I'm Travis Bader and this is The
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All right, I'm sitting down with Jason
Budd, who is backed by popular demand
from The Silvercore Podcast listeners.
Jason, you know, this, some of our listeners
might not, but you know, we put the podcast in
the audio format for people to listen to
while they're driving or doing whatever they can
play in the background.
But I also put a version on YouTube and you
have the distinction of having our most viewed
Silvercore Podcast with at current count.
I think we're about 23,000 views on the
last episode we did.
So congratulations, Jason.
Well, you know, Trav, um, I was getting
constant text messages.
Every time we moved up a few thousand,
I think you're more excited than I was.
Yeah.
I was pretty excited.
Yeah.
I, I don't know.
Um, the feedback we're getting on, it
was fantastic too.
I mean, people were listening through with
a critical ear and I'm sure the subject matter
probably somehow hit in YouTube a little bit
because we're talking about SAS selection
and the, uh, the time in the british army.
And, uh, talking about that afterwards,
you had some other pretty cool stories.
And then thank you very much for agreeing to
come on back and, uh, and share some of these.
One of the, um, questions that actually came
up was about wearing your own footwear
while doing selection.
And some guy's like, no, that's BS.
You can't wear your own footwear while
you're doing selection.
So yeah.
You know, you you've talked about that one
aspect of don't anything I went on selection with
was, um, I think the Bergen and, and my socks
that were issued, right.
That's right.
Maybe the water bottles, but one thing that I,
stood out for me from the start with the British
army was that we actually could purchase our own
gear and a lot of aspects because a lot of the,
the British equipment was robust and meant
to last, which meant it was heavy, right?
So a lot of times we could supplement that
with our own day socks, um, our own altering our
wedding or belt kit or alter even our Bergens
and things like that.
So, I mean, that was quite common within
that I appreciated.
Uh, with going, you know, within the British
temporary, in my regimen, I know other regiments
are more stricter than others, but it was
very common for me in the Highlanders and
then forced squats.
A lot of what we bought, we could use in the
field where I remember being, you know, like
in, in the Canadian army where that wasn't
necessarily promoted.
A little bit different.
Yeah.
A little bit different, you know, and you know,
not, you know, I have friends PPCLI and people,
you know, that's the, uh, Princess Patricia
Canadian Light Infantry.
After I have friends in the RCR Royal Canadian
Regiment, and those two regiments are completely
different in from hearing the stories of what
they were allowed to use, issued, non issued.
And that brings up a, a point drive, um, that
a lot of my friends and family from the last
podcast that didn't have the military
environment so that we use too many acronyms.
So we're going to have to try and, and,
and work around that.
So when I say PPLI, I'm like, Princess Patricia
Canadian Light Infantry.
Right.
So I think we'll just be mindful of that.
As we work on through.
Work on through it, yeah.
Well, you know, off air here, we're talking
about a couple pretty cool stories and I
think there's a way we can segue into it.
If we talk about senior brecon, so you were
on a platoon Sergeant battle course that'd be
senior brecon is that?
Yeah, that's correct.
We talked about in the last podcast where I
did my junior brecon, which is this extra
commanders battle course.
And I also did senior brecon, but it didn't
really get into it too much, but both of
those courses are our career courses for
the British entry.
And you can specialize.
You know, you can go to mortars, you can go to,
uh, anti-tank snipers recky and they all have
their section commander courses as well.
But the gateway for promotion and advancement
in the, in the infantry really is the rifle
company junior brecon, senior junior brecon.
Okay.
It is streamlined for your career advancement.
Okay.
And it's actually the quicker way of
going through it.
So a lot of the guys that would go to the
support companies, which is where the anti-tank
and mortars are, the guys would come back into
the rifle stream to do their career courses.
Interesting.
Back in, just like if you went to the DEP,
I said, I went to the Depot, which is the
recruit training school.
ITC Catterick, infantry training's Catterick,
where that is, where all the British recruits
for the infantry are trained, that is
part of your career advancement, really?
Because you need those external write-ups, um,
reports on yourself.
But in order to get there, you have to
do junior brecon.
So if you did section commander course, and
let's say anti-tank, that won't allow you
to teach at the depot.
Got it.
Right.
So it's the same for us with senior brecon.
So I think it's about 20 it's 20 years
old now, but there was a YouTube series
called battle stripes.
Okay.
And it's the old way or the old course
for senior brecon.
I've seen that one.
Yeah.
So that, that was.
A lot of that, that course was
just like realistic and geared towards
like survival, like surviving the course.
Um, the emphasis definitely changed by
the time I was rolling around juniors and senior
brecon where they were really trying to educate
us and get that critical thinking involved, but
still had the resilience and the robustness of the
core principles of, of that, of that training.
Right.
Okay.
So yeah, senior brecon that's based in
Brecon obviously, we call it, I, infantry
training center brecon.
And they run numerous elements of this
career leadership aspect of the training.
They run, as we talked about the section
commanders battle course, and they also
do the skill at arms course prior to that.
So you do seven weeks of basically being
able to teach every single weapon system
in the British army.
So the subject matter experts of that, and
then they move onto their tactics phase,
which is junior brecon, believe it's eight weeks.
Okay.
And then, then they go back to the battalions
and they end up usually in the depots
or wherever teaching.
And then, um, usually after that that's a
two year posting the take to the depots.
Then they're going to do another, within the
next two years, they usually end up going
to senior brecon.
So about anywhere from two to four years
after you can end up back down there.
But what's interesting, uh, which was new for
me, in order to go on these courses, junior
brecon and senior brecon yet to do a pre-course
in your battalion.
Okay.
And the pre-courses I fell in a lot of times
were more demanding than the actual courses.
So it'd be like two weeks, like for example,
for junior brecon you would be on this two week
course, you'd be taught how to teach lessons.
You'd be taught how to deliver orders at the
section commander level and bumping one up to
platoon Sergeant level.
And, um, fitness, a lot of fitness.
Sure.
Being evaluated, and then you're evaluated.
So you could be on junior brecon or the pre-course
for juniors or seniors with maybe 20 other guys.
And you might be competing
for three spots.
Okay.
And it's simply a matrix.
They basically score everything
and they have the recommendations of who
the top candidates are.
And then usually those are the ones that get
picked to go down.
So it's a competition from that point on,
in the battalion for your advancement to
keep moving forward.
Right.
So you're competing for those two to three
spots each regiment has to go down there.
Sounds fun actually.
It's, actually can be stressful, Trav.
So , you know, physically demanding, but what's
interesting was, um, I was actually deployed to
Iraq with my battalion and a lot of times what
happens is that when you're on deployments,
they still expect the career advancements to
keep moving forward.
So they'll send guys back to going career courses.
So I was up in Al Amarah which is the
British sector of Iraq.
There's bazer al amarah and Al Amarah
it's kind of like the British sector of
the Marines Fallujah.
It's kind of like where a lot of the fighting
wise and a really intense place to be, but.
Uh, a group of us, we had two companies
up there, delta company, bravo company,
elements of that.
The senior section commanders were sent
to Cyprus, the dura pre-course with the
Royal Highland Fusiliers, which was based there.
They were running it.
They weren't going to run one in, in Iraq,
obviously kind of work.
So there was a group of us that we were flowing
out of Al Amarah down to Bazrah Bazrah to Cyprus.
And then we did our two week pre-course with the
Royal Highland Fusiliers.
Okay.
And Cyprus is interesting and editing phase it's,
it's a lot of elevation gain where they train
brockie, lot of, uh, prickly things, uh,
pretty robust terrain to be training in, but
I was successful on the pre-course and then
I was selected to go down to senior brecon.
So, uh, the guys that weren't successful,
they went back to her and then the rest of
us were that were, were sent down to do juniors
and senior brecon.
Okay.
So that's how I ended up in senior brecon.
This time around I, when I did junior
brecon was, I just came out of Kosovo.
So it was a winter tour.
Uh, we did a lot of walking.
Uh, the food was a lot better being
on tour believe it or not then when,
actually in battalion.
Yeah, because, uh, the budget was higher and
it had that kind of like a lot of natal set
meals versus when I was, you know, back in the
barracks, we weren't knowing as you know,
eating the best food.
No, you guys weren't, you don't have a reputation.
We talked about that didn't we.
We do, we did.
So that's one thing I did suffer a lot on
was, um, my fitness for junior brecon.
Okay.
The soldier aspect, wasn't it.
But we would be doing the two mile assessment,
five mile assessment, eight mile assessment,
three mile assessment.
These are all with like 35 to 55 pound,
um, gear at the end of each training cycle.
Every Friday we'd have to do an assessments.
You're tired.
You'd been up all night doing your drills or
your, your patrols.
Right.
And then they expect you to do a two mile
run with 35 pounds in 21 minutes, right.
Through the training area, right.
For example.
So I did struggle on that aspect of it on junior
brecon but by the time I hit senior brecon I
had a different mindset.
I had still had my SAS fitness.
I also knew what was to expect.
So that's one thing that I did do on
junior brecon a lot was Friday, Saturday nights.
I'd always stay local with the guys
and we'd party a lot, which doesn't
help your fitness.
It does not does it.
Help your fitness at all Trav, right.
As we know, and as you get older, it's harder
to process that, right.
But on senior brecon I would do all my homework.
Would we be knocked off Friday afternoon?
I would do all my homework, all my laundry,
all my administration.
There is a kebab shop in brecon that
is my favorite one in the entire UK.
I'd get a kebab hit back to my barracks and I'd go
to bed and in the morning I'd get up and I'd go
run the SAS routes.
Up in the beacons.
Right.
And that'd be, be knocked.
I'd be, I'd say I'd be knocked off.
I mean, I'd be done my training myself by, by
noon and I would shower.
And then my girlfriend at the time stayed in
Tewkesbury, which is just down the road.
So then I would pick her up, go for dinner,
stay over, have Sunday dinner with her folks.
And then I'd head back to brecon Sunday afternoon.
And I would be in bed 8:30, 9 o'clock,
ready to go for the week's activities.
And compared to a lot of the guys, like the
jocks or the Scots would drive all the
way up to Scotland.
So they're rolling in at like midnight,
Sunday night, trying to get things done.
And then there, so I had a different,
different approach this time around.
So I was really enjoying, I didn't really enjoy
juniors as much, but I was really having a good
time on senior brecon at the time, right.
So that's why I think a lot of my,
my, my approach was different paid
dividends on the course.
Um, the first part of it is called LFTT, live
fire tactical trainer.
Okay.
Seven weeks long.
And that has to do with, I mentioned the
junior and they do the skill at arms course
first seven weeks right.
This course is geared towards planning, running
and conducting live fire movement ranges,
up to company level.
And this is geared towards the
platoon commanders.
And the senior NCO's you do know a lot of, we
call them templates, and traces for, you know,
where the we're going to set your ranges up.
And then there's a lot of work to it.
Yeah.
I was glad it was done.
And then moving into the tactics.
So the tactics is where we call it senior brecon
and that's eight weeks long and it's taught
by color sergeants.
Okay.
So we call them colors.
Yeah.
So it's not a derogatory term for people of color.
It's basically a rank that that was a
senior NCO that was there to protect.
The colors are the flag.
Right?
Right.
So we call them.
So it's a senior NCO, we call color sergeants.
So relating it to Canada, for example,
would be a rank between their warrant and, and
master warrant officer.
Okay.
So Brent actually has a rank fork, right?
And traditionally, those color sergeants are
either a CQ mess, company quartermaster Sergeant.
So they look after the gear and the logistics
of the company.
But in the infantry as well, there are also the
senior instructors, so they train junior brecon
senior brecon platoon commanders course, and
other courses like that.
And it's really important in your advancement
that like I went to the depl as a section
commander, I needed that external writeup.
Two years.
If I continue in the British army, I would
have had to take, or should have taken, um,
a two year as a colour sergeant instructor.
And actually I was recommended to come back
and work on the platoon commanders course.
Okay.
Because I had a really good disposition
of, um, working with the officers and.
People liked ya.
You're a likable guy.
Yeah.
Likable guy.
So I think I had interest to go work and I think
it's really important to actually focus on
our platoon commanders.
Cause they're actually the leaders of, of
our platoons and I, as a sergeant, I took
it upon myself that I had to mentor my
platoon commander.
I didn't have to tell them what to do, my
job was to mentor him and develop him.
And I thought that was really important.
But one thing that I had a hard time mentoring
was that if I had an arrogant officer.
Right.
It was really hard to mentor and I'm
just like, yeah.
You know, carry on.
And you let them fall on their face.
But, but I, there are few and far between, like
I had some phenomenal officer's as platoon
commanders, bosses, right in my time.
I guess the ego can kind of get away
on some people.
Yeah.
At some point and then it's, uh.
I mean, we all have a bit of ego.
Yeah.
Right.
I think as a section commander we're expected
how that ego, but platoon Sergeant definitely,
you need to have that ego, but I think it's,
it's, it's healthy, but then it's also important
to be humble right.
And maybe that ego is the confidence that we have
in our professionalism and ability right.
And I'm not taking anything away from the
non infantry, because they will judge us
and just think, you know, the infantry
is this and that.
But we also had that chip on our shoulder that we
were the infantry or the bayonette or the spear
of, of the army right.
So, um, and I was proud of that.
Like I remember on senior year senior brecon, we're
getting we're on the parade square and we're
loading our packs up.
And honestly, by the time you had all your
gear and your Bergens, probably 75 pounds
to 80 pounds easily.
Like I couldn't pick it up Trav.
I had to sit on the ground, put my bergen on,
roll over to stand up and then walk to the truck.
And then they have these all alarms
skill at arms courses.
So, you know how they had the infantry guys going
on the skill of arms?
Well, they have alarms, so the core
guys were going to R do these courses
so they can teach.
And I can remember this Sergeant, maybe he was,
um, an engineer or maybe he was like, REME which
is the role electronic mechanical engineers.
And he was going by and he just stopped and we're
helping ourselves get up and he's shaking his
head and goes, guys, I don't know how you do it.
And I'm like, I don't know how I do
it either because we actually left that
point and we did a 16 kilometre insertion tab.
W which is a March.
We, it tab is a tactical advanced battle.
Right.
Across an impact area and impact areas where
the artillery and mortars land and it's
grass and it's wet.
And we're walking through this with 75, 80
pound packs on, right.
Wow.
You know, so that was kinda like,
I'm a, I don't know how I do it either.
And you know that the.
But you just do it.
Well, the joke is, you know, now people are
dealing with VAC, which is Veterans Affairs,
Canada, or wherever, and they're trying
to relate maybe knee or ankle injury isn't
related to our service.
And it's like, the meme is showing like this
infantry men with an 80 pound pack, right?
Yeah.
I think it's going to have an effect
somehow later on in the life, for sure.
Sure.
Yeah.
Like I'm deaf as a doornail, right?
As we know.
Yeah, I cracked your audio here
at the beginning.
Oh Trav, I got hearing aids.
Oh, sorry mate.
Yeah, I think we were talking about ego and I
think just to summarize that, I mean, part of
it is, is healthy, but I think within moderation
to be that humble, quiet professional, I
think goes a long way for, for me in how I
respond and responding to others right.
Yeah.
And learning as well.
Yeah.
I do think it's important though, to
have, you know, like the section commanders
and platoon sergeants to have the confidence.
So I think a lot of people mistake
ego for confidence.
And I think maybe that's the connection we're
missing is that you're confident in your ability
and your skills and, and, uh, your trade and,
and your leadership.
And I think that's important.
And a lot of times that can get
mixed up with ego.
So I think maybe that's you know.
That's a good perspective.
And I guess confidence to the point of not
accepting any other options or outside
opinions or reasonable persuasion, that's
probably when it turns into ego.
You know, for sure Trav, and we can, we've seen
that a lot and we've talked about a lot of
that, what we've seen on social media and people
with their experiences.
But, um, you know, it, it, this, this isn't
new and for me, and this actually came to light,
like when I did come back to Canada, I, I, I was
applying for the RCMP.
And I was applying in the fire service and
people say, you know, with the RCMP is like,
why are you going to the fire servers was the
number one part of my resettlement training.
They actually covered a lot of
the training costs.
So I did that, but I remember the RCMP saying
like, why are you in the fireproof test?
And I said, well, I need a career when I come
back, what happens if you do for me, then I need
to keep moving forward.
And he's like, Oh yeah, that's a fair one.
But that did come up.
Like I had, like a lot of my confidential
reports were really, um, positive and, and,
and showed me after boots that I achieved.
A lot of my references indicated, you know,
great leadership and skills.
And, but they kind of looked at that with ego.
Right.
And I had to explain to some of my references
is to say, well, it's very confident in his
ability and skills is different than ego,
but I don't think they could relate that.
So it was hard.
It was a hard sell.
Well, it's a different background too, and this
is a different skill set.
And so when he, when he comes across, when
somebody looks at that, um, I guess in some
ways, and I'm not saying that people looking at
that we're a number two person, but a number
two person can look at a number one person and be
intimidated and attribute confidence to ego.
I know where you're going with this Trav, eh.
You're talking about the recruiting teams.
I get it.
Yeah.
Let me, well.
I'll tread lightly on that one.
You know, Trav, um, and I agree.
You know, they, they look for like-minded people
and then long story short, I, they deferred
me for a year and they said, we're going to
defer you because we think you need more time
to adjust coming back.
And, um, you know, we find maybe
your approaches to military right now.
And then the next phone call was Vancouver
fire hire, hiring me.
So, um, and I, I'm very thankful.
I believe our journeys are the
way they, they go.
Um, when our, when the RCMP team reached
out to me in a year, instead of I still
just go to the Depot, I said, no, thank you.
I found a good career choice for me, which
actually allowed me to move into the outdoor
field, which I love so much and therapy and work
toward being a mountain guide and maybe looking
at some adventure therapy programs down the road.
That'd be fantastic.
I had, I had a, um, I thought the other day
of all things Trav I was making a I tikka
masala, homemade naan bread, nice salad,
making some cheesecake, a little bit of toppings
and whipped cream.
And I'm like, man, one of the best things a
fire service taught me was how to cook.
And I go, had I gone to the RCMP I probably
be making craft dinner right now.
That's right, peanut butter and
jelly, craft dinner.
I don't know, maybe not.
Maybe not.
But I was just like, I mean, that's something
that I, you know, even in Afghanistan,
I, I will put up one of the pictures was
that, you know, we were on hard rations for
seven, eight months.
I can, after a month I couldn't do it.
So we were buying potatoes, onions,
and the locals oil, we're making fries.
We were buying flour, making pancakes.
We were doing anything we could to supplement
our, our food.
And they're out.
There's one picture of me cooking, like spam
onions and potatoes over a mess tin.
Hey, spams not bad.
I was diehard against spam until I went
to Hawaii and they have a spam musubi
as they call them.
And it's actually pretty good.
They do, they deep fry it up in the sauce and
put rice, but that's a little bit off topic.
Well, I mean, I mean the Brits have their
corn beef and hash, which was horrible.
Well, that reminds me of cat food.
Not that I know cat food tastes like Trav,
but it was, because that's why we were
supplemented our meals.
You know, but yeah.
So coming back to senior brecon the tactics phase
is seven weeks long.
Yeah.
And because I was in that training cycle, I
was in, we have to do a, we call it so that
we have the SAS special air service to British
special forces fan dance, which is that 24
kilometer over the Brecon beacons down the Roman
road, back over, you have four hours to do it.
Well, there's also a senior brecon fan dance.
And it's around the same distance, slightly
different route.
And that was a very important
assessment for people.
And simply it's also an assessment in physical,
a bit ability, but you also, for the
potential leaders to be in a leadership role.
And I remember one of the colour sergeants
from my regiment, Tony Raulson, big shout
out to Tony Ralston.
So late entry major Nell's done really
well, but he was one of my first platoon
sergeants and mentors in Highlanders.
He was our colour Sergeant down there.
Not my personally, but he was in my, my company,
senior guy, and he said, Jason, you got to get
in a leadership role.
And as luck would have it, I was in
leadership role.
I ended up being 51 mortar men, number two.
So I had a satchel, the mortar satchel I'm
like, how am I going to excel here really hard
because they'd have the platoon commander
appointment, platoon Sergeant appointment,
the, uh, section matter appointments to icees.
I'm not in leadership.
Well, I'm just getting assessed on my fitness
and I think the weights at 55 pounds.
Okay.
We've ordered gear for this and we set
off and I, and I'm the platoon commander.
What's interesting about seniors is that
even though it's for the infantry, within
the British army, the SF go on it as well.
So there'll be guys from the SAS on it,
Pathfinders on it.
So the platoon commander was allowed
from Hereford, one of the SAS slots.
And, um, he had a guy assigned to him as
the platoon signaler.
So he had his 55 pounds plus the platoon
radio does every radio that he's got
and within 500 meters of setting off this
platoon sigler drops.
Okay.
Uh, he just couldn't do it.
Yeah.
So I run over and I grabbed the radio and
I throw it on my pack.
I'm like I got it.
So I still have my 51 kit, the mortar
kit, and I've got the radio and I'm on
with, with the platoon commander SAS slot.
And off we go and I just stay with him and we
start climbing the fence.
He had an up there and numerous times I
had guys, Hey, Jason, I can get the radio.
No, I got it, I got it, I got it.
I just stayed on the radio, stayed with me
and I just stayed up with platoon commander and
we both knew could, we'd been up there so much.
We know the routes and we're just leading
both him and I are navigating the platoon
through the checkpoints.
And then about halfway through you end up having
to go up this three kilometre, like you've
come down the penny fan.
Yeah.
You crossed over and I don't know the name
of it, but it's like three to four kilometres
straight uphill.
And they introduce the staff, introduce
a stretcher.
I believe the stretcher is 300 pounds.
Okay.
So it's a stretcher with tank tread on it, tank
track to get 300 pounds.
So that's part of it.
Now you need to get, the platoon needs to
get this 300 pound plus all the other
gear up this, right.
Yeah.
And, um, we also had some other platoon weapons.
We had, uh, uh, the general purpose
machine gun in Canada the C6, UK GPMG.
We also had the light machine gun weapons.
So in UK it's a minimi, Canada it's a C9.
The 51's in there.
So the platoon gets a stretcher and the
platoon commander goes to music, Jason, don't
get on the stretcher, you got the radio.
I'm like, okay.
So that's fair because I've had the radio
the whole time.
And as the platoon starts, moving up, guys
are dropping off and the color sergeants
yelling, no weapon systems get left behind.
They move forward with the stretcher.
So I looked back, one of the section commanders
has two rifles and somebody has a the the,
minimi or C9, extra now.
Because there's guys fall back, they can't
keep up the weapons.
You got to keep coming forward.
So I started taking, like, I took a C a C9
or minimi off one of the section commanders.
I took a rifle, I think ended up with the 51.
So I had, uh, I had a minimi, my rifle,
another rifle and the 51.
Yeah.
And I'm doing this job because I had still had
this SAS fitness and I'm, and I'm training
on the, on the, on my weekends for it.
And now I'm actually like, uh, well, we
can't use his name and you'll be, you'll
beep that out eh.
Yeah.
I'll beep it out.
So, so the platoon commander he
jumps on, right.
And now I'm actually leading the platoon
up and there's one of these, one of the, the,
the lead colour Sergeant in my platoon was from
one para and he yells up and he's like, Budd!
And I go, yes, colour.
He goes, do you want any more gear?
I go, I'm good colour.
Right.
So I go up, I lead us up and we, when we
level off, we can see the checkpoint and it's
about 500 metres away.
And the boss platoon commander, it goes,
Jase, go check us in.
So we'll just roll through.
So I ran, still got all the gear, I ran, checked
us in, got us a signed in to that checkpoint,
got the new grid.
We were going, gave it to the boss and off we
went and we finished it.
So I actually got, they get a grade for it.
I got it.
They usually, they don't grade, like
as an appointment, they don't grade
you, they just grade you on your fitness.
Sure.
But I got a grade, an A grade.
Okay.
We're doing the fan dance, which is rare.
Usually they just say pass or fail.
If you weren't in a platoon commander,
platoon Sergeant role and ended up
getting an A grade.
So that was a rarity.
I got an A grade for my fitness and leadership.
Sure.
Within that.
So that was on the senior fan.
So pretty emotional, but.
Yeah, it'd be a heck of a lot of work.
The, you know, we were talking about the
training that you did in senior brecon and
how regimented it was and how proper it was
and the advice that you got from Robbie Gilmour
yeah.
So I guess leading into this Trav was
that all the ranges in the UK were booked
because at the time when I was on seniors,
I believe 2007, January.
So they run courses three times a year, January,
March, and then July or something, right.
So I, luck would have it here.
I am again, in January on whales, right?
Yeah.
Um, but all the ranges are booked because UK is
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So that takes priority.
So what was happening was, there were taking
the final exercise of seniors in the platoon
commaders battle course and taking us to
either Malawi or Kenya.
Okay.
So our final exercise is four weeks long
in the bush, so it's kind of cool.
Considering you could go to brecon or you end
up in Malawi, Africa.
Yeah.
So prior to us going to Malawi Africa,
they brought in a subject matter expert.
The company commander did.
Right.
And when I say, when we talk about the
orbat which is the organization, how it's
structured, there'd be three platoons in
senior brecon and a three, three platoons
would have roughly about 30 guys each.
So there's 90 of us and the staff
in this auditorium.
And as I, they didn't tell us who the
guest speaker was.
So as I walk in, I, you know, visualize,
check everything out and I see that there
is this civilian gentlemen sitting there
and he's older, maybe not at, you know, the
fittest he could be.
Not the prime of his life.
The prime of his life.
And I'm just sitting there going.
Man, like what is this guy going to teach us?
Who is this guy, right?
And when the company commander stood up
to introduce him and introduced him as
Peter McAleese, and he wrote the book,
No Mean Soldier.
I've got that book, yeah.
And it's interesting book for the guys to read.
And a quick summary of, of Peter was that
he joined the British Parachute Regiment,
British SAS, and then he went to Zimbabwe, which
used to be Rhodesia and he fought, I believe in
the Rhodesian SAS and he wrote a book about
his time and he ended up in after the war
ended, ended up in the South African forces
and then out and about, and I believe he was
involved in that movie that came out about
taking down Escobar.
Right.
He was at a bad Delaware crash and not to divert
from that, but I was like, wow, I read his
book and this is Peter.
So this is going to be great.
To learn from this, right.
Totally.
And you mentioned Robbie Gilmour and Robbie
Gilmour was a Canadian soldier that went and
volunteered and joined the Rhodesian forces
as well and Peter was his platoon Sergeant
and there's a book or in his book, there is
Robbie Gilmour standing there doing paperwork
after an attack.
And I'm like, that's Robbie Gilmour.
So as a young guy, I was 17 years old on my basic
training here, robbie was my platoon warrant
on basic training.
And I remember him telling the platoon that
when you do this for real, this platoon or
bot or organized it'll fall apart, and it's
not going to matter one section, two section,
three section, it's going to be you group, do
this, you group do that.
And this needs to happen now.
And that stuck with me as a young 17 year old
wide-eyed listening to Robbie Gilmour.
So bringing it back to senior brecon.
Peter did his presentation talked
about some of the bush fighting he did, and the
bush tactics, he really focused on that element,
not anything else that he did after right.
Um, but at the end of his presentation, all
the colour sergeants were surrounded him.
Right.
And chatting.
So I kinda like started to sneak between them.
Yeah.
Right.
And I could see Peter looking at me and the
colour sergeants are looking at me like, okay,
what's this guy doing?
And I just said, Hey, sir.
Uh, my name is Jason Budd and I'm from Canada
and Robbie Gilmour was my old platoon warrant,
our Simba, my regiment, and his eyes lit up
and the connection.
And he was like, Oh, like the connection was really
phenomenal to have that.
And he's like, how's Robbie doing?
I said, well, you heard he's doing this.
And I heard he's doing that, doing well.
He's all.
That's great, great, can you pass on my regards?
Small world.
Another shout out to Mark Lundy from
the Seaforth year.
And Mark got a message to Robbie said, Hey,
Jason just met Peter at a presentation
prior going to Malawi.
And you know, it was very, and Robbie
said that it's very small world.
Totally is.
Yeah.
Small world.
When you push yourself hard and you start
working your way up, the food chain, the number
of people that you can look side to side, your
peers will definitely start to, to narrow down.
So, um, th these are some, some bigger
names in the world of professional soldiering.
That's for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
So Malawi, so two, three days prior to going to
Malawi, we were still doing our range training.
And it would be, it was snowing, sleet, wet.
We're doing a tac range and I'm in a
river and freezing.
And then three days later, we are in
Malawi, Africa, 55 above and raining.
12 hours to climatize and the hanger, catch
up, sleep and you're out.
But it's interesting.
Before we went out, the Sergeant major
said, guys, I've put a barrel of DEET in the,
in your laundry room so go dip your combats in.
You go over to Malawi.
Yeah.
So I do it.
And as I walk in, my eyes are burning from
this DEET and I dip it in and I'm like,
this can't be good.
And I started doing research on DEET, agent
orange and all this stuff from Vietnam.
So I washed my combats about four times.
After that?
After that.
Where a lot of guys just took it out, dried it.
They were dipping it in barrels Trav, right.
DEET works awesome.
Don't get near plastic, it'll melt your plastic.
Oh, I know, I had a watch.
Oh did you?
Back in the day melt to my hand, right.
Plastic watch, the vacuum, the old Timex.
Yeah, melted to my hand.
Woke up, but the DEET on my hand, yeah.
So I washed that out and they also
put us on Laurium.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And it didn't work for me, like put us on about
two weeks prior to going.
It did not work for me at all.
Yeah.
I was like the guy I'd be standing on my cot
or in my bunk, in brecon at 2:00 AM thinking
I'm swat, bad dreams, swatting at birds in
the room and stuff.
And I just think, but he did.
So I had to go off that.
I went on this other, this other meds.
We can probably talk about that
at another story.
It's great.
The meds they put me on is quite funny.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So then we, we ended up in Malawi and the final
exercise is four weeks.
Two weeks blank fire.
Okay.
Training and then two weeks live fire training.
So it's pretty intensive final exercise.
And we're mostly working in our, in
our platoons during patrols and attacks
and deliver patrols, fighting patrols.
And then at the live fire, we start coming
together more as a company and doing
more or company level attacks and everything.
Um, But I remember like one of the
first few nights being in our harbor.
And I think we talked about, we haven't
done that podcast yet.
We talked about, about the, uh, the lion
circling the harbor at night, and there'd
be like one rifle.
One of the colour sergeants would have one
rifle with live rounds and that would be it, in
our group of 30, right.
For example.
But the, we had a pair of flares.
On the century positions the fire at
the lines if they got too close, but they're
literally circling, circling our harbour.
Just waiting eh.
But yeah, we had lions and tasty and all
types of things going on in, in Malawi.
Um, one of the things that that really stood
out for me was prior to this, you know, train in
the UK were very natal orders and natal broke
breakdown over platoons, but in, in Malawi,
for example, when it's 55 above and raining,
that promotes the grass growing and the grass
is like six feet high.
So it had these open areas called gambles
and the gamble would be anywhere from one
to 200 meters wide, depending, even more.
And then you have the forest blocks.
So you might be tasked to clear the gambles,
but you're not actually allowed to set foot
in the gambles.
Okay.
So you have to, or about your platoon so that.
It's on either side of the gambles.
So now traditionally we had the, we call it orbat
that's the organizing your platoon, you know,
in a platoon would have the boss or the platoon
commander with his group.
Three rifle sections of eight guys, the
section commander and a platoon sergeants group.
And that was like the standard natal
format, but that didn't necessarily work in
Malawi because you needed to clear both
sides of the gamble.
So we would experiment with like, maybe you have
the platoon commanders group two sections
on the right between Sergeant group of one
section on the left.
And you're, you're working on far supporting
each other, but you'd be expected to clear
the gamble without setting foot in it.
You clearing the woods beside it.
And if you ever crossed, you'd fail
your appointment.
Auto-fail.
Yeah, you'd be automatically
you failed it.
So that was really good.
That was a really good teaching point
for me was that yeah, you follow the natal
format, but be flexible the way you organize
your, your group.
And this really became apparent for
me in Afghanistan.
Um, because I mentioned in the last podcast
that I went out and was attached a Zula company
for five commander as a continuity NCO.
NCO, non-commissioned officer.
Basically the, the British have a
really good system where they put the
incoming organization.
They send some of the NCO's and officers to be
on the ground and be as continuity, the handover.
So I think I mentioned, like I had to learn
the new 338 to teach our sniper debts.
Right.
And then just learn the ground.
And, um, so I had already been on the ground and
by the time my platoon came down, uh, this
was going to be one of their first operations.
Okay.
For them to go out this night into an ambush.
And the area we ran was called garmazeer
and there was, um, very static, robust.
Um, it was the furthest, uh, I believe it was
south that we could go to the Pakistan
border and they had that one hour golden
hour for the flight.
So we weren't, it was basically the
British weren't allowed to advance anymore
because it'd be more than that one hour.
So it was really dug in.
Right.
And the Taliban would use this area
as a training area.
Sure.
They were coming across from Pakistan and then
they would train it 10 days and they just
bypasses in the desert.
They bypass it down, but we had this like,
four kilometre frontage.
And there was a Melman one side called JTAC Hill
and the Hellman river running that side and
then there was a canal on the left side, the four
kilometres, there's an old russian bunk house.
Okay.
And, um, we are basically beefed it up.
The engineers built it up to be a fighting
fortification.
So how we did our structure down in
here as a company level, a platoon would
man JTAC Hill and bellaclava checkpoint
we called this area.
And half the platoon would go to one and the
other half do the other.
So platoon Sergeant would go one and boss
would take the other one.
And I always ended up in bellaclava checkpoint,
which is fine.
Sure.
And we'd be there for seven days
cycle, in a rotation.
But what was happening was in the mornings,
the Taliban would always come in and I call it
an ambush, but they would do a shoot on
bellaclava every morning.
Sure.
So the company commander wanted to
counter ambush this.
So this is going to be one of the first
big operation for this company, new company.
Like I said, I've already been on down six weeks
or as it was, so I'm pretty familiar with it.
This was going to be one of the first operations
for the company.
And my platoon was a little later
arriving too.
So this is that this is their first thing.
So what was supposed to happen was w w one of
the platoons was going to man, the checkpoints.
Another platoon was going to actually man,
the primary ambush site, to ambush the Taliban.
Right.
That tries to ambush us.
Yeah.
My platoon job was the cross the canal, which
actually was, um, the, our field engineers
were going to put an empty footbridge
in with our help.
We're going to put this empty footbridge, cross
the canal, and then.
The ambush group would go to theirs.
And, uh, we talked about JTAC Hill was a mound
that the British made from one of the first
Anglo Afghan Wars.
Right.
150 years ago.
Right.
And it's probably a hundred meters high.
Well, they made a bunch of these mounds
and there was a couple other mounds.
Now on the other side of the canal, one
was 300 meters away called little brother.
Okay.
And then there was another one that was
pretty big, probably as big as JTAC Hill.
That was a hundred meters high, I think
hundred meters high camp.
It was a big mound called Taliban Hill.
Okay.
We call it Taliban Hill.
Our job was to go to little brother and
protect the ambush site, that was our job.
So we had, I believe three rifle sections.
We had a right, uh, fire support section.
So we had attachments from, you know, we had a
couple of machine guns, snipers, anti-tank,
all attached to this.
And I had my group platoon sergeants group.
I believe I had the 51 mortar.
And, uh, um, I had a foldable stretcher
that had one of the big guys carry in my group.
So we would be doing the resupply and
casualty evacuation if we needed it.
And the platoon commander had, I believe he had
a, um, some attachments.
You had a couple engineers, uh,
platoon signaler.
So we have this big group, Trav.
Sure.
Right.
And then the platoon commander sets off
leading us out.
So imagine now I'm going to be
bringing up the rear.
I'm doing the release point and
it's nighttime too.
I didn't, I don't know if I mentioned that.
Nah, I was gonna ask.
11 o'clock midnight, right?
Night vision.
And this is when Taliban . Want to advance as
well too,is nighttime
? No, they, they'll probably coming in
first light-ish.
Okay.
Four.
Okay.
Right.
We just need to be in position before four.
That's the goal, right?
4AM.
They didn't, they didn't really move.
They like to move around too much at night.
Okay.
Without the night vision of thing, we did, a lot
of, most of our patrols were done a night for us.
They have us the advantage, right.
They did a lot of their action, it was during
the day I found our first light, first light, last
light during the day.
And then the hunker down during the night.
Just like hunting, animals.
We're all animals I tell you ya.
So as I'm setting off Trav, I'm,
I'm looking right.
And I'm like, Oh, there his little brother and
we're not going there.
Oh, I see the platoon heading off the
Taliban Hill, which is a kilometre away.
Oh no.
And I'm like, Oh, and by this time, like I radioed
up to the boss and.
And we just kind of adapt the plan and we're going
to the Taliban Hill.
So we're a kilometre away.
New plan.
Yeah.
It's like, it's kind of like, um, I think
it's, uh, I think it was hamburger Hill that
line, like you're in the wrong ambush site
or maybe platoon, but that was in my mind,
like we're in the wrong ambush site right.
Um, but so off they went and the engineers
were there to clear up because I know the
Taliban in the past had put anti-personnel
mines in the top.
And some of the Royal Marines got
caught in that.
And so engineers go up the clear it
and our guys go up.
So I'm down in the bottom and I'm securing
at the base of it.
We call . It the FRV or, uh, it's like
a release point.
Okay.
So this is the rally point that everybody
they're going to come back to it.
So I need to secure that and our guys go up
for them for the night.
Sure enough, 4:00 AM, our guys, cause
you have 110 guys.
We bring them with us because they have the,
um, the javelin site, which is thermal imaging.
So they can actually see the Taliban moving so
we can see them moving into the ambush well
before the actual ambush site, but they're coming
from a different, I believe they were coming
from a different area.
And um, we got told to spring our ambush
on the Taliban.
So we did, and this happened around.
You know, firstlight are just still
dark right there.
Just kind of moving.
And traditionally, when you spring an
ambush, you withdraw.
Okay.
But we didn't get the order to withdraw.
So we held in position, I think for another hour,
I think, I think what was happening, where we were
just, we were trying to feel out what was going
on and maybe we can draw more Taliban in, right.
Right.
So by the time we got the order to
withdraw, I think it's like 6:00 AM now.
Have we been here a long time.
And, uh, and just prior to the order though,
like I could tell things were, were getting
really tense, right.
And then I had one of my, um, one of the 51
mortar men, and then one of the stretcher dudes,
um, doing rear security said, Jace, Jace, there's
a couple of dudes here.
And I go, what?
He goes a couple dudes here and I, I look back,
I basically, the grass, this field is shoulder
height and rolled down.
I stand up and I look and there's, I like to,
I hope they're farmers Trav, I don't know.
Sure.
But there are 50 metres, less than 50 metres away.
And we both look at each other and it was like,
like, you know, like.
Like deer in headlights.
Deer in the headlights, both ways.
And it was like, if they had anything that
resembled a weapon.
It would have been like.
Over.
Go, but I just thought no farmers
and we both get down.
And I think the farm, I think they
were just nosy.
What was going on?
Maybe they're a recon party, I don't know.
They didn't have any weapons, but if
they had anything, I would have been like.
Yeah.
Go time for us, right.
But so now the order comes through withdrawal
and, um, And the platoon starts coming down.
But prior to this, the platoon commander
is like, Sergeant Budd, I need you to,
uh, plan a withdrawal route that doesn't go
the way we came, for obvious reasons, right.
And I'm like, I, sir, 400 metre run across
the open field, get in the canal and we go
down the canal bank, he say, yeah, yeah.
So I remember one of the snipers being one of
the last off, and he's like, they're coming.
And the next thing I know RPGs are lending
indirect around us and, and, and they fired
the RPGs indirect fire.
Right.
Like in the air and creating a beaten
zone, I guess.
And they actually, far as I know, occupied a
little brother, which we should have been at.
Where you guys were supposed to be, yeah.
So let's just start moving right.
Theplatoon commander already has half, I
believe he had himself and maybe half the
platoon with him in the open field, moving to
the canal, we're just going like on, on a
straight angle to it.
And then I believe they opened fire or small
arms fire peak campfire seven 60 fire now is
firing at us in the open.
I still have half the platoon with me in FRV.
And the boss had the other half
platoon with him now.
They actually made it through the open field
and then the other they're there across now.
And there, there was this like a, a four
foot retaining wall at the canal and they're,
they're putting a, uh, fire support base
in and like, Platoon separated dome.
Totally.
And I know that like from our training that
the Taliban can, can flank within 10 minutes.
I'm like, we gotta move.
We gotta get out of here.
We gotta move, move, move at, bear in mind.
This is my platoon first movement.
And I'm throw like, all right, guys,
we're gonna peel.
Let's just start doing a big peel,
fire maneuvering.
And I don't know if they can hear me,
but nobody's moving.
And I'm like, okay.
Aye.
Y'all everybody thow smoke and
nothing's happening.
Oh man.
But I think we're spaced out and everywhere.
Sure.
And then, um, I'm like, you know what, Jay,
if you get up and run.
This is my mind.
They're all gonna follow you.
So I did, I got up and I started doing the
400 metre run across this open field.
Yeah.
And I, I can, I can hear the rounds singing.
And there was a section that was pink, like that
was out in the open there ahead of me and Trav,
I was moving so fast.
I passed them and I have the platoon
Sergeant radio.
Like I motored past this section and it was just
like, nothing, no work.
And I'm like, they'll follow me right.
We had a good fire support base coming
in from the wall.
And I remember the like rounds hitting the wall
as we dive over the wall and, and right
below where the guys are firing back right.
And, um.
Geez.
Would you believe Trav, not a single guy got hit.
Everybody got over the wall got in, but
the entire platoon now is mixed up.
Right.
And they're firing back.
They're firing back little brother.
So now we have like that everything's gone.
And the platoon commander is trying to get a fire
mission, but which if our mission would be
from the desert in, we had 105 guns in the
desert artillery support.
But, um, he, and no fault of his own, but
he was giving the wrong coordinates because
he meant he was mixing up little brother and
Taliban Hill right.
Got it.
Yeah.
So he wasn't getting the fire mission.
I'm like, boss, we're going to move.
We gotta move.
And he's wants to get this fire mission,
which is, which is fair, let's surpress.
But I'm like, my concept is they're going to get
in the canal on flait us and we got to go.
Right.
So I like the platoons . Go on and in terms of
the orbat and it was basically you group
here, fire support, your group are going to move.
You're gonna move first, move now.
Right.
And next group, you're next to move.
And I just grabbed the boss and I put them
in a group and we just started doing this big
fire maneuvering down this canal for probably
a good kilometre, the boys nicknamed it and
the Mogadishu mile right.
So well, it was interesting as well
Trav, was that the Afghan police have a checkpoint
in the ma in the middle of the town and they have
a sanger built on the top of their building and
they're probably 600, 700 metres away in the town.
So lesson learning here is that we should have
had maybe an element there to control them.
So they started firing at us as well.
Oh man, from that, they don't know what
they're firing at and they have iron
sights and, you know, they're just firing.
So we didn't know we're actually getting where
we're taking fire from, but we were taking fire
from both sides, the Afghan police and, and,
uh, the Taliban in there.
And we did this, uh, this basically fighting
withdrawal down this, down this canal.
And I kind of be the platoon Sergeant I
called the regroup is where we get everybody
back together about a hundred metres short
of the company that was holding the empty
footbridge, right.
Cause I didn't want to come in there looking
like a big rabble.
So I did an, I did a regroup, uh, you know,
not really a reorg, but a quick regroup.
Right.
We got everybody back now into our one
section two, section three, section boss
platoon sergeants group.
And I had the boss go first and lead it in.
And then the concept was we look
pretty professional coming through.
I didn't want this big, this big
Mogadishu mile coming through the company
checkpoint, right.
A good team player as well.
And then, you know, handed it back.
Sure.
And off we go across right?
Yeah.
So that, that was, um, that was a lesson that
I learned from Robbie Gilmour is that when
you do this for real, as not going to matter
one section, two section three section, that's
great if you can keep that integrity, but often
it's going to fail and it's you group do this
and you group do that.
Yeah.
And Trav, as well, not to cut you off there.
Yeah.
I realize why we do that two mile
run when, fuck it.
I'm like, this is who runs down a road, like,
like an idiot with 35 pounds on and, and
in 21 minutes, right.
In full gear, I told him it totally makes sense,
I know why we do it.
In hindsight, yeah.
Any future soldier, current soldier, this
is why you do it.
You know, Jason, every time I speak
with you, there's.
Always some great stories and I always
get some greater insight into you as a person.
And the more that, uh, you share with
everybody else, you know, that I really respect
what you're doing.
I mean, it, it takes a lot to be able to sit
down and, and talk about these stories and talk
about the transition from military into
civilian life and sort of the next steps.
And I think you should write a book or you
should, uh, you should probably get your own
podcast at some point.
You Trav, and maybe, you know, it's interesting
you talk about this.
I was re I was listening to a podcast on the
way over and the one thing I really enjoy
our times together is how much we laugh.
And one thing in the UK that that really
stands out is the British sense of humor.
Right.
When times are tough they have a box of humour
and everything else.
And, and this is podcast I was listening
to, he was talking about mental health
during the pandemic and how it's suffered.
And they were talking about PTSD
and everything else.
Sure.
But one thing that they said, you know, one of
our, our stress reflex is one of the way we can
manage it is laughter.
Right.
And the British are really big
for it, banter.
And you have to be careful because too
much banter becomes criticism and picking
on people, but.
Sure.
But that's one thing I really appreciate with
us is that we have a lot of fun and laughs
during these podcasts.
And I think that's really important.
And I think you hit on, you know, some of
the areas that I would like to go down the
road and it might be writing my memoirs.
A lot of people have said that, um, and relating it
to my journey, my journey back here, my journey
in the fire service, my journey with my own
struggles with mental health, um, and how the
outdoors is, has nurtured and helped me heal.
And you know, how much passion I have for
adventure therapy.
Right.
You know, so yeah.
You know, Trav, like I wouldn't mind
doing a podcast down the road that is
maybe geared towards adventure therapy.
Who knows?
Ya know.
Well, why don't we ask the listeners, if
anyone's listened all the way to the end here
and they want to hear about adventure therapy
and the journeys from the military through
fire to civilian life and dealing with the
struggles and mental health, let us know.
And we'll, we'll do that podcast, if you're
game I'm totally game.
Yeah, for sure Trav.
Okay.
More time to laughs and.
I love it.
Spend some time with ya.
Jason, thank you very much for coming back on
The Silvercore Podcast, I really appreciate it.