Special Operations Cobert Spiona The Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and David Park.
Hey, everyone, this is episode three hundred and forty five of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy and I'm here with our guest today, Kevin McDonald. He's the author of A Life Less Ordinary. Kevin served in the Irish Ranger Wing and then continued with his military career, involved in a lot of peacekeeping operations and the goal on Heights in Lebanon and then later in places in Africa, and he's joining us tonight from the warm Ish South Sudan. Yeah, so we you know, thank you for joining us.
Kevin.
You're the first Irish Ranger we've had on the show and I'm excited to do this interview with you.
I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Kevin.
You'd mentioned that you'd like to throw out a little disclaimer before we get started.
Yeah. I think it's important by nature of the fact that what would probably most like to be discussing it is, first of all, that I don't want anyone to think that any views I may express can be seen as the views of retired senior officer in the Irish Defense forces through my personal views, and likewise, any of the views I express cannot be construed or seen as the
views of someone who's working in the United Nations. These are entirely my personal views, and you know, please take them at that value.
Thank you, Kevin.
So let's start off talking a little bit about growing up in Ireland. And you had some pretty amusing stories about being a young man and getting into some things, including the military, way younger than you should have.
So yeah, in in the in the Irish Defense Forces, we have I think called the Army Reserve, which it's probably not anything like your National Guard work, but you will do maybe two or three weekends training a month and then every summer two or three week military training camp.
And the town I grew up in there.
Was a I suppose the equivalent of a National Guard barracks. So it wasn't it wasn't a permanent military post, but but there was. It was this place for for our reserve. And one of the units that was in it was a cavalry unit and they had armored cars, motorbikes and all that sort of stuff. And and to be a trooper in a cagory unit you had to be able to operate the radios of an armored car, drive an armor car, and operate the guns of an armored car.
So when I was in school and there was a small range in the barracks and you could hear the gunfire, and then during the summer you see these guys going out on exercises, and it was the only place I wanted to be. So I let's just say I was creative with my birth certificate. Because we're supposed to be seventeen before you joined. I think I was just over fourteen, because I know I had a military license to drive land rovers, trucks and motorbikes before it was legally old
enough to drive on the road. But it was Marcus, and you know, it was a great opportunity for young people like myself to get a sense of you know, duty responsibility. Plus we got paid when we're on our two week camp. But it was a nice, nice bit of money at the time. So I spent seven years with the Reserve before I joined the Permanent Defense Forces.
The other thing that you had going on around this timeframe was you worked at a car dealership selling cars before you were old enough to drive.
Well, I didn't exactly. Wasn't a salesman.
What I did was would say, if you had bought a new forward and the shock ups orber went, you bring it back to the garage and then I would make it cleim on forard the for for this Ford garage to recoop the costs.
So I was a warranty assessor in a four garage.
But although I did manage to buy a few cars and sell them privately before it was old enough to drive and before I had insurance, But that was that was like a like a knicker, as we'd say in Ireland.
That was like something on the side.
And then I mean it sounds like you were, you know, getting into the army, having a hell of a lot of fun as a young guy. And you even got to play a soldier in a historical war film that was made you want to tell any amusing stories about that. You had a couple in there that I thought were pretty good.
Yeah, so there was.
There was a book written about the seventeen ninety eight I suppose French invasion of Ireland to support the Catholics against the excuse me, against the British army, and they landed in the West coast of Ireland at a very obscure spot, and then they were quite successful initially, and they were marching on the town where I was born, which is a town called castle Bar, and the British Army had deployed on the route they expected them to take, but the French and the Irish kind of come in
from the flank and there was a bit of a route and the British soldiers ran away. Came known as the Races of Castle Bar, which was the last victory that the French and Irish had because a few weeks later they were destroyed in the Battle of Battle of
Them Up. But anyway, our National TV company decided that they would make a film of this, and naturally enough, for all the military battles, it was much easier to use the likes of us and the reserve that at least knew how to march and carry a weapon and that sort of stuff. But they had contacted a crowd of re enactors from the UK and we were working with genuine muskets and genuine cannons.
But the ironically the British Army units that.
My guys, my friends of mine were tasked with being part of was a unit called Fraser's Fencibles, which was a Scottish regiend. So we had red coats and kills and for some reason I was put in charge so either sword and when we were filming the scene for the Races of Castle Bar, the idea was that there was like a valley like that and we would we're supposed to march down, line up in a straight line, and then over the following hill would come these hordes
of Irish peasants and French soldiers. And I was to give the order to fire a volley and then slowly started cheating backwards. And this guy was to die here, and this guy was to die here, and and that was kind of the plan. And there was a small little railway for the TV camera which would be on my right hand side. So it kind of went started
according to plan, as most things to do. But however, the the Irish peasants and the French soldiers were a bit more enthusiastic and attacking us than let's say, we weren't expecting. And one of the key characters in the film it was a famous Irish actor and he was playing the post the part of an Irish poet who had gathered a load of supporters to support the French. And he had a twelve foot pike with a big sharp pointed thing at the end, so he was full
of the joys of getting into his role. And I'm here with like a three foot sword, and this wasn't scripted, This wasn't supposed to happen. But he started jabbing at me with the sword with the pike, and I was trying to sword fight with the pike with a three foot sword, which wasn't exactly a very even contest, but I was conscious of on my right was the camera on the little railway line film and all of this.
So every time he jabbed me, I kind of put up my sword like that and I'd say, sorry, I don't know if I can use language like that, okay, But and he was like, this is going on for a good while, and eventually, will you stop where you're fucking killed me? So I had to die before it
was actually killed. Was enthusiastic about it, but that that was great time because we were called up on military service, so we were getting paid by the army, and the film company was payless as well, so like and and the catering on the on the site was really good.
Plus it was near an old town that had a few nice bars, so anytime there was a break in filming, you could have a British soldier, a French soldier, an Irish presidant and a Scottish soldier forcing get us into us and eventually the director come on quick, you're needed back.
But it was great, it was really good.
So then tell us about sort of your first exposure to the Irish Ranger Regiment and and kind of how this idea came to mind for you.
Okay, so this this was unusual because in that reserve unit I was in for a short space of time or commanding officer, he was eventually moved to form the Army Range Wing, which is our for your visitor or for your listeners, this is our soft unit. And this would have been in nineteen three or eighty four or
something like that. So the units had just been formed, and he decided he'd he'd run a course of experienced NCOs and officers that would be after the forward course would be judged suitable if they passed, to instruct on selection for special forces. So not too far away from from the town where I was living. It's one of there's a vast expanse of open moorland and mountains. It's probably the last place in Ireland that's still kind of
really desolate and uninhabited. So he decided that he would use us our unit as the story that the scenario was that these would be range instructors were a sort of a breakaway unit from the Irish Army and they were operating independently and we had to go and find them. So we were patrolling by day and we had set up the sort of a base camp in the woods.
You know, we hadn't a clue how.
To set up a proper base camp, but we were looking for them and they were looking for us.
And this went on for nearly a week.
And we've been kind of brief that you know, nothing, nothing will happen to you naturally. And then one afternoon there was about six stun grenads can fly it into our little camp and we've never seen or heard stunge grenades before, and you know, they're quite impressive if they
haven't experienced them. But I hid under the truck and all the guys were tied up and question and you know, and we were told you know, give your name, rank and serious number as usual, but of course these guys wanted a bit more information as to who we were and who was our boss.
And all that kind of stuff.
So I was trying to figure out the inner patrolling of these guys and how it could make my escape during darkness. And the next thing, my two legs were pulled out from from behind me, dragged out from one to the truck, thrown into a stream.
And who are you and what are you doing?
And blah blah blah. And then about maybe twenty minutes later, the commanding officer of the Army Arrangement came in and said index, and these guys changed from being like raven lunatics to hey, how's it going?
It was amazing.
But subsequently, when I joined the unit, I was on my own range instructor's course, and I remember going through the same forest at night. We were heading for a naval pickup off the coast, and I was going Jesus, only about four years I was here. I wasn't even I was in the reserve, and I'm on the same place, on the same type of course that we were interacting
with back then. So yeah, that was that was a bit, and we were the first Irish Army unit, whether permanent or whatever, to train with the airw So it was, it was, it was a huge honor for us. And obviously after I having experienced that, there was only a month less I was going when I got a chance, and that was to go for selection.
And correct me if I'm wrong.
But before you went to selection, you did your first trip over to Lebanon right in eighty four.
Yeah, so I you can't sort of enlist in special Forces, I'm sure like yourself, you have to kind of go through regular training and ideally have an overseas trip your under your belt.
So I did.
I joined an Infantsy battalion up on the border, and after basic training, which is six weeks, then there's two to three star training, which is like another eight weeks,
you're like a fully qualified private. And I was assigned to support company and we had, you know, the fifty canals and eighty one millimeter marchers, and I remember before we get around to an overseas there's just a funny incident took place we were training before we fired live rounds from the eighty ones we were training, there was a big field in front of our base, and we had these inert rounds, but you still put the charges over the fins, so they go about three hundred feet
in the year and maybe one hundred and fifty meters out. So we've fired maybe three bombs from two guns. But then you'll spend probably an hour trying to find because when they hit the ground, they got down about a foot. So at that time in Ireland there was a sort of a disciplined reaction called confined to barracks, so we say if you were laid for parade or whatever. So this guy was on what we call a CB, so therefore he's liable.
To be tasked with anything.
So one of our instructors, okay, private, come over here, get a few twigs, stand under that tree, and every time a bomb ron out and basically which you know, sounded great, And of course this guy started getting brave and at one stage, just as the bombs went off, he ran out into the field like that. The next thing, there's two eighty one minute meter bombs coming down. Not like he would have been killstone dead. Yeah, anyway, I digress,
but yeah, I went overseas. I was bout a year in the army, went overseas as a private to Lebanon. In nineteen eighty four. I was promoted acting corporate after the month stage the the Israelis we were withdrawing from their siege of Rouge, so it was it was tense enough. There was a lot of stuff happening. And remember we we would monitor all their patrols, which we were obliged to do, and.
Some of us got the great idea that we would we would talk in.
Gaelic like would say on on on the on the radio, fake side in the side, jurish in or take bal like look at those soldiers beside the town.
And we thought this was great. You know. To the one stage, this this.
Broad Irish accident came up on the net and I didn't recognize it and it goes bucally a via so lads don't be talking Irish. So it was an Irish Jew who was doing his national service in Israel monitoring the communications of the Irish. We thought this was well, could kind of understand it. But I remember talking to a few Swedes and Finns and they were experiencing the same thing. It was finished shows and Norwegian Jews specifically
listening on the communication shatter. So yeah, that was yeah, that was kind of interesting.
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So talk to us about, you know, getting back home and applying for the Irish Ranger Wing and what the selection process was like.
Well, actually I should have said before I went overseas.
At that stage, each each brigade, although they were known as commands at the time, but each brigade was entitled to run what they call a basic Ranger course. So it's four weeks and if you pass it, you can wear the Ranger tab. But we'll say if you're in the universe, there's a Ranger tab with a red background. This was just like a standard Ranger tab. So I had actually I had completed that before I went overseas, so I had some idea of a what to expect and be what my.
Capabilities were.
So I went down on selection, and at the time not every commanding officer would recommend you for selection because generally the guys going for selection were probably some of his best troops and he was being left with the problem children, shall we say.
So?
The Chief of Staff issuld have directed that anyone that applied for selection, their application had to reach the OC Army range Wing. Even if it was a non recommendation, he still had to get it and he would just pull them in. So I went to you. We started on a Sunday afternoon with about fifty eight guys. It was eleven gone by the next morning, and four weeks later we finished with I think we finished with twelve, of which ten of us were taken in, so fairly high attrition rate.
But it was great. I spent four very good.
Very interesting, very tough years there and I'm still friends with, you know, the guys that I had trained with and guys I subsequently trained.
The selection course must have been and I just imagined the weather in Ireland, especially during the winter, does that have any sort of impact on that attrition rate?
It does, you And certainly the standard equipment that we were issued with at the time was really bad, Like you know, that the kind of plastic rain gear that squeaks and it has no breed ability.
We'd standard issue boots.
It was not like an intervie unit that I started wording Gartex rain gear and Gartex boots and stuff like that. But and plus we were using at that stage the I don't know if you're familiar with the British webbing, but there's I think called the fifty eight nineteen fifty eight pattern webbing. And your pack was about sort of
that size. By that and into that you had to put everything you know you did then pourchas for magazines and all, but they certainly weren't designed for holding a lot of gear for was a week out in the mountains or whatever. But I know it was good. It was physically very tough. But what I found, and subsequhen I started to instruct on selection courses myself that if you're not prepared mentally, it doesn't matter how fit you are.
If if if your head starts going, then it's very easy to start coming up with with injuries, if you know what I mean, Because I know certainly when subsequently when I used to instruct on courses, I tended to be the guy that didn't shout too much, but when I did to kind of knew it was a series.
But I often found.
You know, if if you if there was what you said it was an inspection and you came up behind someone and you just whispered in his ear should I be seeing this ship? That sometimes had a more devastating effect than if I stood in front of him and did a complete ballakan of them.
You know it, and you know yourself.
We play with people's minds when we're there suitability for for SEFF.
So yeah, it was good.
And then there was a pretty extensive training course after you finished selection, both doing the sub surface stuff and parachute course all that. I mean, can you talk us through a little bit of that?
Okay, So first of all, everyone in the unit has to be jump qualified, started line qualified, and so when the course came up, the next course that came up, which I would have been going on, I was on leave when it was started. It was a three week course. It was the two week or three weeks relatively short. But I came back and I had already privately done a jump in the UK, so they recognized some experience. So I was brought in for the last week of the course and you have to five jumps to get
your your your wings. So I did the first three or four jumps, and there was two expressions that the that the jump master. Essentially it was an assess in the plane and you had to sit in the doorway and then when the pilot throttled back a bit, you reached out onto the strut and grabbed the handle and then stood out onto a plate above the wheel, and then off he went. But the jump masters they had two terms which I became quite familiar with. One was AOT arse over tit and the other was BOS about
a shite. So the wings ceremony was on a Friday at lunchtime and the wings had picked up. So the chief instructor said to one of the jump masters, they said, what's what's Mark like when he's jumping, And he said he's either AOT or bos exiting the plane. But Kenny land on chees You can land, no no problem. So anyway, the small little military airstrip was not alone beside the main Dublin Belfast railway line, but on the other side of the main Dublin Belfast railway line.
It was the sea.
Anyway, they took a chance, and because I was the only one to get that needed the fifth jump to have the graduation ceremony, so they dropped me.
I'm not sure how far over the sea. So I'm sort of running.
With the wind, and then in the middle of this huge grass airfield, there was obviously the the tarmac had a runway, and the next thing, I thought, right, I'm going to hit the run by. So I turned back into the wind, then ran with the wind and ended up on the ground like a bag of cement. And I'm lying on the ground going yes, yes, I got my wings out. The shoot inflated. I'm being pulled down the field. I took it up and run around and jump on it. I didn't mind. I got my wings
and never darkened the door of parachuting again. Because my speciality was was diving and fast boats and ribs and stuff like that. But it was well, I didn't have a choice. Everyone had to do it, so I didn't have a choice. But yeah, my home was underwater rather than any place else.
It's the uh yeah, the dive course that you went through sounded pretty hillacious. You're talking about how like you guys had to like pull yourselves over a guide rope at the bottom of this.
The We were trained by the Irish Navy and they trained their divers in six weeks and they have to have three and a half thousand minutes down. But they decided that they would train us in three weeks. But we still have tod three and a half minutes down. So we used to start in the morning. There's an Irish Navy term called an awkward, which essentially is a
fast stress. So we say, if if something wraps around the ships prop and you have to get in the water quickly, So what about seven o'clock on a winter's morning. We'd be in the little dives bit with just our summoned out and all your gear laid out, and the guy would blow the whistle and we'd two and a half minutes had everything. And this was all like neoprene long John's neoprene top, neopren boogies, all that kind of stuff.
And there was I think eight of us on the course, and invariably someone would miss the two and a half minute test time, so we would have to get out, run to the end of a fifty meter pier, jump into the tide and swim back.
This is like seven thirty of winter's.
Morning into the Irish Sea or the Atlantic, I should say. But it certainly did wonderus for your front crawl, I can tell you that. But to build up what they call your insurance, in other words, the amount of time that you can get from a single what we was to call a set, but like a bottle, we had to do these circuits and what was known as a jackstay.
So it's a hawser cable and it might go out for I don't know, one hundred and fifty meters and then it would hit a kind of a weight, and then you go this way and then come back.
And all at.
The time, all navy diving, you weren't just buddied, but you were physically buddied. So on my right arm, i'd have a thing tied on and I'd have a meter of cord with a clip, and my body on his left arm would have the same, so that even if you're in black visibility excuse me, you can send signals through tugs and pulls, given a rough idea of what was going on. And of course, because we were soft, they wouldn't let us wear neoprene gloves.
So generally what had.
Happened is one guy would be on the jackstay and the other guy would be two meters above, still connected. Because when you're on the jack stade you can see nothing because you're you're you're stirring up all this muck and stuff, and because it's an iron has cable, because I was bits of wire sticking out, so you'd end up. Now. Of course you wouldn't feel it when you're underwater because
your hands are nearly numb. But after one particular storm, we went out and I was on I was on the jackstay, and my body was, as I said, probably two meters above me. And as I was coming to where the where I knew there was an anchor to join to the next cable, I noticed the cable started
rising and I thought, that's a bit secking strange. So the next thing, my cable, my personal cord got caught in a kink in the the iron cable, and I'm trying to get my knife out of my leg to cut it, even though cutting cutting your body card is is very frowned upon in the Navy. So my body comes down and he was kind of going, what's going on?
And I showed him where the card was stuck and I was explaining, I can't move my fingers, so that the next thing, he shows me his contents gauge, which was nearly in the red, and I held up mine and I looked at it and I was in the red. So with no choice, so he cut the cable, cut the cord and grabbed me and he came up and it was like Excalibur. The first thing that broke the surface was a hand with the tiger. Needless to say,
or naval structures weren't too impressed. But one of the things that one of the do or die things that we had to do in that course was the naval base is on an island and there's a huge bridge connecting the mainland to the island. So at low tide you had to jump off this bridge. And I remember before I started the course, I was talking to a mat of mine who would completed the previous one, and
I said, what's the jump off the bridge like? And this guy had a very broad Dublin accent, and he goes, jaesus, you will fuc and jump and you still full and scream, and halfway down you will take a breath and you sill full and scream again and kind of was like that.
It was, it was, it was, it was.
It was really really big, and you were in your wetsuit and your fins tucked under your arm, but you had to kind of enter with your feet tuck together, slightly bent arms in like that. And no more than my exit from from the Cessna, my exit from the top of the bridge wasn't exactly.
Core inverb behind my hands out like that.
But at the end of the evening you have bruises through the knee, prim you'd be all bruised. Well, I would because I kind of wasn't doing it technically that right. But the way it was good and I thoroughly enjoyed. And of course with fast boats as well, which kind of added to the to the to the whole of it.
We we initially had twin yam had fifties and these were five points for meters or ribs, and them has worn't great, so we decided that we would purchase a single one twenty Johnson one twenty for each boat, and I to see always asking me, he said, Mark, how do you want to test these new engines? And I said, let's try them to the UK. I didn't really know,
but I thought it'd be something interesting to do. And of course he said, do you not think the British military might have a certain view of other special forces entering their territorial waters.
I said, okay, So we tested them another way.
But every year the units would have what was known as a summer camp where we'd kind of go away and mask some someplace and it was like.
To be We.
Say, if you weren't a diver, you could you could try out diving, you could rock climb and whatever. But the adjacent to this place, and some of the high highest sea cliffs in Europe called the Cliffs of More really really dramatic. So the CEO said, can we go over and drive over and kind of look at the
bottom of them? So we had two boats and we had about biting maybe eight guys in each boat, and the rape I had it's just kind of a straddle sea, so you're sitting and the steered middle is kind of down nearly at your knees and the SEO was sitting behind me. So we drove around and the sea was nice and calm, and I literally popped the bow of the rip against the base of the cliffs are over and you could just look up for three or four hundred feet.
It's really impressive.
But I kind of started feeling the swell building up, so I said to the other cocks, I said, let's let's go, because you could see like it wasn't huge ways at that stage, but you could tell by the way they were building that was going get worse. So we had started heading back towards where we thought we could recover the boats, and the waves were getting really big at this stage. So I looked to my right, and the next thing he went off. A wave went up and pirouetted and fell, and the boat came down
upside on and all eight guys into the tide. So I decided I wasn't going to try and go for a harbor. I was going to beat it because the next wave was coming from me. So I said to everyone hold on, and I went gunning for the beach. And we had a tilt mechanism where we could tilt the engine if we're coming into shallow water. So I was getting ready to do that and there was an almighty crash and I thought I just flipped the boat as well. There was that much water had come down
on us, but the wave crashed over us. So about three seconds spun the boat around and headed for the sea, shouting at forward the lads to run up onto the bow. So we hit the next way and the boat went up vertical. So I'm holding the steering will this way. The commanding officer is holding onto my chest with his legs hanging in the wind. And as I went up,
I thought, Jesus, I'm going to kill people here. And then as I'm coming down, I'm thinking, I have a new Johnson one twenty horsepower engine on the back that's two weeks old. I'm going to bury it into the sand. But I didn't, and I managed to get the boat out. But leaders to say that the other cocks got a fair amount of abuse. I heard that for having flipped the boat. But we recovered that one as well.
Yeah, I mean, I'm amazed you guys all made it out of that are alive?
Oh well we did, Yeah, yeah we did.
There was a few coats and bruises, but you know, we're sort of used to that.
This would actually be a good time to ask you, you know, what is the mission of the Irish Rangers. You're kind of taking us through this training and some of these capabilities, but at this time, what was the unit's actual purpose?
Okay, So, like like most soft units, we had a green roll and a black roll. So black role will be counter terrorism, dealing with hijacking of planes and trains and and and and buildings. And then the green roll will be your standard of military sniping, long range patrols, ambushing, that kind of stuff. And we because the unit was only founded in in the early eighties, so this this was still in the eighties, so we were in a lot of cases, we were we were finding our way.
Like certainly the the initial instructors had trained in the US, but a lot of the stuff like tech for instance, we had gas rigs, and we had to develop our
own concepts on and how to take a rig. And certainly you know, like we say do in combat swims for mile out, hitting the hitting the rig, which is difficult enough at night, let me tell you, and then setting up a line between two legs so you could hook your stuff on and then go up the legs of the rig and carry out whatever you're supposed to do. And in high seas, you know, like on the legs of these rigs that there was.
Like whole holes.
I suppose we.
Want a better word, but sometimes the word in there.
And you know, you could get hit by a wave and then when the wave recedes, you could be three meters off the tide. So a lot of the stuff we had to kind of supposed figure out for ourselves
the most efficient way of doing it. And I like the guys there, well, those those two rigs are not alonger with us, but in terms of you know, doing assaults on moving ships and all the kind of stuff, the guys they are now extremely skilled and you know that they're they've gone onto rebreathes and stuff like that, which we never had at the time. But it was very much It was the kind of units and I'm sure it's the same one with you guys as well, that if you had an idea, everyone was open to
hearing about it. It wasn't that you know, you know, if you're a young corporate how could you have an idea. Everyone who had thought about a particular thing, whether it was a house assault, whether it was a train assault, whether it was the rigs, whether whatever, people.
Would listen to you.
And you know, if if if if everyone thought, well let's try that. So it was. I found it was a very good place where where people could express themselves. And I don't know, like at one stage there's a there's a special rig for the h K, but I remember like sometimes it didn't suit, especially with with with assaulting. It neither be too loose or or whatever. But this
guy got the bright idea. He dispensed with the official Heckler and Cock rig and he used the bungee card on either either side of the MP five so when you needed your hands free, it was tight against your chest and when you need to move, you just pulled it out and then it came back in again. And I thought that was completely great innovation.
It was. It was amazing. And I know at the time.
We were supposed to be the best in the Irish Defense Forces at navigation, and at the time we were using half inch to one mile maps, which are not the easiest maps to navigate on. And I would say privately, I went off and I did a certificate in an adventure education because I was I was passionate.
About mountaineering and stuff like that.
And I remember the boss saying to me one day, he said, Mac, what are the cities like in the Hills, and I said, my opinion, most of the city's ideal was their navigation will be at least as good as fifty percent of this unit, and way better than the
rest of the army. And I remember one day I was taking it up a navigation class for our own guys, and we're up in the hills in a kind of a long valley with steep sides on either side, and I was saying to the guys, I said, okay, right, we'll just say that the mist comes down slash and rain. You know you're in a valley, but and you know you're facing a side. How will you figure out which side you're on? Because maybe if you up the south southern side, there's crags at the top and you could
fall off. And I said, just basic equipment that you had with see what what's what can you do? And they were kind of going, I don't really know. And I said, look, take out your compass, take it bearing up that slope, transfer to the map, and then that will tell you whether it's the north, south east side.
And these guys, these are hard rangers. And the thought I was a god because I was bringing in different techniques from civilian mountaineering and especially with setting up be lays and climbing, like at the time, I don't know if you're familiar with with climbing, presume your are at
the time. Well, okay, so at the time, if you're setting up a three point bla, you tie a figure of eight in the row, you'd bring it out, then you'd bring it back to the second point, another figure of eight, then bring it out, bring it back to the third, another figure of eight, and then a massive big figure of.
Eight to equalize the three points.
At which stage Europe was nearly gone and I was just bringing back in new techniques that just made it much more simpler to set up bliz.
And be much more efficient.
And the unit was very open to that, and it was like a lot of geist went off and did kind of did extra freefall in their own time with civilian clubs, and they were bringing back techniques for for parachuting as well. So it was very much you know, if you've got an idea, let's hear us and let's see if it's any good, which was, which was, which was great.
And the other interesting thing before we get into some of the overseas stuff is. You guys did operations domestically in Ireland. This was during the troubles. I could tell us a little bit about that. About the wrecky missions and counter terrorism missions that you guys did.
We did. We did a few, I know one of them.
We there was fairly credible information that an IRA training camp would be would take part in a certain part of the wood in a certain part of the northern part of our country, shall we say.
And I remember doing the initially close target wrecking on it.
And finding a few AK forty seven casings, so we.
Knew it had this clearing had been used before.
I also noted that whenever they had finished firing, they turned around did the three sixty into the woods, because I could see where the where branches have been chipped away, which tends to focus the brain when you're when you're putting in a few ops on that on that site. Now,
nothing really happened on that particular one. But there was another case where again similar kind of credible information, where a meeting was to take place at a certain track junction in a forest and from there they would proceed on to do whatever they were going to do. So we had and if you can imagine a forest track kind of comes up pill this way and then takes a sharp bend and goes back that way.
So we had three teams watching the.
Displace and eventually, after about i know, seven red days, we were getting pulled out.
Nothing had happened.
And on the last day we were just getting ready to sort of pack up, you know, when it was getting dusk, this car comes flying in on the lower road, kind of screeches around the corner and goes up those two people in it, goes up the top road, disappears around the bend, and then the door was opening and closing, and there's a bit of shouting, and then the car comes slowly back down the way to Cain.
And it was driven by a female.
So she came down to the bend, turns around and was going down on the lower road. And the next thing you're, a man that had been in the car starts running from we'll see the upper road to the lower road through the forest. He had stepped on two of our guys, and it was only when he stepped on the balls of the third guy that the forest rupped. So we called it the police because they're the ones that have to make a rest and all that kind
of stuff. But it turned out that this guy was teaching his girlfriend to drive and he was explaining an emergency stop and he said, you drive down slowly and at some stage I jump out in front of you. And he didn't expect a lot of soft guys covered in the black and green pen to be.
But yeah, we did.
We did a few and then then like one of the bigger ones, one of the notorious terrorists at the time, O Hair here, we were involved in in in in in that we we're very close in the forest that we'd say the bends were still warm when when we came in, but they got out the other side and he was subsequently caught in a in a checkpoint down near near Kenny. So yeah, that that that was that was interesting, and you know it it sort of makes you,
it makes you think. It's it's certainly it's it's Unlikeael would say overseas service when when when you're looking at hard and criminals that weren't a play of shooting an Irish policeman or kill an Irish policeman and Irish soldiers.
It does certainly make you.
Make make you think all the more about about your your your skills and your drills and and and and how to react to any any given situation.
During that manhunt, if I recall, right, you guys lost a unit member, didn't you.
We did, Yeah, yeaht poor Kevin Mayne got dress him. Which was like we were a small unit and we had never ren reached our full effective strength because there's no point in sacrifice and quality for quantity. So when this this was like a nationwide manhunt. So we had basically a platoon plus deployed up towards the border and another platoon plus further south. And yeah, Kevin was killed tragically in an accident in the military base in the car.
And of course when we got this news, because obviously you know yourself, soft hunits tend to be fairly tight with each other, it was a big blow. But we still had to kind of stick with the mission and trying to kind of compart compartmentalized degree there was a to do it.
On a lighter note, Let's talk a little bit about your interest in mountaineering, because your book is not just soldier stories, although there's a lot of those. Also, you talk about your experience in mountaineering archaeology and things like that. You mentioned that this was a passion for you. I mean, how did you get into climbing?
And I suppose.
When I mentioned earlier that I did this certificate in adventure education, so I under spend a lot of time with civilians who were into all sorts of adventure sports, whether it's rock climb and mountaineering, canoeing, diving, that that sort of stuff. And no, obviously I've been in the unity. I had to be very qualified in upseiling and setting up a sales and row access and that kind of stuff.
Climbing not so much. So I ended up being.
Extremely passionate, not just about with the classical mountaineering, but in in full on rock climbing where and I suppose maybe for your your listeners that maybe don't have never tried rock climb in it. The best way I can describe it is if you're we say, playing soccer for your local town team, and you score the winning goal
in the local cup. It's a great achievement, but we'll say it's not we say, the same as scoring the winning goal in i suppose your state championship, and it's certainly not the same as scoring the winning goal for America in the World Cup. You know, there are different
levels of kind of achievement. But if you take something like rock climbing, and you have a cliff that's one hundred yards wide and a one hundred feet tall, and on the right hand side of the cliff is the hardest clime in the world, and on the left hand side of the cliff is probab the easiest climb in the world. If a beginner starting here, if the best climb in the world's starting there. As they're climbing, they're
both placing protection and clipping the rope in. They're both coming through the exact same feelings of fear and anxiety, and when the two of them get to the top, it's the exact same feeling of exhilaration that you get. So no matter what stage you participate in rock climbing, the the trills and the dangers are the exact same. So therefore the sense of achievement when you get there, I've always found or the exact same.
That's interesting. I never heard anyone put it that way before.
It's the Irish ra explaining it.
No, that's a great way to explain it.
And you got to did you get the name a peak or a climb after yours because you were the first one to do it.
Okay, So in rock climbing, I ended up being quite friendly with one of the best rock climbers at the time. I'm a guy called Tom Ryan who passed away subsequently got rested. But we used to go to the Sea cliffs on on the west coast of Mayo, which kind of on the central part of the of the country. So if if you find a route and lead it, you decide the grade and you give it a name, and then kind of henceforth the name will be First Ascent Kevin McDonald with Tom Ryan or vice versa or whatever,
and the name is whatever. And when you look at a rock climbing guide, it will tell you that this climb is graded at this difficulty. First Ascent was made by Kevin McDonald and Tom Ryan and the name of all of it.
So, yeah, that's that's kind of another interesting about rock climbing.
Your your name kind of lives on if you're the first person to make that particular climb.
I and then you went to the dark side and became an officer.
Yeah, I did.
It's it's it's it's it's kind of strange. So when when I spent five years in the SF, I was getting tired of of sort of living out of the bag essentially, and I didn't want to go to a standard unit where I knew i'd get flat because of all the courses I had done. And an opportunity came up in the unit I originally was in as a reserve.
There was an opportunity for the training stargeant, and I thought, right, I'll applied for that, and that will give me great scope to really get into high level mountaineering, because I knew I wouldn't be that challenged look at after a bunch of eager reserves. So I did, and I have to say after about a year, I was beginning to get a bit twitchy. And then the Irish Defense Force has decided that they would run a course to commission suitable qualified NCOs from the ranks.
And this doesn't happen that often.
So this was in nineteen ninety one, and this would have been the seventh potential office of course ran in the Defense Forces since the Army was founded in nineteen twenty one. And the difference for this one, which kind of made it appeal to me was the previous six was they selected people with skills in A and Q and they kind of put them in as adjudants and battalion qms and stuff like that, and more or less specifically not given them operational rules where we were told
we would be standard platoon commanders. So yeah, yeah, I jumped.
Into the dark side and it was good. It was interesting.
I ended up in a lot more places than I would have ended up in as a as an NCO one into thing sorry one, no, go ahead, Kevin, Okay, Well, I was just just going to tell you the story that just because I went to the dark side, I didn't lose my mad streak. There's the high there's the high security prison in Ireland called port Leage, and the inner part of the prison is the old British prison from when when they were running the country, and this
is where they generally. We had two platoons in at the time, so you would do a three day stint nine hours, nine hours off, nine on, nine off for three days and then go out for three back in for three and you would do three months of that. So I was a platoon commander for the battalion that was in and normally I don't know if if you have something similar in in the US Army, but before you go on and we say guard duty, you have
to be what's known as mounted. So in other words, you line up, the officer checks that, then there's nothing in the breach, and then you fit a charge magazine. And it's kind of it's kind of a bit bit of an old habit. So anyway, I was waiting for my platoon to form up, and I was looking at the at the wall, the original wall of the of the prison, which was made up of limestone, and I was kind of looking at it, thinking I wonder I
could I could I climb that? So one of the one of the privates that knew me from my sporting experience with the with the Pentacleon team, he said.
So come away from it.
You wouldn't even get off the ground, because he knew I was a rock climber, and he had the whole platoon listening to him. And I said, all right, would you like to put a little wager on that? He said, I'll bet you wouldn't get three meters off the ground. And the whole thing was probably it was at least ten meters, probably twelve meters was tall. One. I said, right, I'll double your bet and I'll get to within three meters at the top. So of course he's gone.
I have him. I have the officer.
The next time I came back, I brought him by rock climbing shoes and chalk because when you're when you're climbing on small holes, your your fingers get very sort of sweating. So after a nine hour shift, I'd spent about forty minutes on the wall trying to perfect these little holes where the mortar.
Had had come up.
When i'd get my fingers in and after like forty minutes, as much as you could do because you're kind of hanging balancing on the tips of your chosen on the tips of your fingers, but i'd always leave a little chalk mark to show that the high point. And of course the lads to be saying to this guy, he's
getting higher, you know, he's getting hot. So anyway that I thought I'd figured out how I could do this kind of rising traverse, and I went past three meters new and won the better I want past two meters, and I knew I could make a lunch to the top, but I couldn't reverse it, so I'd have to kind of crawl along the top of the wall to get into one of the guard posts, and.
Everyone was going to know about what was going on.
So I I had this conversation between the mad side of my brain and the camp side of my brain about twenty feet off the ground and hanging like this. So then I reversed the climb and talk no more
about it. And about three months later I was in a different barracks and I was in the Austras mess having a beer and a few other guys came in and I was introduced to myself and well, you're from the West, I said, yeah, who's that guy that climbed up the wall in Portish prison, climbed down the fire side, went into town, bought a pack of cigarettes and came up and reversed it.
And I said, but it wasn't quite like that.
Now, see, Kevin, that's.
Where that's where you screwed up.
You were supposed to look him then the eye and say that's exactly.
How it happened.
But yeah, that was interesting.
And then nineteen ninety three you go back to Lebanon, this time as an officer m.
And that was.
Interesting because I was in charge of Recie section, so we had we had two big seize armored cars which I had to be qualified in as well. So I was out and about a lot. But it also coincided with a major seven day war between Israel and I suppose that the people of Lebanon, and at that stage the Israelis had kind of withdrawn to what they call the securities on, which was essentially a ten kilometer deep strip inside in Lebanon, and they had fortified positions on
all the all the high ground. Plus they had the services of what we call the DFF, the de Factor Forces, and they called the South Lebanese Army, So these were Lebanese that were armed in uniformed by the Israelis. And every fortnight, I suppose Hesbola would attack the Israelis, but they had they were effective enough, I have to say, and at one case there was there was an idea of blue and blue and I think there was about
four people full idea of killed. So then they launched what they called Operational Accountability, which was a seven day A seven day war essentially was standoff. It was planes and tanks and artillery and naval gunships and stuff like that. But their stated aim was to create a huge refugee problem that might force the Lebanese government to take on hes bullet, and of course it didn't. It sort of
drove people more into the arms of the extreme. But I remember at one stage I was on the roof of a three story building which was our company in quarters, and there was one five five artillery landing all over the place, and of course each one of them is a violation, just as Catosha is going into Israel as a violation, and.
We had to kind of record the locations of them all.
And I saw this shell hit the village about a kilometer away, and it didn't explode.
It it ricocheted, and I could see it.
Coming in my general direction, so I kind of threw myself down on the roof and then forgot about it because there was ship flying all over the place.
And then we used to for.
Internal communications within the camp with these old dial up phones, you know, the field telephone where yeah, yeah, So I go roof and this guy goes, sir, have you looked at your accommodation? So I looked over the roof and there's a big hole in the roof and the door was blown out. So I thought, okay, that's where the land it talk no more about it. So then five minutes later roof, sorry, you better look at the canteen.
So I'm looking over and here at the steps of the canteen as an unexploded one five to five shell. So I contact the battalion. They contact the idea if there's a liaison branch in UNIFIL that kind of does that stuff. So they agreed not to shell the road from the battalion headquarters or to where we were for three hours to allow for one of our EOD guys to come out and deal with the with the unexploded shell.
So anyway, the this this Captain Ryman, He said, kat, can you get about twenty or thirty sandbags or as many as you can because obviously when I when I blow this, it'll do a bit of damage. And I have this marvelous picture of about six guys in flag jackets and helmets furrian sandbags towards the shell, and then across from them there's another six guys with jackets and helmets, furry and all the beer out of the canteen, because the canteen will be destroyed when your man blew that
blew the shell, which which you kind of was. So we subsequently, when the war was over, we renamed it the one five five Club. But the day after the ceasefire, I was going up to the village of Branshes with the name of the village to do a sort of a wreckie. And because there was so many unexploded shells. In fact, it was a policy of the idea to fire one five five artillery shells without fuses, and they
did more damage. So we say, if one five five, as you probably know yourself, one of one five five shell goes off.
As a creator maybe a meter wide and half a meter.
Deep and loads of shrapling, But if it doesn't explode, it could come down through a three story concrete house, went to the garden and come up and land in the second story of the house next door. So you have destroyed one house, and if you do what you're supposed to do, which is blow the shell in situe, you've destroyed a second house. And this particular day, myself and this Swedish leftenant was a bombs bottle of guide.
We carried I think ten unexploded one five to five out of the houses, and we had a small jeep and a trailer. So when we had I think twelve shells, we contacted battalion and said, right, we're going down to this boddy and we're going to blow them at this time because these rails had to be informed because if they hurd an explosion, then I think it's a break
down of the Seaspire. So we're rattling down this narrow lane and this lady comes screaming out of a house and on the roof of her house was an unexploded shell, but this one had a fuse on it and it will bounced I don't nowhere and kind of land. So the tools got up and looked at it, and I said, you know what, let's put two loops on a piece of rope, bring them together. We'll go over and get down behind the wall and pull and so like as it's rolling. If it goes off, it won't go off
near us. So as as we're getting ready to pull on the rope, he said, you know, in Sweden, if my commanding officer sees this, I will be a civilian.
I said, if my commanding officer. Here's of this. I'll be a civilian too. We didn't have a choice.
So when when it when it rolled up to the edge of the roof and it was only like six feet from us, he goes up and he grabs it, and I I take off my flat jacket and I'll wrap it around the shell as if that's going as if that's going to make anything difference.
It just it seems the right thing to do with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was back.
There in ninety six for another seven war operation Grapes of Wrath, and then I was there in two thousand and six with my family as an unarmed Diminity observer and I was there for thirty four days of complete vichery and we had our unit of unarmed observers were the strength of fifty two. And it was a family mission at the time. So my wife and kids were with me in the Jerusalem right. No, we were in tier in Lebanon. We had been living in Tiberias when I was waiting on the goal, but then I was
transferred to Lebanon. So the kids were five and seven, going to a local Aims speaking school.
Everything was great.
We had them in Beru Damascus, A man like Lebanon was happening at the time, and out of the blue, I went off. I used to do a seven day patrol and come back for three or four days. So I went off and choose the morning for a seven day patrol, telling my wife Claire, you know, I'll see in seven days. And the next day the war kicked off and it took to you, I think, two and
a half weeks to evacuate the families we had. We had four bases along the frontier with Israel, and when they had agreed that, they basically hired a cruise liner from Cyprus and got it to come over and stand off shore and send in lifeboats. So when this has been planned, any of the guys up on the patrol bases that had family, they were trying to prioritize an armored escort to get them down to say goodbye. But we were I was. We were getting hammered with tank
and artillery fire. Not direct, but like within fifteen twenty.
Meters that's pretty direct, well.
For tanks it is yet yeah, yeah.
Horseshoes and hand grenades that's pretty close.
Yeah, So I couldn't get out, so when my wife and two kids were getting into the lifeboat to bring them out to the cruise ship, I rang around the phone and I said, I'll see you when I see it, which is not a great way now, is to end the family mission to the Middle East. Let me tell you the along with with Claire, there was a Canadian captain.
She had her back broken when her armored car was shelled.
And then in the next three days we lost over ten percent of strength. We had another captain shot in the back. He's non a wheel chair. And then the Israelis dropped the Jada into the post, just up for me, killing for very good friends of mine. And when you pick up, as you probably know yourself, when you pick up a friend of yours with no arms, no legs, and a head and you're trying to figure out which one it is, it gives you certain feelings about certain things. I suppose, but.
Yeah, yeah, that'll stick with you.
Two thousand and six was a wee bit rough, I have to say.
And then actually during the during the ceasefire, we were out in Buttow and we're going through this village and I saw one.
Of the houses had the whole gable wall blown off.
So for some reason I stopped and went in, and in the sitting room there's like a five hundred pound bomb landed against the corner. So that obviously had landed simplest ricocheted, blew through the wall and the snow in someone's sitting room. And so I went in, took up my notebook and I was taken down the serial number of the of the bomb American Maid actually, and.
When I was taking it down, the next thing I.
Heard is and I went, fuck, it was the clock that had fallen off the water, because I know bombs don't take like your brains.
Yeah, you've seen enough cartoons that you can't take the chance.
Yeah, that was That was a Yeah, two thousand and six was interesting.
You.
I'd like to ask you a little bit more about, you know, the U and these peacekeeping missions that you were part of. Not only are you placing yourself between the two belligerents and these conflicts, and you spend time in the goal on heights also so between Syria and Israel, or between Lebanon and Israel, or maybe Hezbola in Israel is more accurately said. But and then at the same
time you were also in a multinational force. I mean you talked about there were Chinese soldiers, there were Swedish soldiers, there were New Zealanders, I mean all these different people. I'm just curious that you could talk about like sort of how that mission works.
My four friends that were killed in KM one was Canadian, one was Austrian, one was finished, and one was Chinese, which kind of adds to your point of yeah, it's a multi multinational, multicultural.
Organization. But yeah, so does.
What people aren't aware of, I suppose is the different UH levels of peacekeeping and peace enforcement. So you'd say the difference to the mission in Lebanon is peacekeeping, and that's there with the consent of both parties, i e. The Lebanese government and the Israeli government. Now, sometimes did I want you to do things? And sometimes they do, and sometimes they'll stop you doing things and then blame you for not doing what they stopping you from doing.
But then you go up to peace enforcement.
So the mainly the missions in Africa are are peace enforcement.
So some of the ones I've been in, like.
Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic, at the Congo, they're all all peace enforcement. And about two years ago, I decided I do a master's in Peace and conflict studies, and my initial thought was, if you start off with lightly armed peacekeeping, there's a steady progression from peacekeeping to peace enforcement, and then you end up with a situation like the mission in the Congo where they introduced an
offensive capability into the mandate of the mission. So they formed this force intervention brigade to after the M twenty three rebels, which are kind of in the news at the moment in the two keypers on the eastern part of the d RC. And I thought, right, if you take that to its next logical step, it's war fighting. Yeah, And I thought this would be a great thing for a thesis until I started doing a bit of research.
And the first U in operation career war was war fighting. Not many people know.
Not many people mentioned that one when when I bring it up, and then they go to the Congo where it was kind of war certain with the Irish.
I either know if you've seen the film The Siege.
Of Janitor, Oh, yeah, that's a great, great movie.
That's war fighting as well. And then we go to UNIFILM, which is peacekeeping through the light armed with the concept of content of both parties. So the people will talk a lot about UNIFIL being unable to fulfill its mandate, and in certain.
Cases it is.
But UNIFIL is the first and only UN mission that successfully oversaw the maritime agreement of a maritime sea boundary between two countries who were still at war, which is Lebanon and Israel. There's still at war since nineteen forty eight officially, but UNIFIL managed to get both sides to agree on their maritime boundary.
They haven't agreed on the land boundary just yet, but.
It was significant because of the western coast of northern Israel and the southwestern coast of Lebanon. There's huge gas reserves, so I suppose money talks, but you know, they've certainly been successful in that regard.
The were you there in the goal on Heights when I guess it was like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there's this incident where Isis came across the border and the Filipinos blew off that what they consider an illegal order when the UN commander told them they surrender.
No, I was in Jerusalem at that time. Sorry, that was twenty fourteen.
It might have been it had to have been earlier on in the Syria War, like fourteen.
I went back, so I did two years from two thousand and five to the thousand and seven, and then so and then another two years from fourteen to fifteen. But no, I'm aware of that incident, and there was a few more. I know the Irish went in and rescued a few un troops as well.
Oh really, yeah, that would have been in.
I think twenty twelve, twenty thirteen or something like that, because the Irish had a unit with undoff with which is the u N peacekeeping force between Syria and Israel, and on the occupied Goal and so.
Yeah, but that.
Was getting because I know colleagues of mine that were as unarmed military observers on the weld. Say, I don't know if you're familiar with with how things are on the goal, but there's a buffer zone and there's the Alpha side on the occupator's really side, the Bravo side, and he said Syria property. But the the ops on
the Bravo side generally ervent in a compound there. You know, they might have a fence, but when when Isis was was walking around, the guys would often see them walking with heads and pointing up your next so eventually that they were eventually with dron Thanks God, because what's an unarmed observer going to do with someone with a carrying a head?
You know?
Yeah, I I heard it from the from the Filipinos told me about it. And this incident where the isis dudes came across the border and I think they got the Fijians. They captured some Fijian soldiers. Yeah, and uh, and then they came to and try to surround the Filipino compound and said like, hey, surrender your arms and surrender yourself. And they radioed back and the un commander told them to surrender, and the Filipinos blew off that
order and they started talking to Manila instead. They're like, we're putting ourselves back under Filipino military control because this is nuts.
Yeah, they I won't go into it too much, but certainly in some missions the opposite is the effect when truths are trolled to do something. Sometimes they'll ring home and home will say no, and that unfortunately has has has a card, So it can happen both ways.
Right, I can see it.
Yeah, And I mean there's also like incentives for some of these militaries to be a part of the u N and their soldiers get paid to go on these missions.
So yeah, it goes both ways, but.
The government gets paid as well.
Every piece of equipment they bring with them there's a sort of a monetary value attached to us. So when they bring all their arm with karens and vehicles and stuff like that, there's there's a set monetary value for each thing, which we see the UN rents from from the TCCs, which is the truth countrip in the countries. So yeah, it's for for a lot of certainly a lot of the poorer countries are a lot of the biggest contributors to UN missions, and that's one of the reasons why.
So in the midst of all this, you went back to university and you've got your degree in archaeology, right, English and archaeology.
Yeah, And it's it's strange because we say, if if I come through.
The normal officer.
School, when you get commissioned, you automatically go to university and you kind of go back to the military during your time off from university. So because I came up through the ranks, I decided I'd look for the same rights and entitlements and took a bit of a battle, but I had fought my battle and doing a language based arts degree and in the main training center in the Cara, we had a language school and we also had a un training school. Excuse me, So in Ireland,
in first year arts you do four subjects. So I was doing French English geography and I kind of wanted to do philosophy because it sounded interesting because at that stage I was thirty six, Like people were saying that you should do an IT degree. Who's going to hired a thirty six year old married guy with a basic IT degree? But I couldn't do for last of what I did archaeology, and I kind of fell into archaeology. I never had to study because even to this day
I'd read passionately about archaeology. But the when I was selected for university, I was in Lebanon, and so I think I was three weeks later starting university and in the French department you had to have a proven knowledge of French before you could be accepted. So I went in a uniform and I met the two I see in the French department, and I had rehearsed a kind
of a small speech in French about Lebanon. So we spent about ten minutes talking about Lebanon in English, and then he switched to Irish Gaelic to say if I approached the language from a different perspective, it might be easier. And then he said, look, the assessment for first year French is on in ten minutes. Go down and do it and we'll discuss afterwards. So I went down and I was hoping it'll be a translation from French into English where you could make a good guess, but no,
it was a translation from English into French. And it wasn't just we' say, normal English. It was Jane Eyre, which is sort of, you know, eighteenth century, nineteenth century kind of stilted English. This was a Friday, so I submitted it, and that evening I got a message on the phone saying that it'd be delighted to have me in the French department, and I thought I.
Didn't do that good.
So on Monday morning he was correcting it in the class and I was looking at the corrections, thinking there's no way I could have passed this, And then he handed out or papers with the corrections on it. And I was looking at and he had written a sentence
at the end, and I couldn't understand it. So I wait until everyone else went and I said, excuse me, doctor, I can't understand what you've written there, and he goes quevering, which is the Irish for kevin Cleeven you're a ma Oman and you can't understand your native language, that's that's go war g or, which in Irish is may God help us. Because sometimes when I'm correcting, words just failed me. So I ended up doing my language based arts. Agree with the degree in English and archaeology.
And you are an interest I kind of took away from the book. Is primarily like Paleolithic, you know, Stone Age.
Not Paleolithic. It's an Ealothic.
It's a very little evidence for Paleolithic in Ur the Mesolythic, which is the Middlestone Age, which in Ireland kind of you're looking at about just over seven thousand BC, and then the Neolithic from about four thousand BC, so that that kind of prehistory would be more of what I'm into,
medieval stuff or anything like that. But yeah, it's it's it's always since then, it's been a passion and you know, even when I'm out driving, you know, my wife would hit me because I'd be looking, why what is that hump doing in that field? And you know, and I've been lucky, you know. I found loads of stuff, unrecorded stuff in Ireland, in Lebanon, in Israel, Chad, in Mali. Actually, when when I was in Mali with the European Union,
there's this place west of the capital. It's a huge natural rock art called it like thirty meters quite impressive, called the art of Camisan. And at weekends I became a kind of a subject matter expert on it. So I would bring people out on a Sunday and explain the mythology and the archaeology and the geology. But the first day I was there, I was finding these little balls of metal, which is called slag.
So say, if you're pouring molten metal.
Into a I think to make a blade, right the molti metal kind of spills out as balls and it's it's basically it's evidence of metal working. So I started researching the archaeology of Mali and the world expert on the archaeology of Mali is the professor naturally Kevin McDonald, And I said jeez, I don't believe this. So he's in the University of Glasgow, I think. So I sent him an email said I'm also Kevin McDonald, I'm be
an archaeologist and yeah, he yead to get it. So we ended up meeting in the capital Bamaco for a month later, which was which was kind of interesting.
Well let's start getting into that a little bit because during the two thousands you started these deployments to Africa. The first one you thought you were going to Kosovo, but they sent you to Chad.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, someone in HR within the Irish evense Force has had a maybe a funny sense of humor because yeah, I'd been asked for a company to Kosovo and then Chad had that. The guys had been there nearly a year and it was the third rotation coming up, and it was the Eastern Brigade was the lead brigade, so they were supposed to supply all the main appointments and
for some reason they couldn't. They couldn't fill in a Rekie company commander and like normally started with at that time in the Irish Defense Forces, to have operational command of a company overseas, especially in a challenging environment like Chad is seen as a good chick on the box. But for some reason they didn't or they couldn't, so I was instead of going to Kosovo, I ended up
going to Chad. And when we were doing our pre and that's when I was selected from my two I see down to number of riflemen out of one hundred and I think twenty troops, I knew one person, wow, which is kind of crazy.
Because the Irish military, I think you point out, it was like three brigades and then it went down in two yeah.
Then I went down to two. Yeah.
So like like even today, I think it's like eight thousand dolls in Army, Navy, air Force, so it's it's small and generally people would would know or know of each other. But Chad was I have to say, I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Like myself and the other operational company commander one week once for seven days, one of us would be the let's say, the guard force for our main camp and the other company would do all the patrolling either one day, two day, three day, four day patrols, whatever it was required, and we used to rotate it and it was great. Lost a lot of weight out there, but you know, that was the nature of the business, I suppose. But at one stage on a Friday evening, I was in
the camp in our tent. I sort of felt bloated and I went down to the medical eight post and the medic he was saying, I think your your appendix has swollen. So he brought the doctor in and to put me on a drip, and about an hour later we had a like a big large ten color rubhole and we were getting rugby matches sort of sling shotted
from South Africa up to where we were. So I took my drip and went out the back door and went down to see one of our rugby teams playing against the French team holding my drip, and like all my troops were from inner city Dublin and they thought I was a looper altogether. But anyway, the next morning the doc comes in and he said, I think your appendix is going to burst. I'm going to met a vacuu to the three hospital up in a Bete and
I said, okay. So at half six we we the an my chapper based with us at half six, he said, fly the chapper at half aged.
The chief financial.
Officer said, fly the chapper, which kind which kind of says a lot. But the Level three hospital, it was attempted hospital and was ran by Norwegian, so it was really, really, really good. So I wheeled into the well, say, the admissions area, and this surgeon comes over and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to remove your appendix. And I said, can I get a phone call or the phone and ring my wife because she knew I was in the in the medical aid post in gods Bider and now I'm
up in the main hospital. So I rang her anyway, and she was kind of going, only you. So while I'm lying on stretcher, the surgeon is behind me talking to the anesthetist who's Slovakian, and he said, okay, so we're agreed. We're going to carry out this procedure according to the WHO guidelines. And I said what And then he comes around he said, I'm terribly sorry. I shouldn't talk behind your back. I've discussed with my colleague. We're going to carry out this procedure according to the World
Health Organization guidelines. And I said, was this some other way you were thinking of doing. Then into the operat from ten to ten nine eighth. Next thing you wake up with the two guys are at the end of the bed and your man goes, Kevin, how are you feeling? And I said, I'm grand, you're irish. You'll have a beer now. We were strictly dry in Chad. You couldn't take outcome. But of course I think I'm in lalla Land with the anesthetic and Sai yes, second right, a
bit of a beer. And he goes back with a can of beer. And of course I things up my nose and up the chest and whatever. And I said, look in my bag there there's a camera. Would you mind ever taking a picture me? Because no one in Ireland will ever believe that the minute I can run from surgery in Africa, I was handled a beer, but I have to say it was quite nice. And then it was a sharifs the next day at theay In hospital. There's getting me appendix of you know, all this reminded me.
I mean, there's a there's a digression here that I forgot about, just just remembered that I got to ask you about because it was such a funny part of your book, tell us about becoming a care bear.
Okay, So I don't know if you have something similar in in the US, But in the Irish Defense Forces, every barracks has an n c O whose full time job is to provide counseling, grief counseling, addiction counseling, financial counseling, all that.
Kind of stuff.
Like they're essentially a social worker and they're affectionately known as the care bears.
So anyway, the the officer in charge.
Of all the care bearers in the brigade was retiring and he approached me and he said, Kevin, the GOC, the General Officer commanding brigade commander, has asked me. He knows I'm retired, and he's asked me to think of someone that might be suitable. And I'm going, you're not thinking to me, are you, Because you know SF and all that kind of crazy stuff. I'm not exactly a tree hugger. And he said, yeah, but people might sort of,
I suppose resonate with you. And I said, I don't think someone and he said, well, he said, if there was a league table for the amount of subsistence you can claim. In other words, if you're away for nine hours, you get X amount of euros. He said, if there was a leade table, you'd be probably on the top of the lead table. Plus you'll get paid as a lieutnant colonel. I said, okay, right, I'll give it a go. And you had to get you had to have a sort of diploma to be in this, which meant every month.
I think it was two three days in the university in Dublin. And after my first three days away I came back and the kids were probably eight and ten or something like that, and.
The baiting the head off each other. So I came in with all guns blazing.
You if you ever kicked your sister, and you if you ever bite your brother, blah blah blah.
And my son said.
Dad, that care bears course doesn't have much of an effect on you, which I thought was fairly sharp from from from him.
Yeah, that I lasked.
It probably a year before went overseas again.
Yeah, I was, I was laughing reading that part of the book. That's great.
Actually one of my last when when we were restructured from three brigades down to two, the the brigade commander was it was an interesting guy, tough guy, but I got on well with him. But I come up to brief him about something and he was getting into his best uniform and he told me he was going over to the dis barracks that was being closed as parts the restructuring, and he was going to attend the last Mass in the Garrison Church. And without even thinking, I just said, we can.
Do a lot of things.
Well, the thing it's audio.
Good glasses like that should have measure coming to be talking to which thing like that?
He saw the funny side of it.
Sorry, your your audio cut out there for just one second, Kevin, could could you just say that part again?
He asked about going to last mass.
Yeah, so he was going to the last Mass in the Garrison Church, in the barracks that was being closed as part of restructuring.
And that's what he told me.
And without even thinking I said to him, I said, sir, in the care bears, we can do a lot of things, but saving your soul is in one of them. And then you could see him looking at me like that over the glasses, and I thought, I have I pushed it too far, but then he kind of started laughing a bit, So yes, it's not exactly how a major should invest in general.
And then you end up in Western Sahara.
This was another interesting sort of like peacekeeping or peace enforcement operation that I've never really neither neither.
The mission in Western Sahara is the only UN mission whose sole purpose is to organize a referendum. So a bit of background Western Sahara the Morocco and to the
south Mauritanian and to the east Algeria. And so when the Spanish withdrew in seventy eight something like that, the Moroccans invaded from the north, and the Mauritanians in the south, and the local Satarawi people were kind of caught in the middle, and they developed a sort of an insurgent group called the Polisario and they were extremely effective hit and run tactic against the Moroccans. They even drove down to lucashot In in Mauritanian shot up the capital of Mauritanian.
And after that the Mauritanians like, we're out of here. But so effective they were that the Jordanian army started building what is today the most the most longest modern construction in the world. The built was known as the Burn, which kind of starts two hundred miles inside in Morocco and goes diagonally across the country to the southeast southwestern border, with Tenure effectively claiming I suppose two thirds of the territory. And it's it's like something from you know, First World War.
I these ditches and burns and platoon positions and company positions, and but what was what was interesting? And of course the biggest fisheries off Western Africa, off the shore, six largest potash deposits in the world. But yeah, the sole purpose was to have a referendum to decide on nationally suppose. And of course the problem is that the Satawi people aren't that many and it's been colonized by by people from Morocco, so I can't see a referendum anytime soon.
But from an archaeological point of view, it was like heaven. I could drive for three hours in any direction, stop, get out of the car, and the main the area that we were mainly operating is called Hamada, which is like a rocket desert. It's not like all the big sandals. But I could stop and pick up flint darrowheads. I was finding prehistoric tunes. Yeah, it was western Sahara was it was a pretty amazing place.
And then you also did Mali.
I did Mali.
Yeah, Maley was the only non UN mission I've done, which is it was the European Union Training Mission.
And I was working in the headquarters. Actually an interesting, interesting story.
My my boss was a British left in colonel and we actually became we said, are very good friends. But he said to me one day, he said, mac, dear boy, have you heard I've challenged the hun to a shoot competition. No, the hunt is a drogatory word for for the for the Germans. And I said, I did jab with this the six German offices's only four of v And he said, oh, dear boy, one will shoot with us one one. And I said, I've been my country has been oppressed by
ye guys for eight hundred years. Do you not think I'd have a subtle interest in seeing you're getting your arses whooped by the Germans?
And he said there's more, And I said, I know, I know there's more.
So when he challenged the German saying your officer to a shooting competition, he decided that the outcome of the shooting competition would determine the outcome of World War one, World War two and the nineteen sixty six World Cup were England that Germany. Anyway, I decided I'd rejoin the comment and shot with him and we won. But this guy was such a character. There's a picture taken afterwards and there's six of us standing like that in uniform,
and in front of us six German seating them. You know, can you imagine that when viral It didn't put it, but he was that kind of a guy that people just grab It was like an extremely, extremely great character. And it was also great that this was the first time that the Irish Army and the British Army deplied together. Interesting and it was really good, I have to say, great to see that we kind of moved past all that sort of stuff.
And tell us a little bit about you know, you retire from the military, you hit like your mandatory retirement age and start working for the un like as an actual job.
Yeah, so in the Irish Defense Forces, as as a major, you have to retire at fifty six. And obviously because I took the Scenic group to getting commissioned, I didn't really have the opportunity to go much higher. But yeah, I kind of knew I was never going to take up golf, and I eventually before I finished in Jerusalem, I knew I had an offer of them. Just what I been in.
Sorry.
I retired officially at the end of November in twenty sixteen, and I had a three month contract lined up as Chief Close Protection with the mission in the Central African Republic, and then I did about a month of that, and then I went in as Chief Security Operations and I got an extra three month extension, and that was going to be it because the UN doesn't like these small contracts.
And then actually an American guy who was the regional security officer in SECTORIST went home and leave and said, thank you, you went, I'm not going back.
So I get a phone call that said would'd be interested.
In going to Debrien as a regional security officer And I said, look, if it's only for a week or two, I said, I'm not really because you have to be in a mission thirty days before you leave. And I paid my thirty days rent in the capitol, and I said, would what about six months? So I went and six months became eighteen months and two years is the most you can do? As a we said, a temporary, full
time employee. So then I left in twenty nine to nineteen, and then a few months later they rang and said would I come back again?
And I've got another two.
Months, which was which is, But Karl was full on, like oh, I saw more violence in Kara than I did in nearly any other place when when I went up as the regional security officer to an area spigger than Ireland, I suppose, but I was there on my own and as a would say security advisor, I was responsible for giving security advice to the international Civilian staff, the National Civilian Staff what we call the MSOs, the military service officers that are working in the headquarters, the
UN Police, essentially any one that that you weren't part of the battalions like the TCCs. So in my first week, one ethnic group attacked another ethnic group and in three hours, those ninety five people killed and not just killed the group. So yeah, And in the base that that I was living in, in front of the base, we had partly three thousand idp's and sometimes the likeness and sometimes they didn't, and if they didn't, you could get grenades coming in,
you get bodies coming over the wall. Yeah, brio was was The first two years were were sort of were interesting. And then when I came back, I was in Sector West near the Cameroonian border, and for Asian once it was sleepy valley, nothing like crickets sort of thing. And then as the elections were coming close, Yes, a disparate group of rebel groups who normally will be fighting each other kind of came together and they started advancing on
would say, the city that I was. We were just at the edge of it with and this straddles the main highway from Cameroon into the capital, Banging and everything that that kind of is sold in Bangy comes along that highway. And I remember as a as a as a kid reading the word yeah ask I suppose, but reading these sort of news reports, rebels advanced on the strategic city of Black and I often wondered what it'd be like to be in that strategic city when the
rebels are advancing. I found out very quickly not particularly pleasant experience. But I know at one stage I went in with the the senior civilian administrator for the u N and the senior military officer and that the rebels are taking the city at this stage, so a lot of the locals were in. There were IDPs in the schools and hospitals, so we went in to assess the situation.
And as we're coming back up this main road, I counted about and twenty rebels walking out either side of the road with aka's mmgs orpgs, and at the end of the we'd say the city our base is on the left, and just beyond it was an army base. So we swung off into our base. I immediately went to the radio room to tell them to broadcast on the loudspeaker. Everyone go immediately to the bunkers, and sure enough,
ten minutes later, boom, boom boom. And in the space of about an hour and a half, I counted about thirty five orpgs being fired from both sides and then no, we weren't being targeted. We were just getting caught from the cross fire. So we had two.
Attack helicopters, so the decision was.
Made that we launched them to push the rebels away from our base because we were getting the crossfire coming from the facta from the from the army, and that that in itself getting the mount of our base to the HELI paddles was kind of we have been interesting, and they fired about twenty rockets. And also inside in our base we had a French army detachment who were with the EU training parts of the government the army.
And because they were they were.
I had told them privately, if we get attacked, I gladly take your support. But I couldn't. I couldn't officially, but they were under our support. But I was down checking on in the middle of the battle, because I kept going around, checking the bunkers and checking the main gate and checking this the usual stuff. And I was speaking to the French commander and they said, given, you will hear something in the next few minutes. In about five minutes, two mirages came from charge, so.
About one hundred feet.
The noise was incredible, and I think there was just a show of force to the rebels. I don't think. I don't think I made a blind bit of difference to them. Yeah, and then eventually the Russians got involved Wagner, and that kind of pushed them back. Actually, when I was when I was in Brea, Wagner arrived and because they were a player, I went out and they were built in them they were building a field hospital, but it wasn't a field hospital with a small military detachment.
It was a big military base with a small field hospital, so subtle difference. But I the their their chief security guy in car was organizing the set up with this. So I rocked up to the gate and did an interpret there and went in and I met him and he had a big long respute and beard, so and like he was, he was tough for so I just said a SPADs net and he kind of so I take out my phone and I show him a picture of me back in the day with the diving gear and the h K fifty three, and I said, I'm
ex Irish spetsnet. Then he takes out his phone and he shows me a picture of him in Syria with some of the really really incredible stuff. But I probably want that base has been set up because there's a lot of other rebel groups in the area, so I wanted to kind of make sure he knew who's the
players in each one of them. And so I met him anyway, and on my camp I had the ranger tab, which is the Irish means worrior of the fen, and I could see him looking at it, and so eventually he takes off his hat and he gives me a spets Netz tab. So of course I had to give
him tab. And he used to wear it on the back of his of his of his speaker, and I would often think that if he's down in BANGI and some of your guys are kind of trying to figure out who's who in and taking pictures of Wagner guys and to see an Irish Special Forces tab on his head that he wondered how how it got there?
Yeah, the the We did an interview a few like maybe two months ago now with John Leckner, who just wrote that book that is our business about the Yeah, oh yeah really, yeah, people if they want to we talk all about this subject in that interview of course, if people want to go check that out. And so this brings us sort of like today, Uh, you're now in South Sudan. How did you wind up there?
Well, my my employment in Kara was coming to a close and I had applied for the position here and I managed to get it.
But it's kind of strange.
For the four years in Car, I was like at the point the end of the spear and no one as we say in the Arish, I'm in the rear with the gear, I'm in the head gorgeous, So it's it's uh, it's different, it's different. I haven't I haven't really heard gunfire and fear, which there's no bad thing either.
Yeah, irishire the second time in November this year.
Wow, And unless I get some contract work. But my my fallback is I'm going to start doing archaeological tours really where yeah, because in probably in Ireland, but it depends. Like when when I was living in in Tier in Lebanon, I used to give tours nearly every weekend because the the second largest hippodrome of Roman racing cherries racing arena in the world is in Tier. Actually that's where the film the film then hurt or you're probably have an age that you probably don't know.
I do remember, but yeah, that that's of course.
I might's write another book as well.
Yeah, I was gonna say, Kevin, like, you don't really strike me as the type of guy that's a retiree, Like I don't.
I don't know if I.
Think you even say in the book like I'm not the type of person to just sit on the beach and relax.
No, I I never was either. You know, I always have.
To be doing something, so I definitely, I definitely have to do something because I've refused to take up golf and I'm still have that frame of mind that I don't intend to.
I think we have one viewer question for you, Kevin. What do we got d from Corbyn?
Did your background make operating for the UN in Central Africa more problematic than it usually is?
No? No, absolutely not.
One of the benefits about being Irish is that we have no colonial baggage, and carr is a it's a Francophone country. But one of the things that I will say, and this is common to a lot of countries in Africa, is that you can't blame colonial baggage for everything.
Here here in Southilan, the sixty.
Four main ethnic groups all with their own language, customers, beliefs, and they generally don't like each other.
In car it was the same thing. But I also find that.
Not everything is depending on how you approach people. Like so when when I was in care, as I said, it's a Frankophone country, I had to make sure I had sufficient French to at least explain myself but the main other language is Zongo.
So I felt because I was regardless of.
What you think of these countries, if you're a guest in anyone's country, and I did this in Lebanon and in Israel as well, you should be able to say how are you? Please, thank you? Where is goodbye? At a minimum? So I could do it in Zongo. So we'll say in Zongo Tonguana is how are you? And the response is yaki. That the next ethnic language is Bandit and how are you with Ambretta and the responses
are MANI so completely different. But we used to have local security guards doing kind of access control at the gates. So every morning before I went to the office, i'd go to the gate and I would address security guys French, Zogo and Bandit.
But if they didn't reply to me in Gaelic, because I.
Taught them how to say hello, how are you, I'm fine in Gaelic. If they didn't reply, I'd give them ten push ups.
And it was good.
You see, like local contractors coming in, like maybe plumbers or something like that, and to see this Irish guy not just talking French, not just talking the main dialect, but talking the second one as well, and then they'd see their neighbors responding in a language at the head and effect and clue what it was which But it's a kind of it's a mark of respect to them and every place I went, and you know, I've been on patrols to the middle of Weird and Mone for
places where the locals may not be that friendly, or rebel groups as well. But would say to address some of the the the Arab rebel groups in Arabic, well, I bet Keith, and then going to Zango, suddenly you sort of you're showing them respect that the villagers can see that I botheredly asked to learn a bit of the local language. And I think it's it's it can be a game changer, and it's just a market respect,
that's it. But but to go back to to to your your callers question, certainly, I've never found my background being a hindrance too many and your question about the care Bears, even though my background is SF and a lot of people sort of figured out, well, if I said something that had to be true and and he knows what he's talking about kind of thing.
Yeah, that the Irish, the Canadians, few other nationals are kind of neutral international They don't have the sort of baggage that the United States or Russia or one of these countries might come with.
Yeah.
So, and you know, I've seen it certainly in Lebanon, where often you end up with disputes about who should get into a checkpoint first, and and and and some nationalities, some armies, will say, would immediately go into the defensive position, you know, like I'm in charge kind of thing, whereas the Irish would be kindly going, let's come on, what do you what are you doing? Let's you sit there, you sit there, and you know, and and you know, take off the sunglasses, take off the helmet and look
someone straight in the eye. So yeah, I think the Irish always had a good reputation for peacekeeping. As I said, many we never colonized anyone, while we did a bit of England at one stage.
That's a long time ago.
We don't talk about that. But yeah, as I said, and it's it's it's human nature as well. It's it's if you treat people respect, you know, you will get back much more than what you give. And I used often say to people it's as easy to be a prick as it is to be a nice guy. It takes the same amount of energy from from you as a person, but you get so much more back by showing respect. And I suppose you know, no, sometimes you have to be a prick, but not always.
The book I whope people will go and look for is A Lifeless Ordinary by Kevin McDonald. Kevin, any final thoughts, anything that I didn't cover that you'd like to get out there before we go to that.
Well, on one big story you didn't cover. I'm surprised you didn't, given things that were going on at the moment. I'm one of the few people that single handedly stopped an army in its tracks.
Oh, in the Israel Lebanon War.
Yeah. Yeah, So if you have time, my teller, Yeah, go for it.
Go for it, Kevin.
Well, So, during the seasfire.
And as part of the ceasefire, it meant that the Lebanese army had to deploy to the south, which that happened before.
So the idea was that as as the idef.
Started with drawn back to the frontier, the Lebanese army would come southwards. But between the Lebanese Army and the idea, if there had to be a uniform force, so there'll
be no kind of engagement. Now that the base I was in was on the top of the hill, and four hundred meters down this side was a temporary IDF base, and everywhere they went to Lebanon, the first vehicle was a D nine bulldozer because that could go over something that would take out from our canval and whenever they stopped, it would throw up like four earthen rampant parts to
stop direct fire. So every night during the seasfire, these guys would go out in darkness that kind of come up the hill and that and that passes, and of course we'd be looking at them with the night vision and the gunner would lay us with the laser range finder, which is a weapon in itself. And in fact, most of our nd had black spots on them from being lais by the Israelis. This particular night they went out,
they came back at first light. So the next morning, myself and this Russian major we went out and before we picked up our liaisons system to go patrolling, I said, let's go down and see where the IDEF stopped last night. So we're talking about two or four hundred meters and there was a small road junction and they had set up a position there. We said okay, went off dinner patrolling, and when we came back, I said to you man,
let's just check that that crossroads. So the Lebanese army had arrived with a company of Mike Bowan threes and there's no uniforit. So Lebanes are here, we're here, and the ide effort here, and there's no UNIFIL in between. So I rang our operations and I said, look, you need to get UNIFIL to place themselves between the laugh the Lemanies, arner forces and the IDEA.
So he said, why.
Don't you go down to talk to the idea if I said okay, why not? So I asked my Russian colleague, I said, are you okay with this?
He said yeah.
So I followed the Kava tank tracks up down the fire side, and when I got to the base of their position, there was no one around. So I thought this is a bit dodgy. I slammed the character shut and I'm climbing up the rampart chill on, chill on, National Mark, National Mark, National Car, Sorry to a maid.
And when I get to the top of the rampart there's a young IDF guy half asleep, and he kind of goes and I said to him, I don't know if you have the same signal, but generally, like we see in the Irish Army, if you go like that, you want to see the commander, the guy with the pips. And I could see him sitting on a carve it as this young guy kind of looking at me, so that the guy that was beside me goes blah blah blah to obviously the patun commander, and he basically said
tell him to fuck off. I could see his actions. So I let fly on this young soldier. I said, look, I know where he went last night. I don't give a flying for where you go tonight. I couldn't give a shit, but I'm telling you officially that the Lebanese Army is part of the ceasefire agreement has now deployed to that location. So take that information and do what you operate. Stormed off. So then I rang our operations and they said they were trying to get the liaison
officer from UNIFIL to officially inform the Israelis. So I said, okay, So out of my hands. But the last thing I wanted was a shooting match with us in the middle. And so then the chief liaison officer for you if it was French, and he wrings me and he says, given, you will find the Indian battalion and placed. I said, so I'm on. So I have no command responsibility with you. I can't tell uniform what to do with their troops. It's up to uniform to contact their troops and do it.
I'm nothing to do with the UNIFIL apartment give them advice. So then the Lebanese battalion commander rang me to say when of the Israeli is going to attack? And I said, look, I'm trying to stop all this, but you know, I just you can see they were there last night. I spoke with them. I don't know if they're going there tonight.
You wouldn't tell me. So then there was an Irish lefting colonel in the liaison branch and about an hour later he rang me and he said, he said, Kevin, do you want the good news with the bad news? I said, give me the bad news first. He said, you are probably the most hated you an officer with the Irish with the Israeli Defense Forces at the moment. And I said, sir, I'll take that as a badge
of honor. I said, what's the good news? He said, the divisional commander, because he heard one of his guys wouldn't talk to you, and after who was trying to de escalate a situation, cancel all operations for twenty four hours until they could sort out things visibly, unifil.
And the laugh and all that.
So, yeah, that's my great claim to him stopping an army.
Yeah, I mean it would have been a mess if the Israelis went up there and you know, confront.
Them, if there was no uniform there, like they could have engaged in you know. But yeah, that's how things happened. You know, when when when on both sides don't have the full picture. But thankfully is yeah, thankfully it all it all got sorted out.
And guys will have some links down the description of this podcast where you can find Kevin's book. It's a lot of fun, a lot of great stories in there. I hope you guys will go check it out. Kevin, thank you for joining us tonight, especially making the extra effort with the time zone difference and everything really appreciate it.
Man. No, it was a good shot because I think all soldiers kind of.
Like to shoot the breeze.
Yes, well, hopefully we link up and do it the right way over a beer one day.
Yeah yeah, yeah, and I'm just cigar as well.
Yes, hell, yes, absolutely so.
This is Jackie.
Thanks, thanks, thanks for having me, and I think I've given you the link for Amazon if you want to include that.
Yeah, we got it in there, and so everyone else out there. We will see you guys next week. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks, thanks for having me.
Hey, guys, it's jack I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this. You can check out our Patreon It is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for five a month you can get access to all of
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