Ep. 142 - From Bullied to Bulletproof: An SAS Soldier's Story - The Silvercore Podcast with Travis Bader

Episode Transcript
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Travis Bader (00:09):
In today's episode, I'm talking with Robin, who has led
an absolutely extraordinary life.
He has faced immense adversity.
And at any point, he could have easilythrown his hands up in the air and
said, I give up, I've had a bad deal.
I just don't have the sameadvantages that other people have.

(00:30):
So why should I even try?
But he didn't.
Instead, he looked inward.
He looked at what he could do, found thatfire inside himself and he persevered
and he turned that adversity intothe points that really allowed him
to succeed in life and allowed otherpeople around him to be able to thrive.
I find this to be a very common traitin those who refuse to be a victim.

(00:53):
Those who will look atadversity and say, bring it on.
It is absolutely mind boggling what weare able to accomplish when we put our
mind to it and we truly understand thelevel of personal agency that each and
every one of us has, if you follow meon social media, I have a picture posted
there, this is a picture that Robin sentme and he autographed It's a picture

(01:17):
of the 1980 Iranian embassy siege.
That really skyrocketed theSAS into the public eye.
This is the first time on a globalscale that the SAS was known and
seen for what they're able to do.
For anyone who's been into the Silvercorestudio, they're going to see other
pictures and memorabilia and booksand knives and maps and all sorts of

(01:42):
different items that past podcast guestshave given me as mementos and Reminders
of the conversations that we've had.
Now I don't place a lot of value inthings, but I do place a lot of value
in relationships and every time I lookat these things that are up there, it
reminds me of the relationships and theconnections that we're able to form.

(02:06):
In a large part due to this podcast,if you're looking to deepen your
connection with others, if you'relooking to deepen your connection with
your natural environment, interactingwith the Silvercore podcast is one
way for people in the communityto be able to meet each other.
And learn from each other.

(02:27):
Another way is the Silvercoreclub, specifically designed to
help people deepen their connectionwith a natural environment
club members receive insurance.
They receive free online trainingand discounts on courses and deep
discounts on many of the industrypartners that are Silvercore club.
And if you wanted to learn moreabout that, go to silvercore.

(02:49):
ca forward slash club.
Now, without further ado,let's get on with this podcast.
I'm joined today by an extraordinaryguest whose life reads like a blockbuster
action movie, but with the depth andgrip that only real experience can bring.
Serving with the 22nd SAS, he wasinvolved in one of the most iconic and
daring military operations of the 20thcentury, the Iranian embassy siege.

(03:12):
He's a martial arts expert,author, motivational speaker, and
relentless advocate for veterans.
Welcome to the Silvercorepodcast, Robin Horsfall.
Thanks, Travis.
Great to be here.
You know, I picked up your book here,Fighting Scared, came in last Friday and
I had a difficult time putting it down.
What a fantastic read.

(03:33):
Uh, I was blown away by yourability to relay Difficult
experiences in an extremelyunderstandable and relatable way.
And you weave into that lessonsof morality and fortitude.
You really are a gifted teacher.
Thank you.
It's, um,

Robin Horsfall (03:51):
one of the joys of being able to have a, an audience is
to be able to impart knowledge that'svaluable to the listener or to the reader.
Um, Very often, a lot of us have gota story, but we never have a forum to
share it with, and um, I've had thatprivilege, so it's, uh, Yeah, I wrote,
uh, Fighting Scared in 2002, and it tookme six months, and, um, I didn't write it

(04:17):
for any other reason than I wanted to tellthe story about, uh, A young, bullied,
insecure, unpopular kid from a brokenhome, classic sort of, um, scenario.
Who joins the army at 15, um,to get away and to escape.
And, um, and moves on from there.
Um, I've had people get in touch with meover the years who have read that book

(04:40):
and, um, have said, you know, I thoughtthere was something wrong with me until I
read your story and I realized there wassomething wrong with every bugger else.

Well, I like that.
And I, I honestly reading throughit, I found it very relatable.
The experiences that you're talkingabout, the way that you convey it.
Just very human emotions, insecurities,um, just self esteem, self worth,
uh, feeling afraid, being bullied.
And they seem to be, um, sort of aconstant thread throughout your life.

Well, when I was born I didn't know my father because my father
was in prison and he was, he was a thief.
So, um, I didn't know him,uh, my mother and he divorced
when I was seven years old.
And she married a man calledGeoffrey Horsfall who adopted
me and gave me his name.
So for the first seven years of my lifeI never had a male role model in my life.

(05:37):
And, um, a lot of people say that,you know, that it's that first
seven years that's so importantin your personal development.
And, um, when Geoffrey Horsfall cameinto my life, my stepfather, he'd never
had a child and I'd never had a father.
And, consequently, we clashed, neitherknowing how to deal with the situation.
And his, um, His method wasto beat me into silence.

(06:01):
And, um, when you beat somebody into,into silence, you stunt their development.
You, uh, you take awaytheir ability to negotiate.
You take away their ability tomake friends because they're
fearful of all authority figures.
And, um, so you, you become sullen anddistant from people and of course that

(06:23):
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy becauseyou, um, you're distant and weird and, um,
you, you're, you're frightened of people.
And so They don't like you becausethey think you don't like them.
And so the system carries on.
It took me many, many years to, um, tounderstand that, um, I needed to change

(06:45):
myself if, um, I was ever going to haveany friends in the world, that's for sure.
Um, and you know, that's, um,that's the reason you get isolated,
intimidated, picked on, bullied, um,is because you struggle to make friends
and you struggle to communicate.
And, uh, the reason I think for myparticular case was, uh, because

(07:05):
I had my voice stolen from meby being beaten into silence.

You know, I, I see some common threads of, uh, sort of
an oppositional defiance disorder.
I have no background in, uh,uh, in any clinical diagnosis.
Well, I'll just lean on things thatI've had to deal with in the past, but,
uh, ADHD, Uh, oppositional defiancedisorder, maybe RSD, what do they call it?

(07:35):
Rejection sensitivity dysmorphia,uh, where you figure out
they're going to dislike me.
So I'll just, I'll justavoid them to begin with.

Yes.
I agree with that one entirely.
I mean, I, I.
I sometimes I think, um, the wayI communicate is I try to simplify
everything I possibly can when peopleput, um, long, uh, laborious, uh, labels
on something, it makes it sound likea prescription, um, in reality, you
can get right back to the simple factsand say, you know, um, I had my boy,

(08:07):
I, I, I had my voice beaten out of me.
Um, I did actually resentall authority figures.
I was frightened of them.
And when you start puttinglong labels on things, it makes
you sound as if you're real.
And you're not, you're just, you'rejust, um, you're just dealing with
adversity in the only way you know how.

I like that.
You know, there's a lot of people thathave these labels and they'll just marry
themselves to the label and they're like,Oh, it's, you know, I'm like this because
of whatever the label label might be.
Well, no, the label is justsomething there to help describe
what you're going through.
And you're like this right now.
It doesn't mean you have tobe like that in the future.
And if you discipline yourself, knowingabout that label, maybe you can comport

(08:49):
yourself differently in the future.

Yeah.
The only, the only thing, the onlything in the world that any of us
have the power to change is ourselves.
We can't change other people.
Um, we can set an example thatother people might try to follow,
but we can only change ourselves.
So there's something wrong in your life.
And you blame somebody else.
You can't change them.
You can't change your wife.

(09:11):
You can't change your kids.
You can't change your friends.
You can't change.
All you can do is change yourselfand make changes in yourself.
And that's it.
Um, uh, take a hypotheticalexample, somebody who has a problem
with alcohol and decides, okay,I'm not going to drink anymore.
That's a choice.
I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm, I'm violent.

(09:32):
I've decided I'm not going to be anymore.
It's your decision.
And when you take responsibility for yourown actions and your own behavior, you
can achieve a great deal when you spendyour life blaming your childhood, blaming
your parents, blaming your friends,blaming your wife, blaming somebody.
Um, you never really get to the.

(09:53):
The, um, core of the problem andthe core of the problems in, in
yourself, the greatest battle youever have is the war with yourself.

Without a doubt.
Yes.
Well, you would in your book anyways, talkabout going out into the woods and fishing
and camping and using the wildernessas a means to be able to, I guess,
center yourself or maybe escape, uh,is, is that something that you still do?

Yeah, I think, um, I think, um, two things.
I think, yes.
It was an escape.
I do.
When you, when you, um, you have tolearn to cope when you are unpopular.
And so being happy in your own company.
Is quite a good way of dealing with that.

(10:42):
So get away from everybody.
That's a problem in your life and sitby a lake and go fishing or go walking
over the mountains and, um, you know,enjoy that particular style of life.
Um, can be very, very, very,very, very, um, rewarding.
Because you're, you're full,you're filling yourself a

(11:03):
steam from another direction.
You're not relying on other peopleto tell you how good you are.
You're proving it to yourself.
Um, so, and, um, and Istill live in the mountains.
I still love the wilds, but I've had some.
Health issues over the last few years.
And, um, so walking, um, walking alongbeaches, which are nice and flat is,

(11:24):
uh, is, uh, is, is about the toughestexercise I can cope with these days.
Um, but, uh, yeah, Istill love the outdoors.
I still love the.
I still love the lakes andthe fishing and the trees and,
um, and being out there alone.
Well, as I got older, I, I startedtaking my kids with me and then

(11:44):
eventually my grandchildren with me.
And, um, on the last occasion,I went up the mountains.
I went up with two of my grandchildrenand my oldest son Alex and me to a
place that I'd first gone to withmy youngest brother when he was 14.
And, uh, called Gawrwinyfawr Reservoirin the Welsh Black Mountains.

(12:05):
And, um, and I went back there withmy son and two of my grandsons and
we camped in exactly the same placeand we built a stone urn and, um,
We, uh, we slept and we, we shareda big cup of cocoa by the lake.
And, um, you know, and those, thosethings, you know, they stay with you
forever because it's not the giftsyou buy your children that matter.

(12:29):
It's the things you do with your children.
Nobody remembers the Christmaspresents they got or rarely.
I remember the fact that daddyplayed ball with me in the garden
on Christmas day or through orthrough snowballs at me or something.
I remember that.
They don't remember the gifts.
The gifts don't mean as much as the,um, the sharing of life and time.

I, yeah, I resonate with that.
You know, in our family, we're not biggift givers with my wife and my kids.
It's experiences that we want to have.
If we have money that we can put asidetowards something, uh, it's what, what can
we experience as a family and as a group.
And I.
I truly believe as long as I got mymind healthy and I got my memories

(13:14):
with me, then there's no other giftthat would be better than that.
And even if I lose that, atleast they can carry it forward.

That's right.
I had a very good friend, um,called Mick Lee, who was a
paratrooper with me, older than me.
And when I had my first son, Alex,um, he was two years old and Mick
said, um, how's that boy of yours?
I said, it's great.
He's wonderful.
He's fantastic.
He said, you buy him a ball.
I said, yeah.
He said, you play ball with him.

(13:40):
I said, yeah.
He said, that's good.
You've got to play ball with him.
You know, that's, uh, that's the point.

That's, that's the whole point of the thing.
Yeah.
Now you've, we're talkingoff air here a bit.
And was it five greatgrandchildren that you have?
Seven.
Seven, I got that wrong, sevengreat grandchildren, man, that's,
you, you've got a heck of an,uh, an extended family now.

(14:05):
Yeah.
When you, you became a father, whatwas that like, given the fact that your
experience of your example that youhad was, uh, non existent from your
biological father and, uh, quite difficultand strained with your adoptive father.

Well, I, I met the most wonderful woman when I was 21
and she was 20 and she had two babygirls at the time and she was going
through a divorce and, um, I wasthe classic lone wolf at that time.
I was doing selection for22nd special air service.
I was, uh, I'd been a soldierfrom the age of 15 years.

(14:47):
And, um, bearing in mind my background,I was the archetypal soldier.
I was hard.
I was, I hated the world.
I would have killed anybody for mycountry, um, in defense of my country.
Um, I loved being a soldier.
That was where I got all my self esteem.

(15:07):
My mother had died after divorcingmy, after divorcing my stepfather.
So the army was my home.
And, um, I met this, uh, woman.
And she, she saw right throughme and I give her credit for
giving me back my humanity.
She got into the cage with the lonewolf and tickled its ears and she would

(15:31):
say, I know we'll never get married.
I know you love the army and, uh, butif we ever did, and, uh, three years
later, we, three years later, we didget married and we've been together for.
Since 1978.
So what's that?
47 years, this

November.
Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, you give her a lot of credit as well in the book Fighting
Scared for it, not just being a retellingof facts, but rather helping have the
emotional side and the depth to it.

When I started writing Fighting Scared, um, it was
a story I desperately wanted to tell.
And, um, I did the first couple ofchapters And I showed it to her and
she had a read and she came backto me and she held it out to me and
she said, I said, what do you think?
She said, this is shit.

(16:21):
Awesome.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
She's just a report.
It's just a series of facts.
One after the other.
What happened when it happened?
It's like a military report.
She said, where's the color?
You know, what was the sunshining through your mother's
window when you said goodbye?
And how did you feel?
And, and, And, um, she graduallygot me to sit down and, um,
and write the book properly.

(16:42):
And, uh, there were tears on the papersometimes because there was a catharsis
with it, you know, there was an emptyingof the soul into, into that story.
And, um, and I think that's why it's,uh, the book is actually 20 or 22 years
old now and it still sells really well.
And I think because it resonateswith an awful lot of people, it's not

(17:05):
the hard man gas and bash them andsmash them story that is so popular.
It's a personal development storyand, um, it takes you from this place
of, uh, misfortune in many ways.
To a place of, um, relative successand happiness and happiness being
a success more than anything else.

Did you get heat from, um, the army from, or from the UK government
for fear of spilling secrets or,

Well, no, there are, there are no secrets in there to start with.
Um, there are the, the, the SASpart of my life is only six years.
Um, so it's a piece of the storyand, um, We did put the book through
the Ministry of Defence first andthey asked me to take, make two
minor changes, uh, from the book.
One because somebody wouldhave been too easily identified

and

the other because I'd mentioned a tactic that had been
my suggestion in the Falklands War,um, that could have been useful to
somebody who'd never thought of it.
So I removed those two small pieces and,uh, but we didn't have to go to them,
but it was, it was the right thing to do.
And, uh, and so I removed those two smallexits, uh, from the book, but outside

(18:22):
of that, no, I didn't get any heat.
Um, uh, um, you know, if there'sanything that's secret, you don't go,
oh my God, I can't talk about that.
You just go, I don't know.

Yeah, that's it.
It's just, yeah, exactly.
Just don't say anything.
Okay.
It's it, so you got in 15 yearsold and, uh, you're, you're a para.
And what I thought was really interestingwas a lot of people will go for SAS
selection, because this is the pinnacle.

(18:54):
This is what they want to do.
They've got it built up in their mind.
This is some great feature.
thing, but you went and did itsort of the, uh, uh, flip your
nose up at the authorities andsay, I'm not going back here.
I I'm, I got, I got to work around.
I think I'll just try out for the SAS.

The first two years of my service were called junior service.
Okay.
And, um, so that's your full time soldier,but you're not allowed in operations.
And it's like a military college you'rethere for two, two and a quarter years.
until you're old enough to joinyour adult unit, which was then
at the age of 17 and a half.
And, um, I went to the ParachuteRegiment and my battalion was the second

(19:33):
battalion, the Parachute Regiment.
And, um, that was great.
Um, when my mother died,She was 37 years old.
She died of cancer.
And as I said, the army became my life.
And I was transferred to stayin the UK to a special anti tank
unit called the vigilant platoon.
And it was a guidedmissile anti tank weapon.

(19:54):
And, um, a new anti tank weaponcame in, in 1977, uh, called Milan,
which was going to replace us.
So they were going to disband the unit.
And I said, look, I want to goback to the second battalion.
It was my parent battalion.
And they said, well, you're goingto stay with the first battalion.
Um, and I didn't want to do that.

And

I said, well, you'll do as you're damn well told.
And so, as you say, just to cock asnoot at authority, I said, well, I know
there's something you can't stop me doing.
So I went to the battalion clerk's officeand, um, and asked to, uh, for the papers
to volunteer for the special air service.
Well, you had to have three yearsof adult service and I just had
three years of adult service,

plus

the two years.
And, um, there was a Yorkshiremanin the, in the, um, at the
back of the clerk's office.
And he said, I don't know whyyou're going to do that to us.
Well, he said.
You're far too young.
You'll be back with yourtail between your legs.
And, um, and he was wrong.
I'm glad to say, and, uh, I hadto have two goes at it, but, um, I

(21:01):
got through on the second attempt.

Well, you voluntarily took yourself out on the first go.

Well, yeah, I, um, SAF selection lasts a whole year and the
first month is in the mountains withthe last five days called test week.
And test week is 5 days marchingalone with increasing weights
on your back, which begin at 35pounds and extend up every day by
5, until you're carrying 55 day.

(21:29):
And the distance begins at 18miles, and on the 5th day, it
gets up, the last day is 40 miles.
And you do this alonewith no help, no guidance.
You go checkpoint to checkpoint,check in, move on to the next place.
And the first time I did it, I gotto day four and it was raining.

(21:50):
I was alone.
Um, I'd, um, the weight was, uh, dug twoulcers into my kidney areas of my back

and

they were bleeding painful.
And, um, psychologically it just got tome and I started thinking about the 40
miler on the next day and returned to the.
Previous checkpoint and called it a dayand, uh, thought I would be returned
to unit the next morning, but themajor called me in and said, look,
we think you've got potential, you dowell, do you want to stay another four

(22:19):
months and try again in January, 1979?
I was, it's no 79.
And I said, yeah, absolutely.
And they kept me on and there's twopictures of me in two photographs.
One is me of the slightly chubbyfaced, uh, young 21 year old on
the first Um, selection who fails.

(22:40):
And, uh, one of me is four months laterwhen I've been getting up at six o'clock
in the morning, going to the swimmingpool, swimming, a thousand meters, going
and having breakfast, going out and doingan eight mile run with boots on over the
Hills, coming back, working all day and,um, and, and doing that as a routine.
And when I had time being upthe mountains and the pick, the

(23:02):
difference between the two looks likea young chubby kid and an athlete.
Um, I look older.
I look stronger.
My neck's thicker.
You can see the difference.
I was ready for it the second time.
And on the second occasion,only eight of us passed.
But the idea that people have fromsome TV shows is that you're cajoled

(23:24):
and chased and bullied and pushed.
That's not the case at all.
You're already a trained soldier.
You're just given a task to do.
And there's the time.
Off you go.
And if you don't succeed.
Then you get on, you go back the nextmorning, nobody shouts, nobody bullies,
nobody pushes, um, it's just a task.
Can you achieve alone without any help?

(23:45):
And the selection process, as I say,last year, you finish that mountain
phase and then you go on to continuationtraining, most of which is in the jungle.
And you work as five man patrolsin the jungle, uh, for a month.
And then you come back from that, you doa combat survival instructor's course.
And in the last week of that you're chasedacross the countryside by two battalions

(24:06):
of soldiers and you have to escapefor a week and then you get captured.
And, um, then if you're not already aparatrooper you do parachute training.
And then you join your squadron and getyour cap badge but you're on probation.
And you have to join, you have topass a personal skill and a troop
skill in the next six months.
And my personal skill was as aparamedic, and my troop skill

(24:26):
was as a mountain climber.
And at the end of that 12 month period,first 12 month period, if they like
you, you can stay for another two years.
So, um, there's a constant,uh, pressure to succeed, but
to succeed as an individual.

I think, well, do you think that the fact that you had
difficulty relating with people asyou're growing up, difficulty making
friends puts you in a prime positionto be, uh, effective as an SAS soldier,
but also possibly a double edged sword.

Yeah, it gave me, it gave me the advantages of
being able to function alone andnot need the support of others.
Um, but it still made it difficult forme to succeed because what I discovered
later in my career was that people veryoften don't get promoted on their merits.
They get promoted on their, theyget promoted on their popularity,

(25:23):
especially in an institution.
Which is probably why I've beenself employed for the last 25 years.
Um, you know, I'm a lousy employee,but I'm a damn good boss, especially
when I'm the only employee, but,um, yeah, I like working alone.
The other place that it really,really helped was when I became a,
when I became a raw Marine sniper.

(25:44):
Now I say a raw Marine sniper.
It means I was trained by theraw Marines to be a sniper.
And, um, that kind ofjob suited me perfectly.
Working alone, having a task to do,being completely self reliant, using
the absolute pitch of your skills infieldcraft in order to stay alive and

(26:06):
to carry out a very difficult task.
So there are places where it's anadvantage and there are places where
it can be a big disadvantage too.
Do

you enjoy being alone or is it something that you've learned to enjoy?

I, um, I used to like being alone because it was
an escape from being unpopular.

Um,

I have times now I'm 67.
Now I have times where I want toget away for a while and just be
alone, just walk, just be in theHills, um, just sit by a Lake.
Um, but I take all my comfort from.

(26:47):
Well, nearly all mycomfort from my family.
So I'm not waiting for very longbecause I miss them as soon as I am.

I could relate to that.
The growing up, you weren't a typical,um, A typically aggressive individual
from what I've been reading here,aggression, wasn't something that seemed
to come normal to you, but you taughtyourself to be incredibly aggressive.

Scotsman taught me to be incredibly aggressive.
When, um, when I joined the secondbattalion, um, nearly, nearly half the
battalion were jocks, they were Scotsmanand, um, they, they taught me a level
of aggression that, um, is unsurpassed.

(27:37):
Absolutely unsurpassedanywhere in the world.
And the point about being a paratrooperis it doesn't matter what your skills are.
If you're not prepared to fight,then you shouldn't be there.
And they taught me how to fight, um, andhow to fight in a manner that kept you
alive and how a manner that allowed you tosurvive among men in very, very, with very

(27:59):
tough men in very difficult circumstances.
And sometimes I felt that Iwas pretending to be like them.
And then later I realized, um, I thinklater, when I say later, I'm talking
about by the time I was about 20,21, I realized that they'd made me
like them without any doubt at all.
Um, yeah, yeah.

(28:20):
Keen and mean, that's for sure.
Do you find

that difficult to turn off?

Um, as I say, my wife was a big part of that.
But it was part of my, uh,job as a soldier and it made
me a better soldier as well.
Um, now, um, I would regard myselfas quite a, a softy in a sense,
in the fact that as we get older,we, we have, we struggled to.

(28:48):
Uh, shield ourselves as well as we, youknow, uh, the love that we have for other
people is more obvious, uh, and we're moreconfident showing it, but that person,
that nasty person is still in there andhe's still capable of coming out when the
time is appropriate and when it's needed,not for anger, but for protection of

(29:10):
others, for survival, things like that.
Yeah, it's

still

there.

What was it like when you first had your kids and we're
figuring out how to be a father?
What did that aggression come out?
Did the, uh, did you repeat any ofthe, uh, the mistakes of others?

No, I, I absolutely the opposite.
My bad experiences, uh, with my ownstepfather, um, and he wasn't all bad.
Don't get me wrong.
You know, there were a lot of good thingsabout him you'll get from the book.

That's

right.
But, um, you know, he, um, those,um, Those bad experiences that
I had, I used them to make surethey didn't happen to my kids.
And I also used them to help developchildren when I started my martial arts
schools later on, you know, because Ithink a person who is genuinely strong and

(30:04):
disciplined, self disciplined, um, willeventually become I'm much kinder person.
It's it's insecure, unhappy,ill disciplined, frightened
people that are vicious.

And I

think a certain element of my viciousness as a young man came from
the fact that I was frightened, which iswhy the book's called Fighting Scared.
And Heather said to me once, youknow, why were you fighting so much?
I said, I was scared of getting hurt.

If you don't mind, I'll read a quick section out of the
book, just so the audience gets a bitof a flavor for what this is about.
And, uh, maybe we can talk about it.
I grip my MP5 in both hands andthumb the safety catch, assuring
myself once again that it was off.
The only sounds I could hear were thestatic hissing in my earpiece and the

(30:53):
sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
My greatest fear now was ofmaking a mistake that might
endanger a life, especially mine.
My mind raced.
Watch the windows, Robin.
What do I do if someone looks out now?
Don't rush.
Is my pistol still in my holster?
Where's my partner?
The police dogs, which were being heldback just inside the doors of the college,

(31:13):
began to feel the tension in theirhandlers and started barking and howling.
Why don't you shut thebastard dogs up, I thought.
The fear that had for so long been mygreatest enemy welled up inside me like a
balloon, waiting to escape from my throat.
Hello, I thought.
I'm glad you're here.
Without you, I wouldn'tbe functioning at my best.

(31:33):
I need to be scared to be alert.
The smallest sounds were magnifiedand time seemed to slow down.
Around me, my team members moved intoposition calmly and without undue haste.
Only seven years earlier, I had beena frightened young man on the brink
of adventure, bullied and scared.
Now I was walking forward into afirefight, the fear under control.

(31:54):
My commitment to the task completein the knowledge that I was ready,
that I was the best man for the job.

Sounds great.

When you read it,
well, that's, uh, those are your words.
Those are your words.

It's surprising when somebody reads something
to you and you think, Oh, Wow.
I wrote that
. Travis Bader: Yeah, you did.
It was, uh, uh, anybody who wants to readthe rest is welcome to go get fighting.
Scared.
But that was, um, uh, 1980, was it?
May 5th.
May the fifth,
1980 in London at the Iranian embassy.

(32:30):
Yeah.
Um, we were approaching our entry points.
There were, um, 48 of usthat entered the building.
There were five floors, 55 rooms.
So we had an eight man team foreach floor, including the basement.
And, um, one of the guys who was abseilingdown the back of the building, his foot

(32:53):
went through a window and he got hisgloves stuck in his abseil harness and he
got jammed there just above the window.
And I was beneath him and,um, the approach was obviously
compromised by the broken window.
So the commander gave the go earlyand we didn't have time to lay
the explosives on the back door.
So, um, my partner went in with a,with an eight pound sledgehammer

(33:16):
and took the back doors out.
And, uh, the guys on the front window withthe famous footage, um, they, uh, planted
a frame charge on the window and initiatedit when they were only, you know, Only
a couple of feet away from it and tookthe windows out and the guys went in from
all the eight different entry points.
And, um, I remember above me, uh, Tom wasburning on his rope, uh, because the guys

(33:40):
who had gone past him had gone in withtheir, with their flashbangs, their stun
grenades and set fire to the curtains.
And so the curtains were burning upTom's hanging above the window and
turning into the best barbecue in town.
And, um, he's trying to, he's kickinghimself out away from the flames, but his.
Glove has got caught on thepress or switch of his radio.

(34:02):
So he's cut out all thecommunications because he's on send.
And all you can hear is him screamingas he's burning and there's bullets
coming through the window outwardsfrom the inside above my head.
And I'm watching him burn and thinking,well, there's nothing I can do.
Get on with your job on the roof.
The guys are trying to cut therope under tension, but they've
got to get it on the inswing.

(34:22):
So he lands on the balcony anddoesn't drop 30 feet onto the
concrete, which they succeed in doing.
Meanwhile, beneath him.
Tommy Palmer has gone in the window,his head's caught fire, he's gone back
out, taken off his gas mask, thrown itaway, gone back into the gas, without
a gas mask to carry on his mission,and killed two of the terrorists.
Tom's down, his legs are burnt, hegoes in and carries on his mission.

(34:46):
On the ground floor, I go in, and um, youknow, there's um, a chain of, um, Troops
already from the ground floor upwardsand, uh, one of the hostages come down
the policeman Trevor Locke and he's passedout and then the other hostages start to
follow and then, um, there's a scuffleon the stairs and somebody gets butt

(35:09):
swiped and, um, staggers on the stairsand somebody shouts he's a terrorist.
A terrorist comes clear at the bottomof the stairs holding a hand grenade.
And, uh, one of my colleagues who wasjust in front of him shot him 24 times.
And at the same time I fired threerounds from five meters away.
And, uh, he died and the pinwas still in the grenade.

(35:31):
And, uh, we took everybody out.
One of the terrorists got out hiddenamongst hostages in seven minutes.
We rescued 19 people alive.
One was killed by theterrorist during the entry.
We killed five terrorists andwe captured one seven minutes.
Um, so it was a very famouspiece of British history.

No kidding.
How did your life change after that?

Things changed because nobody had heard of
the SAS up to that point.
You know, they were Fred Karno's armyin darkest Herefordshire and nobody
had, nobody knew very much about us.
Our main role at that time wascounter terrorism and working
undercover in Northern Ireland.
So, um, we were not, not a secretservice, a regular part of the British

(36:18):
army, but, um, The secrecy came fromthe fact that we were targets for,
uh, um, provisional IRA terrorists.
And so we had to, we had to remainanonymous during that period of threat.
Um, so for a while, I think, um, youknow, the world, everybody wanted to know
us, everybody wanted to talk about us.

(36:38):
Um, we had to remain anonymousand, um, some people started
to believe their own press

and because

you're special at one thing, it doesn't mean
you're special at everything.
So we were special soldiers.
We were special soldiers.
And all of a sudden, everybodythought that we were Mr.
Miyagi and we could, weknew the secrets of life.
Um, and it took a while for thatto settle down and, um, and to
move on and get on with life again.

I think you just got the, uh, the YouTube thumbnail right there.
Ex SAS soldier speaksabout secrets of life.
Done.
Not a lie.
Speaks about

not being Mr.

Miyagi.
Not being Mr.
Miyagi.
So you were talking to the bookabout getting kind of paraded around
afterwards, kind of like a bit of acircus show and everyone was interested.
And I think, uh, Princess Diana, you guysmay have been responsible for her, um,
her sleek new short swept back haircut.

Yeah.
I get it.
One of the things that happenedafterwards, of course, is every VIP in
the country Wanted, um, the special dayout to visit the special air service
and see how they trained and functioned.
And so, um, King Charles now PrinceCharles then and, and lady Diana, uh,
Spencer, his wife, princess Diana,they, uh, they came to visit one day

(38:02):
and, uh, we said, okay, look, youknow, um, would you like to drive?
The rain drove us up to the building.
We'll throw the ladders up and do ourpretend assault on the, on the building.
Um, you know, we've gotten someblack overalls and, um, you know,
they, they, and off they did.
But unbeknownst to us, before shedrove the vehicle up, Princess
Diana undid the window slightlyto let some air into the window.

(38:26):
So when the flashbangs wentoff, the pyrotechnics set light
to the lacquer on her hair.
So one of our, one of my friends.
Saw that, you know, her hair wasburning, so he opened the door,
pulled her out, slapped her aroundthe head, put the flames out.
I thought, I'll have a littlebit of that, you know, join in.
You don't get a chance toslap a princess every day.

(38:48):
And, um, we put the, we put the flamesout, you know, her hair was singed,
but she wasn't burned on the skin.
But it was a, you know,a bit scary for her.
And, um, during the lunch break, wegot a, A hairdresser from Hereford
to come and tidy up her hair.
And she'd had this roundshaped cut up to that time.

(39:09):
And the next day, um, Voguemagazine, um, had the next week
Vogue magazine had photographs ofprincess Diana's amazing new page boy
haircut with the trimmed back sides.

Yep.

And, um, everybody went wild and women
all over the world copied it

and

they never realized that haircut was courtesy
of the special air service.
Yeah,

I thought that was a pretty funny anecdote.
Yeah, you know, I wasn't, I wasn'taware of a number of things.
One of them, I wasn't aware that theoperation had, um, on the embassy.
Had a, um, it was compromisedand had to start sooner than,
than it was supposed to.
So that was something thatwas new information for me.

(39:53):
One thing that I thought was reallyinteresting was following it up.
You're back with the boys, everyone'shaving a beer and the camaraderie
that you were hoping for, you wereseeing, you're writing about that.
There is a lack of, um, somecamaraderie that you were kind

(40:15):
of hoping to see at that time.

Yeah, I think when, when you select people to be individuals,
uh, at the very peak of their abilities,highly, highly skilled, highly
motivated with an air of paranoia thatyou're not allowed to fail, everybody
thinks they should be in charge.
Everybody thinks they know best.
Um, so.

(40:37):
With people like that, you have to keepthem incredibly busy to stop them, to
stop them turning inwards upon each otherwhen you get standard troops or even
special troops like paratroopers andMarines, um, you know, they're, they're
trained in the buddy buddy system, youknow, always support the weakest man.
Um, but.
In special forces really isn'tallowed to be anybody weak.

(41:01):
Um, and so we got back and, um, peoplestarted to criticize each other.
And some of that I think was led by thefact that what we'd, I think we hoped
for when we got back was some kind ofunit citation, maybe a little flash.
You could wear to say, you are the, youare one of the 60 guys that were in that
squadron on that day and did that job.
Nothing, nothing too big deal.

(41:24):
Just that special flash to you.
But what the government did, theyturned around and said, okay, here's a
handful of medals given to six people.
And so they had to select six people froma team that had functioned as a team, as
a unit, and decide who to give them to.
And of course, that created certainresentments and bad feelings.
And, um, it didn't help anybodyin any shape or form in any way.

(41:49):
And, um, it opened up a bit of a can ofworms and, and, and create a few enemies
that, um, in some, some people neverreally got over, um, they're, uh, they're
a special kind that they're thoroughbreds.
You know, you, you, you get a load of,you get a load of ponies and stick them
in a field together, they'll run around.
You get a couple of thoroughbreds andstick a stallion in there as well,

(42:12):
they're gonna kick shit out of each other.
So, um, you've got to keep them busy,you've got to keep them running,
you've got to keep them tired and fed.
And, um, and, um, most of my six years,looking backwards, Awesomely busy.
It never really stopped.

You mentioned something there about failure.
And I've read in other places, yourideas on failure or not being allowed
to fail, which I think resonateswith today's generation as well.
Can I hear your thoughts on that?

Yeah.
I mean, I've been in environments whereI was inspired by people who understood.
They can help your developmentand help you to grow.
And you learn more from failurethan you ever do from success.
Um, and then I had that six yearswhere I lived in an environment where
especially being a person who, um,lacked, uh, the charisma and popularity

(43:06):
that helped, um, where, you know, it waseven more important for me not to fail,

because

if I did fail, it would be used against me straight away to be
no element of And so, um, What that,what that taught me was to, to make sure
that I didn't put anybody else in thesame position that I'd been in myself.
And I understood that failure is anecessary part of the learning process.

(43:35):
You have to get it wrongbefore you get it right.
And we all have to do that.
And.
Confusion is a natural part ofthe learning process as well.
A lot of young people and adults, um,get to a certain point in learning
where they get confused and then theyconvince themselves that they can't do it.

And

convincing them as a teacher that this is absolutely normal
and just to keep plodding forward andeventually that confusion will disappear
and the process will begin and you willstart to absorb the language, the skill,
the ability that you're searching for.
Um, so.
A lot of, I mean, adversitycan create character, it can

(44:14):
create good and bad character.
Um, and we're very much creaturesthat love to follow a leader.
And we'll imitate our leaders,we'll imitate people we admire.
So if we admire a bully, we'llstart to behave like a bully.
And if we admire somebody who inspiresus because they're the absolute opposite,

(44:34):
what we might refer to as a hero, um, thenwe'll, we'll imitate that person as well.
And that's what we should all aspire to.

It's interesting.
You bring up the word hero.
Cause when we were talking before,uh, that was one word that you
don't feel comfortable with.
And I guess there would be two questions.
Like one, I, I, I get, Ido get the sense of why.
You would not feel comfortable with that.
You're very humble.

(45:05):
Modest individual, but in your senseof the word hero, what would be a hero?

A hero is somebody that willingly puts themselves into danger, um,
life threatening danger, or even careerthreatening danger for the benefit of
somebody else with no possible reward.
That I think is how I regard theclassical form of hero and the

(45:39):
classical form of courage as well.
The reason I shy away from theword a lot is because it's misused.
It's used about footballers.
It's used about politicians.
It's used about everybody thatsomebody wants to put on a
pedestal and say, Oh, great.
Wasn't this person wonderful?

(46:00):
Um, and it may be for somethingas good as making a nice cake.
Um, and so it dilutesthe power of the word.
And, um, when I have been very kindlyreferred to in that way, what flashes
through my head is a soccer player

who

scored a goal.

You spoke about Pat the cook as a bit of a revenge story.
Is that something thatyou'd want to talk about?

Well, yeah, I think it's, um, it was an important part of my life.
Um, I was, how old would I have been?
Uh, 1977.
So yeah, 20.
Um, I'd never been a drinker.
I found very early in my life thatthere's two things that I couldn't
do very well if I was drunk.
The first one was fight and thesecond one starts with F as well.

(46:55):
And, um, so, uh, I, um, andI got drunk very quickly.
He used to call me two pint Bob.
So, um, I, um, I discovered cars andgirls, um, which were, which far more
fun and, um, and, uh, and kept myselfaway from, uh, the drinking parties.

(47:18):
Um, but I was in the Kelia in Cyprus.
in 1977 and, um, I went back from the barearly, went to bed alone in a large room
with about 24 beds in, and two guys camein drunk and, um, attacked me in my bed
for fun, um, beat me with brim handles,attacked me with a razor, uh, broke my

(47:42):
jaw, dislocated my jaw on the other side,broke my ribs, broke my fingers, um, broke
my, um, upper bones on my cheeks, um, and,um, and then dragged me in the showers
to try and get me to recover, beat me,beat me, beat my head against the tiles
in the showers, threw me back in the bedbleeding and covered me with a sheet.

(48:07):
And when the other guys came backlater that night, one of the corporals
came and pulled the sheet off mebecause he thought I was snoring too
loudly and saw the blood and the mess.
And, um, I was struggling to breatheand, uh, I was taken to hospital,
intubated on the way to hospital.
And, um, I could pull the bruisesapart on my eyes after about a

(48:29):
week so that I could see my face,which was an oval of bruising.
And, um, uh, after six weeks, Ireturned back to the United Kingdom.
And, um, one of the things thatwent through me at that time was,
This will never happen to me again.
Nobody will ever do this to me again.

(48:50):
I will never give anybody theopportunity to do this to me again.
And I became that archetypal vicioushit first, ask questions later person.
I never ever picked on anybody,um, for, without a good reason.
I always, but there was always somebodyin the military looking for trouble.
And if they were looking forit, boy, boy, oh boy, I was

(49:11):
prepared to give it to them first.
Um, the two people that attacked me, onewas, as you mentioned, Paddy, the cook.
And, um, he had bragged about itover the following year and I'd
seen him a couple of times in town,but never an appropriate time.
And after a couple of years, I caughtup with him at a party and he stepped

(49:33):
out the fire door to go to urinate andI followed him and, um, you know, he,
he followed my example into hospital.
The other guy, Bill King.
Bill, um, went to a mental institution,and was held there for quite a long time,
and then returned to the unit, and thefirst thing he did was he found me, and

(49:56):
profusely and humbly apologized to me.
I wasn't quite sure what to doabout that, so I sort of nodded,
shook his head, and walked away,rather confused, a bit bewildered.
And life went on and wedidn't see each other.
And then 30 years later, I was goingto a reunion in a bar in Brecon

(50:18):
to a place called the blue bore.
And a guy jumped out inthe street and grabbed me.
And he said, Rob, Rob, it's me, Bill.
And he looked wild in the eyes.
And he said, mate, mate, hesaid, I'm still sorry about what
happened all those years ago.
I'm still sorry.
I'm still sorry.
I kissed him on both cheeksand said, it's all right, Bill.

(50:38):
And I just walked down the road.
And, uh, so that was, uh, Ifeel very good about that.
I

feel very good about

that.

So how do you feel from one person to the other?
How did it feel when you wereable to exact that revenge on the
individual compared to kissing theguy on the cheek and walking away?

Well, there's a huge difference in age.
But they were both very, theywere both very satisfying.

Excellent.
So you had an interesting story of, uh,some time in the Falklands there and, uh,
on Ascension Island and, uh, gearing upfor a, for essentially a suicide mission.

Yeah, we, um, up Ricardo.
Our job in the Falklands was to fly intoArgentina, land on a runway in two C 130
Hercules aircraft, 60 of us dismount,and then take out the Super Etendard jets
that were carrying the Exocet missilesthat were sinking our capital ships,

(51:44):
destroy them, and be killed or captured.
There was no way home, there was nofuel, there was no return journey.
My wife Heather was eight monthspregnant with our first son, Alex,
and we got as far as Ascension Islandsready to go, we got on the aircraft.
And, um, Ronald Reagan put pressure onMargaret Thatcher not to extend the war

(52:04):
onto the mainland because the main bulkof the British armed forces were doing so
well and were advancing on Port Stanley.
So eventually the mission was cancelledand, um, so that we could get involved
in the war before it was over.
Uh, we set off to fly down andinstead of going into Argentina.
Uh, one of the, one of the aircraftturned around and went back 'cause

(52:28):
a refueling nozzle bloke, uh, broke.
And, um, we got there, 32 of us,and we, um, jumped out the back
of the C one 30 into the sea.
And, um, the RAF had put parachutes ontocontainers, which were, which carried all
our equipment and the parachutes came offand all our equipment went into the sea.

(52:49):
And nearly sank our own ships.
And so we got picked up fromthe sea, um, on board the ship.
Um, all our equipment had goneto the bottom of the ocean.
We were trying to, uh, bodge togetherenough equipment to carry out a
raiding mission on port Stanleywhile the paras and Marines were
approaching from the other side.

(53:09):
And, um, and the enemy surrendered.
So they clearly heard that 30members of the famous B squadron
arrived in the Falklands and decidedto kill it before it was too late
with no kit and equipment.
Um, very scary.
The fact that we were prepared togo ahead and do that mission, um,
without question was, um, important,but, um, I'm glad it never happened.

Yeah.
I mean, there, there were times whenyou had voiced your, uh, Not objections,
maybe concerns, maybe suggestions forother ways that things could be done.
How'd that go over?

Well, when we got to Ascension islands,
then the mission was delayed.
We'd had time to gather more information.
And we knew that we discovered that theArgentinians had surface to air missiles.
On Rio Grande and Ushuaia airports.
So we were asking questions like, well,how the hell are we going to fly these
two aircraft onto these runways ifthey've got surface to air missiles?

(54:15):
Okay.
We've got a mission to do.
We're going to get off and do thatmission and accept the consequences.
But what's the point of even tryingto, I'm going to get blown out of
the sky before we even get there.
Um, and, uh, Brigadier Peter de laBillia insisted that we do it his way.
And we made other sensible suggestionslike, look, okay, we've got to fly there.

(54:37):
Let's parachute in maybe a few kilometersoff the target, walk onto target and
hit them with, um, guided missilesfrom a couple of kilometers out and
take out the jets that way when they'retaxing, but they didn't want to hear it.
So that frustrated usa great deal because.
Well, we, there we were trying to improveour chances of staying alive and still

(54:58):
carry out a successful mission, um, withno way home, but, uh, the people that were
at the very top didn't want to hear it.
So we were, you know, that was forever.
That was frustrating, but we were stillprepared to go and do it regardless.

Well, I think the most frustrating part would be, uh, Those who
would turn around and say that you weren'tprepared or that you was cowardice,
that you're voicing these concerns.

No.
Well, um, the Billy who was, um,leaving the regiment just after the
Falklands, he was no, he was goingto be promoted to a major general.
And so he would no longerbe part of special forces.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I mean, as a soldier, he was thearchetypal leader and officer.
Brave, stubborn, brutal, and,um, had a lot of respect.

(55:46):
But, uh, in this particular case,you know, again, you know, but
he wasn't, he, he wasn't popular.
And, uh, in this particular case, hegave us damn good reason for it, mate.
I mean, a big part of that, as you say,was when we returned and we had a debrief.
When you have a debrief when you getback from a mission, the purpose of

(56:07):
that debrief is to find out how youcan do it better next time, how you
can improve on it, and instead of that,they just said, Oh, you guys were great.
You guys are wonderful.
And then the Billy and his valedictoryspeech when he was leaving, he,
um, he stood up and, and virtuallyaccused us of being cowards for

(56:28):
not wanting to do it his way.
And then he told a story abouta second world war major.
Who had been stopped by the Frenchresistance and told not to go down a
particular road because the enemy werelaying in ambush and, uh, he went anyway.
And we were expecting a punchline to thisstory where it was going to be, and he

(56:49):
saved the day, but then he said, well, andhe drove into the ambush and got killed.
Well, we just started laughing.
We just think of this ridiculous,you know, what a dumb ass.
And, um, and he didn't get it,you know, he didn't get when we,
and we wouldn't stop laughing.
until he got off the stage and the newhis replacement stepped up at which

(57:09):
second We went absolutely silent inrespect for the new officer taking over.
So it was our way of poking ourfinger in his face and saying,
get your ass out of here.

Message sent message received.
You were then later put on a, uh,the Royal Marine sniper course.
And we're pretty happy to be put onthat from what I understand was, yeah,

yeah.
I mean, the, um, the Royal Marine snipercourse, the Royal Marines, um, were the
only unit in the British armed forces thatmaintained the sniper skill qualification
from the first world war onwards.
Now, a lot of journalistsmisuse the word sniper.
Um, they think anybody with a, with somekind of small arm shooting from a distance

(57:54):
is, uh, is, uh, they call them a sniper.
They're not, uh, initially they'rea gunman and if they're good at
shooting, they're a marksman,but they're not a sniper.
A sniper is an expert in field craft, anexpert in camouflage, judging distance,
map reading, air photography, recognizingthe relief of the ground, being able
to move invisibly, being able to shoot.

(58:18):
from an invisible position andthen disappear and get away without
being seen, be able to stalk anopponent without being seen, get
close to an enemy and get away again.
So the elements of fieldcraft are at itsabsolute peak with, um, with a sniper.
So a sniper is all of those things.
He's the absolute peak of aninfantry soldier's fieldcraft skills.

(58:41):
And so it's misused.
The word's misused a lot of the time.
I.
wanted to go on that course.
So, um, and, um, I'd only been homefrom the Falklands a few weeks and
thought, great, I've got a new baby boy.
I'll get a rest.
Nope.
Straight down to Royal Marines,Limpston and on this course.
And, um, yeah, it was, itwas absolutely incredible.

(59:05):
And, um, it was, uh, uh, one of the thingsthat I'm, I'm as proud of passing that
with their two grades, the top grade wasmarksman and the second grade was sniper.
Four of the 12 on the course passed it.
And I was one of the twothat got sniper marksman.
And, um, you know, and I thought,right, I'm coming back with this.

(59:28):
I'm coming back to this qualification.
You can't take it away from me.
The rural Marines gave it to me.
I'll get my promotion.
Didn't happen.
Um, because, um, somebody turnedaround, you didn't like me and said,
oh, well, that's just coursemanship.
Whatever that means.

Yeah.
Whatever that means.

Yeah,

well, didn't it turn out that you were sent on that course,
maybe not as a prize, but as a, uh,in the hopes that you would fail and
that'd be a excuse to RT, RTU you?

Yeah.
Well, the, um, I had a, Ihad a disagreement with a
Sergeant when I was a trooper.
And, um, he'd taken me off, uh, uh, an airair fire control, of course, that I wanted
to do on the grounds that I wouldn't bethere and I was doing something else.
And the fact was that Ithought he'd made a mistake.
And so, um, I complained andsaid, look, the course starts on

(01:00:21):
Monday and I'm back on Friday.
And, um, he said, well,the job is done now.
And so it's not going to change.
So when I arrived back on the Friday, Ibumped into the two I see in my company
and he said, what's wrong with you?
You've got a face like thunder.
And I told him.
And, uh, he said, youwant me to do something?
I said, no, no.
I said, just make thingsworse, but he ignored that.

(01:00:43):
And he went and, uh, he went and, uh,looked into it and discovered that this
guy had lied to the sergeant major tocheck, get, get his own guy on the course.
And, um, two years later, he wasthe squadron sergeant major and
he made it his purpose in life.
To get me thrown out and uh,they sent me on the Arabic course

(01:01:05):
to a lot of people failed it.
I passed it.
They put me on the RoyalMarine Sniper course.
I passed it.
They put me on the Mountain Guides courseto Chamonix, which two year course.
And when they told me, I thought,great, I'd love to do that.
And they took me off it.
So, um, you know, um, what can you do?

(01:01:25):
Um, I actually believe at that time thatall I had to do was keep doing my job.
Better and better and better.
And eventually it would be noticed,

Travis Bader (01:01:33):
but,

Robin Horsfall (01:01:34):
um, in an institution, it just takes one person, one
rank higher than you, and theycan screw your whole future up.
And, and he succeeded in doing that.

Looking back now, knowing what you know now, uh, are there different
ways that you would have approached that?

Um, I got into the SAS when I was 21.
And one thing Bosley, theclerk in the office was right
about was that I was too young.
Um, by the time I was 27, I hada little bit more wisdom about
keeping my mouth shut in the rightcircumstances and not voicing an opinion

(01:02:13):
no matter how true I knew it to be.
I still struggle with that today.
I'm still a great fan of the truth, butI like to be able to support it from
a position of verifiable authority.
But, um, you know, the age and wisdom.
Uh, there are times when it's, it's notgoing to hurt you to be diplomatically

(01:02:38):
silent for a while and find an alternativeroute to get to the same place.
Um, so, but I was, I was veryyoung and, um, that naivety,
uh, played against me as well.
Um, but, um, I purchased my dischargefrom the army when I was 27, thinking
that I was going to be in for 22years, I'd done 12 years and, um,

(01:03:00):
it turned out to be one of the best.
Best things that could have everhappened to me looking back.
So something bad happens in your life thatcan end up being a very positive thing.
Later on, um, leaving the militaryafter 12 years freed me up to explore
my true potential to do other things,to have different experiences.

(01:03:21):
And go in different directions.
And I don't think if I'd stayed inthe military for 22, 24 years, um,
that I would have achieved as much.

I agree.
I agree.
I think you would have been stifled.
Hmm.
Um, so from there you went onand did some bodyguard work
and a bit of mercenary work.
And that's, uh, um, an interestingthing to read about is, um, there was,
One thing that I read and I thoughtwas really interesting and it says, I

(01:03:56):
was never quite the same again afterMozambique, I felt that I'd been tested
and I wished hardly that I hadn't.

Yeah.
Um, Mozambique was a infantry war.
We had no support arms, no aircover, no insurance, no backup.
Uh, we were taking men into combat.
We're supposed to be in there asinstructors, but you're in the war zone.
I ended up being company commandersand I saw and experienced some pretty

(01:04:30):
terrible things and when I came home,I was home within 24 hours, 48 hours.
So you're going from a place wherechildren are starving, where people
can be killed for a bunch of bananas.
Where a truck rolls over and 40 ofyour men are dead in one moment simply

(01:04:53):
because the driver made a mistake.
Where you've got yourself into very verydangerous situations out of bravado and
stupidity and um, wished you hadn't.
And then 24 hours later you're homeand you're looking at a video and your
wife's got a string outside the windowwith welcome home daddy on it and she's

(01:05:16):
playing a video showing you Christmas.
The Christmas you missed with the kids.
Eating and wasting loads of foodand toys lying all over the place.
And you're not laughing and smiling.
Um, you have this contrast of experiencesof going from this place to this place, to

(01:05:38):
a place where people are unhappy because.
Their nanny took the dayoff and they're traumatized.
Um, and the milkman didn't deliverthe milk, so they're extremely upset.
Um, and, um, you haven't had time to makethat transition and it came out as anger.

(01:05:58):
and disinterest and it was she recognizedit straight away and I didn't but um our
life led to a crisis situation and umfortunately I'd got counseling and I must
have been the counselor's uh favoriteum subject because he would start the

(01:06:22):
clock and he got 45 minutes and I wouldtalk like a runaway gun for 45 minutes
and it's time up Robin you know let'shave a quick chat and off you go And
after 12 weeks, I realized, yeah, okay.
The world shit, the bad thingshappen and, um, you can't change the
world, but you can change yourself.

(01:06:44):
And so I set about changing myself andrebuilding my, uh, family life and, um,
and with Heather's help, um, succeededand, um, as there's a lot of lessons,
uh, to learn from that for lots of peoplewho haven't necessarily been to war.
But they've had some very upsettingexperiences in their life, and they

(01:07:08):
want somebody to blame, and sometimesthere just isn't anybody to blame.
I love that old American, um, tshirt that sold billions, uh, which
was, uh, shit happens, and it does.
And, um, and sometime in your lives,there will be some kind of tragedy,
unfortunately, uh, even if it's thenatural death of your parents and you,

(01:07:33):
you have to accept that and acceptanceis a word we don't use enough of.
Sometimes you just, it just happens.

Did you come to that conclusion on your own, or was
that something that the counselorwas able to elicit out of you?

No, I think the counselor just let me burn it out.
He let me talk it out.
He let me figure it out on my own.
All he was was a soundingboard to let me go.
He, I'm sure he got subjects wherehe needed to prompt something.
He needed to light a fuse.
With me, the fuse was burningwhen I walked through the door.
Um, all he had to do was just let itburn and give it a place to go, you know?

(01:08:12):
And, um, and, um, yeah, sometimesyou've just got to unload.
You just got to let it all go, uh, talkit all out with somebody who's not going
to offer an opinion back, who's not got avested interest in your, uh, opinion and,
um, and, uh, and let it, and, and allow,allow you to, to release everything.

(01:08:35):
And when it's all out there, youspilled your guts all over the floor.
You can see what you've been eating.

I like that analogy.
You know, I just made that

one

up.
Oh, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
Um, you know, a lot of people get stuckin this, uh, process of, uh, basically
wearing or identifying with whateverthe issue is, that's affecting them.
They're being afflictedwith in the moment.
And there's a lot of counselors andpsychologists who, uh, aren't brave

(01:09:06):
enough to, uh, help break that cycle.
Rather, they will just have themgo over and over and over again
through it, because there's sort ofa cathartic process in the, uh, in
these meetings and, you know, there'smoney that comes from each one of these
meetings and, yeah, um, I don't agree

with some of that because I think sometimes
it's like picking a scab.
Yeah.
You just keep making it bleedyou just keep making it bleed

right

yeah um which is different from what i'm talking about
i just let me just let me um healmyself um because again it's back to
that thing i said at the beginningyou know only you can change yourself

it's

a bit like you know a guy who's an alcoholic or a drug addict.
Um, you know, first of all, you haveto accept that you are the problem and
then you can deal with it, whether it'sPTSD, whether it's alcohol, whether it's
drugs, whether it's violence, whateverit is, you have to start with you.
I mean, I do counsel some individualsprivately, uh, without payment who are

(01:10:11):
usually military veterans, but not always.
Sometimes they're cancervictims because I've had cancer.
And, um, and the first thing Isay to them often is, well, what
are you going to do about it?
So you place the owner strictly on themstraight away because people tend to
wear a badge of victimhood and say,uh, you know, it's your job to help me.

(01:10:36):
Okay.
Well, yeah, maybe, uh, maybeit's my job to help you.
Um, but providing youstart by helping yourself.
You start by taking responsibility.
You start by getting a job, by gettingout of bed in the morning, by doing what
you need to do, and I'll help you then,but I'm not going to get you out of bed.

Yeah.
There's nothing you canactually do to help somebody.
You can lead them by example,but they have to help themselves.
And once they, um, so whatdo you do now to deal with.
When the demons come up, whenthings are getting difficult, what
do you do now to deal with it?

Uh, uh, sometimes I, sometimes I, I, I have moments
where I'm just watching TV or doingsomething innocuous and I'll have a cry.
Um, not a sob, but just, youknow, just a moment of welling up.
It'll pass away.
Um, but, uh, I don't have many demons.

(01:11:37):
I think I've exercised most of them.
Um, I have a great wife.
Um, I have an amazing family.
I'm the oldest survivingmember of my family now.
And, um, and consequently, um,there's always somebody that's
got a problem that they want.
They either want advice or theywant money and I'm supposed

(01:11:59):
to provide one of the two.
Um, so that keeps me busy and itkeeps me feeling useful as well.
Um, I've got four generationsin the house at the moment.
Um, my daughter, my granddaughterand my granddaughter's son.
Um, and they're going back next weekand it's been fun having him here
while she had the baby, but, um, uh,the house will seem empty, um, next

(01:12:23):
Tuesday when they've gone, um, until.
Until the next, um, until the nextmember of the family decides it's
time to, to turn up at the house.
And, um, I hope it's not toolong in between because, you
know, family is everything.
When you get to a certain point inyour life, uh, family is everything.
And if you are not fortunate enough tohave family, then compensate with friends.

At what point in your life did you truly realize that?
I

don't think I realized it fully.
I'm still learning and discovering, uh,new things about myself and about life.
Um, so it's a process.
Um, the Japanese used to saythat you're not really a man
until you get past the age of 40.
Um, and you've got to get past the age of40 before you understand what that means.

(01:13:14):
Well, I'm 67 now.

Yes.
Is there anything that we haven'ttalked about that we should talk about?

Well, I spent, um, I spent 30 years of my life
teaching children, martial arts.
I mentioned that earlier andthe, the karate was just the
catalyst that allowed me to teach.
It was the teaching that was the joy.
It was the imparting knowledge to others.
That's the joy.
And, um, I was taught to teachwhen I was a boy soldier, six

(01:13:48):
months of teaching quotas.
And, um, and I, it was vocational to meto stand in front of people, to impart
knowledge, to help them, to benefitthem, to train them with the kids.
It was about, uh, teaching them to bestrong and confident and, uh, and kind.

(01:14:09):
And capable of defending themselves,which made them, um, able to
stand up for their opinions in amuch better way as they grew up.
Um, we taught the children to teach.
So rather than just teach them a skill,we taught them to teach the skill.
Because if you teach, you understandthe subject, you might know how to

(01:14:30):
shoot a rifle, but can you teachsomebody else how to shoot a rifle?
If you can and take that responsibility,now you really understand the rifle.
Um, it's the same in everything in life.
And we would take four year olds, andwhen they'd been around six weeks or
so, and a new kid arrived, we'd letthe four year and six week kid show
the new kid how to do certain things.

(01:14:53):
So they'd pair off.
Because you learn a hell of a lotmore from your big brother than you
ever did from your school teacher.
Uh huh.
And, um, so teaching is, uh,is, is, is a wonderful, is, is
the best form of learning ever.
I, I broke my neck when I was 54.
I couldn't carry on teaching martial arts.
And so I went to university asan undergraduate at the age of 56

(01:15:18):
and did, uh, uh, And, um, Englishliterature and graduated when I was 59.
Um, I got cancer when I was 60,bladder cancer, and I had to have a
major operation and they took away mybladder and prostate and lymph nodes.
And, um, And there's even a sunnyside to that because I've got

(01:15:39):
this bag now and I never haveto get up for a pee in the night

and

men of a certain age will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Well, I've got this two liter bagthat goes down the side of the bed and
I, I never have to get up for a pee.
I can stay in bed andwatch TV in the morning.
So there's even a good side to that.
So, um.
A lot of fighting scared the book youshowed there is one of six and it goes

(01:16:08):
up to about the age of forty five.
But i'm sometimes thinking if i can findthe time that i should write a sequel um
for the forty five to sixty seven periodwhich has a whole new range of stories
but i've got so many things i want to do.

How did you break your neck.

I was training with my oldest son, Alex, um, karate training
with my oldest son, Alex, and he washolding a big, heavy impact pad for me.
And he's a big man.
And, um, and I, I was showing himthis, uh, very powerful punch.
And, um, he, uh, I was looking at theclass and what I should have done.

(01:16:50):
I should have looked.
At the target and then hit it so myneck was in the correct position,
but the head was still here talkingto the class when I hit this thing.
And, uh, when you've developed, like, likeprofessional boxing, when you've developed
the punch to a degree and your body andall your applied physics of your, of your
physique are in exactly the right place.

(01:17:11):
You're developing about one anda half tons of impact into two
square inches of two knuckles.
And, um, everything's set right, allthat impact, all that, um, kinetic
energy is, is trans, is transmittedin, all that potential energy
is transmitted into the target.
Well, my neck was in the wrong position,and so some of it came out up here

(01:17:32):
on C5 and broke one of the, broke oneof the, um, Processes on my, on my
vertebra, and I wasn't paralyzed, but,um, my neck beat is very, very weak.
It's still very weak, and I, Ilost some of the feeling in my left
hand and, um, and, uh, so I hadto take a new direction in life.
There's no good sitting around going, oh,I was a great martial artist once upon

(01:17:55):
a time and I had a thousand students.
And, oh, poor me.
I just, okay, what can I do?
Well, I can't jump around and I can'tleap out of buildings and I can't, you
know, stand on one leg anymore becausemy balance goes so, but I can write

and I can

speak and so I'm, um, I do corporate talks and talks
for colleges and talks for kids.
About my personal experiences, aboutleadership, about overcoming adversity.
Um, if anybody ever wants mein Canada, you know where I am

and,

uh, and, um, and, um, so I just, I, I still like being up there
in front of everybody because teachingis essentially singing and dancing, you
know, and, uh, your, your best teacherswere the ones that entertained you and
the subjects you loved best at school werethe ones that came from the best teachers,
not because they were the best subjects.

Through teaching, you've enabled the children to have a voice
and you've basically become the mentorthat you were looking for as a child.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
That's, I think, I think you put thefinger right on the button there.
Um, that's, and I've never everthought of that to be honest, but
yeah, I think that's exactly what Iam, the person that I didn't have.

Well, there's a, there's a lot more that I'd love to chat with you
about, and I'm sure we'll chat more inthe future, but, um, maybe that's a good
place for us to, to wrap this podcast up.
Um, unless there's any lastwords you'd like to say.

Yeah.
Anybody wants to find me?
RobinHorsfall.
com.
Let's do the advertising every little

counts.
What I'm going to do is I'm going toput links in the bio and I'm going
to put links in the descriptionand, um, you know, like I say,
I've got, I'll hold them up here.
So I've got fighting scared.
Couldn't put that one down.
Uh, read that one in, in no time flat.
We've got, uh, the words of thewise old paratrooper, more words

(01:19:59):
of the wise old paratrooper, lastwords of the wise old paratrooper.
And I've, uh, started going through them.
They're easy reads that are full of very,some, a lot of humor, some great wisdom.
And it's something that, uh,will take more than one read
to actually properly absorb.
And I guess there's a couplemore books that, uh, uh, that I,

There's warrior poet soldier songs, which is an
illustrated book of my poetry.

Okay.

Um, which is very academic and, um, illustrated
and I'm very proud of that.
But people don't buy poetry.
It's a, so it's a labor of love.
They quote it, butthey, they don't buy it.
And, um, my most recent one isSlava Ukraini, who no shares.
Uh, which is about the first twoyears of the Russian Ukraine war.
And yeah, and that's my,that's my most recent one.

(01:20:49):
Yeah.

And you're pretty, you're pretty vocal and on a lot of world issues.
When are you going tostart your own podcast?

Yeah, I've, um, I've got all the gear.
Um, I've had builders in my housesince we moved in two years ago.
Um, and, um, I've got my, Daughterin the, in the attic room at
the moment, which is going to bethe podcast broadcasting studio.

There it is.
And,

um, it's, uh, it's another one of those things on the list.

You know, that was the one thing when I went through
all of this stuff, I thought Robin'sgoing to start his own podcast and
it's going to be hugely successful.
And I'm glad, I'm glad you're doing that.
Robin, thank you so much forbeing on the Silvercore podcast.
I really enjoyed this.

Thanks, Travis.
You're a great interviewer.

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Ep. 142 - From Bullied to Bulletproof: An SAS Soldier's Story

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 142 - From Bullied to Bulletproof: An SAS Soldier's Story