guys unaccounted for. And again, one of them's just like. When the dust was just lying there, he didn't have anything blown off. He was all his intact. He was just in shock. Pick him up, send him out, find the other dude, we recover all the equipment. It's just a fucking carnage a couple of minutes. But it was like, because of that evening and because of those events, what happened, the squadron or that troop in particular really respected me. I think, I think I earned their trust because they knew that I would do the right thing at the right time and I would fucking perform when it really mattered. You know, we had a whole, we had a whole bunch of gnarly jobs like that. I remember one particular one where we were closing up on a compound again. Lessons identified. This is where experience comes into play. Although I was in a, you know, a team of rock stars, most of those guys had only done three or four years, or maybe five, I'd done eight and a whole bunch of more deployments. So I was more experienced than I was as experienced as the team leader. But I was still Bravo 6. And I always was happy to be Bravo 6. Like, so yeah, this one job we did, same thing, it was like, we try calling them out, we get engaged on infill, we're like, we're not committing assault force to the building because we keep getting blown up. This is like, well, every single time we go near these buildings, they clack themselves off without fail. You could almost set your watch by. It's that predictable. So we're gonna change our ttps and tactics. We're just gonna stand off and just call these fucking dudes out. We don't need to get close on the building. We learned our lesson the hard way. Luckily no one got hurt the first time. So we backed off. But then it's like come out, they're like, ah. They start firing guns at us, it's like, ah, cool. Hit it with the daps so the fucking daps will light it up. So same again. Come out. No, they fire back. Cool. Get the Ranger platoon up here. They'll fire Carl Gustav at it. Boom. And you just do this cat and mouse game until either the building's destroyed or there's no more fire. We need to get the sse. We can't just kill these people, blow the building up and leave. Like ultimately, the minute you fire a shot so you don't come up with your hands out, you bought a ticket, you voted. You ain't. It's only going to end one way. Like these guys are not around, you understand? But we don't want to just destroy the building because otherwise what's the point in us being there. We might as well have done that with a fucking 500 pounder, you know. So we need to get this fucking information. So anyway, we're going up, we're closing and we think we're clearing this building. There's like a row of. It's all burnt out at this point, but there's a row of rooms and we're working sequentially now. So it's my team, we're going from room to room to room, working up to this end one. And we're fragging every room now so it's hand grenades are going into every single room. Then we put the dog in it, then we clear it, right? So this is kinetic. And I can start to hear praying. I can start to hear it and I'm like, am I fucking losing my mind here? And I've got these peltors over the ear, peltors. So I pop my little thing out and sure as I can hear this dude praying. And that's never a good sign because he's going to clack himself off in a minute. So I'm like. And I tell him, I was like, ah, dude, there's somebody in there, you know, Peltor around. He's like, what? And I'm like, there's somebody in that room. And he's like, is there? And I'm like, I can hear, I can hear him, dude. That's how close we are at this point. And he's like, all right, cool. So we put the dog in. In fact, we didn't put the dog in. The dog got wind of it and fucking was in there straight away. So now we're in a. We're in a bad situation because we've got a dude in there that's definitely going to try and clack himself off and he's 100% armed and we've got a dog which is part of our team in there. So now we can't just put grenades in there, we can't just put a T bomb or, you know, whatever it is we want to do to it. We can't fire up hellfire. We don't want to lose the dog, obviously, luckily, because they don't normally come off the bite. We got the dog off the bite, dog comes off the bite. And then it's like now it's posting grenades, you know, that's how, that's how intimate that is now to the point where it's like we're having grenades throwing at this geezer to, to neutralize the threat, you know. But it was extremely violent. Those deployments like those, those raids there was either it was all or nothing. With those, with those raids and that target set, it was either, yeah, they come out with their hands up, they get detained, no shots fired, all good, or it was like they are flying to the fore, a bit of death. And it is going to go on all night, you know, to the point where it almost becomes not worth going because we know that that's going to happen. So it's like, let's just cut the comedy and just smash it with a 500 pounder and give up on this because how many operators do we need to risk to get that hard drive or whatever it might be, you know, but we always did it and we made it work. But the level of professionalism that those guys had second to none, so, so impressive that unit. And I came back from that deployment, there was some other stuff with, with. So, so, so Matt, Matt. Tom Row is a good friend of mine. He was out in Syria working his job for the regiment. He was a B squadron guy and he was hanging around with my team. Remember I told you my team was over there, my six man team. So he used to phone me up and the TL used to phone me up and be like, you know, oh, I've got a new Bravo 6. You're not Bravo 6 anymore. Matty's taking your spot. And I'm like, fuck, you know, like the fuck's going on? It's just shit talking, it's all good fun. But when I got out there, he wasn't going on the ground. They were just, he was training them to do sniper shit or whatever he was doing and the partner force and he didn't really have that connection with Matty until I turned up and says, two mats, one's the team leader. And one's Matt Tom Row. So I kind of sat down with Matt Tom Rowe, and I was like, why the aren't you not going on the ground? He was like, oh, well, I just haven't really asked, you know, I didn't really, you know, I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. You know, they're doing their own thing. I said that, dude, you're an awesome operator. Why the would they not want to have an extra pair of eyes on the ground? So I speak to, to Matt and I'm like, do, do you mind if, if Matt goes on the ground with you? Like, can, can you do that? He's like, yeah, if you vouch for him. And I'm like, yeah, dude, I trust. I'd go through the door of him. Like, that's the biggest compliment an operator can tell anyone. I'd go through the door with him any day of the week. So he's like, yeah, cool. So he starts going out on the ground and I was there for, you know, a little while and we did some, we did some jobs together. Then the deployment finishes for us. He stays, he's on a six month rotation and we've come halfway through his. So we do our four months and we go home. New squadron, a squadron come out and it's only a couple of weeks of being back in Bragg trying to fucking get your head around that mad deployment. And I get a phone call and they're like, Matt's been killed. And I was like, what do you mean Matt's been killed? And I was like, matt's been killed as something's happened and John Dunbar's been killed as well. I fucking couldn't shake it, man, for so long. I felt so fucking, so guilty. So, yeah, yeah, if I hadn't introduced him, he wouldn't have been on that fucking job, you know, that's how I felt about it. And it's taken me a long time to come to terms with that. And I know it's not that. And he wanted to be on that. He wanted to be on that fucking job, but I don't know, it's fucking. That's a hard one for me. Like, I fucking love that dude, you know, And I'm fucking so sorry for him and John and their families. And that fucking broke my heart, man. It really did. That caused me a lot of fucking problems for a long time. I started to. To drink a lot. I couldn't shake that feeling of guilt. I still feel it some days more than others. And it was Just so hard, man. We had funerals on both sides of the. Fucking both sides of the Atlantic. The. The guys from the unit flew over for Matt's. We had guys fly over for John's. It was like it ripped our community in half, man. And I know, I know you know, it's what we do, but it fucking. This. This was when I stopped running, Sean. That explosion and that. The explosion blew the lid off that box that I told you about before. That was real time for me. I thought all my teammates were dead that day. They weren't. I was lucky. But then when Matt died, I. That was it. That was what tipped me. And that was 10 years of constant warfare at this time. And it all just came out and I just lost it. I lost my mind, dude. I finished that deployment with those guys. We buried Matt, we buried John. And then about two weeks after that, I went back to the uk and then very shortly after that, I deployed back out with my own squadron. It was our squadron's time to go out, so I had no time to process that. And I got to theater and they were like, you're gonna go and be the LNO with the unit? So I was back with the unit for another four months, which I was fucking happy about a little bit with A squadron and then with B squadron with Kyle Morgan, actually. We said we shared a team, we're in the same team. And I was just straight back into the fight and I was fucking drinking hard. I was fucking getting after it. Like I was taking testosterone, I was drinking whiskey, I was getting in gunfights. I was fucking all of it. And I was just fucking hurting. I was fucking dying inside, you know. And yeah, I did. I did a lot of damage to myself during that period. I lost my grandma as well. And my grandma was as close to me as, you know, she was the one consistent factor in my life growing up. I lost her. I had to go back on R and R last time I ever saw her. So I had to go back on my R and R to do that funeral. Matt, obviously a very close family friend, lost their daughter, who was exactly the same age as my. My daughter, a freak accident. Rock fell off a cliff and hit her in the head. Beautiful baby girl, you know, that used to play with my daughter. So that hit home. And then, yeah, there was a bunch of other. With a helicopter crash. We lost one of the 160th guys. I watched that. I watched that bird go down and I watched that team get smashed to bits. I came off the back of the. With four birds landing. And I was on three judge three three. And they were on judge 44. And I'm on the left side port side door. As we're going in, they fire the IR rocket to the dz. It's a really dark night. As I go off the bird, the last thing I do is I let look over and there's a load of like, what looks like. Sometimes when the dust and the. The sand from the helicopters, it's like a little white light. You can see it as like. You know what I mean? It's like it like glistens in like. So I see that and I'm like, okay, cool. Judge Ford falls down. And as I get off the bird, I unclip, running towards target. And I just see this debris field everywhere. I'm like, this is weird. I'm like, what is that? And then I look over and I just see the rotor gear, the top gear, you know, the bit that sticks out the top of the helicopter where the. The blades are attached and it's just on the side. It's on the floor. And I'm like, fuck. And I look over, I'm. I'm like literally the closest guy to it at this point. And I look over and the fucking bird is down and it's on its side and it's like, fuck the fucking. But that's not hard landing. That's a fucking crash. And there's fucking dudes all over the place. It fucking hit the deck, basically, and it'd gone like that. And as it went, the guys were getting ready to jump out the birds. So some of them are unclipped now, so they're getting thrown out. Some of them are clipped. There was guys clipped onto the bird as it's like two or three feet across the ground underneath it, basically being dragged along. Anyway, we lost the pilot. The pilot was killed. All the boys were fucked up, man. It was just a fucking shit show. Fucking dudes wandering around like dudes do. It's like, where's my nods? Like, fucking. Never mind your nods, bro. Bigger fish to fry here, you know? And I remember running back to it and then being told, no, go and lock down your position. And that professionalism then. I know it sounds callous, but that was impressive. We've just had a helicopter crash. Continue fucking Charlie Mike, go to your position, lock down the compound. And we did. We fucking dealt with that mass cal situation and then we got right back to work. That fucking impressed me deeply. And we. Those dudes up that night and we got everything we needed. And that was, that was another cat and mouse game of going in and going back out throwing grenades. All right, cool. We're not playing this game anymore. We ended up smashing it with a GBU 39, which is a 250 pound bomb coming off the gunship. That's what that was, the end of it. We were like, nah, we're done playing games with you, dude. We've given you multiple chances. We've got, we've got, got fallen angels and we are not around tonight. So we smashed those dudes up pretty good, you know, and damn, we got to the morning and we were like, we all thought they were just going to take us back. And they were like, no, you're staying on the ground. Was that. Why don't we deny the helicopters up? Nah, we are not having another Mogadishu here. We are not leaving that bird here. We've lost people here and there's no way on God's earth are we going to stand by and watch people jump up and down on that helicopter. We ain't doing that. We're staying and we're recovering every single piece of it. And that's what we did. We stayed on the ground all day, all night. 36 hours we were on the ground. We caught on that helicopter, the teams came in, we recovered it, they did a land convoy, they drove in, they low loaded that bird and they took it back to where it needed to be. And we did not leave a fucking single piece of US material on that fucking battlefield. And rightly so, you know, like those dudes, you don't get that from us. We don't give you nothing. They take everything and give you nothing, you know, and I was impressed by that too. You know, just a whole mindset and mentality of that. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. British officers are built and bred to be politicians. Us officers are built to be war fighters. I firmly believe that some of the command decisions that were being made on the ground that night by those, by those leaders is deeply impressive. And I can only say how proud I am to have been part of it. And that's why that flag means so much to me. That's why moments like that. But yeah, that was, that was a bad time in my life, dude. There was a lot going on after that. I went, I'm still deployed now. I'm still, I'm still in theater. And I finished my four months with that squadron and I go back to finish off the remaining two Months with my own squadron. And I am drinking and I am not giving a fuck about anything. Life. I didn't care. I just didn't care. I was just trying to be anything. And it all came to a head one night and I had to go home. They're like, jay, you need to fucking go home, bro. You need to go home and you need to fucking rest. And I did. I was burnt the fuck out, and I had nothing to give. I was. I was done, man. And for the first time ever, I had to take a knee. I drove so hard and so fast for so long and never stopped that the wheels came off. And that's exactly what happened. And I went back and took some time out of the squadron and tried to process it all, tried to process 10, 15 years of fucking continuous combat. Continuous combat. And I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength. I didn't have the tools. And all the body armor and gunships in the world can't save you in those fights, you know? And I didn't do very well at it. I really didn't. And I'm resentful for the fact that when you put your hand up and say, I need a break, you get labeled. There's a stigma that comes with that. I don't care what anyone says. You get downgraded, they take you off the Orbat. You're not deploying. You're not allowed to even fucking play with guns. So the one thing that I had, my safety net, they took that away from me and they put me in some shitty job. And they were just like, yeah, you go and do your thing. I said, I help. I need help. And they didn't give me enough. And when they did give it to me, they made me feel like for taking it, and I hate them for that. But I took some time out. I did. And I was like, right, I need a new hobby. So I took up boxing. And I fought in a regimental boxing show, which is thousands of people. And normally operators don't do it. They'll bring in the army team or the Navy team and they'll box each other. And it's a. It's a money spinning exercise. People come and donate celebrities and all this bullshit and Tom Hardy and all these kind of people come to it. But I was like, no, if it's in our fucking building, then there should be operators. Fine. So I took up boxing. And they're like, jay, this fight's in three months. I was like, I know. Have you ever boxed before? And I'm like, no, this is no joke. These are like legit. You're going to be in there with a legit boxer that's probably been doing this a long time. I was like, fuck it, it can't be that hard. I'll learn. So I went and lived in London. Took some time off work and just trained, train, trained for three months, lived. My friends are pro boxing coach, so I lived like a fighter. I lived in a tiny little one bedroom flat. I trained three times a day. I didn't drink. I did everything I could to get my mind right. And eventually fight comes along. I feel like I'm finally back on track. I feel like I've regained some control and, you know, I had to have something to focus on, Sean, you know, that's why I took up boxing. I was like, well, these motherfuckers ain't gonna let me shoot anymore and I damn sure ain't gonna be able to go back to theater. So I need something. So I'm training for this fight like a professional. I put my heart and soul into it, mate. And the night after, I go out for a couple of celebration drinks with my friends. You know, I've got two black. I didn't win the fight, unsurprisingly. Like, I've got two black eyes. And some woman comes up to me, she starts talking to me like I'm a piece of shit. Oh, where have you been doing? What have you doing? She's come up to me and I'm like, sorry, what? She goes, oh, have you been boxing? I was like, yeah, I was in the show yesterday. Goes, oh, it doesn't look like you won. She completely tried to humiliate me in front of my friends, basically. So I said, sorry, who the are you? And she's like, oh, don't you know who I am? My husband's a SART major. And I was like, I don't give a who your husband is. Like, I'm sure he wouldn't be that impressive, you coming up to dudes on the, you know, talking the way you're doing. She's like, I know the commanding officer, I'll get you fired. And at this point here, I'm like, you don't talk to me like that. Never come up to me. I don't care who you are at this point. Like, you're so disrespectful and like, you are not your husband when it comes to rank. Do not try and pull that shit with me, you know. Anyway, she goes off and then writes up some bullshit story, I get pulled in, they give me a three month warning, I get punished. It's just like the fucking hypocrisy of it is just I gave my heart and fucking soul to train for that fight. And she comes up to me like that and I get punished after everything that I've just fucking done there. And like, that was the start of it, man. That was when I started to lose the fucking will to live. Literally. I was like, I can't win. I can't win if I do, I can't win if I don't. I dedicate my life. I don't train, I don't, you know, I don't drink, I train, pick up a sport. I represent my regiment in the boxing ring in front of a thousand people. It's quite, it's quite a scary thing to do. Get up in front of all of your peers under them lights and get in the ring with somebody and box. Especially if you don't know how to do it. So I was angry about that, dude, really angry. And yeah, it was that, that was like, nah, you're not going to be in the squadron any longer. You've got to go and do another job. So then I was given the job of being the CQB instructor. And that was great. That was great because I had something to focus on again. And that's when I started coming up with, you know, looking found GBRs and was looking across and I had people that looked up to me and I had purpose. And I became a subject matter expert in the thing that I love. Being a chief instructor of the CQB cell in the regiment is the best fucking job in the world, bar none, period. In my mind, I was winning again. But I just couldn't shake that fucking feeling. I just couldn't fucking shake it of just hopeless. Damn, there's nothing I can do that's gonna make me feel any better. So I'm like, fuck, I can't win. And I felt like that. And I, and I stopped going to see the nurses, like the therapists, because every single time I walked into that office, she'd make me fill out a form that said PTSD on the top of it. And it's fucking degrading. Like, don't talk to me like there's something wrong with me. Look at my military history. Look all the shit that I've been through and put myself through. I'm not. No one's accountable for that but me. Like, stop asking me if I'm going to kill myself. Do you understand? Like, do better. And she admitted it, you know, and again, I want to bring this up because it was woeful, the support that we got. And I know my friends have been through similar experiences, and they'll say the same thing. And it might seem a little bit unfair, me saying this on here because they can't defend themselves. So I'm not going to name people because I've got more class and dignity than that. But what I would say is, if they are watching this, they need to do better because these operators need it and they don't deserve it. And I felt that personally, and I felt let down. I did. And to be punished for some. That didn't even happen. No one asked for my side of the story. You know, it just sent me spiraling. It just sent me spiraling and spiraling to the point where I just ended up in a car with a pistol. That's how I got there. I did too many deployments too quickly without processing. It is my learning point from that. And I thought. My ego thought that I could handle it and that I would be all right. And I was. Until I wasn't, and then I really wasn't, and it was too late, and I couldn't stop it. And the only way I could stop it was to do that. That's what I thought. And, yeah, I'm not proud of it, but now I know what that looks like. I know what rock bottom is, and I'm never fucking going there again. Never, never, never, never. And I'm grateful for that, you know, now I've got a superpower. Now I know what the bottom really looks like. And I'm nowhere near that, you know, but that was a fucking crazy, crazy period of my life that was like 2018, basically from 2000. Well, if you really want to go back from my first deployment, 2008, all the way up to 2018, which at that point it was. That was 10 deployments, 10 years, fucking multiple different jobs selection, trying to be a fucking dad. Afghanistan four times, God knows where else. North Africa, Iraq. A whole bunch of. Whole bunch of shits happened in that time. And I just. Just didn't deal with it. I couldn't. Didn't know how. And I hope you know, if some person sees what I'm saying goes, if that sounds. If you sound like me, you've got to address it, boys. I'm telling you, there's too many dudes putting their uniforms on and hanging themselves in garages. We've got to stop it. And the only way to do it is to face it. And it's the scariest thing I ever did. It terrifies me because I don't know the answer. I don't know how to solve it. It's not a CQB problem. There's no doctrine for it. You know, it's hard. It's fucking difficult. And I'm grateful and I truly, truly, truly am grateful for the support that I've been shown by people. And I mentioned it before, if it wasn't for DJ and Cole giving me that lifeline, I'd be fucking lying in a ditch in the Ukraine somewhere or I'd be fucking. I wouldn't be sat here. I can say that with certainty. So, you know, again, I'm truly grateful and truly thankful to have good people around me. You know, I'm blessed and I am still in the fight and I ain't ever going back there. And I'm only going one way now. And I'm getting stronger and I'm getting wiser and I'm getting more emotionally intelligent. I'm getting more in touch with myself and I'm being kinder to myself. I don't. I give myself a bit more slack these days than I used to, but, yeah, it's not fucking easy to do. That CQB job did. Did help me, though. It did.

Sean Ryan (287:58)

How are you doing now?

J. Cal (287:59)

I'm good. Or not. I look like a mess tonight, but I'm good. I'm really good. I'm happy. There's no dark clouds on the horizon. My relationship with my daughter is not perfect. I can do more, but it's the best it's ever been. We were on vacation recently together. She's so cool. We hang out. I'm happy.

Sean Ryan (288:22)

Does she know any of this stuff?

J. Cal (288:24)

Mm. Mm. Nope. I can't. I'm not strong enough to tell her face to face. I can't. I'm weak when it comes to that, you know?

Sean Ryan (288:36)

Is she gonna watch this?

J. Cal (288:39)

She will. Maybe we'll watch it together. It's very difficult to have that conversation with a 15 year old, you know? But in some way, on some level, I hope that when she does see this, maybe me not showing up for that birthday party makes a bit more sense now. There were times out there I couldn't be a dad. I just couldn't. I didn't. I couldn't. I would have been. It would have been. It would have been a bad fucking idea, you know? So if I didn't turn up that day, it was because there was some stuff Going on. I had to kind of figure out, you know, I don't want to see me like that. What? No.

Sean Ryan (289:25)

How do you think she'll handle this?

J. Cal (289:27)

Well, she's level headed. She'll see it. And it's important to me because I need her to know who I am. And I need her to know that I am never, ever going back to that place. I've already been there. It's not like I need to see it. I've already seen it. I know what it's like. And I hope she takes some strength from that because I am fully focused on trying to be better in every way I can. And I got to get this out of my system. This helps for sure. But I don't want to have to lie to her anymore. I don't want to have to pretend that I'm okay or I've been all right, you know, I am now. I'm good. But, like, I just wanted to know who I am, you know? That's all I want.

Sean Ryan (290:17)

I'm really happy you're doing this.

J. Cal (290:19)

Huh?

Sean Ryan (290:20)

I'm really happy you're doing this.

J. Cal (290:21)

I am. I'm trying my best.

Sean Ryan (290:24)

I think she will be, too.

J. Cal (290:26)

I hope so. She's a level headed girl, man. She'll get it, like. But that's why when people put pressure on my family or they start to do things that hurt my family, especially if it's my own people, my tolerance for it is fucking less than zero. My empathy for you is zero. And I'll be ruthless in my pursuit of getting what's right and what's right for not only for my family, but for the other families. Because there's a million stories just like mine. I'm not alone. I know I'm not. There's a million other guys out there. There's a squadron full of them on both sides of the Atlantic. Doesn't matter what color that flag is, what shape that patch is. SWAT team guys, law enforcement guys, firefighters. You know, it's not even just military guys, young men all across. There's an epidemic of mental health issues. And people don't like saying mental health issues. Let's fucking call it what it is. Because if we don't, then guess what happens. And if. If by actually saying it and actually addressing gives somebody maybe a little bit of confidence to go and talk to somebody or just even acknowledge it personally, then it's fucking worth it. So I'm glad we're doing this, too.

Sean Ryan (291:50)

Good. Take a break.

J. Cal (291:52)

Sure.

Jeremy (291:55)

I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some.

Sean Ryan (292:11)

Type of a reliable news source.

Jeremy (292:13)

It's getting really hard to find the truth in what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan show. And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show.

Sean Ryan (292:44)

Is just absolutely mind blowing.

Jeremy (292:49)

And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's gonna be all things terrorists. How terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist.

Sean Ryan (293:04)

Organizations throughout the world are up to.

Jeremy (293:07)

And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief.

Sean Ryan (293:29)

Sign up links in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter.

Jeremy (293:37)

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Sean Ryan (294:22)

All right, Jay, we're getting ready to talk about what you. What you originally came here for.

J. Cal (294:28)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (294:29)

And. But before we do, I just want to say thank you for. For being so open and talking about all that stuff. I know it's not easy to revisit that kind of stuff, but.

J. Cal (294:45)

No, it's important. I'd bounce that thank you right back to you and say thank you for giving me the opportunity. To do that. And I think it is important. It's important for me for lots of personal reasons. But I also think it's important that you don't waste an opportunity like this and that you have to be a bit brave sometimes. And if you don't, then you can't affect anything. And, you know, I want. There's good that comes from this situation. I'm in a good spot now, and I'm in a good spot because I have had to and am willing to acknowledge everything I've just talked about and be aware of it and have that level of emotional awareness. And it's helped me out an untold amount by just being able to look in the mirror and understand where it is I've been and how far I've come and how lucky I am and how much good stuff I've got going on in my life and how grateful and thankful for it I am, because I really, truly am. And I'm in a really, really good spot now, and long may it continue. But you got to air that stuff out. You got to do it. You can't keep it in. Like, trust me. Well, you know the drill. Like, it doesn't work. And I've been a test case for that myself, and I know it doesn't work. I'm never doing it again. So thank you. Sure.

Sean Ryan (296:19)

My honor. And you're welcome.

J. Cal (296:21)

Thank you, brother.

Sean Ryan (296:23)

Let's get into it.

J. Cal (296:24)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (296:24)

Let's talk about your last operation.

J. Cal (296:27)

Yep. 2022, I was an assault team leader, so not a troop sergeant major, but an assault team leader. So I was in charge of a fire team, essentially, but I was also a targeteer. And we'd been watching this guy conduct attacks. He was the partner force's number one target that they wanted. He was an assassination cell leader. He'd done a whole bunch of nefarious stuff. We'd watch him open and carry weapons, which was very rare. It shows one of two things. Naivety or full radicalism, because they don't open carry, because they know we can see it. So if they do, then it means that they're serious. They're true believers. So anyway, after, you know, weeks, at this point of gathering information, intelligence, watching these guys do all kinds of, you know, bad stuff, basically, we was ordered to conduct a detention operation on this target, which I planned or was involved in the planning with heavily. And we did everything we could to mitigate risk to force and mitigate risk to mission by our planning process and our professionalism in terms of trying to put ourselves in the most advantageous position in order to capture and detain this individual, which was the main goal, the objective of this operation was to detain this individual, as we had done successfully dozens of times before on that deployment. And we were in a good spot with it. We understood the human terrain, we understood the location. We had spent hundreds of hours at this time of manpower isr, and we had a good handle on the situation. So the order was given, signed off from the highest level from my regiment to go down and attempt to capture this individual. So on the night of the operation, July 3rd 4th, we went down and that morning he'd conducted an assassination on a local checkpoint. And we observed him wearing a suicide vest. And I remember coming in that morning and being like, damn, looks like he's got a vest on. And then we get reports, human reports, telling us that, yeah, that's exactly what. What's been going on. And he's now driving around this town with that vest on. As a status thing to say, you know, this is what I'm about. Doesn't change a thing for us. We approach the same operation as we would do anything, you know, there's no more or less diligence put into it. Due diligence is always applied. And we try our very, very best as professionals to make sure that we are not putting ourselves in unnecessary risk and that we're dealing with the situation in a professional manner. So it doesn't make any difference to us. It doesn't change how we look at it. It doesn't change our mindset, doesn't change our approach to this target. It's just another target. And we would consider all people to be of high threat. This one was just active at that time. So anyway, for a series of events, we. We moved down on vehicle and the primary location that we had planned to do the operation had changed last minute because he's now hiding in a rural location which we know and have observed before to be a hideout location where they go to cache weapons, which we've seen there, to plan attacks and to basically hide out when they think the local partner force is probably going to come and try and do a raid. He was right, you know, but unfortunately for him, we'd been watching him for weeks, so we knew exactly where he was going to go. And sure enough, that's where he was anyway. As we move closer towards the target, he gets spooked. He then moves off into a different location and we go firm where we are, and the decision is made to pursue into an urban area which we don't take lightly because we've planned meticulously and in detail for a very long period of time, executing the operation on a specific place on the, on the ground. So we understand it. We've got, you know, all the positions are there and all the corners and all the rest of it. So now we're having to take a little bit of time to just reevaluate the plan, do a risk assessment and understand the situation that we are potentially walking into. And does it merit the sort of risk versus reward conversation, which to us it did. And we were comfortable with what we did, comfortable with the decisions that we were making at this point. So we get off the initial target and we start moving into the urban area where this guy has gone back to his original location, his original house. He's picked up a couple of other individuals that we know to be assassination cell members, and now moving to a third location, which is a known weapons cache. And we know it's there because we've got the intelligence reports and the ISILE footage to back that up. So it's all matching in line with pattern of life. It's all nefarious. And he's already tried to avoid capture one time when he heard our vehicles. So now he's effectively moved to another position and then a further position position to avoid capture. So our intention never changes. We are there to conduct a detention operation. We get out of the vehicles. As soon as we get out of the vehicles, we're engaged multiple times from different firing points. Very difficult to pid those firing points at night. And in that, that time frame, you've got multiple radios going off. There was no aviation. The JTAC couldn't get the, the Apaches overhead quick enough. So we were basically on our own. And now we're in a very dangerous situation. You have to understand, Sean, that we are not on the original target that we planned. We are now in a place of his choosing in the night against guys that are armed, we know them to be armed, and are now engaging us actively. We are. I'm not going to go as far as to say troops in contact because that has a different connotation in my brain. That's a different thing. But we are under 40 fire for sure. And everybody in the task force acknowledges that. There's like 50 people on the ground and everyone's seeing what we're seeing. This is not just my opinion, this is fact. That's been backed up by dozens of witness statements at this point, ISR footage, et cetera, et Cetera, we get out, we move into an L shape formation, which is exactly what we would employ to do a detention operation. At this point here, there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that this is a very dangerous situation. But we are making every single attempt we can to capture this guy, detain him. We're still taking incoming rounds into the, into the team. Now I see people maneuvering, and he's not maneuvering away. He's not maneuvering in a way that's peaceful. He's not got his hands up. He's not. He is moving in an aggressive manner and he is moving tactically. And when, I mean tactically, I mean up, down, like soldiers move when they're moving into position. Now, I know that there's weapon cases around it and we're under fire. So I have to be, you know, I have to make decisions on what I'm seeing in front of me. So I make the decision to engage a target. It's, it's hostile intent to me all day long. It's a threat to my teammates and it's a threat to myself. And the rules of engagement are there to help us. And this is, you know, well within our rules of engagement for the most part. But we are there to, to detain this guy, but he is now trying to fight us, basically. So my team and I, we return fire and we start to maneuver up on this, on this element. So we know that there's four people, right? And we are getting closer towards the target. And I engage one of the targets roughly 130 meters and get effective hits on target, essentially. And we're still maneuvering up towards the thing. So in my mind, there's four people out there, and this is highly dangerous. So we're moving with extreme caution and due diligence, making sure that we've always got one foot on the ground, making sure that we're communicating to our satellite and call signs and making sure that everyone is aware of what we're doing. There are no fracture side issues. And we're now closing up on the enemy as well, per good doctrine. Okay. As we start to get closer, you can start to see this individual moving, still, still moving away from us and like across our path. Not backwards, not forward, not surrendering and not putting his hands up. And this is immediate threat. Now we're in a farm farmland, basically. It's undulating ground, it's dark, and it's, you know, it's, it's a high risk position. I'm now committing my teammates and myself towards These enemy combatants that we have already established are hostile, and there should be four, and we're only tracking two at this point. So this is an extremely dangerous position for me and my guys to be in. And due to the professionalism, the courage, and the, you know, extraordinary level of, you know, boldness from those guys next to me, to my right and left, we managed to close down these. These enemy combatants and neutralize the threat times two. I'm still concerned about where the other people are. So we then withdraw back to the vehicles and everything's okay. We then go and conduct SSE on the. On the two bodies, confirm what we need to know. The partner force are absolutely ecstatic at this point. Their number one target's been taken off the deck. So all in all, there is a level of satisfaction that we executed a good operation. We were planned to do it, and we, you know, the fact that he bought a ticket and voted was his option. He did that. We gave them multiple, multiple chances to be detained. And they wanted to fight us, they wanted to kill us. And it just turns out that we were better than they were. It's that simple. So I don't really think too much of it. It's, you know, it's what we were there to do. We were ordered to go and do that, and we demonstrated our professionalism to the highest level, in my opinion. And at the time, I thought that would have been okay. Our commanding officer at the time signed it off and was happy with what had happened and had no issue with it. And then it got pushed up to the director of Special Forces.

Sean Ryan (307:31)

You got put in for a citation for this, correct?

J. Cal (307:33)

Yeah, I was given a citation for that whole deployment. Yeah. But it never came through. It disappeared somewhere in the mail, you know. But, yeah, I was told by multiple people, including my SARC major, You know, well done. Basically, we've written you up. I'm not here for medals. It's nice to get recognition. It would have been nice for my daughter, for sure. It would have been a nice way to end my military career.

Sean Ryan (307:57)

Well, I'm bringing that up because of what you're about to say.

J. Cal (308:00)

Yeah. Before I go into what we're about to say, it's really important for context that people understand why this has happened. About three days before that, there was a BBC Panorama documentary making allegations against the regiment for, you know, alleged misconduct in Afghanistan 10 years Previous to this. Now, the guy that was front and center in the crosshairs for this investigation is a guy called Gwyn Jenkins, and he is now The First Sea Lord. At the time, he was the director of Special Forces. So in charge of all Special Forces. He is under the crosshairs for his mismanagement and unprofessionalism in dealing with these alleged incidences, you know, 10 years previous. So it goes through my regiment. It goes all the way up to his level, and he decides to launch an investigation into this, in his words, to show transparency, even though there's probably nothing wrong, and if there was anything wrong, they wouldn't have launched an investigation on it. Does that make sense? So he's done this, and he admitted to doing this on a vtc. And I stand by this because there's a whole room of people that saw it. He basically said, it's more important that we be seen to be doing the right thing than it is for this incident to go away. What does that mean? It means he threw us under the bus knowing full well what would happen, because he wanted to be seen to show transparency without any care in the world for how that would affect us and our lives. No. Well done. Congratulations on being professional and doing a good job. The thing that we ordered you and trained you to do. He sent us down the river and he did that of his own admission, to make it seem to the world that they are doing due diligence. And that does not sit well because that is not what being a good leader is about. You do not throw your own guys under the bus for your own personal gain. And that's exactly what happened. And that was acknowledged by my commanding officer. It was even acknowledged by the policeman that came and arrested me in theater. They knew and said.

Sean Ryan (310:23)

Arrested you in theater.

J. Cal (310:24)

They arrested. Wait. Yeah. Oh, the plot thickens on that one. Yeah. But it's widely known and acknowledged that the reason for this was so that he could be seen to show that he does do investigations because he'd failed in the past to do it properly. Does that make sense? So at the time.

Sean Ryan (310:45)

So he's holding somebody accountable to save.

J. Cal (310:47)

His own ass 100%.

Sean Ryan (310:49)

Well, not holding somebody accountable because there's nothing to be held accountable for.

J. Cal (310:55)

No, because it's all been cleared. Because, funny old thing, three years later down the line, they've realized that there is absolutely no wrongdoing in what we did. And it was all completely within our rules of engagement. It was not an excessive use of force, and it was professional like. There is. There's no other way of saying it.

Sean Ryan (311:11)

What. What. What specifically instigated this specific incident?

J. Cal (311:17)

From which perspective, mate?

Sean Ryan (311:18)

Why did he pick this of all the combat through all SAs, why is he honing in on this specific incident?

J. Cal (311:28)

Because it was one that happened underneath his watch and it was one that happened three days after a BBC interview naming him, that he'd been involved in this. That's why. And everybody knows that. And it's, it's disgusting, in my opinion, to do that. And it shows a complete lack of moral courage, a lack of a spine. And it's cowardice. It's sending people down the river to save your own skin for your own political and your own personal gain. And I'm not having it.

Sean Ryan (312:01)

Has he ever been in a position like this on the ground?

J. Cal (312:05)

Probably not. I asked his leg ad his lawyer that he had. They went down the line of its excessive force, which. Exactly. What it says on the tin is, how can you quantify excessive force? He said there was a high round count. I would then argue that by doctrine and standards that we set ourselves accountable for in UKSF in order to be able to deploy on operations overseas or domestically, we reach a level of standards when it comes to firearms and manipulation of weapon systems. And one of the drills, one of many drills, is essentially a six round from the high, ready in 2.5 seconds. We fired about that between three guys. Okay, so he doesn't even understand his own doctrine because it isn't excessive force. Now, I'd like anybody, can you explain to me how much force is excessive? Is one round too many? Is two? Or are we engaging targets until the threat is neutralized? Where is it? Or is it subjective? So they took this subjective opinion on what we did and they basically launched a full investigation into it. They opened up the door to the rmp who are themselves under scrutiny for their unprofessional conduct. Not only in this operation, which regiments launched a formal complaint against them for the handling of how they've done it in their overzealous activities, which I'll go into in detail in a minute. But they're also under the crosshairs for their. Their unprofessionalism in Afghanistan and not doing their jobs properly. So you've got two forces operating against us now. You've got RMPs that have got, you know, a chip on their shoulder and are fully going in on this in.

Sean Ryan (313:49)

You know, what are RMPs.

J. Cal (313:51)

Royal Military Police. Royal Military Police. And then you've got a general who is using us as a test case to better his own political and, you know, personal career, essentially. Now all of these things I've said are factual and he's even admitted that that's exactly what it was, but he didn't understand the ramifications of it or where it would go. And what's ironic to me is that when he left that position, which is the head position in UK Special Forces, his next guy in came and spoke to us in theater and said, this would, quote, witness a room full of people. This would have never happened under my watch. That's never excessive force and you did the right thing. That's what he said. He's changed his tone on that a little bit now and he's gone back on it, but he forgets that we were all there when he said it. So the outgoing guys, who is this? Who was it? What was his name? It'll come to me. Nick. I think his name's Nick. He'll come to me. But he's the current Director, Special Forces. So the guy that replaced Gwyn Jenkins, does that make sense? Everybody understands why this has happened, but nobody's doing anything about it. So this is where it starts to unravel. And this is where the real consequences of people's actions, of throwing good guys under the bus, not only does it undermine the confidence in the chain of command, not only does it undermine the individual operator's confidence to the point where team leaders coming in to replace us were telling us, we're not putting our guys on the ground because if they do what they're supposed to do, they're going to get this treatment. We had guys in the squadron that didn't want a soldier. We had guys that have left the military. Out of the four guys in my team, two of us left. One of them tried to leave but couldn't for visa issues, which I'll explain. And one of them is still serving, still serving his country after what they've done. What a hero, you know, what a good dude that is. But it was just how the whole thing was handled. Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics of pointing the finger at every single person that's been unprofessionalist, because the blame solely lands at Gwyn Jenkins door. And he's been recently promoted to the first Sea Lord, which is an extremely high position within the military. He was the intelligence, military intelligence advisor to the former Prime Minister. When the new government got in, he lost that job. And then he got given the first Sea Lord job. And everyone's there going, oh, what a great guy. What a great guy. Nah, he's not. And for anyone watching this, you need to be careful because that man only cares about himself. He doesn't care about protecting the reputation of the regiment. He cares about himself because he knows that he's under the crosshairs for this Afghanistan stuff. So we were sent down the river, we were told, ordered to write witness statements with no legal representation in theater. I voiced my concerns about that and I think I was right to do so because all the Royal Military Police did was they took witness statements that we were made to write. And by made to write, we were given a document that said, if you do not do this, you will be charged, etc. Etc. Etc. So we weren't given an option, basically. And I said, okay, we'll do the witness statements, but I think we should have legal representation. No, you don't need it. Don't worry about it. The first thing that the Royal Military Police used against us was our own witness statements that we told them we should have legal representation for this. So without any context or no evidence, they were using our own words against us, even though we'd said, hang on a minute, can we have some protection here? So they were caught out with that, which obviously impacted us.

Sean Ryan (317:50)

They trapped you.

J. Cal (317:51)

They trapped us, yeah. And, you know, I'll read you some of the impact statements from the individual shortly. I'll give you a broad brush and I'll get into some details. This happened three years ago, Sean, and it's only last week that they've concluded that there was no wrongdoing and we've been acquitted of all charges. No, sorry, no, you know, no compensation, emotional compensation, no nothing. And it's ruined people's lives. And it's, it's something that needs to be addressed because this, this, this can't happen again. And it's not okay, and it's not fine to just wash it under the carpet and carry on. That's not in my nature. This isn't about anything other than having our perspective put across. And I've spoken to all the guys involved and they fully support what I'm doing because they know hopefully this might prevent it from happening in the future. I've already won the battle in terms of I've been acquitted, I've been vindicated, that I did the right action after three years. Three years to a point where I was even questioned my own self. You know, that's a dark place to be and it's a very stressful situation to be under investigation for double murder. Something that you know isn't true and something that doesn't read well, can you imagine having that conversation with a 15 year old. Can you imagine having that conversation with your mother? Can you imagine having that conversation with your loved ones, your friends, your girlfriend? It's, it's a heavy thing to carry and we have done it. We've carried it for three years and now it's finally gone away. And.

Sean Ryan (319:40)

And all the media picked this up.

J. Cal (319:41)

And all. Again, all of the media picked this up. We didn't get a voice, we didn't get our opinion, We've not said a word. We've been professional, we've been dignified and we've carried on essentially just trying to maintain some sort of level of sanity and try and rebuild our lives. But the level of accuracy of the media reports has to have been from a leak. Has to have been. There's no way on earth they've got the picture completely wrong and there's no context in it, but the broad brush, the main details are roughly fairly accurate to a point. So it has to have come from inside the organization itself. And it's incredibly difficult when people keep putting stuff in the newspapers, on the news and family members are reading it and it just, it's always murder. You can't look past the word murder. I've never murdered anyone in my life. I'm a professional soldier that does exactly what I'm supposed to do within side the confines of my rules of engagement, to neutralize the threat if needs be. Like what? Like I've been trained to the highest level. I've operated next to some of the most professional operators on the planet. Like, professionalism is something that we take extremely seriously. And it's insulting to me that people would think that we were unprofessional and it's shameful that they can band us with accusations in order to save their own personal careers. That's disgusting. That should never happen ever again. But it just kept going and going and going. And they tried to arrest us all at the same time, but they failed miserably because of the rmp, the military police's incompetence, competence. Okay, my person, I'll tell you my personal situation. First they flew out to theater. They came to our operation station, our command post. They arrested me, they searched my room, they confiscated my tablets and my phones so I couldn't contact my family. And they wanted. I don't know what they were looking for. I don't know what they were looking for on there. Their argument was, well, we have to arrest you so we can seize your personal electronic devices. I was that they're in a bag there you go, you can take them. So, yeah, but we need to search your room. The keys are there. Do it. They still did it. So technically, I've been arrested for murder at this point. Now, when people look at investigations in the past. Oh, we've done this before. Yes and yes and no. Nobody's been arrested for it. Okay. One of the guys was arrested in front of his mother, in front of his sister, and the RMP's told him, we're arresting your son for murdering two civilians. I've got it all written down. I've got it all here, everything documented. One of the guys was arrested at his home in front of his wife, where the policeman told his wife squarely in the eyes. We're arresting your husband for murdering two civilians. You can't unsee that. Family members will never, ever be able to unsee that. One guy was tricked by the RMPs of coming for an interview under caution. They got him in a room, they basically locked the room and said, bang, you're under arrest. So they could search him whilst he's. Whilst we're deployed, whilst we're out there serving our country, still operational, still trying to do the right thing. And we have to deal with this not only at home, but also overseas. Okay. So it's a lot for people to deal with. We were offered next to no support when it comes to legal aid. It was 60, 65 days. I think I've got the details. I'm going to read all this stuff out in a minute. But it was over two months of limbo where we had no legal support because they couldn't be read on to the specifics of the operation, which we're not talking about for legal reasons and disclosure reasons. But they couldn't even. We couldn't even get lawyers. They wouldn't even provide us with lawyers. And the ones they did provide us with initially wouldn't do it because they weren't getting paid enough money by the MoD. It's disgraceful. So a lot of the guys felt very isolated. Fast forward till 14 months ago. I left. I'd left the military. I was trying to put everything behind me, move on and try and give something back. I took a job for GBRS as their lead instructor. I went out to Virginia beach and I was staying with DJ and Patsy at the time. Lived in their house for the best part of three months. And I was granted an O1 visa for extraordinary ability. And that O1 visa was a pull, not a push. And what I mean by that, I was written commendations from SWAT team guys. I'd also spent some time at the unit. I trained guys from Green Team as a. As a guest instructor. I deployed with the US flag on my chest. The United States asked me effectively to come out and help train law enforcement officers, SWAT teams, military units, etc. Etc. That was what I was going to go and do. That was my. That was my future. I come back to the UK to collect my visa and one of the things that you need to provide is a sheet which states whether you've got a criminal record or not. I don't have a criminal record because I've been in the military for the best part of 20 years, serving my country. But on this piece of paper it says, wanted for an investigation. Under investigation for murder. Now I'm at the US Embassy with this sheet and I have to show this to that lady, at which point they'll act negative. We are not giving you a visa because it says you're under investigation for murder, which has been vindicated. That is obviously not correct. So it's impacted my life. I came back from Virginia beach for three days. I was supposed to be there for three days with a small bag to collect my visa from the US Embassy in London and then go on with the rest of my life. And it's been a heavy few years and for the first time I felt positive and I felt like I could get on with my life and I could change direction and it was all good. Until that moment, one of the other guys tried to do exactly the same. He was that broken by this whole process that he decided to leave. He was an A stream operator. He was selected to be a troop sergeant major and he turned it down. He was up. No, I don't want anything to do with this because of the way that we've been treated by this individual and by the rmp. This is all about how he treated us and how the RMP treated my teammates. Okay? It's very difficult for guys to move on with their life when you've got this thing hanging over them in the back of your mind. It only feels like I left the army last week. I've been a civilian for coming up to two years, but I only feel like I left the army last week. And it's had a fucking significant effect on my. On my life, how I feel, my teammates lives, my teammates, family's lives. It's caused the breakdown of two relationships. Guys that have given everything and love that regiment to death. And I still do have had to walk away from it because of what Gwynne Jenkins did to us and our team. And, you know, I just want to be able to sit there, here, and put my side across, our side across, because nobody's asked us for our narrative. And yet it keeps coming out in the press. And now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, saying this and saying that I want to clear a few things up and I want to get the truth out there so that people should be held accountable. And this, my primary goal for this is nothing more than this should never, ever happen again to anyone, because it's absolutely disgusting, it's a disgrace, and it's something that we need to address because we can't just turn a blind eye to this, which is exactly what he wants. Okay, so if he does watch this and feels uncomfortable about it, good, that's a good thing, because you should do, you know, he really should feel uncomfortable and I want him to know the impact because he's too arrogant to reach out after multiple times. And, you know, this really is a last resort because I've written, and I'll tell you in detail, multiple letters from my solicitor, my lawyer, to the Royal Military Police, to the Serious Investigation Board, to Director Special Forces, to basically anyone and everyone. We've written letters saying, hurry the process up, or at least allow people that are under investigation for military, you know, incidents in the military. How can I be blocked from traveling, make that make sense. Like, I'm innocent until proven guilty anywhere in the world, but yet we're being treated as guilty until proven innocent, which is not only morally wrong, but how can we treat service personnel like that? Where's the level of respect or compassion for us and our families? There is none. So it needs to change. So that's the reason we're doing this. And I want to highlight the actual emotional effect it's had on people. And we've never been able to have our say, and yet we have to sit there and watch the whole world read about this and read about that and all the press, and we're supposed to just sit there and do nothing?

Sean Ryan (329:02)

They destroyed your name.

J. Cal (329:03)

They destroyed it. Yeah, they destroyed us. They tried to destroy us, but we're still in the fight for sure. I wrote a letter to my mp, which is a Member of Parliament, so a politician essentially, who wrote a letter to the Veterans Minister, who basically, and I'll read you his response, said, yeah, there's a charity out there somewhere. That's what we're supposed to be doing. If he needs help, ring this hotline. Basically, no empathy. There bearing in mind this guy was used to be in the Special Forces. What's significant about him is everyone knows how unfair and how poorly we've been treated. Do you remember I told you the guy who was blown up in Afghanistan, John, who lost two legs and an army, he's a close friend of that veterans minister and he wrote him a personal message and basically he got the same short shift reply of, yeah, processes, process, just wait out. So I've tried everything. I literally could not have tried more. I've written letters to lawyers, I've written letters to politicians. Years of trying to get some resolution on this, years of trying to get some sort of clarity on it, of trying to be able to move on with our lives. It's significant to the point. It's affected me. For nine months, Sean, I couldn't earn a penny. So when I left the military, I didn't leave with much. I'm not a rich man, but I spent all my pension, all of my savings, maxed out credit cards. I was living in Airbnbs. There were times where I didn't even have enough money to get that and I was sleeping in my truck. I'm not joking, Sean. It's been a nightmare for the last 14 months. Three days. I was supposed to come back for nowhere to live. No. No source of income. I couldn't earn money from GBRs because I didn't have a visa and we wanted to protect the integrity of what we were doing because we're professional. So I'm using everything I can at this point. I'm getting no support. The only support that I got was from the regimental association and they threw me some money in order for me to basically put a roof over my head in an Airbnb and do some laundry. That was basically what we got. So I'm thankful for those guys for doing that. But they're not part of, they're not part of mod. They're a regimental association, an old boys network. But it's, that's not good enough. That's. That's not enough. The loss of income, not being able to earn money, let alone having to spend all of my own just to, you know, just to keep a roof over my head, essentially tens, hundreds of thousands probably at this point is loss of income and expenditure from my own personal, personal accounts. Just, just, just trying to, you know, survive day to day. I'm not after a penny and I want to get that out. I don't care about money. I don't care. I just want this to never Happen again. And I want people that are involved in this to be able to look themselves in the mirror and go, yeah, we need to do better in the future. That's what this is about. This is not me spitting my dummy out or, you know, having a Prince Harry pity party situation. It's not that I don't want here to victimize yourself. I'm not here to do that.

Sean Ryan (332:08)

I'm here for the future of SAS operators.

J. Cal (332:13)

Yeah, 100%. This can't happen again. And it's all good and well saying it won't, but it won't. It will, sorry if we don't change it or if it doesn't get voiced. And it's, it's my time now. It's my time to have my say. Because for three years I've had to sit by and watch people destroy the integrity of what we were doing, attack my team and drag my regiment's name through the mud for no reason other than personal gain, political gain. And that's not right. The regiment is a fantastic organization. It's an incredible asset to the nation and it provides an incredible layer of security across the world for not only our civilians and citizens, but, you know, our coalition as well. The regiment is a fantastic thing and dragging it down like this is disgraceful, it's disgusting and I'm not having that. So these people need to be held accountable. I want to touch on a couple of the points from the guys because without that, you know, it, the context is important on this. So we've got everything from the very start to the very end. So first thing I'll read out is from the colonel prosecuting officer. Again, I'm going to leave him out of it, name wise, because I've got class and I've got dignity. But I'm going to read this to you, the first word. You, Soldier C, are notified that charges will not be brought against you under section 1212 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 in respect to the case referred to this authority arising out of the allegations of murder during a deliberate detention operation. 3rd 4th July 2022. The position may change, however, if, for example, further evidence comes to light or a further allegation is made, or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with the service prosecuting authority's victim's right to review policy. That's what we got after three years, Sean. That's what we got. So no name. You Soldier C. Not very personal. And then at the end of it, it's a warning. Think it's not a sorry, it's not, congratulations, you didn't do anything wrong. It's a you soldier. C. How degrading is that? You can't even. It's disgusting. And then at the bottom of it, well, this might change. No acknowledgment of any wrongdoing there whatsoever. No. No empathy, nothing. So that's. That's what we got after three years. You can check that out and you can have a look at that. That's some bullshit right there.

Sean Ryan (334:57)

So they're still digging in.

J. Cal (335:00)

Essentially.

Sean Ryan (335:01)

If, for example, further evidence comes to light or a further allegation is made or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with service prosecuting authorities victims rights to review policy.

J. Cal (335:15)

What that means is it's not over. It's just they haven't got what they need right now. It doesn't tell me there's not. I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling that I'm going to get left alone here.

Sean Ryan (335:24)

Why would they even send this?

J. Cal (335:25)

So why would they even. Exactly. It makes no sense. Right. Does that make sense to you?

Sean Ryan (335:30)

It makes no sense.

J. Cal (335:31)

Good. It's not just me then.

Sean Ryan (335:38)

So you're not clear. You're clear for the time being.

J. Cal (335:41)

I'm clear for the time being. And I was speaking to the lawyer again recently, last couple of days, about trying to get my form redacted so it doesn't say under investigation for murder so I can go and get my visa, so I can go and get on with my life. And there's this whole bullshit process and they're like, no, it's gonna take some time. You've gotta do this and that. I'm either innocent or I'm not. You just told me I am. So give me my form and let me get on with my life. That's it. How long does this go on for? For the rest of my life. I've given enough my country, Sean. I just want to get on with it, mate. I just want to have a nice life, you know what I mean? I feel like I've earned that. I feel like all my teammates have. This one here, this is from the Ministry of Defense. From the Veterans Minister I was sorry to learn a mystic financial hardship and homelessness. I would encourage him to seek assistance from the Veterans Gateway, which offers support to veterans 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a range of issues including housing and finances. The Veterans Gateway can be contacted on a free phone number and there's a Website that you can go and look at. That's from the Veterans Minister, a guy that used to be in the sbs, a guy that used to be one of the squadrons. That's what you get. That was in direct response to a letter that I had written drafted by somebody that is very close to the Prime Minister who actually wrote his autobiography via my local politician, a guy who was supposed to help me. We wrote that letter to that local politician who then forward it to this, this guy, the veterans minister. And that is the, that's the response. I got a free phone number. And you know what really winds me up about stuff like that is just the sheer cowardice of it. Because it's like we've reached out to that dude twice. Once from a guy whose life I was there to try and help save. So a personal touch and one through a completely professional touch and get nothing, nothing from these people. Not. Okay, let me look into it. Let me do this. Just, it's just due course way out and that's not good enough. And yet I look around and you're doing expeditions to Mount Everest and they're saying that you're for the. No, you're not. You for yourself. And if any of these people have got anything to say, I'm more than welcome to sit down and have this conversation with them. But I've tried to reach out to them on multiple occasions through multiple sources, through every official channel possible, and get nothing. So if they feel like this is unfair, then they need a reality check. Okay, let me start working through some of these personal issues that the geezers have faced. Okay, so personal issues, RMP searching of my personal home that I just moved into after telling me they would not search my property. Arriving unannounced with multiple, multiple cars and cops late in the evening, telling my girlfriend directly I'd murdered two people turning our house upside down during their search. Taking personal items from me and my partner. Family photos on USB devices that I've still not received back. This one breaks me searching my one year old son's nursery bedroom while he was sleeping in his cot. I want them to think about that. Imagine being at home with your new wife and a brand new baby and all of a sudden military police come knocking at the door. They tell your wife to her face that you're being arrested for murder. And then they turn your house upside down, including the baby's bedroom with the baby asleep. That's what the RNP did to us. How does that make you feel?

Sean Ryan (339:28)

It pisses me off.

J. Cal (339:29)

It pisses Me the fuck off, mate. That's what it does. It's wrong partner having counseling because of it and put her in a terrible mental state for years. Almost a breakdown in our relationship. That's one guy. I was arrested on 28th July 2022 in front of my mother and sister while home at rr. During the arrest, the RNP told my family that I was arrest arrested for murdering two civilians which has caused irreparable damage to my relationship with my sister. These people are destroyed. Two weeks after being arrested, I was back in theater when all our weapons were seized. So get this, this is the professionalism of the guys I'm talking about. They came, they seized all of our guns. Whilst we're in theatre on combat operations, they take all of our guns, all of our rifles, pistols, optics. Do you know what we did? We went down to stores, got new guns, re zeroed and cracked on because we're professional. That's what we're about. I was unable to speak to my lawyer about the case as disclosure cell. It took 69 days to read him on. So for 69 days we had no legal support because the people that are supposed to be dealing with this, to read these people on, didn't do it. We were offered £2,500 for a holiday. That's what we were given. That's what they offered. Obviously we turned that down. I feel that there's an irreparable mental distress caused to me and my family by the fear and anxiety which generated by the investigation. My confidence, self esteem and personal relationships feel permanently damaged. I had a breakdown in January 2025 and was close to taking my own life. I've been undergoing professional mental health treatment since early 2024. This guy flew out to Colombia to go and do psychedelic treatments because he was on the verge of killing himself and he didn't get any support from the military. There was no program for it. So he's gone off his own back and done that because he was at his last, last phase. He had nowhere else to go. And I could see it in next guy being instructed, ordered to fill in witness statements with no legal advice for the serious investigation reports which were then used against us. You were the only one who questioned it. You being me, sir. Signed off by headquarters but then referred to the RMP by DSF Gwyn Jenkins. So what that means is the regiment were good with what we they were perfect. The commanding officer of the regiment signed that off and said that is the correct use of force. Everything's good. I'VE got no problem with it. They then refer it up and guess who gets it? Gwyn Jenkins. And he's the one personally who referred it to the Royal Military Police. He did that. He was only protecting himself because he wanted the CDS job but he didn't get it. We were tricked under the premise of an interview under caution. The RMP tried and failed miserably to arrest us all at the same time. So they tried to do us all across the world at the same time, failed miserably. I arrived at the right time and the right place to conduct the interview Then they arrested me, read me my rights, fingerprints, swabs, DNA then physically marched me to my accommodation so they could confiscate and seize my phones. It's exactly what they did to me. This also coincided with the botched search of the the guys houses and the home address in the uk handing over weapons everyone's I love the mindset of the geezers here including pistols and MVGs. We went and got new ones, zeroed them in and was good to go to deploy again. Looking back our professionalism and ability to crack on probably wasn't the best idea Sean what you must understand about this is they flew us back from theater, they got us all in a room and conducted a no comment interview under caution in a police station with two SIB investigators that went on for hours and then they flew us back to theater. Two weeks later I jumped out the back of an aircraft and led my team to target. So all this is going on and we're still having to do this.

Sean Ryan (344:01)

How the fuck are you supposed to think.

J. Cal (344:05)

Put it in the box, don't you? You put it in the box and you crack on. That's what we do. VTC stating that RHQ would get us the best lawyers money. No object. I rang one, explained the situation reading a pre prepared script with a number for on a number on it for the lawyer to call. Then we were told they were too expensive. I had to choose basic legal aid lawyers. So what that means is they promised us the world Sean. They said we're going to give you the best representation money can buy. No object. There's a big fund for this type of stuff with millions of pounds in it and yet they wouldn't pay for legal aid. We had to get basic lawyers. Now the one that I've got is incredible and I'm very grateful for him but they gave us a whole list of these high flying lawyers and not one of them would touch it because they weren't willing to. To pay the price for it. £62 an hour was the cap. £62 an hour is what we were worth for these guys. Now this might sound like I'm digging in on people, but if you don't talk about this, then it goes away and it doesn't get rectified. So there's.

Sean Ryan (345:03)

There's doesn't sound like you're digging in on people, just sounds like you're telling.

J. Cal (345:07)

The truth and you want it to come out. These are from the guys having to tell my wife, our families about the investigation. There was no help, advice or support on how to deliver such news. Then they, the wives, families, etc had loads of questions that couldn't be answered because we didn't have any information. I. E. How long will this take? General Nick on his handover takeover, coming out to theatre and standing next to me stated, that's hostile intent all day. There's nothing to worry about. That's the incoming Director Special Forces that I mentioned a second ago, only to change his tune years later, saying that he would have done the same thing as Gun Jiang Jenkins. These people are spineless.

Sean Ryan (345:47)

He completely reversed his statement.

J. Cal (345:49)

Completely reversed his statement. 180 degrees after standing there in a rooftop with all of us, my entire team, drinking a beer, telling us how fantastic a job we'd done and it would have never happened under his watch. Those exact words. And that you've got nothing to worry about.

Sean Ryan (346:05)

I don't. I don't understand this at all. So they arrest you and your teammates for murder.

J. Cal (346:10)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (346:11)

Fly you back to the uk.

J. Cal (346:12)

Investigate. Yep. For. For an investigate.

Sean Ryan (346:15)

Interrogate.

J. Cal (346:15)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (346:16)

Interrogate you.

J. Cal (346:17)

Four hours we sat in that office four hours under caution.

Sean Ryan (346:21)

And then they deem you fit for duty again while you're under investigation to go continue doing the job.

J. Cal (346:26)

Yeah. I conducted two free fall exercise operations, combat operations in a week. Shortly after that, I led my stick to target twice. Why?

Sean Ryan (346:34)

Why would they. I know you don't know the answer to this, but I'm just gonna ask the question anyways. If you guys are loose cannons out there murdering innocent civilians, why would they fly you back into country to do it again?

J. Cal (346:52)

Because they knew it was all bullshit and they knew we didn't do anything wrong. If they thought we'd done something wrong, if they really thought we'd done something wrong, they wouldn't let us do that. Right.

Sean Ryan (347:02)

And there's drone footage.

J. Cal (347:03)

It's all out. This exact 100 operation. Yep. It's all there. 50 witness statements. What makes it even more of a Bit of pill to swallow is the two police officers that came arrest me in theater when they came out the first time, said to me, we've seen the drone footage, we don't even know why this is a thing, but we've got to do our jobs. And it was almost like they wanted me to like have sympathy for them, you know, it's like, sorry mate, I'm just doing my job. Well, sorry mate doesn't quite cut it in this situation. This isn't a sorry, mate situation. You know when you've got the two people that are arresting you telling you that they know this is and that it's political and they admitted that to my face. It takes, it's a, it's, it's a hard thing to get your head around, Sean. It really is, mate. RHQ decided to give a Charlie, Charlie One, which means an all hands. Basically. They briefed everybody about an ongoing investigation. An invite that wasn't extended to ourselves. I heard the news from my wife. So basically for damage limitation and reputation control. Because they knew that the guys in the squadrons were outraged and were questioning whether they could be, you know, deployed and trust the chain of command. Not the regiment so much, but above that. They invited everyone in and explained the situation, but they didn't invite us. Make that make sense. What would be your take on that? I know what I think. I think they know they fucked up and they were trying to fight fires and they didn't want us in there because if we were, we would have told everybody what actually happened. How can you have an all hands without the people that are involved? And why is he finding out? By his wife, who another wife said, oh, yeah, my boyfriend was at this brief. Did you go to it? What brief? No, See, he said he was being almost accused of potentially leaking the story to the press. All the scrutiny was asked for. I was accused of leaking this story to the press. Two days after my visa got returned, I got a phone call from one of the guys saying that the adjutant had phoned him up personally because the story had leaked into the papers. And he said, jay's. I think Jay's gone and done this. Or do you think Jay. How fucking dare you. How dare you have the audacity to accuse me of leaking this to the press? And I know you might be sitting here going, well, you're on the Sean Ryan talking about, yeah, because it's done and I want my say. Can you imagine how offensive that is to me? Do you think I would leak that to the press? No, and if I was going to do it, I'd do it with accurate details. I'm not leaking the shit to the press. Somebody's leaking it to the press and I'm setting the record straight because I'm sick and tired of reading about bullshit stories in the newspapers that my family see. It's not correct, it's not right and quite frankly, it needs to be addressed. So that's what I'm doing. My wife and other people's families rightly having enough of this bullshit. After seeing me, us going through a hard time speaking to the welfare, speaking to the welfare and being basically dismissed, there's nothing that can be done. And then this, this upsets me, receiving a phone call from the next day telling him to, quote, get a grip of my wife. So basically she's phoned up, she wants to know answers. She's. There's a protocol for this. There's a people that if you ever have any dramas, whether you're deployed or whether it's this or whether you know, the kids need picking up from school, school or the car breaks down or your husband's been accused of murder, then phone this number and we'll try and help you. She phoned that number, got nothing. And then to take, take the piss, that dude phones the guy up the next day and goes, hey, tell your wife to get a grip. Get a grip. Depression, fear, anger and a complete loss of self. All the negative effects it's had individually and the family friendship level. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't want to leave the house and have panic attacks. You're talking about one of the finest operators I've ever met. Panic attacks, seeing the mental health nurse at work and being told if I want to go on medication, I would be downgraded, not allowed to access weapons and my chain of command would be informed. So he's reached out and they basically said, cool, we could help you, but it means that we're going to have to report it and that you are no longer allowed to do your job. How can you be in the SAS but not be allowed to play with guns? The fuck are we talking about here? I didn't do that for pride reasons and worried about my reputation. So we sucked it up, basically. He tried to get help, they bounced him and he sucked it up and carried on having to leave home and start divorce proceedings because I was unsafe.

Sean Ryan (351:47)

It's destroying families.

J. Cal (351:49)

It's destroying people's lives, mate. It's destroying families. Big drinking issues, multiple jobs falling through because of The ARCO form. Same situation I'm in. We're looking for employment outside of the wire. Basically, it makes it nearly impossible to get a visa to go anywhere. So what are guys supposed to do? How long does this go on for? How long are we going to be punished for? Indefinitely. Bearing in mind we've done nothing wrong and everybody knows that this is a test case by Gwynne Jenkins to show transparency. If you want transparency, here it is. This is transparency. You reap what you sow. You know, again, I know there's more and there is. There's pages of this. These are just the ones I've highlighted. There's pages of it. This is the ARCO form. This is the form that caused the dramas. Read that. See what that says.

Sean Ryan (352:56)

This personal data is provided to you by ACRO Criminal Records Office for the purpose of an immigration consular visa or citizenship related to applications made to a foreign government. Keep the data secure, protected against loss or unauthorized access.

J. Cal (353:28)

Having the word under investigation for murder on that form is not a good look. I felt sorry for the girl at the embassy. She was loving it. She was like, yeah, awesome. You're exactly the kind of person we want to give an O1 visa to. Thank you for your service is what she actually said to me. Until she saw that and she didn't know how to circumnavigate it, she had to get a superior in. Then another one came. This whole thing, it's embarrassing to me, Sean. I'm stood in the freezing cold rain for four hours, queuing up to get into the US Embassy, a nation which I'm deeply proud of and will die to protect. I'm stood in that line and I get humiliated. I'm made to feel that fucking big by my own government. I've already had a US Visa, Sean. I had a NATO visa. I lived there for a year. I've been to America over 50 times. I've been to war for that country.

Sean Ryan (354:20)

What recourse do you have now in.

J. Cal (354:23)

Terms of what's next?

Sean Ryan (354:24)

I mean, when this first letter came out that you read.

J. Cal (354:28)

Yep.

Sean Ryan (354:30)

The position may change, however. Well, just to read it again, you, Soldier C, are notified that charges will not be brought against you under section 1212 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. In respect of the case referred to this authority arising out of the allegations of murder during deliberate detention operation on 34 for July 22.

Jeremy (354:57)

The position may change, however. We've already read this.

Sean Ryan (355:01)

The position may change, however, if, for example, further evidence comes to light. Or further allegations are made, or there is an appropriate request for the decision to be reviewed in accordance with the service prosecuting authority's victims rights to review policy.

J. Cal (355:21)

It means it's not overshone. It means it's just on ice and that we have to go on with the rest of our lives with this. What happens one bit? What, in 10 years time, are they gonna, are they gonna call me back? Are they gonna arrest me again? Because they don't leave this stuff alone. There are guys from, you know, part of what we're doing here is shedding the light on this. There are guys from Northern Ireland, there are guys from the Falklands, there are guys from all sorts of conflicts that have been going on for decades that are still fighting this. I said, you know, there's a partition. I sent it to Jeremy. Over 100,000 people have signed that petition in the UK because of what they're doing. They're reversing it and making it, the government are making it possible for people to just keep revisiting these things. It's, it's disgusting. It's, it's got to stop. It's undermining and this doesn't undermine it.

Sean Ryan (356:06)

What do the attorneys say?

J. Cal (356:08)

They don't say much, to be honest.

Sean Ryan (356:11)

Do they care?

J. Cal (356:13)

It doesn't feel like it. Doesn't feel like it to me. My personal one does. Gwynne Jenkins certainly doesn't care who else the Veterans Minister does.

Sean Ryan (356:25)

Who could get involved to solve this? Whose attention do you need to get?

J. Cal (356:29)

I don't know. I don't know. I'm at a loss, Sean. Like, I'm just a dude from the squadron, bro. I don't know. I'm lost in this. Like I've had to stand by and watch for three years how this is just, just destroyed people's lives, like destroyed it.

Sean Ryan (356:42)

How many different investigations are going on throughout the military right now?

J. Cal (356:46)

Dozens, countless amount. I don't know. I couldn't give you an accurate detail, but a lot.

Sean Ryan (356:50)

Have you seen any come to completion?

J. Cal (356:52)

They very rarely do. They just rumble on for years and years and years and years until somebody, until, until the guys under, you know, investigation die. There are guys that are dealing with stuff from Ireland from like the 70s, 80s, it's 2025, the are we doing.

Sean Ryan (357:08)

It so they never close a case sometimes.

J. Cal (357:13)

How's that make you feel? And it's all good and well, saying it's all good to go. All I want is my form. Let me go and get on with my life. That's all I Want. I want that. And I want this to never happen again. And before people start throwing people under the bus for their own political gain, maybe have a little think about it, you know, I know I'm not going to change the world. They'll probably throw the book at me. I don't care. I'll die on this hill. Fight to the death on this one. I've got nothing to lose. Like, I know I'm in the right. I'm armed by the fact that I'm in the right. You've already admitted in that piece of paper there that I've done nothing wrong. There's no evidence, there's no crime. This is bullshit. Everyone knows it. Make it go away.

Sean Ryan (357:53)

How big of a story is this in UK right now?

J. Cal (357:57)

Depends what day of the week it is. It's in all of the major tabloids. All of them.

Sean Ryan (358:04)

Is it a media?

J. Cal (358:05)

Yep. All of the newspapers, all of the digital newspapers, it's in all of them. The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail. Like legitimate newspapers?

Sean Ryan (358:16)

Everything.

J. Cal (358:16)

Everything, yeah.

Sean Ryan (358:19)

And none of them have reached out to you?

J. Cal (358:20)

Nope. And every single one of them, the information that's in there just keeps getting thicker and thicker and thicker. Somebody's talking to them, somebody's explaining to them, and yet they have the audacity to try and accuse us. I'm not having it. It's not fair. And you know what the worst thing about it is? Like, the silence is deafening. Like, if you know about this and you don't do anything about it, to me, you're just. You're. You're. You're just as guilty. You're just as guilty as Gwyn Jenkins and those RMP that did that. You know, we had an incident recently where armed police officer shot a guy, lethal force. A guy that had been involved in a shooting the night before. He was into drugs, he was into. He was a gangster. And multiple attempts to detain him, very similar story. Eventually had to use lethal force. He's subsequently been vindicated that. That lethal force was just and righteous and proportionate. But they had him up in court on a murder charge. And you know what the police did? They put their guns down and said, we're not going out, we're not going to do it. Because this is how you treat our people. Do you know who stepped up when those armed police stepped down?

Sean Ryan (359:41)

Who?

J. Cal (359:42)

We did. Our regiment. The irony isn't lost on me. The police are not having it. They're like, no, fuck this, why should we? We don't do that because we're the military. And you know what? There's guys that were like, if that happened to our squadron, we'd all do the same thing. No, he fucking wouldn't. He didn't. And I'm not. I'm not. I'm not attacking that. I'm not saying that everyone's got to get on with their own thing. And I don't want this to damage anybody, but it can't fucking happen again. And people should know about this and feel uncomfortable about it. That's what this is about. And if they don't, maybe they're too arrogant to care. Maybe they are. I'm pretty sure Gwyn Jenkins won't reach out. I'm pretty sure he'll come up with some bullshit or he'll try and come after me in some way or whatever. Cool. I'm good with it. I've done nothing wrong. I defended my country, I defended my teammates. And I was put in a position, ordered to be in that position. Took fire from enemy combatants. Re engaged, neutralize a threat. It's that simple.

Sean Ryan (360:45)

And it's on drone footage.

J. Cal (360:46)

It's all there. It's a difficult one, mate. It's so frustrating. Like, so, so frustrating. And I feel like the last few days, I mean, again, I don't know how many times we're going to say this today, but I don't believe in coincidence. I think it's very ironic that a couple of days before this, that happens. People are not. People are aware of it. I was coming to talk to you.

Sean Ryan (361:12)

People are aware of that?

J. Cal (361:14)

I think so. A couple close people. But like anything, once one person knows, you've got to assume everybody knows. Right?

Sean Ryan (361:21)

I didn't like it.

J. Cal (361:22)

No, No. I trust you. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just heartbreaking, man. I just love that. I love, love. Still do. That organization, that cut badge, with my whole fucking heart, dude. I'd die for it. I'd still die for it. Loving it nearly killed me. And I feel like it's.

Sean Ryan (361:46)

Who do we need to reach? How can I help you other than doing this interview? Who do we need to reach? Who does this. Who does this conversation need to get to? Do you need somebody wealthy over there to back you? Do you need to reach a certain politician?

J. Cal (362:06)

It's a strange one, because I've exhausted every single aspect that I can. I don't think we can throw money at the problem. And it will go away. I don't know, Sean, how this doesn't happen again to people. And I'm fairly confident that within a Period of time I will be able to get my form because that's only right. But at the same time, I don't trust them to be able to do the right thing.

Sean Ryan (362:32)

What is the form that you need?

J. Cal (362:33)

It's the ARCO form. So that career, that criminal record form. So as soon as that form comes back with I'm no longer under investigation and it doesn't say murder on it, I can now go to the embassy, I can give it to that lady and she can give me a visa and I can get on with my life. And they're still dragging their heels.

Sean Ryan (362:52)

Have you brought this, this, the notice of non direction, have you brought that to the embassy?

J. Cal (362:57)

Not yet, no. So what we've done is we sent that to my legal team. So I've got an immigration lawyer. The GBRs have paid for tens of thousands of dollars at this point, you know, trying to help me out. They paid for all of that. Couldn't be more grateful. And they've held my hand essentially through this whole process. So she's got all the information. I've reached out through my lawyer in the last couple of the day, last couple of days to reach out directly to the Royal Military Police and to get this situation unfucked so that they can get that off my record and I can get on with it. And then we got some bullshit army response saying, yeah, there's a step down process, but basically it's like, it's completely unhelpful.

Sean Ryan (363:32)

It's like there's a step down process. What does that mean?

J. Cal (363:35)

Who knows? Not even my lawyer knows. He said, I'm going to go back and work out what that actually means. Like it shouldn't take more than a second for them to be able to go, is he under investigation for murder? No, he's been cleared. Cool, we'll take that off the sheet then and give him a new sheet and let him go to the embassy. It's not hard, but it's still like they want to have some sort of con. This whole thing has felt like they were looking for something, they were looking to try and find it. And I guarantee you, Sean, if they could have and they had found something or some angle to come at us and put us stood there in, in a trial, they would have done it. But there isn't anything there because there's no, there's no, there's no wrongdoing. That's the most frustrating thing. It's like, and I'm glad that they've written that and said that we've done nothing wrong because otherwise you can come on here and people are still going to have that in their minds. Like I've lost close relationships with family members because they wanted to distance themselves from me. And this, this, this allegation, you know, that's, that's a hard thing to deal with, man. It's. It's ongoing for all of us. And when we all got the news, it was an incredible moment, but it was a very bittersweet moment. It doesn't feel like it's a hollow victory.

Sean Ryan (364:54)

It's cuz it's not.

J. Cal (364:55)

No.

Sean Ryan (364:57)

What's the appetite of the UK citizen on this? What do you think they'll do when they hear this? Will they be pissed?

J. Cal (365:06)

I think so. Every single person I've spoke to in the last three years is outraged by it. From all demographics. Military, non military, law enforcement, civilian, you name it. There's. You can't look at any of these facts. And everything I'm saying is not subjective. It's not an opinion. These are facts backed by the data. And you can see it's all in black and white there. You know, those letterheads have got army letterheads, Ministry of Defense letterheads. Like you can see, it's all black and white. There's an outpour and of disgust in the UK for this. We shouldn't be treating our soldiers like that. That is the general feeling across the nation. Hence the reason 100,000 people have signed a petition to get these guys from Northern Ireland left alone.

Sean Ryan (365:48)

What is Jenkins doing now?

J. Cal (365:50)

So he's the First Sea Lord. So he now has the highest position in the Royal Navy that you can get.

Sean Ryan (366:02)

Does he have political aspirations?

J. Cal (366:04)

100%. You can sit up there and you know, Whitehall in your ivory tower, making these decisions that affect guys like me, guys like my teammates. And yeah, we don't have the political horsepower. I don't have the government or some fancy title. But I have got my truth and I have got a voice. And I've served my country for a long time and I think my voice should be heard. And when I speak, I speak for all of us with the full backing and support of my teammates.

Sean Ryan (366:49)

Have you thought about getting a publicist?

J. Cal (366:52)

What is a publicist, Sean?

Sean Ryan (366:53)

A publicist can get this into the media. A publicist can connect you to the right connections to put public pressure on him.

J. Cal (367:09)

I haven't thought about it. I know, but I'm something. I'm not adverse to. Listen, I'm better than him. I've got more integrity and more, more class than Him. I don't want to destroy his career. It's not worth it for me. I don't care about him. He's worthless. He's a coward. I don't even expect an apology. He hasn't got the spine or the moral courage to do that.

Sean Ryan (367:35)

These kind of people never give apologies.

J. Cal (367:37)

No, he won't. I just want him to know maybe his wife can read that. Maybe his wife can watch this. And when they have that conversation and they look each other in the eye, maybe they can see how it's affected us. I'd have died for my teammates that night and I'd died for him again. That's the difference.

Sean Ryan (368:00)

There's a lot of people in UK that are not happy with the way things are going for a multitude of reasons. In fact, we had a group of extremely wealthy people that want to talk to me about it and want me to bring it to light. And so maybe we can connect you with them. Maybe they have some type of pull. I wish I had more connections over there for you, but I think this is a damn good start.

J. Cal (368:31)

I hope so. I hope good comes out of this. Again, I don't want to come across like I'm whining or bitching or, you know, that's not what this is about.

Sean Ryan (368:40)

You're not coming across like that. You're coming across like you just want your life back.

J. Cal (368:44)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (368:44)

You want your teammates to have their life back.

J. Cal (368:50)

That's it.

Sean Ryan (368:51)

And you want.

J. Cal (368:53)

I want it to.

Sean Ryan (368:54)

Future operators to not have to worry about this shit.

J. Cal (368:57)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (368:57)

So they could serve their country without this type of stress. That's the way it comes across.

J. Cal (369:01)

Good. Well, I hope it does. And that's genuinely, genuinely a heart. Hand on heart. That is all I want from this. And I don't know, maybe. Can we. Can we make a change? Can we not put that stuff on forms? Can we not. Can we not do that in the future?

Sean Ryan (369:12)

Like, can we just not put it.

J. Cal (369:15)

In the press and that? Yeah. I don't want my family. I hid this from my family for a long time to the point where it was untenable. I couldn't had my mum phone me up on New Year's Eve. Everyone else celebrating, oh, this is going to be, you know, happy New Year and all this other. She phones me up and she's like, this is you, isn't it? She. She's not stupid. Smart woman. She puts it together like that's a conversation you don't want to have with your mother. You know.

Sean Ryan (369:43)

How'S your daughter? Handling this.

J. Cal (369:48)

She doesn't know, Sean.

Sean Ryan (369:49)

She doesn't know.

J. Cal (369:50)

Not the extent of it, no. I can't hide it from her for any longer. That's one of the reasons this is useful. I need to get it done. And I've had to hold, hold, hold, hold, hold.

Sean Ryan (370:02)

She hasn't seen the press.

J. Cal (370:04)

She got a phone. What did happen? It's little things, like one minute I'm watching her play soccer, right? Mom stood there watching her play soccer. All those parents all know what I did for a living. And there's a documentary coming out by the BBC telling us that we've done this or done that, or there's some newspaper story. There's a documentary coming up on the Panorama. Yeah. About the Afghan stuff. The Afghan stuff. So this whole thing, this whole thing is because of the Afghan inquiry, and he's under pressure from it, so he threw us under the bus to show transparency because of that. That's what this is about. And the BBC, like, make this make sense. How can the BBC commission investigative journalists to go ambulance chasing around Afghanistan about stuff that happened a decade ago, allegedly, with no real valuable sources of information other than, you know, people in farmers and people saying, you know, they're all getting paid. They're all getting paid to give those testimonies. So on one hand, the BBC are doing that, and on the other hand, they're spending tens of millions of pounds per episode to commission Rogue Heroes, a documentary about the SAS called Rogue Heroes. So you either like the SAS or you don't like the sas. How can you do both? Which one is it? Hypocrisy of the British media when it comes to this stuff is. It's not even shocking anymore. It really isn't. It's a shame, but it doesn't surprise me anymore whatsoever. And again, for these journalists out there that are writing these stories to get clicks for a bit of clout or whatever it might be, just think about it. I hope they see this and think about how that affects all of the good people. What about all of the people? What about my friend Matt's family? A guy that lost his life serving his country couldn't be prouder to have been in that regiment. How the fuck do you think it makes his family feel reading that? You know, there's just no empathy whatsoever. People need to be really careful. And that's why, you know, I want to come here and say this so I can set the record straight a little bit. You know, I can look you in the eye and tell you that I didn't do anything wrong, Sean. I stand by what I did and I do the same thing again, again and again and again. And I felt that at the time and I feel it now. I wouldn't have done it. How can you question my professionalism? Like, what would have you rather us do not return fire and take a casualty in the middle of a field? Just let them run away? Is that what we do? What would you propose that I, you know, what course of action would have you suggested that I take? No. It's fucking bullshit.

Sean Ryan (372:51)

I'm sure the drone footage has never been released.

J. Cal (372:55)

No.

Sean Ryan (372:55)

Do you have access to it?

J. Cal (372:56)

No.

Sean Ryan (372:59)

Does your attorney have access to it?

J. Cal (373:02)

I can ask him. Potentially. I don't think so. I think they're very careful and very not. Sneaky is probably not the right word, but they keep it all under lock and key. A lot of this stuff needs clearances this and clearances that to be released.

Sean Ryan (373:15)

You know, I mean, I've seen this before. I interviewed the, the Blackwater guys from Nassur Square. I don't know if you're familiar with that incident, but the US government actually deleted the 10 minute section of drone footage that proved their innocence.

J. Cal (373:33)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (373:36)

And then they were pardoned.

J. Cal (373:40)

You know, I'm not, I'm not too concerned about, as that piece of paper says, it's not completely done, but I am confident in the fact that at least not in the, in, in the meantime, there's going to be a knock at the door, but it's still there. It doesn't feel like it's gone away. And I've been given assurances that this, the form will come. It might take a little bit of time and there's some process to go through, but three years is a process. How many, how much process do you want? Don't keep saying process to me. I've been through the process. It's nearly destroyed my teammates lives. It's had a negative impact on mine. Mine completely turned my future and, you know, upside down. It's not right and it needs to be addressed and that's what we're doing. And I think hopefully, like people will see this and go, we need to do better. We need to treat our service personnel better because they deserve better. You know, they deserve better. And I don't know, there's not a person that I've spoke to about this that doesn't look at that and go, yeah, that's not good enough. You talk to us about exacting standards, you talk to us about judgment, you talk to us about leadership. And all these other buzzwords that these people want to throw down our necks and, you know, throw in our faces. Well, let's see. Some people don't get involved in this because they haven't got the moral courage to stick their head above the parapet, and they're happy just staying there and being ignorant to it. And that's not. That's. To me, that's complicit. You're part of the problem if you don't do anything about it. If I was to just go now, get my visa and disappear off and not address it, I feel like I'm letting myself down. I feel like I'm letting the dudes down. And I also feel like I'm letting the next generation of dudes, like, we need to address this and make sure this doesn't ever happen again because it's wrong and it. The guys deserve better. That's. It. That's. This is my goal for this. You know, it's. My end state, is that I'm not after money. I'm not after a thank you. All I want is for this to never happen again and for people to look at this and go, we need to make fundamental changes to the way we do business. And if that happens, it's a win. And that's why it's worth flying halfway across the world and having this conversation with you. That will get seen by some people.

Sean Ryan (376:10)

It'll get seen. Can guarantee you that.

J. Cal (376:19)

And I don't want to go to war with anyone. I'm done. I'm tired of it, Sean. I'm exhausted with the whole thing. Honestly, it. It's exhausting. I don't feel like there's a silver lining at times when it comes to this. I'm grateful that I'm quite resilient. I'm grateful to myself for being quite robust. I mean, it doesn't appear like that sometimes, but the tactical patience and the amount of times when I see, you know, pictures of his face being promoted, being awarded stuff, you know, smiling as if nothing's happened, it makes me. Angry is not the right word. It makes me furious. You understand how angry this situation makes me feel? And I've been nothing but patient, reserved, dignified. And I'm not out here screaming and shouting, saying, I want this, I want that. I just want it to go away, and I want it to never happen again. And I don't think that's unreasonable. And if they'd have answered my requests and they hadn't just fobbed me off with some free phone number or ignored me or made me feel like a piece of shit for three years, and they'd done their jobs with the same level of professionalism that my teammates had done then I wouldn't be saying so. They can have no complaints. And those RMP officers that did that, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Sean Ryan (377:59)

I'm sure they are.

J. Cal (378:01)

Good. There's no sympathy from me on that. Zero. And there's a whole bunch of names I could bring out there, but I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do that unless I have to. And this isn't a passive aggressive threat. These are facts. That's only the tip of the iceberg. We've got it all. We've got every single failure, every single unprofessional action from the minute those rounds left our rifles to the second that I'm sat here now. So we've got more if we need it.

Sean Ryan (378:31)

Yeah.

J. Cal (378:34)

If you put it all out on a piece of paper, you'd look at it and go, this has to be some sort of joke. This can't be real. But it's not very funny if you're sat where I am. I don't think you find it's very funny either, do Sean.

Sean Ryan (378:45)

No, I don't.

J. Cal (378:47)

I can see in your eyes, you know, I know. I trust you, you know, but, you know, DJ Cole backed me from day one. They knew about all of this situation. I told them straight away. And they still decided to give me a contract. They still decided to pay for my legal fees. They still backed me. They still gave me the opportunity to have a career from the day one. Like, I'm so grateful for that and thank you for them for doing that, you know, and what's been really nice about this in a weird way is that I've lost a lot of people in the fire over this. There's been a lot of casualties. Friends that I thought were close to me are not. People I feel like are manipulating my situation for their own means. I feel like it's cost me multiple relationships with people, including family members. Hopefully we can rebuild. I hope we can. But what it's done has left me with a core circle of people I know genuinely care about me. The people that I've got in my life now and the small circle that I remain with are my people. They're important to me, and I know I can trust them. And I love them all dearly. And that is a blessing. There are good things that have come out of this, but it doesn't excuse it. You know, it Doesn't. And I say this. If you don't know the code to my. What? You know, if you don't know the code to my wi fi at my house, you are not my friend. There are people now reaching out after 18 months, three years. All right, Jay, good news. How's it going, mate? Nah, not interested. Dude, the people that were in the trenches with me, the people that got down and actually backed me, trusted me, believed in me when I said I didn't do anything wrong, they're my people. And if you haven't heard from me for three years, there's a reason why. And if I haven't heard from you in three years, don't bother. I'm done. You know, it's a shame.

Sean Ryan (380:54)

Well, Jay, I'm sorry, man. I am sorry this is happening to you. And it's killing me right now that I can't think of a solution. But I'll be thinking on it, and we'll do the best that we can to get this out there as wide as we possibly can to as many people as we possibly can. And I'll be thinking of people that I can connect you with.

J. Cal (381:24)

I can't say thank you enough. And again, it's almost like it hurts me that I'm in this position and that people feel like they have to help me. I'm a proud man, you know, And I don't. I don't want to ask people for help, but I don't know what to do. I don't know how this gets solved or how we rectify it and it doesn't happen again. Like, I am fucking so grateful for the opportunity to sit here and say this. I'm so, so thankful for all of you guys. It's not lost on me that you are thousands of miles away from your home and that you've taken this and I can see it. I understand that this resonates with you, and I know it resonates with a lot of people. And, yeah, it's humbling to see there are good people out there that want to see good things happen to good people, and that's a lifeline for me. That's something that gives me a lot of strength and a lot of confidence. And there are times I really need to draw on that and remember that it's. You know, there's good people out there. The regiment's a fantastic organization. It shouldn't be put in this position by top brass. It shouldn't be. Its people should be looked after by these politicians and these generals like I said before, I love it. I loved it to death. I still do. I'm very proud of it. But the people that organize and run that shit need to change.

Sean Ryan (383:02)

They're destroying the organization.

J. Cal (383:06)

If they don't address it, it's gonna. It's not positive.

Sean Ryan (383:09)

Nobody can do their job if this is looming.

J. Cal (383:13)

No, you can't.

Sean Ryan (383:14)

We talked about that at the beginning. Been through a lot. Yeah, it's been a rough go for you. You definitely don't need to be dealing with this shit.

J. Cal (383:27)

I'd rather not. I'm sorry it's not you, brother, but I appreciate that. Thank you. I do. I genuinely do appreciate that, Sean. And hopefully some good will come out of this. I'm an optimist. I am. I'm an optimist and I think with my background and my life, I wouldn't be satter if I wasn't. You know, I'm an eternal optimist to a point, but at the same time acutely aware of how fucked up this whole situation is and it needs to be changed. One of the things I won't keep talking about it. It's unnerving to see the level that these people were willing to go to show transparency, to the point where for the longest time I genuinely thought I would end up standing in a dock and there was going to be a moment in my future where 12 people would disappear and come back and someone would say, are you guilty? Yes or no? Sitting in a cage felt like a very, very real possibility for me for a long time. And people will go, nah, it's never going to go that far. I was like, well, it's gone this far for that long. What else is coming? You know, that's a bad place to be. And I'm grateful that I'm not in that position anymore. So let's just hope good comes from this. People look at it and go, yeah, we need to fucking make some fundamental changes how we treat our soldiers. Not just now, but in the past, guys dealing with legacy stuff. And I spoke to DJ about this and to Cole, and I'm sitting there thinking, what about the guy that lives in Hereford that has been involved in this for 20, 30 years from something that happened in Northern Ireland, and he made a split decision, split second decision. He's not coming on the Shawn Ryan show. He can write all the fucking letters he wants to whoever he wants. No one's going to hear him. Hear me, because I'm blessed. I'm in a position where I've got friends that do have A platform, and I'm damn sure not going to waste that opportunity. I'm not trying to sound like I'm some sort of white knight or I'm a martyr. Far from that. My life's far from perfect, as we've just found out. But if we can weaponize the ability to get this scene and broadcast and that message out there to the point where it becomes loud and people cannot do this again, then that's it. That's worth it. And if I didn't do that, then I don't think I'll be able to look myself in the mirror properly if I just ride off into the sunset. That's not who I am. I didn't leave my teammates in the fight that day, and I fucking damn sure ain't gonna leave my teammates in the fight now. I'm here to the fucking bitter end of whatever this looks like, and I'm willing. I'm willing to go all the way. And I know I've got a team of people behind me, that little back all the way. So let's just hope that the message lands and that some good comes out of it, you know?

Sean Ryan (386:47)

Well, Jay, like I said, we'll do everything we can to get this out as big as possible, as wide as possible to as many people as possible. And I'll be thinking, Jim Rome takes on sports.

J. Cal (386:59)

Why? Because you're not playing me with rapid fire.

Jeremy (387:03)

Takes ain't a lot to get to.

J. Cal (387:04)

And I'm not sure you're gonna like all of it.

Jeremy (387:06)

Honestly, I don't even care if you.

J. Cal (387:08)

Like all of it or not.

Sean Ryan (387:09)

I have a job to do.

J. Cal (387:10)

Scorching debates on any given week, you.

Jeremy (387:12)

Have lots to beef about, take advantage of.

J. Cal (387:14)

But get up in here. He's the spitfire of sports. Smack. She's not my fault.

Sean Ryan (387:18)

We will get to all of that. The Jim Rome show podcast.

Jeremy (387:20)

Get up in here and we'll beef later on.

Sean Ryan (387:22)

What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned of ways that. That. That we can help you further. And if something comes to me, I'll let you know.

J. Cal (387:34)

Awesome, Sean, thank you.

Sean Ryan (387:35)

Stay in touch and just want you to know, thank you for being here and it was an honor to interview you. It was a real honor. And I fucking hate that this is happening.

J. Cal (387:52)

So thank you. It's reciprocated. Like, I've watched you interview some of the my heroes. I've watched your voice help people directly. I've seen the impact that DJs interview had on people. Firsthand on dozens of occasions, and you do a good thing. So to be sat here in front of you is a. A little bit surreal, but also extremely humbling. So, you know, thank you again. And I probably won't do another one of these. Certainly not for a long period of time and certainly not for these reasons. I didn't do anything before because this. This. This platform is where this needed to be heard. And I'm grateful that we had the patience to wait and we did it properly, and we've come here to Dubai and we've done it properly, and I'm glad for it. So thank you. And same to you, Jeremy. Thank you for reaching out and that weird set of circumstances.

Sean Ryan (389:03)

Well, I told you that I don't believe in coincidences. And to get your name brought to my face three times in 15 minutes, totally fucking random.

J. Cal (389:11)

Yeah.

Sean Ryan (389:12)

I got a feeling something's gonna happen because I'm. I'm here because that happened, and I don't. I don't believe in coincidences. So have faith.

J. Cal (389:23)

I've got faith.

Sean Ryan (389:24)

All right, brother.

J. Cal (389:25)

Thank you.

Sean Ryan (389:25)

God bless.

J. Cal (389:27)

Thank you, brother.