Bob Shepherd's Blog

Getting up early and it’s still completely dark

Before the dogs wake and begin to bark

Feeling across for my pants

As they slide off the chair, leading to one of my quiet rants

My wife is still fast asleep, 5am is no time for her to wake

I’m moving as stealthily as I can

Not till 7 will she require a shake

I feel across the floor, they must be between here and the door

Found them at last

As I pull them on fast

Socks, shirt and shorts

Frustration is leading to all sorts

I’ve been getting dressed in the dark for years

But to leave something behind has always been one of my fears

Back in the days of operating in the trees

I’d check all my kit on bended knees

Weapon, magazines, Bergen and belt kit

Basha packed away, everything must fit

Sitting on my Bergen, “stood too” before first light

A great time for an enemy attack

Even before any of us has had our daily shite

But here I am today retired

Badly letting myself down

If I’m to be in a bad road accident

The paramedics will no doubt frown

Why’s he wearing his pants on backwards?

They will be heard to say

They just won’t understand that having got dressed in the dark for years

Today was just a bad day

The Union Jack in my own art form…it makes me proud.

It represents all individuals who are citizens; each and every one should be proud too.

Whether born in the UK, brought over as a child from a war-torn country, or an economic migrant who after working and paying taxes in the UK has decided to remain and become a UK citizen, each and every one of us should be proud of being British.

Those who have come here and have no intention in doing so, should be looked at and interviewed. Emergency legislation should be put in place to have a plan to deal with the situation of those individuals.

Anyone who has British citizenship should be able to become a good neighbour of anyone else with British citizenship, no matter where they live.

The governments of years ago made a rod for their own backs when placing new citizens into “communities.” That in my view only encourages these individuals mostly to hold onto where they came from, and not develop into becoming British.

In the past, I’ve been treated with disdain by communities that are hell bent on holding onto their past. I’ve been verbally abused, had my car kicked while driving through on a busy high street, and looked at angrily…all by young males of fighting age, and all in my own country.

If you came from a country of conflict, well you’ve left it now. You’re in Britain, leave that conflict behind and move forward, for your sake, your family’s sake, and for the sake of everyone in your new country that has taken you in from harm.

Why?

Because for 80 years, we have had the chance of freedom, and to live in a peaceful and secure democracy, side by side with our neighbours.

We’re not a White Christian country, and we haven’t been for centuries.

Years of expansion around the globe as a colonialist empire changed all that a very long time ago…long, long before I was born.

People were even brought in to the UK from overseas to work in our factories…we all needed them at that time.

So, here we are today, multicultural UK, with freedom, democracy and security?

No, maybe not!

At present, I’m living in the USA, but one day soon, our intention is to return to the UK…I miss it terribly, and I really miss my kids and grandkids.

Here in the USA, I have a neighbour who is a doctor. An off-the-boat Indian, where he became a USA citizen, which meant for him and his wife that they had to return their Indian passport, as that’s Indian rules.

We talked about it. They have raised children born in the USA, they have become young regular Americans with a good US education, moving ahead with their lives here in the US.

For a long while now I’ve thought about how the UK could be better. How it could integrate all those coming to the UK and receiving a UK passport to citizenship.

Past and present governments have let us all down badly, they have a key role to play in all of this, if it’s to work.

I’ve never been keen on dual or multiple citizenship.

For example, if I became a US citizen while still being British, I would only be doing it for my own convenience, not because I really want to become American…as much as I love the country and its people, mainly.

Back home in the UK, I know people who have 2, 3, 4 and even 5 passports. Each additional passport, purely one of convenience only!

I believe that if you want British citizenship, then you must hand in your other passport/s. That would ensure that you are becoming British for the right reasons.

Conversely, if you wish to become a citizen of another country, then you hand in your UK citizenship, thereby showing your real allegiance to your new country.

It doesn’t matter what religion you are, if indeed you have a religion. It doesn’t matter what colour you are. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, as long as you learn English. I don’t even care how you dress, just so long as your kids who are born in the UK, dress in Western attire, embrace their new culture, appreciate their family’s historical culture…yet become proud Brits.

That would mean that females are EQUAL to males. It’s OK to be gay. And love your neighbour.

Little Britain is my home. And even littler Scotland is my roots. I’m proud to be both, and I love to see other cultures that have become “Brit Scots” embracing the kilt and blending their own musical heritage with ours…as it’s now theirs too.

Yet I’m only too aware that in certain parts of Britain, there are communities that run their life through the local religious leader, as opposed to the local council, there to enforce the British rule of law…as one example.

I’m all for people of any religion seeking life advice from their religious leader. But not when it’s advice to do with adhering to a law that isn’t the British rule of law. However, it’s been allowed to happen, and it happens today, and it will happen tomorrow.

Britain has a long, long road to go down before it gets better. Before every individual who is a British citizen recognises that, as we are all different, as Brits, we are actually all the same. In that we’re British, and we have freedom, democracy and security. When you look at what’s going on in other parts of the world, we should all embrace what we have as British citizens…it’s given Britain 80 odd years of peace and stability mostly.

Yet, until that day comes…combined, we have neither.

If Carlsberg did jungle soldiers!

In the 1980s, I did a jungle trip to Sarawak in Borneo.

The team included a squadron from 22 SAS, members from other squadrons, SBS, Oz SAS, Para Patrols, Delta…and the all important attached ranks to keep everything flowing.

It was one of the top trips to the jungle in my military career.

With so many lads from different units, it was a terrific time to swap ideas from experiences, and thoughts for the future.

During one of the get-togethers, we were discussing the UK’s School of Infantry’s idea of changing jungle rations, and what they were deciding to entail.

There was talk of a more palatable choice of rations. I sat there supping my Milo, thinking that they haven’t taken jungle patrolling whatsoever into account.

The International choice, getting away from the glum but routine Brit menu made it obvious to me that members of a patrol would be shitting at different times of the day. Causing pandemonium to the patrol routine.

At the end of the day, food is pretty low in the pecking order of what needs to be carried on an operation in the jungle.

Food is fuel…that’s it. There’s no sitting down to a table with a candelabra and being waited on. Most of the time, it’s boiling up the bag of food in your mug and using the boiled water for a brew… basic but workable within the patrol routine when not operating under a hard routine (close to the enemy and eating cold).

One of the lads (nationality rhymes with tank) said that he would love the thought of the new proposed rations, if he could get hold of them back in his homeland. I doubled down on the thought of remaining regular and the fact that food is only fuel when it comes to ops.

I explained that every morning on patrol, I evacuate my bowels at 4.50am precisely.

I then went on to say that the only problem is that I don’t wake up until 5am.

Laughter all around, but everyone agreed on the reality of keeping regular, and the fact that for jungle patrolling…food is only fuel.

Keep what works.

A reminder of young men lost in battle is a thing that’s centuries old. My photo of the SAS window in Hereford Cathedral being the latest military honour in a historical house of thought.

Awake while others sleep

Today it makes me weep

Young men who stayed out of their bed

At their fittest wound up dead

Hours, day’s, weeks or more

Spent roughing it to make a score

Years of toil for those who survive

My mind hurts for those no longer alive

A job to save others is all that it was

And what a job to give you a buzz

We were at our best and knew we would win

So drinking a dram to our lost military kin

L to R: Steve, Mink, Billy and Bob…same cap badge.

I don’t get home these days as much as I’d like to.

But when I do, apart from spending time with family, I always enjoy bouncing into members of my other family. Those with whom I spent time with in the military.

Walking through the centre of Hereford City on my way to seeing my kids and grandkids, I bumped into these three, having a brew and catchup in High Town.

You could say different eras, in that we all joined at different times. But during my almost 20 years in 22 SAS, I served at the time of all three.

Steve, I took on selection, a terrific soldier who appeared to breeze it, even though he may say differently.

Mink, he and I were in B Sqn for years together. Worked closely in training and on ops.

Billy, known today for his TV fame, came to the unit as I was leaving. He’s been there and he’s done it, many times over.

What we all have in common is that we all did our time and had a full career in 22 SAS.

It always makes me proud to walk through town and have a coffee thrust into your hand, in order to sit and chat for a while…a good catchup.

Cap badge and wings of 22 SAS in my time.

For me, it shows that the unit is all about the lads, their endeavors to hold that unit to the highest of standards. Not win the Winged Dagger, sit back and live off of the cap badge.

No, that famous cap badge and the equally famous wings, will forever live off of those who work their arses off from the time they join 22 SAS to the time they leave it.

Here’s to many brews in the future.

PS: I was slightly late meeting up with my kids and grandkids…but for good reason.

A quick pic of how I feel after a long drive to a beautiful place, now I’m in my 70s.

My wife and I are just back home after a terrific week “harnessing energy from nature,” as we hiked the beautiful Hocking Hills in Southern Ohio, USA.

We based ourselves in a small historic town called Logan, and from there we travelled out each day walking a different route, enjoying the nature, and keeping fit at the same time.

A good time of the year with most children back at school, the routes through the weekdays were very quiet…sometimes we were the only ones there.

We’re both great believers in energy, whether that comes from people, trees and plants or even the earth, yes…I can even be seen hugging trees!

To be able to take energy from other sources and gain that energy for yourself isn’t just charging the batteries, it’s a feeling of reward, especially knowing that it’s not to the detriment of that source.

With that said, the small town of Logan has its very own natural energy source.

The ancient oak of Logan.

Unknown even by many of Logan’s residents, this giant white oak tree is over 600 years old.

My wife and I came across it after a day’s hiking, simply by driving around Logan’s lovely old houses and spotting it at the edge of an old cemetery, sitting on a hillside.

We parked up opposite and climbed the hill to the base of the tree. Around the tree, there are Civil War graves, and older graves of people who died in the 1700s…pioneers…before the town (which is actually classed as a city here in America, despite having a population of less than 10.000) of Logan even existed.

I had jarred my lower back by jumping off a rock on our hike. Looking up at the mighty oak, as old as it is, the strength and energy is apparent. It’s in great form, extremely healthy for it’s age, and looks as if it will go on for another 600 years.

Given that, my wife suggested that I rub my lower back on the rough bark and stretch out and up at the same time.

OK, after a look around to see that no one’s watching (and laughing), off I went into the stretch against the giant oak.

There is no doubt, the energy was there! The stretching on the bark felt good, no doubt that helped, but the energy was there.

We walked around to look at the mainly unkept gravestones. Some were so weather-beaten that they were completely unreadable. I even picked a couple up and stood them back in place. But those older ones that were readable, from before the Civil War, had names from Scotland and Ireland, including a young laddie with the great name of William Wallace. I rubbed off the lichen and moss to ensure that his name remained clear for some time into the future.

Walking back to the car with my wife, my lower back no longer hurt, it was relaxed and back to normal. The stretching or the energy…or both? I believe probably both, because that’s just it…it’s what we believe that counts, and it’s what we believe that works.

The great ancient white oak of Logan, with the Civil War graves and those older and younger ones, makes for an awesome picture on the hillside.

The next morning, with no ill effects to the lower back injury, off we went on another route to hike.

The amazing places where trees and plants can flourish.

We set off early from Logan, a fresh morning’s air breezed its way through the trees and rock structures of Hocking Hills’ amazing landscapes.

The conversation between my wife and I was all about the great white oak of Logan, how few people know about it, how fewer even appreciate its energy, and what about these trees in the State Park, growing on bare rock surfaces, holding on for dear life as they grow taller, wider, and heavier?

The phone was ever ready in camera mode. Just for the right sunlight to push through the tree tops’ canopy and down to the ground. I was looking for rock structures with trees growing on edges where they just shouldn’t be. How do they maintain their strength? Just look at these roots, not underground but clinging onto the rock for dear life.

The more I walked, the more these trees took on the character of real people…old, strong, tough, proud people, full of energy.

My wife, the size of a small insect, takes in the view of the magnificent rock structures, where the trees still manage to upstage them by growing over and forming their own canopy.

Nature’s green carpet folds down to a dried river bed, and the sun’s rays push through the trees against the rock structure, forming a beautiful moment in time.

Just mesmerized by the beauty of the natural world, not even a world away from where we live.

More trees stand strong in places where they almost defy nature.

Even in my 70s, every day is still a school day. I could walk the same walk a hundred times, and still not take everything in.

As the week went on, it seemed that there were more and more people walking the routes. Some very noisy, some dropping rubbish, some taking no interest whatsoever in nature, apart from using the walk as exercise. Yet many, like ourselves, were seeing whatever it was that nature threw out to them.

The amazing thing for me personally, was that no matter how many individuals were on the trail (and at one point I remarked to my wife that it reminded me of the photos of the trail of climbers backed upfor hundreds of yards, leading up to the top of Everest), no matter the discarded soda cans and other rubbish seen on the ground, or in the creek, no matter the human noises breaking through the natural noise…I was still able to harness the energy from nature and, therefore, use it positively to make my life even better.

Around 20 years ago now, my wife and I were having a conversation about who we would like to see play a game of chess against one another…those from heads of government around the world?

I had spent years mainly in the Middle East, Far East, and a bit less time in the Balkan countries.

My wife had centered as a journalist covering economics and global affairs not only from Wall St but also from the Greater Middle East, and covering the wars there too.

We’ve had that conversation many times since.

The answer has always been short. Love them or loathe them, you still have to appreciate their cunning and guile.

The only difference between these chess masters and those in the chess world are when the pieces get swiped off of the board…these ones are swiped off of the face of the earth. Body parts are blown apart and often lie in the street until they stink. The stench that stays with me even today.

My answer 20 years ago was a game of chess between the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat versus the Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

If one or the other had died, then one or the other versus Putin, the autocratic leader and organized crime boss of Russia.

Well, today Arafat is dead, Karzai is no longer the President of Afghanistan, taken over by Ashraf Ghani, and later, as we all know…the Taliban.

Meeting Karzai inside his palace around 2008 for a news interview. From early 2004-to late 09, I would meet with him on 5 separate occasions with a small news team there to interview him.

A PLO/PA card signed by Arafat and given to me in 2002 during a news team meeting with him after the 36-day siege during the Second Intifada. In all, over an 18 month period of the Intifada, I’d meet him around 12 times.

However, as Karzai is still alive and amazingly living in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, my chess game would now be between Karzai and Putin.

Notice that not one Western leader is in the shout for a game!

Arafat was small but tough as nails. He played the world leaders like a fiddle. Karzai was also small but tough. He too played the world leaders like a fiddle. Both having to court the US, UK, EU, Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and others…while keeping all of these representatives happy with the situation inside their territory. Oh, and Putin is small but tough too, and even today is still playing the world’s leaders like a fiddle.

I once watched Karzai take meeting after meeting in just a few hours of waiting for our turn, between the head of NATO’s military inside Afghanistan, the US Ambassador, the Chinese Ambassador, and then the Indian Ambassador, before squeezing in an interview with the TV news team that I was working with as their security adviser.

Just imagine having to juggle diplomacy with all of these individuals in order to keep the $$$$$ and the security flowing!

As many suggested otherwise, I knew that this man was no American puppet. Indeed, no one pulled his strings.

So, will it be in my lifetime, or will it be left to someone else in decades to come to have the discussion with their wife about just who they would like to see play chess against one another…only this time involving a Western leader?

Over the last ten years or so, I’ve heard so many times that British soldiers’ tactics are a thing of the past.

More recently, I’ve had conversations about how we can learn so much about the way warfare is being fought in Ukraine as opposed to the jungle warfare school, which teaches yesterday’s stuff.

Well, despite the newfound way of using drones to great effect, especially the “home-made” ones, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are still fighting from trenches much like those in WW1.

As for the jungle fighting being a thing of the past, mainly due to deforestation, then just ask the likes of those still fighting under the canopy today in such places as the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia and Paraguay…to name but a few.

Under that canopy, jungle warfare in the shape of the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) are still very much alive and still very much viable.

Therefore, I urge the UK Jungle Warfare School in Brunei to concentrate on LRRP if they are not doing so today.

I’m all for tech, whether it’s for communication, navigation, or target recce and attack purposes…if it works 100% in all weather conditions, day and night. However, more often than not in recent conflicts in all theatres globally, it’s been down to the Mark 1 eyeball every time.

A good recce of the INSIDE of an enemy camp inside the tropical rain forest can only be done by a human, even today.

To complete that recce and do it right, it may take many hours to days. A hard routine patrol moving close to the target, then only using two members to finally move into the enemy position at night, with the help of weather conditions like heavy rain, could be an example of what can be achieved. The pair then simply move back to the patrol RV, lie up and continue the next night if required, until the job is complete.

Under my small umbrella during a heavy rain storm around 3-4am. Lightning strikes and falling trees as big as houses kept those who we were watching up all night. A quick click of the camera during an exercise just shows what can be done, and what we can get away with. 1980s Malaysia.

Back in the day, some 35-45 years ago, I would move into an enemy camp, or even sometimes as an instructor, inside our own LRRP night LUP, and just sit against the base of a substantial tree (a lesser tree would shake and give me away), small patrol umbrella up to keep the heavy rain from lowering my body temperature, and watch the patrol’s routine, enemy or otherwise.

Just because a last-century soldier is writing this post, does not take away the fact of just how effective this role still is today.

It was undoubtedly soldiering at its best. Coming away with a successful close camp reconnaissance, and all that had been gleaned, was personally rewarding apart from the intelligence gained for the overall effort.

I cannot think of any tech that would do a job as accurately today.

The old saying of “belt and braces” should never ever be forgotten.

Yes, use high tech when it’s plausible, but always be trained up for the unexpected and get back to basics as a belt and braces.

Many an army around the world has forgotten that in the last couple of decades for sure.

This post is short…but direct:

I was having a chat the other day with an American building contractor while we were picking up food in a local cafe.

He heard me talk and realized that I wasn’t American.

We chatted for a few minutes, then he asked me what I thought about their border security and building “the wall.”

Having belonged to a special forces unit that for decades had been used for breaking out from, and in to Britain’s jails…always with success, then he was probably talking with the right man.

I told him that obstacles are just that…an obstacle.

Therefore, the wall is just an obstacle, while taking away a lot of tax payers’ $$$$$$$$.

Anyone with a bit of improvisation can go over, under, around or through that obstacle.

Instead of coming up with obstacles…come up with solutions.

He agreed, and he agreed to my solutions too.

I’ve never played a musical instrument in my life

Just a wee while ago I was saying just that to my wife

So, what do I play with my Celtic working-class roots

Is it bagpipes, fiddle or even flutes?

I have no voice to sing a song

To even try would be oh so wrong

Determination needs to come into play

If a musical Bob will ever see the day

Dougie MacLean playing the fiddle

There’s nothing like it, he’s now solved the riddle

A fiddle it is then. How long have I left?

And will my skills ever be seen as deft?

An ageing Scot in America to stay

Can play the tunes of a home far away

Until it’s time to eventually come home

I’ll play those tunes from where I did roam

There is no doubt music hits big

I may even venture to have my own gig

Why not? Since a boy, I’ve always thought big

But that gig of course, would be alone

Or my family and dugs will only moan

A Dougie MacLean I’ll never ever be

But The Gael on my fiddle…well, we’ll just have to see