From Mess Nights to NATO Missions: The PsyOps Tour, Farewells & Ski Slopes | The Parallel Four

This episode of The Parallel Four takes you deep inside real military life — from emotional farewells and mess-night hangovers to NATO lecture halls and the snowy slopes of the Alps.

When Sergeant Major Tim Heale hangs up his pace stick for good, the team gathers for one last salute — a send-off filled with pride, laughter, and a few sore heads the morning after. But there’s no slowing down for Stephen, Johan, Vinka, and Marlin. Back at Chicksands, they breathe new life into old PsyOps training, swapping Cold War slides for hard-won lessons from Afghanistan.

Then comes the call from NATO School Oberammergau — an invitation to teach the art of influence to Europe’s finest. What follows? Laughter, learning, and a Bavarian beer hall or two. And just when you think it’s over, the adventure rolls into the Army Telemark Ski Championships in France — proving the team’s as fearless on snow as they are in the field.

Packed with authentic military humour, veteran insight, and true Cold War-to-modern-day experiences, this episode celebrates camaraderie, service, and life after the uniform.

Transcript

Morning came early, as it always does after a mess night. The Sergeants’ Mess breakfast room was full, but quieter than usual, not silence, just that hushed, respectful murmur that follows a night of singing and toasts. Plates clinked, mugs of tea steamed, and the smell of bacon and coffee wrapped itself round the room like a balm.

Tim and Petra sat with us, both looking tired but happy, the glow of the night before still clinging to them. Around the tables, Poachers and Vikings alike made a point of dropping by, offering handshakes, hugs, and a few whispered words that carried more weight than speeches ever could.

You could see it plain as day — the respect. Lads who’d never usually be caught dead gettin’ sentimental were queuin’ up to say their piece. A nod here, a clap on the shoulder there, some muttered “Pleasure servin’ with you, Sergeant Major” that carried a lump in the throat.

Tim took it all in with that steady grin of his, Petra holdin’ his hand like an anchor. Every handshake, every word — it was earned, and he knew it.

When breakfast was done and the plates cleared, the moment none of us wanted came. Out in the car park, the morning rain had eased to a fine mist. Tim and Petra stood by their car, faces full of pride, sadness, and relief all at once.

We gave him the proper send-off: firm handshakes that turned into hugs, claps on the back hard enough to echo, and a last laugh to chase away the lump in the throat. “Go on, mate” I told him, “time you swapped the CSM’s pace stick for a garden spade. Petra’ll keep you busier than the RSM ever did.”

Petra smiled through her tears, promising we’d all meet again in Ellös soon. With one last wave, they climbed into the car. The engine turned over, the tail-lights blinked, and just like that, they were rolling away — out of the barracks, out of the Army, and into their new life.

We stood there in the drizzle, watchin’ ‘em go, mugs of tea still warm in our hands. Felt strange, like the end of a chapter you’d loved readin’. But truth be told, it weren’t an end at all. Just the start of Tim’s next adventure.

The drive back to Chicksands was quieter than usual. The four of us sat with the easy silence of people who didn’t need to fill the air with words. Tim and Petra’s departure still hung over us — not heavy, but present, like the echo of a song you’re not quite ready to stop humming.

When we pulled through the gates, the familiar red-brick buildings and neat lawns looked almost unchanged, but the mess felt different somehow. One less voice in the chorus, one chair that wouldn’t be filled at breakfast.

Strange thing, that. Camp looked the same, lads crackin’ on as normal, paperwork still pilin’ up — but you could feel it. Like losin’ a bootlace: small, but you know about it every step you take.

We dumped our kit in the office, kettle on before we’d even taken our berets off. Johan sat back with a sigh, Marlin reached for the biscuits, and Vinka gave me that look that said, Well, here we go again.

Life carried on, of course. Briefings, reports, the endless rhythm of Army life. But for us, the day felt like turning a page. Tim was family, and now he was off on his next chapter. Ours was still being written, right there at Chicksands.

So we raised our mugs of tea — just the four of us — and I said, “Here’s to Tim. Out o’ the Army but never out o’ the family.” And that was that. Back to work, back to life, carryin’ him with us all the same.

For the four of us, coming back to Chicksands after Afghanistan felt a bit like returning from a gap year only to find the syllabus still trapped in the Cold War. The slides were faded, the examples dated, and half the jokes older than the students themselves.

With dust still in our kit and more operational experience than you could stack in a storeroom, we rolled up our sleeves and set about fixing it. Out went the death-by-PowerPoint that could have sent a ferret to sleep. In came boots-on-the-ground relevance — sharp, fresh, and alive.

We gave it the full treatment. Stories straight from Kabul — the chaos, the laughs, the cock-ups we survived by the skin of our teeth. I wheeled out me goat tale (again), Johan hammered home the patience bit, Marlin kept the truth sharp, and Vinka made sure the cultural stuff wasn’t brushed aside like an afterthought.

The room changed. Students leaned forward, not back. Eyes lit up, questions came thick and fast, and for once the second coffee break didn’t look like a rescue mission. They weren’t just being lectured; they were being prepared — not for a classroom, but for the world they’d walk into.

When the first run finished, I leaned back, mug in hand, and grinned at Vinka. “See, love? Not just a course — proper entertainment with a side order of education.”

The CO popped his head round the classroom door, grin wide and eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Right, team,” he said, “NATO HQ has just asked if we’ll present on their PsyOps course down in Bavaria. NATO School, Oberammergau.”

We blinked. That was a first. No Brit had ever stood at the front of that classroom before. Apparently, our antics during Task Force Harvest in Macedonia had left more than a ripple, and word had spread further than we realised.

Challenge accepted...

We got to work, sharp slides, real-life case studies, Afghan anecdotes polished to perfection, and just enough humour to keep even the driest colonel awake. Boots polished, uniforms pressed, we were ready to march into Bavaria and show an international crowd exactly what a British PsyOps team could do.

I summed it up the night before we left: “Don’t worry, love — we’ll have ’em laughin’, learnin’, and beggin’ us back for an encore. Who knew PsyOps could be showbiz?”

A few weeks later, off we went — escorted by the CO himself — flying from Luton to Munich. Naturally, the morning began in true British military fashion: with chaos. Johan managed to forget his ID at the check-in desk, and only Marlin’s laminated photocopy — produced with the smug flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat — saved the day.

On arrival, two very official NATO staff cars awaited us, each bristling with more antennae than a hedgehog in a lightning storm. They whisked us south, winding through the Bavarian Alps until Oberammergau appeared like something from a storybook. Painted houses with carved balconies, neat flower boxes, mountains standing guard on every side — the place looked more cuckoo clock than town.

The NATO School was luxury itself. En-suite rooms, showers with water pressure, duvets that didn’t stink of canvas. After Kabul, it felt like we’d been checked into a spa. I flopped onto the bed, spread me arms wide, and muttered, “Darlin’, if they’ve got bacon for breakfast, I’m never leavin’.”

Midway through the first week, we were herded onto a coach for what NATO billed as a “cultural day out.” The itinerary was ambitious, if not thrilling. First stop: a vast German printworks, where we learned more about ink viscosity than any sane person could ever want. Second stop: a local radio station, complete with a transmitter tour so detailed even the tech enthusiasts were glassy-eyed by the end. Unless you had a passion for paper stock or antenna arrays, it was hardly riveting.

Then came the Hofbräuhaus. Munich’s most famous beer hall, and suddenly the cultural day made perfect sense. Steins the size of buckets, an oompah band in full cry, and schnitzels so large they probably required building permits.

Now that was proper cultural training. I leaned over my third stein and muttered to Vinka, “See, love? If we’d had this before Kabul, might’ve saved us a whole lot o’ grief.” She just rolled her eyes and stole half my schnitzel.

The night ended with half a dozen NATO officers trying to find their hotel using nothing but a beer mat and a bratwurst wrapper as navigation aids. Proof, if you needed it, that even generals can get lost after three litres of lager.

The next morning we were, shall we say, less than sparkling. Still, in our best No.2 dress—belts and medals left off, but sharp enough to make an impression—we marched into the lecture hall. Four Sergeant Majors, shoulder to shoulder, facing a sea of NATO brass from across the alliance. Rows of colonels and generals, shoes polished, expressions carefully neutral, waiting to see what the Brits would bring.

For a heartbeat, the silence was heavy enough to cut. Then Stephen stepped up, that cheeky grin spreading, and broke the ice.

Didn’t take long, either. Within minutes they were laughin’ where we wanted ’em laughin’, noddin’ at the truths they recognised, and scribblin’ notes like schoolboys tryin’ to keep up with Miss Higgins back at grammar. We had ’em — hook, line, and sinker.

The four of us took to the stage like a well-rehearsed comedy troupe—albeit one in crisp No.2 dress and armed with laser pointers instead of punchlines. Years of working side-by-side had made us slick; we bounced off each other effortlessly, trading lines, handing the baton back and forth without ever missing a beat.

Our subject was no small thing: the British approach to operations, especially when it came to cultural sensitivities. We’d boiled it down to a tight forty minutes, rehearsed and sharpened until it ran like clockwork. The delivery was part stand-up, part TED Talk—serious substance laced with just enough humour to keep the generals awake, peppered with the odd foreign phrase to sound cosmopolitan without sliding into gibberish.

It worked a treat. The audience was hooked. Laughter rolled where it should, gasps landed when a story bit harder than expected, and more than a few thoughtful “Ahhh” noises floated up when the penny dropped that subtle influence could sometimes outweigh a battalion of tanks. By the time we wrapped up, they weren’t just listening—they were leanin’ forward, pens flyin’, questions ready on the tips of their tongues. I leaned to Vinka and whispered, “Told ya, love—we’re doin’ the Lord’s work here. Stand-up for generals. Who knew?”

When we opened the floor, the questions flew. Afghanistan, the Balkans, methods, culture, kit, and the blunt reality of running PsyOps where nothing ever works the way it’s supposed to. Honest questions, and we gave honest answers. So honest, in fact, the Q&A swallowed the entire morning. The spell only broke when the smell of schnitzel drifted in and the NATO School staff practically dragged everyone off to lunch.

We’d done it—hit that sweet spot of operational credibility, British humour, and plain-speaking charm. No gimmicks, no slides older than the Cold War—just four Sergeants Major's telling it straight.

As we packed away, I muttered, “Blimey, love, who’d have thought? Four Sergeant Major's teachin’ half of NATO. Bet Sandhurst is spinnin’ in its boots.”

Once we wrapped up, the questions started — and didn’t stop. Hands shot up faster than we could point, and every answer seemed to spark three more. By the time we glanced at the clock, the lunch bell was ringing and a harassed admin officer was hovering at the side, whispering if we could maybe, possibly, bring it to a close so the next speaker could have a turn.

That poor soul had to wait until the afternoon. Even then, half the room was still chewing over our session, scribbling notes and cornering us in the corridors.

Our second presentation, scheduled for the following day, went much the same. Forty minutes plus questions somehow transformed into an impromptu seminar that rolled straight through to the evening. It only ended when the dinner bell at 1900 rescued us all. Apparently, such a thing had never happened before on a NATO course.

We took it as a badge of honour. Or at the very least, proof that a bit of humour, a stack of hard-won lessons, and the occasional dig at Johan’s haircut could win over even the stiffest brass. I muttered on the way out, “Blimey, love, we’re either geniuses or we’ve just put half of NATO off dinner. Either way, job done.”

The post-presentation buzz didn’t end with the Q&A. It spilled into dinner and well into drinks, where generals and colonels quietly admitted they’d never considered PsyOps to be “actually interesting” before. High praise indeed, and the kind that carried further than any certificate or polite handshake.

That wrapped up our first week, and with the weekend finally free, we bolted for Garmisch to enjoy some well-earned R&R. The Bavarian Alps opened up before us like something from a postcard—peaks sharp against a sky so blue it looked painted on. A ski shop tempted us with Telemark gear—proper heel-free freedom—and within the hour we were clattering onto the slopes like teenagers on a sugar rush.

The snow was crisp, the sun blazing, and our egos running dangerously high. For a moment we almost convinced ourselves we looked the part—until reality caught up.

Course it did. One minute we’re sailin’ down like Olympic hopefuls, the next we’re tanglin’ ourselves into knots that’d make a sailor blush. To top it off, who d’we bump into but half a dozen of the NATO course bods. They’d come for a quiet bit o’ skiing and instead got treated to the sight of four Sergeant Majors—heroes of the lecture hall—tumbling spectacularly off a T-bar like a comedy act on ice.

Respect? Oh, we had it. But confusion? Plenty. Blokes who’d been scribblin’ notes off us two days before now stood at the bottom of the slope, jaws hangin’, watchin’ me skid past on my backside. I was laughin’ so hard my goggles fogged up. Wheezed to Vinka, “Well, love, if NATO weren’t sure we were human before, they are now.”

Marlin tried to recover our dignity by carving a perfect line… only to catch a patch of ice and vanish in a puff of snow. Johan, true to form, stayed upright—though he insisted it was sheer Nordic balance rather than luck. The NATO crowd cheered every spill as though it were an event at the Winter Games, and by the end we were laughing along with them, breathless and snow-dusted.

Didn’t matter a jot. We’d had our week of impressin’ the brass, now it was time to remind ’em we were just as good at fallin’ on our arses as we were at talkin’ shop. Best bit of R&R we could’ve asked for.

Come Monday, it was time for our final presentation—this one on the ethical and strategic boundaries of PsyOps. Heavier stuff by any measure, yet we delivered it in our trademark style: sharp, honest, and laced with just enough cheek to keep the room awake. Once again, the questions came thick and fast, though this time we managed to wrap just before lunch—sparing the poor lecturer after us from competing with a hall full of rumbling stomachs.

By the end of the week, the impact was obvious. Off the back of our three sessions, the CO was drowning in invitations for us to speak at other Partners courses across the continent. Apparently, we’d set the bar—and set it high. More than one senior officer quietly admitted this had been the best run of the course the school had ever seen.

Not bad, eh? Four Brits with laptops, war stories, and an unhealthy fondness for biscuits and black humour. As we packed our kit for the flight home, I leaned over to Vinka and grinned. “See, love? Who needs PowerPoint perfection when you’ve got goat stories, sarcasm, and a packet of custard creams. NATO—and Partners—won’t know what’s hit ’em.”

Back at Chicksands, life snapped back to full tilt—an organisational ballet of pre-deployment training, course admin, leave rotas, and the eternal game of “Who’s actually in the office this week?” The Group had become a well-oiled chaos machine: one team already sweating somewhere sandy, another doing final checks at Sennybridge or Otterburn, and the last either packing, unpacking, or swearing they’d lost their Bergen when it was really under the bed.

As for us, we were now officially part of the support staff—training team and intelligence cell. Not glamorous, but vital. Alongside the teaching, we found ourselves babysitting a mountain of kit: trucks, generators, radio rigs, print systems, and a suspiciously heavy box marked spare mast clamps that nobody dared open.

With so much gear scattered across stores, garages, and classrooms, we needed a small army of storemen, tech wizards, grease-stained tinkerers, and the occasional magician to keep it all running. The Group had grown into a curious family of warriors, nerds, engineers, artists—and the odd bloke who still thought fax machines were cutting-edge.

I leaned on a crate one afternoon, watchin’ the circus unfold, and said to Vinka, “Love, it’s like runnin’ a travelling circus. Only difference is, the lions have got rifles.”

Now, the Royal Navy—never one to miss a chance to combine sport with messing about in the Alps—had for years run an annual ski training camp and competition in France. Officially, it was to keep their sailors and marines sharp should the call ever come to defend the nation from atop a snowy mountain. Unofficially, everyone knew it was an excuse for a week of snow, schnapps, and swapping tall tales in chalet bars.

This year, though, they extended the invite to the Army Telemark Association. The polite explanation was that they wanted to “raise the standard” by bringing in some proper skiers. The less polite version? They just fancied someone else to laugh at when gravity won.

I overheard the invite, smirked into my tea, and said, “Telemark, eh? That’s the one where you’ve got no brakes. Sounds just like us on a Saturday night.”

The four of us, having long since mastered the noble art of the Telemark turn (and, equally important, après-ski etiquette), were immediately up for it. Between Christmases, Easters, and a handful of spur-of-the-moment trips to the Alps, we’d built up a decent level of skill—not Olympic, but enough to look competent until gravity reminded us otherwise. More importantly, we all had our own kit, lovingly collected over the years and tuned within an inch of its life.

Clearing it with the CO was easy enough. He looked over his glasses, sighed, and muttered something about “yet another jolly,” before signing the form with the resigned air of a man who knew resistance was futile. With that, we were officially on the list, joined by a few other die-hard Army Telemarkers who clearly had the same glint of mischief in their eyes.

I summed it up perfectly as we packed: “Bavarian beer halls one month, French ski slopes the next. We’re either livin’ the dream, love—or we’ve got the best scam in the Army.”

Flights were booked from Heathrow to Geneva, with a transfer arranged up to the French resort. Simple enough on paper. In reality? Getting to Heathrow was its own operation.

We set off from Hitchin by train, looking like heavily armed ski bums—skis, poles, boots, rucksacks, and at least one unidentifiable bag per person labelled emergency kit. (Translation: Kendal Mint Cake, duct tape, and whatever Stephen swore we couldn’t live without this week.)

The Underground during rush hour was a fresh kind of purgatory. Commuters glared as we wrestled through carriages, balancing skis on one shoulder and apologising every two seconds for poking someone in the ribs. By the time we surfaced at Uxbridge, our upper bodies felt like we’d done a week on the assault course.