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Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're

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Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio special operations, military news and straight

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Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. Welcome to us,

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Speaker 1: back to Software Bradio, folks. I'm your host today, Steve

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Speaker 1: GOLSTRAI joining me. We have a very special guest, Mark Goldberg. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't know who Mark is, he wrote

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Speaker 1: a tremendous book which we've reviewed and highly recommend. It's

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Speaker 1: called Beyond the Green Line. And Mark grew up in

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Speaker 1: in London, England. Uh. He's of Jewish descent, so when

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Speaker 1: he was eighteen years old, he he left England, moved

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Speaker 1: to Israel, place he had never been, during the Israeli

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Speaker 1: paratroopers and took part in Second into Fada. And we're

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Speaker 1: gonna get into all that, but before we do, we

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Speaker 1: want to welcome Mark to the podcast. And uh, we're

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Speaker 1: very grateful that he could make the time for us today.

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Speaker 1: So Mark, welcome to Software Radio. We're very happy to

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Speaker 1: have you as our guests. Hi, Steve, really happy to

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Speaker 1: be here. Thanks very much for having me. It's great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, again your book was fascinating because I have friends,

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Speaker 1: uh who have been to London. I have uh friends

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Speaker 1: of friends who are of Jewish descent in London. We're

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Speaker 1: telling me a lot of the same stories that you

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Speaker 1: had wrote about it in your book, and I found

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Speaker 1: it hard to believe. Not well, not hard to believe,

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Speaker 1: but it's it is still kind of difficult to fathom

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Speaker 1: that we still have the anti Semitism that you would

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Speaker 1: think that would have been eradicated from Europe after the

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Speaker 1: Second World War. But you know, let's get into all

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Speaker 1: this because I will, you know, our listeners want to

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Speaker 1: hear your story and tell us about growing up in London. Well, um,

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Speaker 1: before I start, actually I should say that I had

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Speaker 1: been to Israel before before. Okay, yeah, I had been.

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Speaker 1: I had been there from a bit, I've been there

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Speaker 1: a few times. Um, but yeah, but I was in London. Basically,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in London, and London is um, well,

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Speaker 1: the UK. I kind of felt growing up Jewish that

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Speaker 1: the attitude was kind of like, don't don't discuss like

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Speaker 1: your difference, you know, don't don't be very different from

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Speaker 1: everyone else, keep it to yourself, you know. Um yeah,

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Speaker 1: and kind of just don't don't kind of if you

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Speaker 1: had something about you that's kind of different from the

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Speaker 1: prevailing culture. You know. That's not to express it, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of the way I grew up. Um. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I grew up, and as I grew up more, I

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Speaker 1: kind of identified more with my identity as a Jew

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Speaker 1: and kind of resented more and more the feeling that

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Speaker 1: I wasn't really free to kind of happily express that

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Speaker 1: side of kind of my identity in the UK. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: I ended up going to Israel and joined joined the army.

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Speaker 1: And now that that had to have been a huge,

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Speaker 1: huge culture change for for you. I mean, you're going

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Speaker 1: from London, You're going to Israel. And as you put

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Speaker 1: it down in your book, you didn't speak very good

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Speaker 1: Hebrew at the time. No, I didn't speak anything. But

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Speaker 1: it's funny. The funny thing about culture. Actually, when I

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Speaker 1: first joined the army, my perception in my mind of

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Speaker 1: army was very British kind of centric perception of one

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Speaker 1: army is supposed to be. You have a drill sergeant

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Speaker 1: who's screaming at you all the time, you have to

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Speaker 1: stand to attention to polish your boots, you have the

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Speaker 1: iron your clothes, all that kind of stuff, and the

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Speaker 1: Israeli army was nothing like that at all, and it

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Speaker 1: much more was like a youth It was. It reminded

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Speaker 1: me of the Jewish youth movement that I had gone

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Speaker 1: to when I was a kid. Actually, in terms of culture,

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Speaker 1: there was some similarities there, so things that I weren't expected.

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Speaker 1: We wasn't expecting about it, like they were very It

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Speaker 1: was much more like, for example, your first two weeks

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Speaker 1: in the I d F are more like youth youth

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Speaker 1: club of some kind. It's more like, well, we've got

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Speaker 1: a bunch of eighteen year olds, we've just conscripted them in.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna ease them in very gently. We're gonna have

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Speaker 1: a very relaxed kind of regime as they get used

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Speaker 1: to any uniform and they get used to kind of

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Speaker 1: being in the army. They don't even issue you with

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Speaker 1: a weapon. Um. Yeah, So that it was actually it

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Speaker 1: was actually easier than I thought. Once I was in

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Speaker 1: it was it was quite comfortable. Yeah. I found that

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Speaker 1: part of the book fascinating because you know what we

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Speaker 1: think of the I d F. You know, we've seen

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Speaker 1: their their history in battle since the Israel became a nation,

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Speaker 1: you know, back in the late forties, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I had the same impression that you would that this

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Speaker 1: would be you know, iron discipline, you know, sergeant screaming

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Speaker 1: in and your and when I was reading your book,

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Speaker 1: that's what I was expecting to be reading. And you know,

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Speaker 1: that's something that was It was kind of an eye

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Speaker 1: opener because you know, as you put the first couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks, they kind of eased that in to you know,

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Speaker 1: where everyone gets I guess, their own comfort level of

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Speaker 1: being a soldier in you know, now now you're kind

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Speaker 1: of you know, easing into their military lifestyle. Yeah. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was very much. Well it has You have to

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Speaker 1: remember that actually, in order to even start training with

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Speaker 1: the unit that I was in, you have to go

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Speaker 1: through a couple of selections to get there. So the

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Speaker 1: people who were there were already kind of proved to

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Speaker 1: a certain extent that they wanted to be there. Um,

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Speaker 1: and that's kind of the mindset. You always kind of

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Speaker 1: felt like, actually, if I don't want to do this anymore,

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Speaker 1: if this is too hard, I can just say it's

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Speaker 1: too hard, I don't want to do this anymore, and

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Speaker 1: they'll just get rid of me, you know, I'll just

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Speaker 1: be sent someplace else in the military, and that actually

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Speaker 1: is kind of the philosophy that they work too, is

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Speaker 1: like if you're a if you're not up to it,

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Speaker 1: like if we don't think you're good enough, but also

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Speaker 1: if you won't do this anymore, then then you just

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Speaker 1: have to go. You know, it wasn't really about because

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Speaker 1: there's the encouragement element of a drill sergeant as well.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're making you do things, they're making you run.

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Speaker 1: They may he was called up, where's he's right? He's

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Speaker 1: a much more like, yeah, if you don't want to

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Speaker 1: do this, then uh by I know. And uh, it's

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Speaker 1: funny because that part of it. After I became I

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Speaker 1: was in the Army Special Forces of Green Berets and

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Speaker 1: our selection course is exactly like that. I was an

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Speaker 1: instructor at our selection course and you know, uh it

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Speaker 1: was pointed out to all of our cadrey members. We

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Speaker 1: won't discourage the candidates. We won't encourage candidates. We just

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Speaker 1: tell them what they need to do and it's up

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Speaker 1: to them how hard or how well or not so

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Speaker 1: well they perform. And then you know, our our I

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Speaker 1: guess function is strictly to assess them and whether or

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Speaker 1: not they will be selected as part of the unit,

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Speaker 1: and that part of it, I definitely, you know, I

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Speaker 1: guess relate them. Yeah, and I've read about that in

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Speaker 1: some other books and books about their says and they're

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Speaker 1: kind of mentality as well. Um so, yeah, it was interesting.

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Speaker 1: It was definitely a shock that it was going to

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Speaker 1: be like that. I expected. Yeah, Like I said, I

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Speaker 1: expected to be screamed at from the instant stopped. You know,

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Speaker 1: I had this I can't remember what movie is actually,

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Speaker 1: if it was Full Metal Jacket, you know where the

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Speaker 1: Marines they it stops in the marine base and then

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Speaker 1: that's it. They're like screaming it you get off the bus,

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Speaker 1: do this, do that. And it's exactly what I was

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Speaker 1: expecting to happen to me with the bus arrived in

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Speaker 1: the first base, and instead the guy just sort of

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Speaker 1: goes all right, guys, really lethargically, you know, get off

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Speaker 1: the bus. Gone, just got off the bus and just

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Speaker 1: wait by the bus. I was like, all right, I'll

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Speaker 1: do that. Then, all right, Yeah, that's not the way.

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Speaker 1: You know, most of us who were in the American

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Speaker 1: military were introduced to the military, and when I remember

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Speaker 1: when my busk I got to our basic training base.

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Speaker 1: Before the bus even stopped the drill sargent was jumping

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Speaker 1: on and he was literally screaming in everyone's face, and

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Speaker 1: guys who were too slow he was helping them off

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Speaker 1: the bus, if you get what I mean. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: necessarily the image I had, and that was why I

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Speaker 1: was so surprised. But this is very Jewish actually yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, So you know you went through the selection

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Speaker 1: course for the I d F paratroopers and what can

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Speaker 1: you tell us about that? The selection course, the idea

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Speaker 1: of paratroopers was I had trained very hard for that. Um.

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Speaker 1: I did too. There was one for the they have

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Speaker 1: one they called them a gie bush, and one was

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Speaker 1: just for the paratroopers, and then once you're in, then

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Speaker 1: you do another one which is longer and more difficult,

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Speaker 1: the one for the paratroopers. Again, compared to the Western,

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Speaker 1: the the US and British kind of selection procedure, it

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Speaker 1: was incredibly easy. It was like nothing. It was about

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Speaker 1: five hours long, started about four in the morning when

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Speaker 1: it's still cool. Um, and you know, it involved the

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Speaker 1: usual kind of physical exertion and they really want to

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Speaker 1: kind of put you through some kind of motivational test

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Speaker 1: to go through that. They can see that the people

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Speaker 1: who are going to be a waste of time will

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Speaker 1: will quit during it. But you know what, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: It wasn't that hard. I was actually disappointed because I

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Speaker 1: worked really hard for it and and yeah, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: as difficult as I thought as I thought it would be. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I think that kind of reflects two things. I

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Speaker 1: think it reflects the fact that, um, there's the difficult

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Speaker 1: stuff is ahead of you anyway. You know that. You

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Speaker 1: know that in paratry for training, they pushed you through

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Speaker 1: tough stuff. Anyways, they don't kind of need you to

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Speaker 1: be starting at such a high standard because you will

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Speaker 1: get fit like during the training. So it was more

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Speaker 1: of a motivational test. And the other thing is, you

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Speaker 1: know what, the idea has a need for manpower in

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Speaker 1: these units. You know, that was just my personal opinion.

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Speaker 1: I think that they don't want it to be that hard.

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Speaker 1: They want to be too hard because they need people

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Speaker 1: in them. Yeah, I think that's the balance saying, the

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Speaker 1: balancing act that a lot of especially special operations you know,

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Speaker 1: units in and all services in all countries that they

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Speaker 1: kind of have to balance that today because you know,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, they want to keep the standards high

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Speaker 1: and they want the very best people. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, you know, they need to fill the ranks.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of I know, if if we had

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Speaker 1: a selection course, and this is just from my perspective,

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Speaker 1: there are too many people failed, you know, the or

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Speaker 1: or you know, decided to opt out. Um our chain

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Speaker 1: of command up at the higher headquarters used to get

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Speaker 1: very upset with the instructors, thinking that we were changing

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Speaker 1: the standards that being higher, when in fact that Sometimes

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Speaker 1: you know, certain classes, you might have a group of

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Speaker 1: guys that absolutely excel and they come together as a

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Speaker 1: as a group, and when people do that, they tend

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Speaker 1: to do much better. And we've had other classes where no, uh,

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Speaker 1: they they kind of opted out and every man for himself,

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Speaker 1: and when that happens, you know, it's, uh, collectively they

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Speaker 1: don't do as well. Yeah, and it's those are a

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Speaker 1: terribly experience for the people who are in it. Actually,

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Speaker 1: like my team really came together, m and it was beautiful.

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Speaker 1: It's actually just beautiful. Like when you will know that

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Speaker 1: you can kind of it's you against them, if you like,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's you sorry the team together, like against

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Speaker 1: the instructor is and you're all gonna do it, and

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Speaker 1: you're gonna be in it with one another. But I

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Speaker 1: must be terrible when it's a fragmented group of soldiers

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Speaker 1: who just don't even like each other, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I can't rely on each other to complete the tasks

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Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing. But yeah, yeah, go ahead,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. Well, I was just gonna say my second.

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Speaker 1: The selection that I that I went through to get

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Speaker 1: to the to my kind of final unit that I

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Speaker 1: arrived at the V unit was tough. I was several

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Speaker 1: days long, um, and that you know, even though actually

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Speaker 1: they have to I don't know how it is in

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Speaker 1: the US, but they had certain rules that they had

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Speaker 1: to adhere to in terms of the number of hours

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Speaker 1: of sleep each soldier would get, that we would all

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Speaker 1: get fed, that we would you know, that you would

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Speaker 1: have to adhere to certain certain things, which again was

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Speaker 1: a surprise for me actually because I expected it to

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Speaker 1: be really brutal, like really brutal, but it wasn't like that.

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Speaker 1: It was. It was quite professionally run um and I

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Speaker 1: did kind of mental as well as physical challenges that

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Speaker 1: you had to pass. There was a lot of running

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Speaker 1: running with stretchers, stretcher opened a lot of weight put

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Speaker 1: on the stretcher, and then four of you kind of

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Speaker 1: would be under it. You just be going, or you'd

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Speaker 1: be running with a sandbag on your shoulder, and you

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Speaker 1: just keep going and going, and you wouldn't know they

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Speaker 1: took our watches from us, so you never know when

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Speaker 1: it's going to finish. You can't really what's happening. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then the other the really intimidating thing actually is

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Speaker 1: they're like, okay, it's time to eat, and they throw

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Speaker 1: a ration pack to the crew if they were like

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Speaker 1: ten of us in each part of the selection, and

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Speaker 1: they just throw one in the middle of the ten

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Speaker 1: of you. And then and then they take notes on

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Speaker 1: how you organize eating and how you organize the food

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Speaker 1: with one rational practice and all of you, you know,

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Speaker 1: and they're like looking for people, okay, who who's making

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Speaker 1: other people food, who's opening the tins for other people

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Speaker 1: to eat, who who? And who's just grabbing food and

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Speaker 1: keeping it to themselves, you know, and grading you accordingly.

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Speaker 1: Very interesting take the actually absolutely and then that's you know,

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Speaker 1: that's a hallmark of I think all good special operations

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Speaker 1: units and that's you know, they want to see who

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Speaker 1: the team players are and if you're worried about, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're going to make sure that everyone's taken care of.

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Speaker 1: And that's what they they're looking for for leaders. You know,

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Speaker 1: that's you know, I I've I remember reading that part

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Speaker 1: of the book and it definitely struck a chord because

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Speaker 1: that's the kind of things that we assess, you know,

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Speaker 1: as instructors. You know, you're looking for who's the team players,

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Speaker 1: who who are the guys And naturally there's gonna be

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Speaker 1: some guys that might not be leaders per se, but

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Speaker 1: you know they're gonna be good team members and there's

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Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that either. Not everyone's going to be

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Speaker 1: a leader, and not everyone can be a good one.

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Speaker 1: But I you know, I found that part of it

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Speaker 1: very interesting because again, I mean that's you know, when

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Speaker 1: you're going through something like that, we used to tell

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Speaker 1: our candidates the same thing. You're always being assessed. Just

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Speaker 1: remember that everything you do and it might seem so ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: but you're being assessed because we assess everything. And that

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Speaker 1: part of it where you guys were eating, I thought

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Speaker 1: it was, you know, that's very interesting and seeing they

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Speaker 1: watch how how the guys do it? And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: so let's say, you know, as part of your training,

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Speaker 1: obviously you have to jump out of an airplane. What

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Speaker 1: was that like for you? I know, everyone has different

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Speaker 1: you know, remembrances that yeah, um oh yeah, I wrote

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Speaker 1: in the book actually about time. You know what. First one,

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Speaker 1: let me say generally that I was petrified of jumping

283
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Speaker 1: out and airplane first time, and I was petrified jumping

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Speaker 1: out and a plane every time, not just the first time,

285
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Speaker 1: but um, you know, they the things that I saw

286
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,359
Speaker 1: that first time were amazing. Like you're in the city,

287
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Speaker 1: you're in the hercules, the doors are open and everything's ready,

288
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Speaker 1: and everyone's jumping out. And then suddenly some guy runs

289
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Speaker 1: from the door backwards to the back of the plane,

290
00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 1: just run. He's hooked up for the static line, runs

291
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Speaker 1: past me, and then four of the jump masters hut.

292
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Speaker 1: They literally jumped on him, dragged himTo the door and

293
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Speaker 1: throw it out, you know, they chuck and straight out

294
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Speaker 1: the door like like like you know, there's the defection.

295
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:36,639
Speaker 1: If one is scared, everyone will gets scared. They like

296
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Speaker 1: forget this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, because everyone's jump

297
00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 1: stories are different. But they're all great, and I love

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Speaker 1: that part when you know, when you talked about in

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Speaker 1: your book. And to be perfectly honest, I've been afraid

300
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Speaker 1: of heights all my life. And then of course when

301
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Speaker 1: they joined Special Forces, what do they make me do?

302
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,400
Speaker 1: They put me on a team. So I was climbing

303
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:07,160
Speaker 1: mountains and you know, hanging off cliffs, you know, but

304
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Speaker 1: I'm still to this day my wife will laugh at

305
00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:13,359
Speaker 1: me because I don't like getting on a ladder on

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Speaker 1: the side of the house. And she's like, for somebody

307
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:19,119
Speaker 1: who jumped out of airplanes hundreds of times, and you

308
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Speaker 1: don't like getting on a ladder. And I was like,

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00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 1: I still don't like heights. I've climbed mountains, I've jumped

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Speaker 1: out of aircraft, but I still don't like heights. But honestly, jumping,

311
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Speaker 1: I guess because it was so high that didn't bother me.

312
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:36,560
Speaker 1: I used to actually like hanging out of the aircraft

313
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Speaker 1: as a jumpmaster, but no, ladders are still a no

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Speaker 1: go around here. Brilliant. I mean, I've got to tell

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Speaker 1: the story about jump. But like when I'm my I

316
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 1: think it was my second jump, you know, I don't

317
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Speaker 1: know do you do it in the us where they

318
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:56,440
Speaker 1: graduate up while you're you're qualifying as a parachute to

319
00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:59,760
Speaker 1: say they graduate up what you're jumping with on you

320
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Speaker 1: like you have more equipment. Okay, cool, So these already

321
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:05,160
Speaker 1: to do it that way as well. Like the first

322
00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 1: time you jump, you don't have anything. Um, the next

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Speaker 1: time you jump, you have like a bag in between

324
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Speaker 1: your legs that's there. In the third time, I think

325
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:15,240
Speaker 1: it's a night jump, and then they whatever, they just

326
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:18,840
Speaker 1: graduated up. So this was the second time, and I

327
00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:21,800
Speaker 1: had the bag in between my legs and I jumped

328
00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:25,439
Speaker 1: out there a airplane and um, you know, just you

329
00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:27,800
Speaker 1: count one, two three, and then you know, you look

330
00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:30,239
Speaker 1: up and you make sure the canopy is deployed. So

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Speaker 1: I count one, two three, and basically my eyes are closed,

332
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:34,600
Speaker 1: so I can't one to three. I opened my eyes

333
00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:37,439
Speaker 1: and the canopies open, and I know that the canopy

334
00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:40,600
Speaker 1: is oh, because I'm looking straight at it because the

335
00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:44,320
Speaker 1: parachute cord has opened around my leg and and it

336
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,720
Speaker 1: is holding me upside down down with the bag in

337
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:52,399
Speaker 1: between my leg, you know, in my balls. Frankly, like

338
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,159
Speaker 1: just push you down there, and I'm like looking up,

339
00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:57,479
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have no idea what to do now? Like,

340
00:19:57,560 --> 00:19:59,840
Speaker 1: what the what the hell am I supposed to do

341
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:03,119
Speaker 1: in a situation. So obviously I just started screaming at

342
00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:07,600
Speaker 1: the parachute, let me go, and that didn't work. So

343
00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:10,600
Speaker 1: I eventually I just I'm like, okay, where is my leg?

344
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:14,280
Speaker 1: Like where where reach up? And I have to like

345
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:17,719
Speaker 1: grab the cord and kind of get my leg out

346
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:19,719
Speaker 1: and then you get your leg out and you're like

347
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 1: still hundreds of feet above the ground. So then I

348
00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:24,560
Speaker 1: felt I sort of fell, you know, the right way up,

349
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 1: which was bad enough, and I was all tangled, you know,

350
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:31,439
Speaker 1: they had twisted. But actually what was cool was that

351
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,120
Speaker 1: the training did totally kick in. And you know they

352
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:37,560
Speaker 1: teach you above your head, you hold the two cords

353
00:20:37,560 --> 00:20:39,639
Speaker 1: and you pull them apart and then you kick like

354
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 1: with your leg around untwisted the cord. So I just

355
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:48,600
Speaker 1: did that instinctively, and then I pulled the lever to

356
00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:51,360
Speaker 1: release the bag like two ms or whatever below me

357
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: and my you know, I knew I was supposed to

358
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 1: do that. Before I could do it, this voice in

359
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,480
Speaker 1: my head goes, wait, how do you know that this

360
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:00,679
Speaker 1: is not the release of for the Harnett? How do

361
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,879
Speaker 1: you pull this thing. I'm just gonna snip out the

362
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 1: whole para shute and you're done, Like, how do you

363
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 1: know that? Like, I know, I know that, I know

364
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,240
Speaker 1: it's not true. I know what this. But he had

365
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 1: that little argument and I was like, yeah, if I

366
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:15,480
Speaker 1: land like this, I'm in big trouble. So I just

367
00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:19,720
Speaker 1: put believer. Yeah, the back deployed. It was all fine.

368
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 1: But another day in the life. Oh yeah, and uh

369
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 1: one of the stories I wrote for soft Reppers, we

370
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:30,679
Speaker 1: were on a deployment once to Paraguay and we were

371
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:36,520
Speaker 1: training alongside the Paraguay and UH Airborne Brigade and the

372
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: drop zone ends at the edge of the base and

373
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:42,960
Speaker 1: then you actually the race track for the C one

374
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 1: thirty after he you know, turns on the red light

375
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 1: and he was making another you go actually over the

376
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:53,679
Speaker 1: capital city of a Scion, So it's like, you know,

377
00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,480
Speaker 1: you can't let anyone go out after the red light

378
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,520
Speaker 1: comes on because they'll be over a big tall holdings.

379
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 1: I had this one Paraguay and kid he gets to

380
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,480
Speaker 1: the door, he starts to jump out, and then halfway

381
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,200
Speaker 1: out the door he decides, no, I'm not doing this,

382
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 1: So he's half in. He's half out and he's hanging

383
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 1: with his right leg and his right arm or hanging

384
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 1: out of the aircraft to see one thirty hercules. One

385
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: side is holding on with a death grip inside the aircraft,

386
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 1: and now the other jumpers are trying to get buy

387
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: him and jump over him. So I'm grabbing them pushing

388
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: them back. No no, no, no, go back, go back.

389
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:39,199
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to take this kid, and I'm like,

390
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: I'm now by this time, we're over the city, so

391
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 1: there's big, tall buildings and everything, and it's like, this

392
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: is not the area to go out in a parachute.

393
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm trying to pull him back in and

394
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: I'm telling him, look down, I'm not putting you out

395
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: over these buildings. I'm not gonna throw you out, and

396
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 1: he refused to move, and then the air force guys

397
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: were petrified because they were like, hey, we can't you know,

398
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: we can't let him hang like this. I was like, so,

399
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 1: the uh, the columnie of the Paraguay in general, I

400
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:16,199
Speaker 1: should say, he was sitting right there. He was filming

401
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 1: everything with his camera. So I'm like, well, there's only

402
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: one way to get this guy in. So I grabbed

403
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: the top of his helmet and I pulled it back

404
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: as far as I could, and I punched him as

405
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: hard as I could, right in a job, and it's

406
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: kind of stunned him for a second where I was like, oh,

407
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 1: and he reached for his draw and then I picked

408
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: him up and I threw him in the seat, and

409
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 1: then I strapped him back in and uh. And the

410
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: general was laughing so hard, and he was like, I

411
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: didn't know what you were gonna do to that kid.

412
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:49,679
Speaker 1: He goes, I thought you were gonna throw him out,

413
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, we can't, you know, but

414
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 1: I had to get him in. It's a safety thing.

415
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 1: I can't let him hang like that. He's really the

416
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: whole jump for everyone else. Oh yeah, So then you know,

417
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 1: we got him back to the front of the aircraft.

418
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: We we made another pass, and then all the rest

419
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: of the guys went out without exception. And then by

420
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 1: the time all the guys got on the ground, they

421
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: were telling the airborne brigade commander what happened. And he

422
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: came up to me and he was holding his hands

423
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: in front of his face. He goes, hey, whatever you do,

424
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: don't punch me, okay, And I apologized to him. I

425
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't want to touch any of your soldiers,

426
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 1: but it got to the point where if he ended

427
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: up falling out, you know, he probably would have got killed.

428
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 1: So and he was like, no, no, no, you did

429
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: the absolute right thing. He's like, just don't punch me,

430
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: all right, but enough of my airborne story. So uh yeah,

431
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: I mean, so, you know, I think one of the

432
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: crowning moments for everybody. And I you know, again, your

433
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: book touched on something that you know, that hit a

434
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: you know that I remembered your parents came to your

435
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: graduation to see you get your ray and your sober

436
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: you know, your wings and what was all that like?

437
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: That was beautiful. That was beautiful. And the army was

438
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: so good to them as well. Actually they made a

439
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: big deal out of it. They were very happy for

440
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:22,399
Speaker 1: them to be there. And yeah, I mean, actually, well

441
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: I didn't write in the book because it just didn't

442
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: quite work. Is that you have like two graduations. So

443
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: when after six months you've become a paratrooper, when you

444
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: get the Red Bear, you have to do a ninety

445
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: kilometer march up to Jerusalem, up to a place called

446
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: Ammunition Hill, which is a big battle ground that the

447
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: paratroopers fought in the n during the Sixth Day War,

448
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: and that's where you receive your beret, your red beret

449
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: and your um yeah, and you're officially brought into the

450
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: paratroope family if you like. Um. And that was a

451
00:25:57,600 --> 00:25:59,199
Speaker 1: huge deal and my parents were there for that and

452
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 1: it was just it was a it was amazing And

453
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: to receive the commander's beret was also it was just

454
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: a fantastic moment actually um uh and and an award

455
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: for like they were like, look, you were really hardcore

456
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: on the nine March, so you've you're deserving of this

457
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: watch that we also give just what just to one

458
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: of the recruits when they passed out. I just it

459
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: was just you know, you know, I don't have to

460
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: tell you. I mean, you know right there was just

461
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: the crowning moment, isn't it. It's just beautiful? Yes, And yeah,

462
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: that to me was another I mean, you know, your

463
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: commander gave you his beret rather than you know, a

464
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 1: brand new one, and that that's a huge sign of respect.

465
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: And then to get the watch in that um what

466
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: what was that march? Like? Yeah? So so I have

467
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: mixed feelings about it. It's very hard. UM. It's it's

468
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: non up and you do it like in UM in

469
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: company level or maybe higher, maybe a battalion level, So

470
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: there's a lot of you doing it at the same time,

471
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: which slows you down, which actually makes it harder because

472
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: you don't you know, sleep on the way any or

473
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: you don't really have any rest stops along the way.

474
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: But you can't go as fast as maybe you'd like

475
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: to to just get it done with because you're within

476
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: this larger it's larger kind of environment. It took us

477
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: twenty three hours to do the ninet K, which was

478
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: considered like a medium UM and actually I had look,

479
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 1: it's it's the easiest thing that you do in many

480
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 1: ways because you know it's the end, Like you know

481
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: that at the end of this, my red beret is

482
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: waiting for me, right, this is all I have to do. UM,

483
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: And with all the stuff that you've gone through beforehand,

484
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: you know that you're able to do it as well,

485
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: Like there's no real feeling on I hope I can

486
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 1: do this. There's no way that I was going to

487
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: fail kind of at this at this moment um. And yeah,

488
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: I just I just I can't even I'm struggling to

489
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: remember it actually, you know, like I carried the radio,

490
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: which I was like the least the least likely person

491
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: to carry the radio because I couldn't even speak the

492
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: language anyway, so it's like babbling in my ear by

493
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: that time. To be fair, by that time, it was

494
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: pretty good. But I was still like, you know, the

495
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: British guy if I was yeah, like at least half

496
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: of it, and it was fine, you know. Um, And

497
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: there's a I don't know if this happened to you,

498
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: there's like there's a strange psychological thing that happened to

499
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: me and I saw it happened to everyone on my team.

500
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: Is that the first time you carry a relatively heavy

501
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: piece of equipment on one of these long marches, it

502
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: basically kills you. It just it's just destroys. You destroyed

503
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: my back the first time. It was just a stretcher,

504
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: and it was for a forty five to march, and

505
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: it just yeah, it was very, very tough. I didn't

506
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: give it up though, and I did it the whole time.

507
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: But after that moment, which almost but didn't break me,

508
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: I could carry basically anything without any problems at all. Uh.

509
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: And on the ninety came when I picked up the radio,

510
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: I just had no issues with that, and my other

511
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: equipment was it's really interesting thing actually. Um. But yeah,

512
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: so you know, and they closer you get to Jerusalem

513
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: until then you can actually see it. And then you're

514
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 1: in it and you're running on the Jerusalem streets and

515
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: people who are you know, civilians are driving past, and

516
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: they're all beeping their horns. Uh you and everyone's applauding,

517
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: and it's amazing, and you just you know, then you

518
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: start running and they open the stretches and then you run.

519
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: You just run, um all the way to the end,

520
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful. You know, they're waiting there with food

521
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: and and all kinds of things for you, and they

522
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: just let you know, Yeah, congratulations, you're in. Now you've

523
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: done it. That's that's awesome. I had read somewhere that

524
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: they used to do I don't know if they still

525
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: do it at times, said I heard that the Israeli

526
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: paratroopers you used to take. I don't know if it

527
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: was an auld of enlistment or just like a graduation

528
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: ceremony type thing where they used to do it at

529
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: night at Massada is that still a thing with them.

530
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: They used to do it, that it's not a thing anymore. Okay,

531
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: you have every every combat soldier in the ideas swears

532
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: an oath um to protect the country basically, uh and

533
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: the paratroopers and maybe a couple of other units used

534
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: to do a massada, but they moved it now to

535
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: the the Western Wall, okay um. And that's where I

536
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: did my swearing in ceremony as well, at the Western Wall. Yeah. Yeah,

537
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: that's such an awesome place. And for somebody who's not Jewish,

538
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been to Israel many times and I

539
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: still get it's when I when I go there, and

540
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: and to our listeners who haven't been, it's it's it's

541
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: an amazing place and it it gives you goose bumps

542
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: when you go there and you watch how the people,

543
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: you know, they go up to the wall and say there,

544
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: you know, I guess it's a prayer or whatever that

545
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: they do there. It's it's such a it's a powerful

546
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: place and it's been there but over two thousand years, right, yeah, yeah,

547
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: and it's a yeah, it's a place that connects the

548
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: modern and the ancient. Yep. You know, it's like where

549
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: it will began. Really. Yeah, I I kind of felt like, uh,

550
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I was intruding because I'm not Jewish,

551
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: but watching it unfold there when you know, the people

552
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: I was with and we were watching people do that,

553
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: it's it's a very I thought it was along with

554
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: certain other parts of Jerusalem, especially in the old parts.

555
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: It's such a powerful place and as you said, it

556
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: connects old and the new and um, it's part of

557
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: you know, your heritage there, and I think that that's

558
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: a neat place for the paratroopers to take their ultimate listen. Yeah, yeah,

559
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: it's pretty it is pretty good. It's very powerful place. Yeah.

560
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,719
Speaker 1: What were your parents like when they saw you know,

561
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: did they notice a big change in you at your graduation? Um? Yeah,

562
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean I think that it's very

563
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: like in many ways, in many kind of instances, I

564
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: kind of looked at them and I felt like, what

565
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: have I You know, I dragged this middle class Jewish

566
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: couple from London, you know, to the some army barracks

567
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: or you know, it's into a battlefield in in in

568
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: a place they've never you know, in Jerusalem, but in

569
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: the past Jerusal they would never have otherwise gone to

570
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: to be surrounded by these other like Israeli parents who

571
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: all know exactly what they're doing and what's happening. Um.

572
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: But it was eight. You know, they were great about it.

573
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: They were so proud. It was amazing. They were really

574
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 1: proud of me, um And I was really proud to

575
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: have been there. So yeah, I mean it was, it was.

576
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: It was a very big deal. I remember when I

577
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: graduated Special Forces training, my parents came down for that

578
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: as well, and it was a big thing, especially my dad,

579
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: who you know, served in World War Two, which we

580
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: spoke of offline there before we started, you know, UM,

581
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: just you know, for them to see that, it was

582
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,959
Speaker 1: it was pretty neat. And yeah. So then you know,

583
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: you get to your your your unit. You're in the

584
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: is it a battalion or of no, it's um you

585
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: know what it's theoretically it's a company, but it's actually

586
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: because it's UM, it's a little bit smaller than a

587
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: company size, okay. And they have like a reconnaissance battalion,

588
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: and the battalion is like the UV which is anti

589
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: tank and then engine an engineering element and then UH

590
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: reconnaissance element as well. UM. And then altogether. It's like

591
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: the reconnaissance battalion. Okay, Yeah, you were in the reconnaissance element, right, Yeah, No,

592
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: I was in the or rev element, which is like

593
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: um anti tank Okay, but you know you you took

594
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: part in the the Second Intifada, and that part of

595
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: your book was fascinating again, you know, because it wasn't

596
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: what you expected to be doing. No, But um, there

597
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: was a lot of really interesting, you know, incidents that happened,

598
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: and I mentioned a couple of them in the review

599
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 1: of the book, and uh, one of them just struck

600
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: me as so insane. But you see crazy stuff like

601
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: this all the time. And uh, there was a rock

602
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: throwing incident where Palestinian you said, climbed onto a roof

603
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: on an apartment building and they could they were throwing

604
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: everything they they could get their hands on, and they

605
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: ended up throwing a watching machine onto the armored car

606
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: which you guys are riding. And can you can you

607
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: tell our listeners a little bit about this? Yeah? Sure,

608
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: I mean we had as part of the general security

609
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: operations that were ongoing during that period of time. Um,

610
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: the brigade as a whole would kind of enter into

611
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: the city, would and would do make arrests and would

612
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: do various kind of piece of work in the city.

613
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: Some and and sometimes it would happen all in one go,

614
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: like everyone just descends. So this was one of those

615
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: instances where I think an entire brigade had descended on

616
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:51,919
Speaker 1: a city in the West Bank called Nabolus Um. Now

617
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: what would had happened during that, because there's the Israeli presence,

618
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: There had been kind of stone throwing, like the kind

619
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: of the youths come out and they grabbed the rocks

620
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,479
Speaker 1: and they start burning tires and they start throwing things.

621
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: Non lethal, it kind of semi lethal if you like

622
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:12,720
Speaker 1: equipment at soldiers. So we found ourselves on the side

623
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: of a hill, so like if you like, to your

624
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 1: left is just to slope downwards into the city, but

625
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 1: to your right is kind of houses all built into

626
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: one another. And so they were on the roofs of

627
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: these of these houses, running from one to the other

628
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: and throwing down on us and our cars, and we

629
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:35,959
Speaker 1: were responding with kind of non lethal ammunition, tear gas

630
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: and things like that. It's very intense situation, actually, Um

631
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: and Um. We were in the thick of this, right

632
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: in the thick of it, and and we had kind

633
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: of retired into our armored vehicle and we were listening

634
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: to the things bombard the bombard the vehicle, and you

635
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,879
Speaker 1: can kind of hear it's like rain almost, and then

636
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: suddenly there's this huge bang like on the room, and

637
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: we have like what was that? And we break out

638
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, you know, we come out and we're like, well,

639
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: what was it? And then the vehicle moves and as

640
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: it moves, this this washing machine just kind of falls

641
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: off the room. You know, like where did that? Where

642
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 1: did that even come from? You know, like how did

643
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: that even? It's just so like it doesn't belong in

644
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: this environment at all. And then there's this older guy

645
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,839
Speaker 1: steps into the middle of this fuel that's going on

646
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: and starts screaming up at the roof. And we thought,

647
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: you know, if you like, he's supposed to be screaming

648
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,919
Speaker 1: at us. Were the Israeli like invaders here right there

649
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 1: doing this? So why isn't he shouting at us? And

650
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 1: there's an Arabic speak in the car who's like piecing

651
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: it out, and he's like he's screaming up at the

652
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 1: guys who were there throwing these things at us. Because

653
00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: they just threw his washing machine on the street. There's

654
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: like books, and there's and the glass like from from

655
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: you know, drinking glasses and things, and they've been throwing

656
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: the contents of people's homes onto the car and us. Yeah,

657
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,359
Speaker 1: after that, like the whole thing kind of ended with

658
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: like like two minutes later, I see right down the

659
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: very end of the street, like six or seven news

660
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: they kind of walk out in single file with their

661
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 1: heads firmly fixed at the ground, and they just walk

662
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: down the slope, walk into somebody else's house and start

663
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:43,320
Speaker 1: the whole thing again with another crew of soldiers. Like,

664
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 1: oh my god, this this is the Israeli Palestinian conflict

665
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 1: right here, you know, and it's you know, at the

666
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,800
Speaker 1: same time it's a dangerous situation, but at the same

667
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,879
Speaker 1: time it's it's unintentionally hilarious. I mean, as I'm really

668
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: a book, you know, these kids are throwing everything off

669
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 1: the roof, and it obviously from a pie, you know,

670
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: if somebody can get killed, and and then you know,

671
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: this washing machine of all things from way up on

672
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: this roof, and then the old man. As I'm reading

673
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: and it's you know, I'm trying to figure out how

674
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: is the old man yelling at them? And then it

675
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 1: turns out that was his possessions. And you know, because

676
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: you never think about this kind of thing like, it

677
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,879
Speaker 1: doesn't it wouldn't even occur to you to think about it,

678
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: Like I had seen plenty of like the news, plenty

679
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: of instances on the news where the camera crew is

680
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: set up and they're filming this kind of thing happening,

681
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: but you don't. You don't think, like, well, who are

682
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: these people, what are they doing? How are they doing it?

683
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: Who's tires a day? Right? They're sitting fires and tires?

684
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: Where did they get them? Like? Who did they take

685
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: them from someone's car? Like, when you don't think about it,

686
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: it just doesn't occur to you. But but yeah, and

687
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: then when you're in it, you see it and and

688
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: it makes you realize that you come to some interesting

689
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: conclusions about it. Yeah, I mean again, that was that

690
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: was one of the unintentionally hilarious parts of a dangerous situation.

691
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, as soldiers, you

692
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: see stuff like this all the time, and it it

693
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: never fails to amaze you how crazy the world can

694
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 1: be at times. But there was another episode that where

695
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: you're in an apartment, you're hunting for a wanted terrorists.

696
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: You had to watch over a family and volunteers from

697
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 1: the United States and the UK were there and share

698
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: with our listeners that story. Yes, and this was my

699
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: first proper if you like mission. This was my first

700
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: after getting badged, after getting brought it brought into the

701
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: unit is kind of a full fledged member. And by

702
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: the way, you've just done a year's training and then

703
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: the first thing they tell you when you do after

704
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: a year's Chinese you don't know anything. It was also

705
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: like a bit of a sad surprise, you know. You're like,

706
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: I'm here everyone, and they're like, yeah, you don't know, ship,

707
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: just do what I tell you, you know, you know.

708
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: So it's our first mission and they're like, yeah, this

709
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: is like this is We're going to give you something

710
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: easy to do if you like. Um. So yeah, I mean,

711
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: I I had been preparing for this for a year

712
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: and then I think it was somewhere around two in

713
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: the morning, like we get dropped dropped off somewhere in

714
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: Napolis and we kind of navigate by foot towards our

715
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 1: target building. And the mission had been to set up

716
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 1: like an ambush position in one of the apartments in

717
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: this building. Um, you know, to try and and and

718
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: and and find if there are any terrorists running out

719
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: to hit them. UM. And I hadn't considered and I

720
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: hadn't been trained for either. Actually the idea that someone

721
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: if there's someone living in the apartment, then someone is

722
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: going to have to be the one to look after

723
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 1: that family while somebody else is the one on the

724
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: ambush position, you know. And obviously as a soldier, what

725
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,800
Speaker 1: you want to do is be on the ambush ambush position. Anyway,

726
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: So we get in there and there's actually two apartments

727
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: on one floor. Um, and we we we move into

728
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: these apartments and there's a couple they're living in one

729
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: of them with their two children, and the two kids

730
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: are asleep and they stay asleep, and the kind of

731
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: the mom and dad end up sleeping on the on

732
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 1: the couch. And now we're in here and we're we're

733
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: all set up for our ambush. UM. So you know,

734
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: like one person stands guard and everyone else goes to bed,

735
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 1: goes to sleep. I should say, you sleep on the floor,

736
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: and you sleep in full kit and your boots on

737
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: and everything else. Obviously, So I get woken up by

738
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: another one in the in the squad, and he says, Mark, Mark, Mark,

739
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: you the British you're here, literally, the British you're here?

740
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: And like what what? What is like Paul Revere or something?

741
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Like what did he even mean?

742
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: The British a here. So I get up and I

743
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: come outside and and the number of people in this

744
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: apartment is like twenty. Now I'm like, how are they?

745
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:19,359
Speaker 1: How you know? I went to sleep a few hours

746
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: before there were four people, two children. They were a sleeper.

747
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen them. I wake up, Like the entire

748
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: living room is filled with people. They must have been

749
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 1: the most popular people in the whole city. And you know,

750
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: when when people heard that there Israeli soldiers there, I

751
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: get I assume that they must have gone to this

752
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: apartment to make sure that they were okay. And then,

753
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: because like our entry had been covert, we couldn't let

754
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: anyone go. Once they came in, they were in and

755
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: they were stuck. Um because yeah, if we released them,

756
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: then they would tell everyone else that there was already

757
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: soldiers in the building, and and then that could lead

758
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:02,439
Speaker 1: to a situation. Uh so, yeah, So among these people

759
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: are four four tourists effectively or activists to from the

760
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: UK into from the USA. And they've walked into this

761
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: apartment and they're not allowed out and so yeah, and

762
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: so there they are, and you know, they're complaining and

763
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: they're when push comes to shop, I end up getting

764
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: into an argument with one of the English ones who's

765
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: studying Oxford or Cambridge and like was doing some kind

766
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: of internship in in Israel and the West Bank on

767
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: some kind of program. And we just get into a

768
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: debate about the Israeli Palestinian conflict while we're in this

769
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: room living the Araeli city conflicts going on all around us.

770
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 1: We're like talking about water supplies, the rebuilding of the towns,

771
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: suicide bombers and all these things, while the sirens and

772
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: the shooting are going on outside the window. Um, yeah,

773
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: there's a crazy situation. And then one of the girls says, look,

774
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 1: you know, can I just go downstairs? I need some

775
00:44:57,320 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: medication for for my blood pressure. And I say, look,

776
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: we can't let you out because then everyone would know

777
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: that that we're here. And she said, what are you

778
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: talking about? The only reason I'm in here is because

779
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: the people who were looking after us said, there are

780
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 1: is rarely soldiers in that apartment. Can you go inside

781
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: and make sure everyone? Hey wait what this was supposting

782
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: over entry? How did they how did they even know? Anyway?

783
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, crazy times. Yeah. The American girl in the

784
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: book was very annoying. You know, she kept kept wanting

785
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,920
Speaker 1: to call the embassy as I don't know what they

786
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: would do, but you know a real stereotype of like

787
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: people who don't like Americans draws Americans like whiny and

788
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: complaining and and and and over entitled. And that was her.

789
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,359
Speaker 1: That was her only contribution was like I'm calling embas now.

790
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you're not. And then she's just like okay,

791
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: they would be again. Yeah, the guy I was just like,

792
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we all just need to smoke weed, man,

793
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: this whole conflict go away. We just had a joint

794
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: man and go like yeah, oh yeah, that's a that

795
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: was a fine welcome to the unit. Uh incident there. Yeah,

796
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: but what you know what the old timers were saying,

797
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: I mean I again heard the same thing. I mean

798
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 1: when I graduated being a Green Beret, I got to

799
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: the unit, and you know, I was considered myself a

800
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: barrel chested freedom fighter, and you know, I was ready

801
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: to take on the whole world. And my team start

802
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: didn't let the air out of the balloon pretty quickly,

803
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, oh, congratulations, you graduated. And

804
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: now it is when you actually start to learn ship.

805
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's like it's all it hasn't ended, it's

806
00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: just begun. Yeah yeah yeah. And he like, just stick

807
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: next to me and you'll learn stuff. Yeah yeah yeah.

808
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: And every new team coming in is the same. Everyone

809
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: is just oh, I'm here, now come on, let me

810
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: add it. When you're let no, yeah, and uh it's

811
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 1: funny because uh, you know, we all speak different language,

812
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: but you know, the military is the same in a

813
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 1: lot of places. And yeah, that's why reading this book,

814
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, it struck a chord on

815
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: so many levels. But one of the things that was

816
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 1: really interesting part was you guys were hunting a water

817
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of a lot

818
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: of Israelis as well as Palestinians, and you guys had

819
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: trapped him in the house. He had all kinds of

820
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: ammunition and you know, I'm expect thing, Oh, this guy

821
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: is going to you know, whatever they came. What a

822
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: shall leader or martyr you know die the martyr's death

823
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: and it didn't turn out that way. And yeah, tell

824
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 1: our worsts about that one as well. So we referred

825
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 1: to this guy as the Fox. He was like well

826
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:24,959
Speaker 1: known on the on the hit list, on the top

827
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,919
Speaker 1: ten terrorists of the area. He was. He was right

828
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: up there, um, and he was so such a sensitive

829
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: target that actually, um, you know, the military had kind

830
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: of avoided his family then kind of left the areas

831
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: where he felt comfortable alone in the hope that he

832
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: would show up. Uh. And we had practiced for the

833
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: operation to go get him a lot, and we had

834
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: been stood up to do it a lot and then

835
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: stood down at the last second. I don't know if

836
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: you imagine the experienced that quite a lot as well.

837
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: That you're you know, you're ready for the mission and

838
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: and everything is in place in your transport is there,

839
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:04,320
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, no, no, no no, no, it's been canceled.

840
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: It's been cancer. That happened all the time. And then

841
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: one time, you know, we were stood up again and

842
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: I remember saying the deputy command of the unit, Yeah,

843
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're about to get stood down like forget it.

844
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:16,760
Speaker 1: And he just looked at me and he's like, Nana,

845
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: not this time, man, And and he was right. So

846
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: they we drove into Napolis and that was like my

847
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: operating area mainly while I was while I was in

848
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: the army. And yeah, we we dispersed exactly coding to

849
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: plan um. And it was an apartment building, so it

850
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: wasn't a house. It was a much bigger complex than that.

851
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:45,319
Speaker 1: And they exited, they brought everyone who were who who

852
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: was in there. They brought them all out, and they

853
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: were very clear, you know, look, is there anyone left

854
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 1: in there? Are you sure is this guy here? Are

855
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: you sure he's not here? And then they went in

856
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: and looked. They did a sweep inside to find him. Um.

857
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: And for some when I was outside, I was covering

858
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,960
Speaker 1: like a corner of the building, me and my me

859
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: and I was part of what they call a julia

860
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:09,239
Speaker 1: in Hebrew, which is like four of you. And yeah,

861
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 1: so we were all covering one one portion of the building.

862
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: And I had this weird image by the way of

863
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: the Blues Brothers movie while I was doing it. Do

864
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: you remember the movie that it's the very end of

865
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 1: the movie where they go they want to pay the

866
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: tax pill and they call in like all of the

867
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: SWAT teams here everywhere, and everyone is, you know, they're

868
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: abseiling this, they've got snipers whatever. And I was just like, yeah,

869
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: I'm one of those extras in this particular operation. I'm

870
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: just an extra here, like nothing to do here. The

871
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: hours were ticking by. It had gone through like two

872
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 1: in the morning, three four or five, six seven, it

873
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 1: was dawn, it was now it was now pastor and

874
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:48,920
Speaker 1: it was it was the heat was it was coming

875
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,880
Speaker 1: the sun had come up, and you know, nothing was happening.

876
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is this is nothing, Like

877
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: this was another false alarm and we need to go

878
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 1: back to base. And then suddenly a hand just emerges

879
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 1: from one of the windows and just closes the window

880
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: in in in the least dramatic way that anything has

881
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: ever happened. A guy closed the window right, and we

882
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: were like, someone's closed the window. There's somebody in, there's

883
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 1: somebody in there. So we've seen this and we've reported

884
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: it to the guys who are conducting their sweep in

885
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 1: the building. And they go in and they're like, are

886
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 1: you sure, because they've done their sweep of the of

887
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: the particular apartment where we kind of located the window,

888
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,440
Speaker 1: and they haven't found anything. Uh, And so that you

889
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:35,799
Speaker 1: know they're questioning it, We're like, yeah, hundred hundred percent,

890
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: this has happened. So they go out of the apartment

891
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:42,840
Speaker 1: and they throw a grenade inside, and they throw this

892
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 1: grenade inside. The grenade goes off, obviously causes all the

893
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: damage and and everything that grenade causes, and then suddenly

894
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: they can hear voices, uh, and there's two guys screaming

895
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 1: inside now and then don't shoot, don't you officer or officer,

896
00:51:56,280 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 1: don't shoot, don't shoot. We're coming out. And these there

897
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:02,839
Speaker 1: were two terrorists, actually there was. There was the one

898
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:04,720
Speaker 1: we were looking for and another one that we didn't

899
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 1: want to know who we didn't know he was there.

900
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: He was also one of our most wanted And they

901
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: came out with their hands up and they had had

902
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: created like a fake cabinet situation, and behind the cabinet

903
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: they constructed like a hole in the wall and that's

904
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: where they were hiding. Uh. And when they came out,

905
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: they came out, and then we found in there, you know,

906
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: weapons and ammunition effectively that they had not used um

907
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 1: and then they hadn't tried to use and they don't

908
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: wanted to do anything with that. And in fact, actually

909
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 1: if they had, they had just braved it out a

910
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,720
Speaker 1: bit longer, they might have gotten away with it, because

911
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:43,359
Speaker 1: the sweeping team didn't know where they were. Anyway, they

912
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: emerged and they brought downstairs, and just it changed something

913
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: in the way and again in the way that I

914
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 1: looked at this whole conflict, because you know, we had

915
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: been arresting suicide bombers, we had been engaging terrorists, but

916
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,360
Speaker 1: this guy was these two guys actually were their leaders.

917
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 1: You know, they were big guys, and they were armed.

918
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: But when push came to shove and they were facing

919
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: Israeli soldiers, they just surrendered, you know. And the whole

920
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 1: ideology of martyrdom and the whole idea of we love

921
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,959
Speaker 1: death like you love life was it just collapsed. And

922
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: and these guys didn't even care about their own ideology.

923
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:24,960
Speaker 1: Now for me, that was a big deal because I

924
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 1: had kind of assumed that, you know, it was like

925
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: my mirror image. You know, I had come from London,

926
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,120
Speaker 1: I had come to fight in the idea for the

927
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:37,959
Speaker 1: Jewish people. The guy on the other side would was meat.

928
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: But he was just born in different circumstances and he

929
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: was doing different things. But when I saw that, actually

930
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: it changed a little bit. Um. And then he started crying,

931
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:51,760
Speaker 1: and then he was begging for someone to shoot him,

932
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: and I was like, why is he begging for someone

933
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: to shoot him? He could have he had a gun, like,

934
00:53:55,600 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't it's ridiculous. Um. Yeah, it turned

935
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,359
Speaker 1: out that the it's kind of like the guys who

936
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: would be who would end up being murderers anyway, the

937
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,280
Speaker 1: guys who would end up being on the wrong side

938
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: of the law if there wasn't a warlike situation are

939
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 1: the guys who end up kind of becoming terrorists and

940
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: sending other people to go blow themselves up while running

941
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: a protection racket in the city. Um, you know. And

942
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:27,800
Speaker 1: that was who he was, you know, nothing special, nothing

943
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: ideologically driven, just a guy who became you know, a

944
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: psychopath who became a hero by virtual the fact that

945
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 1: he could kill Israelis instead of instead of Palestinians, you know,

946
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: like a regular criminal. And that really changed the way

947
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:44,440
Speaker 1: I looked at things. And it was just another thing,

948
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: another wake up call that the Middle East is is different.

949
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: And you know, and in the booky you you talk

950
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: about how you started to draw, and you know, um,

951
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 1: you had what I characterized as a classic case of PTSD.

952
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 1: I mean you weren't uh you know, when you were

953
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: off duty and back in your apartment and later with

954
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:14,479
Speaker 1: the family that you were living within the kaboots I believe, Yeah,

955
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 1: you kind of withdrew and you know, it wasn't the

956
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: same for you when when you weren't with the guys

957
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: in the unit. And that's I thought that was a

958
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 1: really powerful moment in the book because it's something a

959
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: lot of soldiers everywhere are going through today. And I

960
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:35,440
Speaker 1: don't know how comfortable you are speaking about that part

961
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: of your life, but if you care to, you can

962
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:40,919
Speaker 1: share some of that as well. Yeah, And I think

963
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: it's really it's really important to talk about it actually

964
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: because of because of the suicides from ex serviceman, you know,

965
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: because of the trauma that like former soldiers go through,

966
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: or even or serving soldiers, um, from the things that

967
00:55:57,239 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: they've done. I think it is important to talk about it. Um.

968
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:03,240
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean during my during my actual service,

969
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: I didn't kind of realize that anything was wrong. I

970
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: understood that I was very unhappy when I wasn't in

971
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: the army. Um. You know, because Israel is kind of

972
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 1: in that unique situation where you can be on the

973
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: front line in the morning and you could be by

974
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: the swimming pool in the in the afternoon at the

975
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,799
Speaker 1: kibbutz and everything is very close. But but you can

976
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: change kind of atmosphere and dimension really really easily. And

977
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: I had a really hard time at first. That's what

978
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 1: it was. I had a hard time coping with that

979
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:36,799
Speaker 1: sudden change. I didn't like it like it was it was.

980
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: It was difficult to adjust. And by the time you

981
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 1: start to adjust to kind of being in a more

982
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 1: civilian environment, it's time to go back to the army anyway,

983
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 1: you know, or if you if you've let you out

984
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 1: for the weekend or something. So yeah, So it reached

985
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: the point after about eight months of kind of um,

986
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 1: eight months after I was accepted into the unit, I guess,

987
00:56:57,840 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: so eight months of operations and then and you do

988
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 1: them every night operations. UM, I just kind of withdrew.

989
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't want to do anything anymore. I

990
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: got some hashish and I took it back to my

991
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: room on the cub when it and the until the

992
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: end of the weekend, and then I put my uniform

993
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 1: back on I went back to the Army. I didn't

994
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 1: want to leave the room. I kind of I didn't

995
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: want to see anyone, or speak to anyone or do anything. Um.

996
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 1: And that's how that was, and that's how that started.

997
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: I didn't really notice it at first, actually, and I

998
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: don't think that you do anything. It kind of sneaks

999
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: up on you. I really noticed it when I got

1000
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: out of the army. I noticed it more. Um. But

1001
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: you have a great feeling when you're with your teammates,

1002
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 1: like when you're with the people that you're within the army,

1003
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 1: they understand you and they have gone through the same

1004
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: things that you've gone through, and you don't have to

1005
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: say anything to that, like it's all unspoken. You can

1006
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 1: just be together and kind of be sharing in the

1007
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: same kind of hardship. But the moment that you're out

1008
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: of that environment, suddenly you feel less can care of,

1009
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: You feel more vulnerable, and nobody else really gets it.

1010
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: Nobody understands how you're feeling or what what you want

1011
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: out of life. And you don't know what you want

1012
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 1: out of life, and everything gets very deep and very

1013
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 1: philosophical and very difficult for you to explain to yourself. Um.

1014
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: And that started happening, you know, it started happening while

1015
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:19,120
Speaker 1: I was still in the Army, and it got worse

1016
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 1: when I got out. Um. Yeah, I mean when I

1017
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: finished the Army, I went back to London and I

1018
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: was with my family, which is probably the worst thing

1019
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: I could have done, because they're really no one understood

1020
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: what I was talking about, um or who I was

1021
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 1: at that point. They were all two that was on

1022
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: TV and they were talking about music, and they were

1023
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: talking about their jobs and their lives, and I just

1024
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: had no no connection there, no ability to kind of

1025
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 1: connect or empathize with anything that they were saying. I

1026
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: really didn't care who the most important band was at

1027
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 1: that moment, and I really didn't care that the there

1028
00:58:55,760 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 1: was the office that was on TV, and I really

1029
00:58:58,160 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: just I just did not care, and I could not

1030
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:03,920
Speaker 1: understand why everyone was talking about this stuff. And again

1031
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 1: it led me to just withdraw or get Really I

1032
00:59:08,040 --> 00:59:13,680
Speaker 1: got very drunk, a lot a drunken stone a lot um,

1033
00:59:13,680 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: which again is kind of withdrawing. It's just withdraw, it's

1034
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 1: just to try and not to have to speak to anyone. Um. Yeah,

1035
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: So that happened, and that was happening, and at the

1036
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: same time, I had kind of pressure to get a

1037
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:29,760
Speaker 1: job and pressure to be employed and to kind of

1038
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 1: continue with my life. And I really wasn't sure what

1039
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 1: life after the army would look like because I've never

1040
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:39,280
Speaker 1: really considered life after the army actually. Um, my original

1041
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:41,680
Speaker 1: kind of desires and ambitions for myself was that I

1042
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: was going to go in the army and stay there

1043
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: as a career. Um, but I didn't. I left after

1044
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 1: only two years. Uh, and I was back in London

1045
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure how to proceed. So you you know,

1046
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 1: you just did yourself into a hole, you know. Um,

1047
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what I described in the book. Yes,

1048
00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 1: and that was that was something that I think a

1049
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 1: lot of soldiers, you know, and regardless of what armor

1050
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 1: you're in, and a lot of guys are going through

1051
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:12,640
Speaker 1: that today. You know, they one minute there in the

1052
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 1: military and then the next minute they're out, and you

1053
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:20,440
Speaker 1: know they're they've kind of lost without that structure and

1054
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:24,440
Speaker 1: without that you know, support system around them where you

1055
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 1: know and you trust everyone that's around you, and you

1056
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: know you know those members of your unit more intimately

1057
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 1: than a lot of guys know their own families. Yeah. Yeah,

1058
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:37,439
Speaker 1: And actually I was hoping when I was writing the book,

1059
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:41,439
Speaker 1: I was really hoping that that my experience post army

1060
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 1: would connect with people kind of from other armies as well,

1061
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: like that it would be a shed a similar shed

1062
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 1: experience UM. You know that everyone could relate to UM,

1063
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: because it is It's crazy when you think about it.

1064
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 1: You know, you've you've gone through quite you know, they

1065
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: call it UM post traumatic stress disorder. Well, I always

1066
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: kind of think like, well, how would how are you

1067
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:08,919
Speaker 1: supposed to like deal with what's the in order way

1068
01:01:08,960 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: of dealing with all that kind of effect? You know,

1069
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 1: what's the right way of having gone through traumatic stress UM?

1070
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: And and and if you can come out the other

1071
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:20,800
Speaker 1: side of it, I think you can come out on

1072
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 1: the other side of it being even grateful for the experience,

1073
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 1: because you know, as a learning experience about your own

1074
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: resilience that you can hit kind of the bottom, but

1075
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: you can kind of come back up as well. You

1076
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,439
Speaker 1: can get past this, you can move forward, and there

1077
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: is a life after the military, or there is a

1078
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: life after the after the battle zone. If you like that,

1079
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: you know, because for months all I wanted to do

1080
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: was go back. I didn't want to go back to Israel.

1081
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to Nablus. That was where

1082
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to be back in that

1083
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 1: city doing you know, never ending operations with the same

1084
01:01:55,720 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: guys for the rest of my life. And I dreamed

1085
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:03,640
Speaker 1: and fantasized that doing that NonStop until I realized it's

1086
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: just gone. You know, it was a period of my

1087
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: life and that's finished and it's time to kind of

1088
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:12,720
Speaker 1: move for the next period. It was very tough, so

1089
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 1: eventually you ended back up in Israel. Um, can you

1090
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:22,680
Speaker 1: fill us in on that part over your life? It's

1091
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:25,680
Speaker 1: it's when I left Israel after the army, I was

1092
01:02:25,720 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: feeling kind of miserable, and I wasn't kind of you know,

1093
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:31,479
Speaker 1: it's easy to have a very black and white vision

1094
01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: of a conflict when you're far away from it, and

1095
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:35,800
Speaker 1: then you're in it, and it's very easy to lose

1096
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:40,920
Speaker 1: kind of your own understanding of of of you know,

1097
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 1: the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and

1098
01:02:44,120 --> 01:02:46,120
Speaker 1: which side you're actually supposed to be on in the

1099
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: conflict and why, because you only see the little microcosm

1100
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:53,560
Speaker 1: of what you're involved in, you don't see the bigger picture.

1101
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: So when I got out of the army, I kind

1102
01:02:56,400 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 1: of thought, you know what, I don't think there's anything

1103
01:02:58,280 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 1: left for me here. I didn't really know what to

1104
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:02,000
Speaker 1: do with myself. And like I said, I was in

1105
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 1: a bad place. So I wanted to go back to

1106
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 1: kind of be with my family. Um. But having said that,

1107
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 1: I always wanted to live there. I always wanted to

1108
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: go back. I hadn't turned my back on it completely,

1109
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:17,400
Speaker 1: hadn't just left. I kind of wanted to go back,

1110
01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 1: but I wanted to go back to the UK to

1111
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:22,480
Speaker 1: just sort myself out and get my head into a

1112
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:26,120
Speaker 1: better a better place to return to Israel um in

1113
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:29,040
Speaker 1: a better way. And you know, I think that just

1114
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:32,600
Speaker 1: what I needed was just time away in order to

1115
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 1: regain my perspective, you know, to to gain to see

1116
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:41,040
Speaker 1: once again a bigger picture after having been this tiny

1117
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:46,080
Speaker 1: micro cause you know, this tiny micro operator or a

1118
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 1: tool of government policy. Um. Yeah. And it took a

1119
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:54,080
Speaker 1: good few years of kind of going on this journey. Um.

1120
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:56,280
Speaker 1: But yeah, after a while, I just realized that it's like,

1121
01:03:56,320 --> 01:03:58,480
Speaker 1: what were my expectations in the first place, Like, what

1122
01:03:58,520 --> 01:04:01,160
Speaker 1: did I really think that like you know that that

1123
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: that you know you can you can be involved in

1124
01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: a counter insurgency and it not be like messy and

1125
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 1: then not be any civilians involved. That that's not the

1126
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:13,320
Speaker 1: real world like that. And and so I had to alter,

1127
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: if you like, my own preconceptions in line with what

1128
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: I had gone through and alter what my expectations have been.

1129
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 1: And once I did that, I was aways kind of

1130
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:26,680
Speaker 1: felt comfortable going back to Israel again. I felt like, yeah,

1131
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: I can go back there, and I can go back

1132
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 1: there with a clear head and a better understanding of

1133
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: what's going on there. Um. So I went back and

1134
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:37,680
Speaker 1: I went back for like just over five years. I

1135
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 1: was back there for and then I met my wife

1136
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:43,400
Speaker 1: out there, um, and again came back to the UK

1137
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 1: after I got offered a job in the UK um,

1138
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 1: and we came back here and here we still are

1139
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:50,040
Speaker 1: and now we're wondering about going back to Israel again.

1140
01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're part of the book where you talk

1141
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:58,880
Speaker 1: about returning to Israel. I thought it was excellent passage

1142
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:00,919
Speaker 1: of the book where you used to you you were

1143
01:05:00,960 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 1: returning not to a paradise, a place of milk or

1144
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,840
Speaker 1: honey or some kind of holy place the Messiah was

1145
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:10,640
Speaker 1: arriving to. I was going back to the land in

1146
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:15,479
Speaker 1: the country of my people, dirty, dusty, imperfect, but our own.

1147
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 1: And I thought that was really really good part of

1148
01:05:20,040 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: the book because it explains it all and it kind

1149
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:26,520
Speaker 1: of puts everything into perspective. Now, is your wife is

1150
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,880
Speaker 1: your wife is in Israeli? Or is she from England

1151
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:34,160
Speaker 1: as well? No, No, she's Israeli. UM. Her mother is

1152
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:38,640
Speaker 1: originally from Iraq and her father from Tunisia. UM. And

1153
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:41,720
Speaker 1: they kind of reflect that kind of Jewish experience, um

1154
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 1: of of the moment, least in experience. And she was

1155
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:47,840
Speaker 1: born in Israel and grew up there and then yeah,

1156
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: and then and then and then we came here and

1157
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:53,080
Speaker 1: we came back to London. How does she like living

1158
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:59,760
Speaker 1: in England? She loves it. She had she absolutely loved Actually, Um,

1159
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:05,360
Speaker 1: she loves the people stand in line. People just wait

1160
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 1: in line here, you know, they just they need to

1161
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:08,880
Speaker 1: go and they need to go somewhere. They just wait

1162
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:11,200
Speaker 1: in the line until it's their turn and then they

1163
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 1: pay for whatever it is. You know, like people don't

1164
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 1: ask overly personal questions here. You know, people give you

1165
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: your personal space here, you know, it's another thing that's

1166
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 1: not Yeah, she likes it. Yeah, it's really don't like

1167
01:06:29,880 --> 01:06:33,880
Speaker 1: standing in lanes. I've noticed that. Yeah, they're like, no, no,

1168
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 1: it's my turn, man. Yeah, yeah, I noticed that when

1169
01:06:40,720 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: I was there. And uh, but it's such a wonderful

1170
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:47,959
Speaker 1: place and I've visited there quite a few times with work,

1171
01:06:48,720 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 1: and I definitely want to go back. And because I've

1172
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:54,840
Speaker 1: told my family about it. As someone who loves history,

1173
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: the country is it's like a living, breathing museum, as

1174
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: I put it, because you can through Jerusalem or parts

1175
01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:05,480
Speaker 1: of the country and everything was as it was two

1176
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:08,520
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. I mean, you know when the Romans

1177
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:12,920
Speaker 1: uh laid waste to Jerusalem. A lot of the ruins

1178
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: are just where they left them. Yeah, it's an amazing place.

1179
01:07:17,560 --> 01:07:22,640
Speaker 1: But No, in the in your book was outstanding because,

1180
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 1: as I put it, I mean, you get the impression

1181
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: from reading it that it's you're kind of pulled right

1182
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: into it. I felt like we were sitting in a

1183
01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:40,919
Speaker 1: pub and you were telling me your story. And that review, man,

1184
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:46,560
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved that line, huff, you know, because that's

1185
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:48,840
Speaker 1: how I felt when I was reading it. I wasn't

1186
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 1: being recited to. I wasn't reading some dry commentary about

1187
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, a person's uh, you know, experiences. I was

1188
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:01,200
Speaker 1: kind of pulled in. And that that's what made the

1189
01:08:01,200 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: book so easy to quick to read, because once I

1190
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:08,640
Speaker 1: started reading, and I couldn't put it down, and like

1191
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:11,440
Speaker 1: I missed a couple of meals because my wife was like,

1192
01:08:12,040 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 1: we gotta eat that. It was like, go ahead, and

1193
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 1: there's I'm not putting this down until it's done, you know.

1194
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:24,120
Speaker 1: You know, by the way, for a green beret to

1195
01:08:24,160 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 1: be saying this to me about my experience and about

1196
01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:30,080
Speaker 1: my writing about that book, um it for me is

1197
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 1: like that as good as it gets, right, it doesn't

1198
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:34,559
Speaker 1: get better than this, Like for you, with all of

1199
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:37,040
Speaker 1: your military experience and all the things that you've done

1200
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:40,000
Speaker 1: to to kind of look at my experience and give

1201
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,720
Speaker 1: it that kind of validation and to to be able to,

1202
01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:46,880
Speaker 1: you know, recognize within your own training that some of

1203
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:49,800
Speaker 1: those things really makes me feel special. Actually, it makes

1204
01:08:49,920 --> 01:08:53,759
Speaker 1: makes makes me very uh really feel like it's job done,

1205
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:57,639
Speaker 1: and and and and and I really respect your own

1206
01:08:57,680 --> 01:09:01,599
Speaker 1: service and I'm just incredible be proud of that review. Actually,

1207
01:09:02,360 --> 01:09:05,680
Speaker 1: um well, it's very well deserved, my friend. I mean, I,

1208
01:09:06,360 --> 01:09:09,680
Speaker 1: like I said, um, when they asked me if I

1209
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:12,880
Speaker 1: would review it, I was like, sure. I love reading

1210
01:09:12,920 --> 01:09:16,320
Speaker 1: about everyone's experience because, like I said, we're all different,

1211
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 1: but yeah, we're all the same. Yeah, I mean, you know,

1212
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:23,560
Speaker 1: we we all have our you know, our own experiences,

1213
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:26,280
Speaker 1: but you know, we can we all speak the same

1214
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:29,440
Speaker 1: language basically when it comes down to it. And uh,

1215
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:32,760
Speaker 1: that's what I love about books like this. And yeah,

1216
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:35,559
Speaker 1: their respect is there. I mean I thought that that

1217
01:09:35,640 --> 01:09:39,040
Speaker 1: was a tremendous book. And and again, I mean you

1218
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:45,160
Speaker 1: there's the hours of boredom, the sheer terror at times,

1219
01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: and then the ridiculousness of a guy throwing his washing

1220
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:52,160
Speaker 1: machine off the roof. I mean it's all there, you know.

1221
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:58,160
Speaker 1: And uh, I really appreciate your time today. And and again,

1222
01:09:58,520 --> 01:10:02,400
Speaker 1: thank you for your book. It's definitely in my collection

1223
01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: of you know, I've already shared with a couple of

1224
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:07,439
Speaker 1: other people. I told them they need to read this

1225
01:10:07,600 --> 01:10:12,000
Speaker 1: so amazing. I really appreciate that. Thanks very much. I'm

1226
01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:14,200
Speaker 1: really happy to do this. Really loves and loves to

1227
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:18,600
Speaker 1: threat by the way, and yeah, I'm gonna keep reading. Yeah,

1228
01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: but so are you writing anything now that's coming out

1229
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:30,080
Speaker 1: or are you going to continue writing or is uh? Um,

1230
01:10:30,200 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 1: I'm looking to write to write a novel about we

1231
01:10:33,080 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 1: were talking a bit before about I had this relative

1232
01:10:36,240 --> 01:10:39,320
Speaker 1: who served in the British Secret Service, uh, just off

1233
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:42,479
Speaker 1: World War One in the nineteen twenties, and I'm looking

1234
01:10:42,520 --> 01:10:45,559
Speaker 1: to write kind of a fictional account based on him

1235
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:50,040
Speaker 1: and what he did. Um. He was arrested in France,

1236
01:10:50,080 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: he served time in prison for espionage and I just

1237
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:56,160
Speaker 1: think he's a great character. Um. So yes, so watch

1238
01:10:56,160 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 1: this space. That's that's awesome. Well we look forward to

1239
01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:04,640
Speaker 1: reading that in the future. So um, keep us in

1240
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:09,400
Speaker 1: mind for that. And yeah again, Mark, thank you very

1241
01:11:09,479 --> 01:11:13,080
Speaker 1: much for your for your time, for your patients today

1242
01:11:13,120 --> 01:11:16,840
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, and for you for sharing your experiences

1243
01:11:16,880 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 1: with us, no problem, Steve, thanks very much for having

1244
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:25,000
Speaker 1: me okay, and uh for everyone, make sure you add

1245
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:27,960
Speaker 1: this to your reading list. It's uh called Beyond the

1246
01:11:27,960 --> 01:11:32,720
Speaker 1: Green Line by Marco Berg. Tremendous book about his experiences

1247
01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:38,200
Speaker 1: in the Israeli counterinsurgency. Uh, you know, and it's a

1248
01:11:38,240 --> 01:11:42,920
Speaker 1: great human story as well. So for myself, Steve bows Dry,

1249
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:46,120
Speaker 1: Mark Goldberg, all of us here at Software Bradio Software,

1250
01:11:46,240 --> 01:11:48,799
Speaker 1: Bradio on Time, on Target. We'll be back with another

1251
01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:53,519
Speaker 1: podcast real soon. And the meantime, keep reading those articles, folks,

1252
01:11:53,520 --> 01:11:56,280
Speaker 1: and make sure you read Mark's book again. Beyond the

1253
01:11:56,320 --> 01:12:15,400
Speaker 1: Green Line, you've been listening to self red Lydia. You