Mark Spicer - Counter Terrorism Consultant and FBI Expert Witness DC Sniper Task Force

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Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode we have Mark Spicer here with us. Mark Spicer is a motivational speaker, security consultant, military and law enforcement trainer and CEO of Osprey Group. He was the FBI expert witness for the D.C. sniper trial. If you don't know Mark Spicer, he has demonstrated history of working in the professional training and coaching industry. He's skilled in crisis management, intelligence analysis, law enforcement, emergency management and intelligence. Like I said, he is also the FBI expert Witness for the Washington D.C. sniper trial and trainer for National Wide Tactical Officer and Homeland Security teams. He is the Sniper Advisor and Commander for His Majesty King Abdullah ii, responsible for all sniper training, doctrine, the the design and construction of a new sniper facility and much, much more. He also has been involved with many of the following events when it comes to the coordination of the sniper teams. One is the State Opening of Parliament by His Majesty King Abdullah II, the 2016 Dead Sea World Economic Forum, the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Great Arab Race Revolt, the 2017 Arab League Summit Conference at the Dead Sea, and much, much more. Mark Spicer was also in the British military for over 25 years and he recently took me sniping and if you follow me on Instagram you can see one of my recent posts with a was a picture of me and a Barrett 50 cal and that was me shooting with Mr. Mark Spicer and we had a phenomenal time. He taught me so much about not only sniping, but in this podcast we talked about the mindset of a sniper. So with that being said, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend. And just for some reference, the movie American Sniper was based off of Chris Kyle and Mark Spicer was actually a mentor, business partner and colleague of Chris Kyle and we also touched on that here in this podcast. So I know you will enjoy it. And with that being said, please enjoy to today's episode with Mark Spicer.

What is going on, everyone? Kasey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Mark Spicer here with us. He was in the British military for over 25 years and is now known as the CEO and owner of the.

Osprey Group and, and the director of.

Military sales for Desert Tech and much, much more, which we'll get into. Thanks so much for coming on, Mark, as well.

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

So first off, I'm not only fascinated by your career, but prior to this podcast, we've been talking for the past hour and I've learned so much. But for the people that may not know who you are because you tend to be low key, can you talk to the people about your experience in the British military and how you got into that?

Yeah, certainly. Initially I followed my father into the army, joined our local infantry battalion, spent my career pretty much with the infantry soldiering, branched out into covert counter terrorist units there and found that I was extremely good at sniping and it fascinated me. So I pretty much ended up most of my career being a sniper.

Got it. When you became a sniper, how long were you in the military prior to that?

Let me think. Probably four years. I got into it, yeah.

Okay. So you've been, you were a British military sniper for about 21 years?

Yes, I, I worked my way all the way through from sort of the basic sniper to actually ended up being the sniper platoon commander. And I was an instructor at the British Army Sniper School. I also guest instructed with the US Marines. I did all their courses and then taught at, at Stone Bay in Quantico, Camp Lejeune.

Wow.

And I think too someone that we both know, Michael, we were talking and something that I think is so prevalent right now, which is what's happening in America.

Right.

You not only predicted, but you've been talking about these type of issues for a decade now. Can you talk to us about some of the things that you're seeing that are happening right now and things that you've thought were going to happen a decade ago?

Yeah, it was having spent most of my experience fighting against the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. They were an extremely successful terrorist and I suppose in American pilots, a domestic terrorist organization. It became obvious when I first moved here sort of 12 years ago that there were signs that were starting to happen here. American police officers were some of the best in the world at what they do. And they were very comfortable in the American way of life. And I don't think they saw the changes coming. So I've spent a lot of my time since I left the military training American police officers, American military and police and military worldwide. So I could see some of the unrest that was building. So I predicted that if, if they were not careful or they needed to start looking at police officers being executed, explosives being made and used, civil disorder and riots, basically covering up what would be a movement. So I, I've started passing on all the experience that the British army built up over 30 years to try and negate that before it started. The answer I would normally get would be, it's not going to happen here. You know, we would never allow that to happen here. I was teaching about a week before the Boston bombing, the Marathon, and I said it was only a matter of time before a bomb went off in the U.S. wow. Sadly, it was a week later. I had some of the officers on the course call me afterwards and go, sadly, you were right. So I would, I would basically go around and teach as many different officers as I could, as many different departments as I could, how we were targeted, how the IRA basically gone around our defenses to get to us. And that was, that was everything from, you know, dating people that worked for the police and the military to try and get information that way. The sort of the honey trap, it's alive and kicking, where somebody gets blackmailed because they get suckered into an affair. Certainly British soldiers were executed having just pulled some girl a nightclub and feeling safe and thought it was going to be a good night, but went back to an apartment only to get it executed. So it's, it's a very dangerous game. And I think it's, it's, it's clearly here.

Yeah.

But it's taken a little bit too long for people to realize what they now have to do. America's changed.

Yeah.

Policing has changed. It will never go back to the way it was.

How do you think it got to that point?

Ignorance. I mean, I think a combination of believing it wouldn't happen and politicians playing very dangerous games.

Yeah. It's fascinating because I know that over the past eight months we've all seen so many new things in the U.S. riots and the unrest, like, what do you think can not only solve this, but what should we be doing to prevent this from continuing?

I'm afraid politicians have got to work together to make sure that this stops. You can't use it as an Election point. It's too dangerous a game to use as an election point. Firstly, you have to back the police. Now, are there bad police officers? Of course there are. There are bad police officers everywhere. But the bottom line is the large majority of police officers are very good at what they do and are very dedicated to this country and to the people. So the hierarchy need to back the police, not trash the police. And the police do need retraining. I mean, it's a difficult thing to accept, it's a difficult thing to hear, but there is justification for saying that they handle some things wrong. Now, one of the things that is always thrown at me is that American police officers are too quick to pull a gun. Well, maybe, but you have to understand that they approach every car, even on a car, stop, and have no idea if that person in the car is armed, is drunk, is aggressive, is a felon on the run until they get there. So they have to be Fairly on guard 24 7. That said, if it's a situation where somebody just wants to express an opinion, then telling them to stop talking, handcuffing them, etcetera, you're accelerating a problem rather than dealing with it. And I think in the uk we learned fast. We were exactly the same. Not saying we were any different, but over the 30 year period, we learned that defuse in a situation actually helps an awful lot of time to make it, make sure it doesn't grow into something it doesn't need to be.

Yep.

And part of that was education. With our Terrorism act, the soldiers on the streets were given the same powers as police officers. So we had the power of arrest and everything. Now, by a matter of course, and for legal reasons, we would normally hand over whoever we arrested to a police officer as fast as we could. They're better at it than we are. But we did have those powers. But the British army spent a lot of time training every soldier. Exactly why we were there. We were given the entire history of the troubles in Northern Ireland, why we were there, and more importantly, the likely traps that we were going to be walked into. We had the same. We called them PR traps, public relations traps. It's just the media, you know, and we certainly stopped journalists from other countries trying to pay kids to throw petrol bombs at patrols.

Yeah.

To get footage. And I saw it in Kosovo, I saw.

And that's actually happening happening, you're saying?

Yep. You've only got to look at some. If you look at some of the journalists who were caught kneeling down in flood waters to make it look deeper than it was. They just sensationalize things. And I don't think some of them realize how dangerous that is, because if people are angry, which they are, and there are justifiable reasons for people being angry, then the more you stir it, the more people you can probably get injured or killed. You know, you're now seeing people blocking streets. The American public have had enough of it. People are now getting run over. So. And the more you stir that, the worse it's going to get. And I think that's playing into the wants of some of these organizations.

Yeah.

What are you.

What are your feelings about what's happening in Seattle?

I think Seattle needs to. If you. If you just talk to me as an American citizen, which I am now, I'd arrest the entire council, to be honest, for negligence of duty, because to have allowed it to get to that stage is ridiculous. You have to have law and order. The funny thing is all these people that are saying in Seattle in particular, you know, defund the police. We don't need the police. The second somebody punches them in the face, they immediately call the police. You know, and. And I saw a meme once recently that said if you defund the police, then every single crime carries the death sentence, which is actually true, because then you're down to individuals dealing with every situation on their own. And if. If they're in fear, guns are going to come out. Be back like the Wild West.

Yeah.

So I think. I think there's got to be a zero tolerance policy. I think what the governor in Florida did yesterday needs to happen countrywide, where they basically say, okay, enough. Enough is enough.

Yeah.

If you have a social issue you want to raise, do it in Martin Luther King way, you know, peacefully. Do it through the system. There's no need to break people's property. There's no need to be dragging people out of cars. It's gone past that now. They've. To me, they've just hijacked legitimate causes of concern and things we need to change, and they've made it into a weapon.

Yeah. I did want to talk about something we were chatting about earlier, which is your involvement with understanding what happened in the D.C. sniper case. Can you talk to us about how you were involved and just what happened during that, not only that time, but for me, like I said, I'm from Virginia, and it was something that I was talking to my mom about earlier and how she was just living in fear from that moment for months. Right. And that's something that you don't really.

Get to Hear what happened behind the.

Scenes or how it went down. And I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Yeah, certainly. I mean, I got the FBI got in touch with me and then with the Ministry of Defence of the UK and asked if I could be attached to the task force. Unusual for the British army to agree. I came across and spoke to the lead attorney, Paul Ebert. He basically explained to me what he would want me to do and they, they got MODU clearance. So I was released on attachment to the FBI for as long as they needed me. My job really was to look at what had happened, what evidence they did have and work out exactly how they did it. And then to point out that two men in a team are just as, as guilty as the man who pulls the trigger. The guy who's doing the sort of observation, the security is just as guilty. So it was very interesting because I came across, they talked me to every one of the crime scenes and the first thing I had to do was work out how they'd done it. Now we knew because the car was obviously captured, that they'd made modifications to the car. It wasn't a rolling license plate like James Bond or anything. Some of the media pointed out they just simply cut an angled slot in the back of what was a very old, battered looking car. Now what they didn't know was they'd actually bought an ex police car. So the records were in place that that was never cut in the back of the car. It wasn't cut when the car was sold to them. So they had to have been the ones that made the car. Yeah, and basically what they're doing is, is they were taking turns of curling up in the trunk, shooting through that gap and then the one who wasn't in the trunk was outside. And by using, you know, voice activated walkie talkies, the guy would basically what we call trigger a target. So I can see the entire area. The guy in the trunk can only see what he can see through that small gap. So he, he doesn't have the time to acquire a target and shoot. So the guy outside has to identify the target and walk it on to what he can see. So what I found they were doing was they were lining up the hole in the back of the car with either the upright concrete stanchions in like a strip mall, traffic lights on a road, or certainly in the gas station. When they started hitting the gas station, they were using the gas pumps as their left and right of art. So and that's they line the back of the Car up so the guy could see both pumps and the. And the gap in the middle. So what I do, as the guy outside is, I would say, okay, your target's female, wearing a blue jacket coming from the left. She's going to be in your area in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And as I say, 1, she'll appear where the guy with the rifle is. He can now see her. Now he shoots. Because obviously it was in the back of the trunk, and it was only a.556 rifle. So, you know, the report wasn't too bad. And it was contained pretty much in the trunk. Very easy for me to just casually get back in the car and drive off. They hinged the back seat. It wasn't for sort of laying flat as they first thought it was, so that they could get from inside the car into the trunk without raising any suspicion of being seen doing it from the outside.

Yeah. When you first got, like, involved with what was happening there, how are you thinking about the situation? And, like, what's the mindset of a sniper when you're looking at something that's unfolding like that?

You got to look at what they're trying to achieve. And one of the first things that I had to assess was what were they trying to achieve? And as it turns out, it was extortion. You know, they were trying to extort the US Government for money. But the plan itself was very good. I mean, they basically target every age group, every sex, every, you know, gender there possibly was and ethnicity. So. So nobody could say they were safe. That's a very good military tactic that had just been turned into a civilian version of. They then obviously hit commerce, so they hit gas stations. If you can't fill your car with gas, you're not going anywhere. Certainly not going to work. When people start taking public transport. They shot the kid on a bus to prove they could do that. And then they started hitting sort of supermarkets and strip malls. So they hit a very wide section of the economy for the East Coast. And it was cost in the US a lot of money daily because people were quite rightly frightened. Yeah, I mean, they weren't. There wasn't, as I say, there wasn't one group that could say they were safe.

Yeah. So you helped initially, I would say, like, solve this case. Is that correct?

Well, to give credit to the. To the police, all I did was basically tell them how I would have done it as a sniper and how I believe they did it. There was some phenomenal police work done by that task force. I Mean, we spoke earlier and as I said, they knew it was a blue Chevy Caprice very early on, but they let the whole white van thing roll on.

Yeah.

So that the actual criminals didn't know that the police knew what vehicle they were looking for. So there were some very, very talented, you know, police officers on that task force. Yeah, I really just gave a sniper's perspective to it because we think different from most people. We have to because of the, the job and the fact that you've got to get away. The shooting is the easy part. You know, it's, it's getting there, getting away and being able to do it again is the difficult part.

Yeah, I'd love to dive into that, like the mindset of a sniper just career wise. Like, how does one think about every situation he gets into when he's on a task of such a big scale?

Survival is a big thing because if you get the plan wrong, you're only doing it, doing it once, and then you're gifting a sniper rifle to the enemy. So it, it is about, you know, there are, there are seven basic sniper skills that all go together to, to make up that and shooting being, as I say, probably the easiest one. You, the hardest thing is getting inside your enemy's head. You have to think like them in order to be able to come up with a plan to defeat either their defenses or their mindset. So there's a lot of study involved, there's a lot of hard work. It's physically tiring. Crawling is very, very tiring. And you've got to have patience. Now when you look at the qualities of Snobber, patience is always listed as one. I have zero patience. Drive with me for five miles, you find out I have no patience. But I do have self discipline. So I would say probably self discipline is a better way to explain it, to know when you do have to just draw the line and be patient and when you don't have to. And it's, it's been able to think on your feet. It's been able to realize where the enemy is most vulnerable. You know, how can I sort of attack them and destroy them around? Because my job really is, is to destroy the enemy's morale so much that by the time our main force arrives, most of them are ready to surrender. And we basically save an awful lot of lives. Snipers save more lives than they ever take by removing threats to our own soldiers or to the community or whatever and just keeping the enemy. Not being able to sleep, not being able to rest and Frightened.

When did the Osprey Group come into your life and what was your inspiration for starting that?

A very good friend of mine said to me, why is Marc Spicer working for everybody else? Why is Mark working for Mark Spicer? And it just never really occurred to me. And the other thing is, I may not be the best businessman in the world. So I wasn't that confident to say, okay, well I'll start my own company. And then you realize really starting your own company just means it's still you and a group of instructors that you know and trust are good at what they do. It doesn't have to be some big corporate entity. So as I walked away from one company before and then decided that the best thing for me to do was work for myself, so I formed the company here in Arizona and I then basically traveled around the country and around the world training police officers, trained in military and teaching civilians how to avoid things like home invasion, you know, kidnap and everything else.

I'd love to dive into that. When it comes to, you know, talking to a crowd today, that's listening, avoiding those key topics. Home invasion, kidnapping. Like what do you teach when you're in these rooms with these type of people?

First thing really is situational awareness. Too many people are either looking at a phone, listening to music and just, they're in their own world nowadays. They just set themselves up as a target. If you look like a victim, you're going to become one. So you just have to be situationally aware of what's going on around you. And there are very clear indications of bad people. You just have to learn what those are. The one thing I always taught snipers and it, it rolls across into the civilian world as well. We all know we have a sixth sense now. It doesn't really matter whether you say it's God given or whether it's, it's the brain reacting to something. You've got to trust it. If something is, is feeling wrong, it generally is. And a lot of time it's, it's just movements that your brain will pick up on that you aren't necessarily cognitive aware of. And that is your brain saying, okay, this is a threat. You need to start paying attention to this. And a lot of time it is you. You'll speak to a lot of victims and they will express that they were frightened beforehand and their brain was telling them, get out of there, get out of there. And then sometimes just social etiquette made them stay because they didn't want to make somebody feel awkward.

Yeah.

And it turned out they were right and that person turned out to be a rapist. You know, I, we were talking earlier about, you know, the IRA had a, a very bad habit of, of executing soldiers and police officers in their own homes in front of their children. Because it's not called terrorism for no reason. Because the survivors, the wife and the children will talk to other people and they will probably be interviewed by the media nowadays and it will go out far and wide. It's like throwing a stone in a pond. Ripples go a long way and it terrorizes people. Don't want that to happen to them so they start to get fearful and they would either break into the house and nine times out of ten they would trick their way into the house. You know, one of the, I always teach police officers, if you, if you get a knock on the door at night, you know, and you kind of look out the window, most, most officers will check out the window before they open the door. A lot don't. A lot will just open the door. Because I'm at home now, I'm not working, I'm off duty.

Yep.

Nobody knows I'm a cop. They dress like cops when they're not cops. And I tease them about. They're not, they're not exactly difficult to find. But the bottom line is you open the door up and it could be something like a, a young 16, 17 year old girl dressed in a pizza delivery suit with a pizza and you sort of say, well I didn't order a pizza. And she, very interesting, goes, well it's this address. Hang on, let me, I'll just check the receipt. Because they're normally taped on the inside of the box or on the box somewhere. The thing is, as she opens that I made a decision on what she's doing from experience. She's going to look at the pizza, she's going to look at the receipt and then she doesn't. She pulls a gun out, puts a gun in my chest and then the people in the dark that I haven't seen now come back in and before I can even defend myself, they're in my house and I'm at gunpoint. Now you've got to be aware of how quick situations can change and sadly you have to be a little bit suspicious of people.

I'm sure you've been in a lot of situations, high stress oriented. How do you handle stress and stay calm in stressful situations?

Experience, Experience and training. I have. There's been a situation, a lot of situations where you have to think on Your feet. And we were always told in the army the reason we do repetitive training, you train and train and train over again. It sort of becomes instinctive when you are in a high stress situation. And it does. I got blown up in Northern Ireland. A bomb went off less than two feet from from where me and one of my soldiers were standing. I got knocked about 15, 20ft backwards. Found myself on my back looking up sort of through the smoke. And once I mentally kind of wiggled my fingers and wiggled my toes to make sure they were still there, I immediately grabbed my radio and, and sent a contact report, a report to the military to say what had happened and we needed assistance. Instance, I don't remember thinking it, I just remember instinctively knowing I had to go with my radio and sending that message.

Yeah.

And you then follow the drills and the skills that you've been taught and for the civilian side, you know, go to a class where somebody will teach you what to be aware of and then make sure you do that. And what I've been trying to get across to police officers is they have to change the way they live their lives. My kids both grew up never getting into our car without checking underneath it in case there was a bomb. Because the IRA would find the officers, they'd find soldiers and they would put a bomb underneath their car. Now it's normally on like a mercury tilt switch. So it's victim initiated. Because if they put a timer on it, which they used to, they can't necessarily guarantee I'm going to be in the car when the timer runs down. But if they use, you know, victim initiated, like a mercury tilt switch, then I set the bomb off.

What is that?

Basically a thermometer. So mercury is a liquid metal?

Yep.

They'll basically set the bomb. So all the mercury is down one end, but when I get in the car, I change the angle. Mercury runs down and completes the circuit and then sets the bomb off, which is normally underneath me. So, you know, the British government sort of cared about soldiers and police officers so much, we all got issued a long stick with a mirror on it and a flashlight attached. Must have cost thousands. But, you know, you could look underneath your car and make sure that there really wasn't anything in it. So it just became a way of life. And that's what's going to happen to officers here. They have to realize that it's never going to go back to the way it was. Because right now these people have been allowed to get away with attacking police officers. They've been allowed to get Away with, with making improvised explosives and throwing them at police stations, federal buildings, etc. There are certain people out there that they truly believe in the change they want, and they see themselves as soldiers. They've probably played one too many video games, to be honest with you. But they're not going to stop. They've been allowed to get away with it. So they now realize that all they've got to do is, is beat people up, set fire to things, and they'll get away with it. We need to sort of do really what they just. They've just announced in Florida and say, okay, this is the new rules. You get caught doing this, this is what you're going to get. You're going to go to jail, you're not going to get bail, because you will get rid of a good 70% of people that are doing that right now and doing it because they're being paid to or because they think it's fun. But once you see that there is actually a penalty for it and there actually is a consequence of action, they'll stop. The majority will. And then the police can focus on the hardcore, who actually are a domestic terrorist group. They are trying to hurt people and change the way Americans live their lives, and that has to be stopped. But American police officers have got to realize their lives have changed.

Yeah. So when you're teaching these groups of police officers, what would you say is some of the most important things, especially during a time like this, that you're trying to get across to them moving forward?

They're a target. And sadly, because of the job they do, so are their families. If they can't get the officer, they may well take the family. You know, you've now seen officers being interviewed, you know, in, in Portland and saying, is it as bad as it looks? And I watch an officer say, excuse me, you know, if you're now bad, it is. Imagine yourself standing on. On the riot line and then somebody shows you a picture of your wife on the other side.

No way.

And says, going to rape and murder her. And there's nothing you can do about it. So that's how bad it is. Now, whether they're going to do that or not, what it does show is somebody in the background has done enough research and reconnaissance to find that police officer's wife. There's the problem because there are people actively out there. And speaking of colleagues in the uk, a lot of corporate entities have realized that there's a lot more aggressive reconnaissance going on right now because they've realized if they Cost a lot of money on the economy. They'll put a lot of pressure on politicians. Politicians will change laws because they are voted into office. They can be voted out of office. So corporates are realizing that their businesses are vulnerable now. They've hit small mom and pop shops because they're down the main streets. They're easy. The next logical step is they're going to start hating big corporations. And big corporations really pay for like one security guy who sits on the front desk or Fritz. Yeah. And he checks your ID and takes your name. You know, most of them couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag if they had to. Yeah. They're certainly not aware of reconnaissance tactics, terrorist tactics or how to react to it. And I would suggest most corporate buildings do not have a reaction plan for an attack or will take the time to train their staff to be on the lookout. Because if I want to get into a corporation and find out the best way to attack it, then I'm going to either bluff my way in. And one of my jobs when I left the military was, was we used to go and test corporate securities really see if we could get in. We were never stopped.

No way. What did that look like?

Basically one, one of the main ones I went to was a big media outlet. They wanted their security testing. They had some.

And they, and obviously they don't know what's going on. They don't know people are gonna.

Well, that's, that's the key. The security manager gets told it's going to happen.

Okay.

Now the security manager's job's normally on the line so he tells his security it's going to happen. So as happened at this media center, they had a lot of very large South Africans as their main security. Some big lads. And you could see just by standing out in the street and watching them, they were hyper alert. They knew something was going to happen. Yeah. And they were ready for it. So all we did was I paid attention to the passes that they were given on the desk for people to go in. They were bright yellow and they're on a white lanyard. I went to the local stationary office, bought it, basically made my own one up. And then I realized that if there's a front office there's got to be a back delivery section. So I just went all the way around the block until I found it. And I basically walked in with a clipboard and a notebook and I started taking notes etc and walking around now and eventually the older, not so smart looking security guy, he's not in the same smart uniforms as front would come to me. When he came over to me, I just said, oh, I'm so and so I'm here to check on the security cameras. You know, the company's having a brand new system put in. And then he just said, well, nobody's told me about you. So I just grabbed the yellow pass. There's nothing on it. It was just flipped round. But I didn't show him that. I just. Well, they gave me this on the front desk, gambling. And it worked. He went, yeah, that's great. I can see you've got one. Never checked it. And then I realized that because he didn't have the smart uniform and the guys on the front did, there's probably a social thing there.

Totally.

So I just said to him, didn't the big guys on the front in the smart uniforms tell you about it or. They don't tell me anything around it. So now I'm his friend. And by basically becoming his friend, he gave me a pass to get anywhere in the building. I went in through one of the side doors. Pastor security work, made my way to their boss's office, took stuff off his desk to prove we were there and left.

Wow.

Could have been anything. And it's a lot of the time with, with getting into a corporation, it's. It's being quick thinking enough and having a believable story. Well, if corporations think these people like Antifa and all the rest of them are not intelligent enough to know that, then I think they're kidding themselves that clearly they've expressed or showed a very clear knowledge of, you know, socialist or terrorist tactics. It's not going to get any better. They're just gonna, in my opinion, make it worse. So doing reconnaissance against big corporations is probably ongoing right now. I certainly know from friends in London it is because this isn't an American issue. It's. It's a growing issue.

When you're thinking like that. There's obviously negotiation tactics and tactics you're using on other people to bypass them. Like what are some of those skill sets that you've learn that are just valuable for the everyday human to know when it comes to being in those situations? Because that's not something you learn in school necessarily.

Maybe you should. One of the things we teach snipers is to read people. You remember, snipers are usually quite a long way away. But I would emphasize that shooting over a long range is a tactic that isn't sniping. Sniping is, is identifying somebody to die. Shooting them from. From a position of concealment and getting away to do it again. The distance between you and the target is a tactic. The reason in the military we shoot some so far away is because there's usually just two of us and there's a lot of the enemy. So I want to be as far away from them as I can. But if that's what they're expecting, then maybe I'm going to shoot from a. A lot closer because now they're looking in distance to try and find me. But one thing we do have is very good optics. So I usually have the ability to zoom in on somebody's face. So it's like TV with no sound. So I've got to be able to read your facial expressions and those around you to paint the picture for me. Give an example. Most militaries, their officers won't wear rank, or people don't wear rank in the field because of people like snipers. But I can find the leader just by watching their mannerisms. You know, if there's one guy in a group that is. Is pointing and then people are going and doing what he's telling me to do, then there's my leader. If you see soldiers make a coffee. We don't make like six individual coffees for everybody. There'll just be one big mug and everybody shares it. The man who gets given that mug first is my leader. Okay. He may be not the senior rank, but he's certainly the. The moral leader of everybody.

Yep.

So to take him out, I can destroy everybody else's confidence. So we train people to read, read faces, read people, read body language. And that is a skill that's passed into life. I mean, you can. I used to take guys on the COVID surveillance side, and we'd go to a bar or restaurant, and then you just task them without making it obvious. So we get thrown out. Find me the couple that's having an affair. Find me the couple that's doing this. You know, and it's. And I laugh and joke with police officers when we're talking about, you know, they have a habit of wanting to sit with their back to the wall and, and looking. Yeah, well done. You just identified yourself as a police officer because the average civilian couldn't care less. So if I see somebody knocking his wife out of the way to get the chair by the wall, okay, you've just identified yourself. To me, I may be a terrorist and they're just having lunch, but you've just told me you're probably a police officer by Your actions. So learn to do it a different way. You know, learn to just blend in. So, you know, with the other thing that police officers are kind of give themselves away on is every time somebody new comes in the door, they'll check, you know, because they're doing their job. They're looking around, they're trying to identify potential threats, you know, any sort of threat to them or the bar. So they're doing their job. They just have to do it a different, different way. So if I see somebody, you know, could be one of the. With maybe the most attractive woman in the room, but keeps looking at the door every time somebody else comes in, it's one or two things. So other police officer, or it's a guy having an affair with somebody else's wife and he keeps checking the door, make sure nobody knows him that comes through. So by process of elimination, you can work, work things out. So I guess the short answer would be learn people's body language. Threats are very easy to spot. People that are uptight, very easy to spot. People looking for trouble are usually very easy to spot. So if you, if you learn human nature, if you learn about people, you can, you can go a long way to making sure you're never a victim. An example give to the police here years ago was I said, you know, if you come out of the police station first thing in the morning to start your shift, and on the other side of the road is a little old lady sat at the bus stop. Not a threat, you've seen her, you just go and do your job and then you maybe come back into the Police Station 3, four hours later and you notice she's still sat there. Maybe you need to go and speak to her. And people are like, well, why? What's she doing? How many buses have been buying in the last four hours? Why is she still there? Yeah, you know, and terrorists don't stop becoming terrorists. Criminals don't stop becoming criminals. They just move into a different job. You know, one of the easiest people to be completely ignored by society is old people. So if I want somebody to gather intelligence on the police for me or to watch somebody for me, I'll either use children or old age people because they're invisible to most adults. You know, you just completely don't even see them. So it's all those little things. Spot what is going on around you, learn what is, what is common near your house. Where do I have to slow my car down? Because that's an obvious choke point where you could get ambushed. Where could Somebody watch my house from. And then once you identify those, that becomes part of your day. You then start checking those places every time you go in or out. If you are under surveillance, if you basically know that I've got to slow down at this junction, then I basically hype myself up as far as awareness and, and potential to react until I'm past that location. So you just learn to change your life slightly. Stop wearing, you know, all the T shirts and belts and stuff that identify you as, as a police officer or a soldier. We all do it, we have fashions like everybody else. You just got to stop yourself doing it. You got to stop looking like a police officer. Because if they can't get you, they may well get your kids. A lot of British soldiers were murdered by the ira and in some cases there was certainly an RAF sergeant in particular where his young daughter was murdered at the same time because they just opened fire in the car and she was in the car. These people don't care who they hurt. And you're seeing this now growing in places like Portland where people are just nasty. You know, they're so angry about everything all the time and that only needs a trigger and it comes out as violence. And you know, people are being dragged out of their cars now and, and beaten. And I think it's only because the majority of Americans are law abiding that a lot of people have not been hurt yet. But you're going to get to a tipping point where people have had enough.

Yeah.

And, and unless we allow law and order to be re established, that's gonna happen, you know, and all the fallout that's gonna come from that. So it's gotta, they've got to stop it.

Do you live your life?

You know, it sounds like you're always couple steps ahead and you see things you see around the corner. Based on this conversation and what I know of you and does that correlate to being more careful or living in.

Fear in a sense, or what is.

Your, I would say, like, motto to how you live after your experience and what you've done. And just to, you know, like you said earlier, your kids look under the car to make sure there's not a bomb. Like that's not the common thought of most Americans or any person whatsoever.

Right.

So there's a very unique perspective that you have towards just everyday life that a lot of people aren't thinking about. So like for you personally, how have you adapted during the last 12 months and what would you recommend for people to do who aren't thinking like that.

Either go to a class or just, or listen to people because I, I do run my life like that. And it isn't, it isn't because I'm fearful of anything. I'm just naturally curious. And I think more people need to become aware of what's going on around them. It isn't just the current threat. Even burglars, criminals, you know, or if you. I know there have been a couple in the house in the state where I live where I may have been walking a dog or something, you know, can't sleep, decide to walk the dog. And then I see some guy driving around in a car very slowly, just paying too much attention to houses. So I'll report it or I'll take a picture of the car. The best thing is let them see you take a picture of the car. They normally just leave at that stage. Now, now that's probably not necessarily what everybody should do because you could get yourself in trouble that way. If someone decides to be violent. Doesn't really bother me, but you know, it doesn't. I'm trying to look after myself but notice things. Too many people go through life not noticing what's going on around them. And we almost, we almost feed that with, with the technology we all carry. Now I'm just as bad as anybody else for check on my phone and everything else because I can now run my business, my life, off my phone. You've got to take the time to put that phone down and pay attention to what's going on around you. Notice, start checking your rear view mirror in your car. You know, if you see that same car that appears to be in there all day or you've seen it before, make a couple of turns you don't need to make. If it turns at the same time that it's likely to be following you. As I say, do a serve on your house. Google Earth isn't just for fun. Pull your house up and say, okay, where can my house be watched from? Where could somebody jump me, rob me for females? Whereas where am I vulnerable to somebody grabbing me, dragging me to somewhere dark and raping me? You know, you've got to realize that does happen. And if you live in that, that sort of philosophy, it's never going to happen to me. It probably will. Because if you look like a victim, you'll become one. If people, if these type of people see that you're aware and they see that you're paying attention, they won't attack you. They'll go somewhere else. They're Looking for a victim. They're not looking for someone who's going to put up a fight or somebody that looks like they're aware of what's going on around them. They'll go and find somebody who's, who's just heading to the phone, paying attention to nothing.

Yep.

You know, when you look at the. One of the worst things going on right now is clearly, you know, obviously the child trafficking. Now, I remember when I first came to America, you, any Walmart you went into, just behind the checkout, there was just rows and rows of photographs of missing children. So like this was 12 years ago, or you'd see on milk cartons. And I remember thinking at the time, how does so many children go missing? Well, apparently this has been going on a lot longer than anybody realized. And you're now seeing people in broad daylight trying to snatch children because it's, it's a very lucrative business. So, you know, parents have to be aware of where the kids are. Now if mother's out with one or two kids, you got to know where they are. And the sad thing is, you see so many people stand by and instead of helping video it, what happened to just getting stuck in and helping your neighbor or just helping somebody or stepping up to somebody that's doing something, you know, clearly violent or wrong and saying, you know, back up. Now there is an argument to say that, well, if they're, if they're armed, you know, you're walking into a potentially dangerous situation. But at the same time, where do we stop becoming good people? I mean, for me, I was just raised, do the right thing and, you know, know it. Let go, deal with the rest.

Speaking of that, I have a couple more questions. What was it like growing up for you, early childhood? Like, did you plan to go to the military? I know that you said your father was in the military, but what was your early childhood life like?

I guess I've always had this fascination with, with soldiers. I think my only toys as a child were, you know, G.I. joe and okay. And guns. So I was either playing sort of cowboys, Indians or soldiers with all my friends. Sport. I mean, I played sport at school. It was quite active. But I grew up in era where, you know, there were no computers. There were, you know, there wasn't really that much on tv. And yep, you know, parents were like, get out, come back when I start so climbing trees and find each other and doing a lot of things that maybe we should have died doing, like jumping off of castles into the sea, etc. You know, it was just that sort of a life. So I guess I was always kind of destined to be a soldier. As I say, my father was soldier before me. I didn't initially join. I Left School at 16 and became an apprentice to be a vehicle mechanic. But then I joined what would be the National Guard and I just enjoyed it way more. It was a challenge. And then I stayed as, as long as I needed to to finish my apprenticeship, so that if I didn't like the army, I always had something to go back to. But then I was kind of a late entry to the army by then because I joined at 20. Just never look back.

That's so cool. How have you applied some of these tactics that you learned as a soldier into business? And just for people starting businesses, how can they take some of the lessons you've learned and apply them to their business themselves?

Well, for me, I mean, it was a case of I stop when I'm finished, not when I'm tired. And I think that sort of work ethic is, is invaluable in a lot of places. You know, just get it done. And that comes from the army. Whenever we were doing something, instead of stopping for like a, a break or whatever, you just keep working until it's done because you don't know when the enemy is going to turn up. Now, that means you may end up with 15 minutes before the enemy gets there by the time you're finished or two days. But the harder you work, the more time you get off. So all I've done really is applied that I've got something to do, just get it done and I'll worry about if I'm tired later. You have to balance that. But I think the leadership skills that the military taught me were invaluable. You learn that everybody's a different character, everybody needs to be handled a different way. So therefore, you have to learn about everybody's character. You know, if you take, say, fitness as an example, some guys are naturally fit, some guys are very fit, but they just need to be sort of mothered along and encouraged. Some guys need to be threatened because the only thing they react to is, is a threat or a punch in the face. And luckily the military gives you that, that freedom to carry out that sort of punishment. Or it did. Pretty sure it doesn't anymore. But, you know, I got punched as a young soldier. It do me any harm. It taught me there was a consequence for what I'd just done and I didn't do it again. Yeah, but you know, we're Not. We're not employed to tickle people. The Army's employed if they have to, to kill people in the defense of what we believe is our right and the way our country lives. Our lives. But that's ultimately what we do. I'm gonna say to police officers, you know, they issue you a gun, you know, if you're not willing to use it, then you should probably drive a bus. You should never want to use it. And maybe there are. There are too many people in life because of movies and video games that seem to think it's cool to kill or whatever. It isn't. You know, just do the right thing and try and protect people, which is what your job really is. But I think. I think the leadership skills that the military teaches you are absolutely invaluable because you learn different characters and you learn how to. How to deal with different people.

Yeah. Two more questions before we wrap up. One of them being, what does leadership mean to you? And how can somebody take this conversation and become a better leader today?

Leadership, to me, is never asking somebody to do something I won't do. The army always teaches you to lead, not to follow. Don't say, sort of go and do this. You just follow me. So lead by example. And the way you do that is if the military is good because you climb up through the ranks. And corporations can be like that. Some are not like that. I mean, I don't put any respect on somebody having a degree, to be. Quite honestly, I don't think that proves anything. It proves you have the ability to retain information long enough to pass an examination. And if you've got. If you've got a degree in Renaissance art, really, what is that useful for? So if it's irrelevant to your job or what you're applying for, then I think it's very relevant. But if you can't get even to an interview just because you don't have a degree, I think that's losing potential talent. So the military, you basically do a job, get promoted, do a job, get promoted to all the people that you are now leading. You've done their job.

Yep.

And I think that that's very, very important right now. My wife started off on, like, a front desk at a chiropractor's office, and she's now one of the general managers. No degree. She's just done everybody's job, and she's done it very well. To the point now that she's in charge of it.

Yep.

And I think I respect that because it's like the military it's been very successful. And, you know, she's very good at what she does. So if you want to be a better leader, learn about your people. Learn their names, learn their names. Learn a little bit about them. Learn what makes them work harder, what makes them laugh, what they respect, and how they need to be led. Different people need to be led in different ways. As I said, some need cajoling, some need active encouragement. Some are very good to work on their own and, and maximize them. You know, give people tasks and never be frightened to praise people for what they've done.

Yep.

Say thank you. You know, we've got a world where very few people say thank you. And even if it's their job, you know, and you're paying them to do that, it doesn't harm to say thank you.

Yep. I love that. Last but not least, I know this conversation has been filled with many valuable lessons, especially during a time like this. What is something we can leave somebody with today that summarizes what you want not only the country to hear, but that you think will take this moment that we're living in, that you've predicted and lead us in a right direction? What would that be?

We have to have role of law. You. If there is no law and order, everything falls apart. So to the average American, I'm just do the right thing. You know, we clearly have issues in this country, but I think every country does. But one of the reasons I moved here was this country really is the last kind of bastion of freedom, and I think it should stay that way. So really be nice to your neighbor. You know, if there's a, if there's a, a dispute, go and talk to each other. You know, don't start reporting people handing them in or, or, you know, complaining on social media about, about somebody talk. Communication is vital. But for where we are right now, police officers need to realize that this is a whole new ball game for them. It isn't what they've been trained to do. Their academies have to change. I think police officers need to be trained in different skills in different ways. And it really. One thing I've learned teaching the police is it's not their fault. Their budgets rarely involve training. You know, most police officers want to be trained. They ask to be trained, and they're always told no by people that control budgets now. So if you're going to, if they're going to do anything to change the police, I think either a controlling body or somebody needs to make sure money gets allocated to training, defunding the Police is not going to do anything. If anything, they need additional funding, cut out all the media PR stuff. Their police officer, their job is to maintain the law. There should be a healthy respect, if not fear of a police officer. And I'll give you my mum as an example there. When I was a kid, my mum always used to say to me, you do that again and we're going to go and find a policeman, I'm going to have you thrown in jail. Now, I was a little kid, I was like terrified. But at the same time, my mum also taught me, if you are ever frightened, go and find a police officer. I think we've lost that. We've lost that respect for our police and what they do for us. The people that are complaining about them are the same people that will expect a police officer they could have been abusing five minutes before to give their life to save yours, even though they don't know you. And I think we've lost the fact that police officers have that love of this country and of freedom and the law, that they do that. They do that every day. They go to work every day not knowing if they're coming home. Their families don't know if they're coming home every day. And they live with that stress every day. So it isn't surprising when, when they kind of lose their patience from time to time. And I don't think they have enough counseling, support. You know, there's only so much you can put in a cup before it overflows, you know, so maybe they should have a better support system for these, you know, these men and women that risk their lives every day. You've, you've seen on the news. Yep. People complain about the police, get punched in the face by somebody saying, he's a patriot, and the first thing they do is call the police. You're like, what are you going to do if they're not there? And you've seen that in Seattle. You know, one of the reasons that whole sort of cop free zone folded so fast is because they started doing everything they were supposedly against. Putting up walls, putting up barriers, having guns. And then it turned to just extortion and rape. You know, people got murdered. So we have to have the police. But I think the police do need to change. It isn't, it isn't their fault. They're not getting enough training and they need to be trained in a whole different way now because as we spoke about earlier, the police on the street have a very important role to play. They have to be that force that reinforces the general public's belief, not alienates the police. Whenever a police car comes in, community policing has always been a proven success rate because then instead of just seeing a police officer in a uniform and you can just hate that, you see Bob or Steve, we see he lives here, we know him, you know, and then we get back to parents, you know, telling kids, hey, show the man some respect. He's a police officer. Yeah, show this woman some respect. She's a police officer. You know, I think we've lost sight of the fact that they will give their lives to save your family and they may never have met you before.

Yep.

I think the country needs to remember that.

I love that. Well, that being said, Marcus want to say thank you so much for coming on the show today. Is there a place where people can go to learn more about what you're doing and stay in touch?

My website at the moment is, is being updated next everything. So just either they can call me or they can email me. My email is simple. It's just Mark Osprey Group or sorry, Mark O Group usa dot com.

Got it.

And you know, we, we run training for just about anybody that on the military or police side, but on the civilian side, it's very easy. And I've done multitudes of them to do like a, you know, a morning or an afternoon's classroom seminar to just raise awareness to people to say, you know, this is what your house looks like. This is what you need to do to make sure you're not easy to get into.

Yep, I love that. Well, Mark, thanks so much for coming to show today, man.

My pleasure. Thanks again for having me. I appreciate it. Foreign.

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