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Hello again, everyone. Welcome back to software up radio software radio on time on target. We have a very special guest for our listeners and viewers today for our YouTube channel.

Toby Honda has written a fantastic book and we encourage all of our readers and listeners out there to check this book out. It's called First Casualty. It's about the first CIA paramilitary teams in Afghanistan when the war started back in 2001.

It's a fantastic book. If you're looking for a Christmas gift to give some loved one or closer or you want to give a gift to yourself. Definitely check this out. So without for any further ado, we're going to welcome Toby to the podcast. Thanks for taking the time to join us today. We really appreciate it.

Oh, thanks very much, Steve. Thanks for having me. Oh, our pleasure. And you know, we were talking offline. I know our listeners always love to hear about somebody's military experience. You were in the Royal Navy. So fill our listeners in a little bit about your military career and how you get into writing.

Yeah, sure. So, you know, my military career was not very illustrious. Not nearly as illustrious as the people I sort of tend to write about these days or your career or probably most of your listeners. I joined the Navy in 1985.

So it was just after the four points war. In fact, I was applying for the Navy age 16. I joined when I was 18. You know, during the four points war. I'm having to pick up the newspaper and it was Coventry Sunk, HMS Coventry and Destroyer. So it was real.

You know, I got in just after that. And I was there for just about 10 years. I left in 1994 and in 1991 I tried very hard to get involved in the Gulf War, but they managed to win it without me. And I was sort of stuck back in Scotland feeling very frustrated.

And, you know, I think probably, I mean, I went to lots of places. You know, I joined ships in Hong Kong twice. I went around Australia twice. You know, it's the Caribbean, the Northern Europe, Mediterranean, you know, all over the place. But it seemed like kind of not completely serious. And the Cold War was over. And I was kind of like, you know, what's the point of this?

But, you know, I mean, that sort of thirst for adventure and service. I'm just part of my upbringing. I'm a fourth generation military. So my father was in the Navy. His father was in the Army all through World War II. You know, he joined in the 1920s as a boy and then retired as a major.

And the great grandfather army as well. And a great grandfather on the other side, who was army who was captured in September 1914 in France, an escape from a POW camp in Germany in March 1916.

And survived the war as a career infantryman sergeant in 1914. So in a way, he had a pretty good war. So yeah, I grew up listening to these stories.

And, you know, we moved around a lot when I was a kid, but it's mainly in Manchester, Northwest of England. It's kind of like, I don't know, the equivalent of Detroit or somewhere.

And I just wanted to get out, you know, and see the world and never go back to Manchester. And so that's what I did. And, you know, how I got into writing, I mean, I didn't see that much of a difference in a way between the Navy and journalism.

You know, because it was, you know, job changes every year or two, having to deal with people at all levels from, you know, like senior officers to guys in the working in the engine room and being able to get along with everybody.

And that was kind of how news journalism in a way worked for me. And it was kind of a good, it was a good background.

You know, and I was, you know, it's naturally drawn to military stuff and ended up early on in my career, again, he said to Northern Ireland, which was just a fantastic job because, you know, it was still a war, you know, never, you know, it was called the troubles, but, you know, it was sort of an undeclared war within the United Kingdom and insurgency.

And at that time was, you know, peace talks going on. So you had that kind of interplay between the violence and the politics, which, you know, made it big story in the world for a while.

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