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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show British military veteran, conservationist and the subject of the documentary Wildcat,
Harry Turner.
Now, in this incredibly powerful conversation, we discuss a host of topics from Harry's early
life, his journey into the military, the PTSD that he brought home from Afghanistan, his
mental health struggle, his trip to Peru, the making of the documentary and so much
more.
Before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the
show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Harry Turner.
Enjoy.
Well Harry, I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly, thank you to John from Silver Spear for connecting us and secondly, to welcome
you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah, thank you very much, James.
I just was on a podcast the other day with John and I enjoy kind of like meeting new
people just via this kind of like networking.
So it's great.
How did your paths cross in the first place, yours and John's?
So I believe that he watched the documentary, reached out to me and said, look, I watched
the film, loved it.
Do you mind coming on the podcast?
And I jumped on the podcast with him and then he was doing a tour with Shine Down and he
said, we're going to be over in Spokane.
And because I've just recently bought a house here in Washington state, he was like, if
you're, if you can get there, great, like come and hang out with the band and come and
hang out with me.
And so I went over there with my wife and he gave her a bunch of tequila and I had to
drive home.
But yeah, we met then and then just kept in touch and yeah, he's just a super great guy.
And he's got a lot of really cool stories and his background is very complicated and
there's just like so much kind of depth into him that it's just kind of like a book that
just keeps on kind of giving, you know?
Yeah.
And he is, I mean, when I reached out, it was about something else as a musician called
Jelly Roll who just did an amazing speech in DC about addiction and the fentanyl crisis.
And I reached out to him knowing he's well embedded in the music industry to see if he
had any connections.
But in our conversation, he's like, well, I know someone who you need to get on the
show and it was you.
So here we are.
It's a very generous man.
So you mentioned Washington, is that where we're finding you now?
Yes.
So I'm over in the Pacific Northwest.
Really grew up in the UK, as you can tell from my accent.
And I kind of moved over to the US a few years ago.
I got married last year.
So I'm in actually the process of my green card at the minute, which is taking a very
long time.
It's just kind of one of the things you just got to kind of roll with the punches with
it.
But yeah, it's kind of annoying and stressful just kind of being in limbo with the US kind
of government.
But at the same time, I want to be settling my roots in the Pacific Northwest here with
my wife and with my nonprofit, we're going to be doing a lot of stuff down in Ecuador.
And so it's a good place to kind of be.
I can be in North America and super close to South America as well.
Beautiful.
Yeah, I came to the US in 2002.
And yes, my application took a lot longer.
I think people realize how expensive it is.
So when there's a lot of demonization of the illegal immigration, we came from a pretty
affluent country when you compare the entire world.
But to come here and jump through all the hoops, you need a lot of money, you need sponsors
and all these kind of things.
So it's understandable if you are in Haiti or Mexico or somewhere and are just desperate,
it gives you a little bit more compassion.
Doesn't mean it's right.
Doesn't mean that we should open up borders.
However, it does give you some compassion when you've been through it, coming from a
great foundation to the fact that it would be almost impossible if you were from a poorer
nation.
Oh, absolutely.
And I can only imagine coming in 2002 with the disaster which happened in 2001 with the
US, that application must have taken three or four times longer than usual.
The issue that I'm finding right now with my visa is that post pandemic is people are
still catching up in the system.
And so, whereas before it could have been 12 to 14 months waiting and then you might
have to go in for a few interviews and meetings, I'm coming up on 12 months now and I have
zero idea.
I don't have a work visa.
I don't have a travel visa.
I'm honestly stuck here for the time being.
And so, yeah, I'm just playing it day by day and just getting through it.
Well, we're going to get into your mental health journey, but just to jump ahead while
we're talking about now, it's funny.
The one thing that the pandemic did, whatever people's perspective and I mean, to me, the
middle ground is where the truth is.
It was a real virus, but it was also reliant on the health or ill health of the people
on how we fared with that virus.
But what ended up happening was a loss of autonomy.
A lot of people were told to stay in their homes.
The places where they would healthily decompress were closed down.
And there is a real stress from the loss of autonomy that can be very detrimental to our
mental health.
Now you find yourself in this immigration kind of middle space.
Has that had any kind of negative effect that you can't just pack up and pursue the things
that you want to pursue at the moment?
My mental health has definitely been affected in this kind of phase of limbo.
But ultimately, I'm trapped in a country which has so much diversity.
And for me, one of my main passions growing up and everything was reptiles and amphibians.
I love snakes.
I love lizards.
I love frogs.
You know, like that was like my thing.
So being in the US, I can go anywhere really and find cool animals.
And I know that you're in Florida now.
I was just in Florida at the end of last year and which was only a month and a half ago.
But the end of last year I was there and I was with one of my friends down there.
I've been there a few times now and I was helping out with different camera trap projects
and just went down there and I had that freedom to because I was still in the US.
And I've got some great friends in Arizona and I go down to Arizona as well.
So I get these breaks away from the kind of like hustle and bustle of the city.
I'm a little bit further north than Seattle, but still I'm in like there's traffic and
there's fireworks going off and there's all these different things.
And so I do to some degree feel a little bit trapped here, but at the same time I have
the mountains super close by.
In summer there's some incredible hikes and there's some just incredible scenery around
here.
And I'm making a good connection with like some good people here and friendship groups.
And it definitely has been a little bit tricky here.
Making friends.
I'm a Brit that basically loves animals more than people and I love being outdoors a lot
more than the majority of these Seahawks and Mariners fans.
It's one of these things where it is a tricky kind of thing to try and make friends at,
you know, I'm 30 years old with just, you know, kind of newer people.
But I'm fortunate that my wife, she has a very good friend group here and a very good
family unit here.
And so becoming and having fun with these friends and some of these people, it's been
fairly easy.
But I am very fortunate with being in the US, being able to travel to different states
and see different landscapes and animals and being incredible people.
I can relate to that.
When we were, when I was back home younger, I never had a football team.
I'd support the England team, of course, every two and four years.
But growing up I saw the mob mentality of the 80s and a lot of the negative sides.
So I just, I love playing footy.
I was a sportsman, but I never really got into the whole watching.
And so in the UK with football and in here with baseball, basketball, American football,
you know, if that's the topic of conversation, I'm, you know, I'm kind of out.
So it's interesting, you know, when you're finding your tribe, when you're finding that
group and you had a tribe, obviously in the UK military, and we'll get into that, but
it's finding the right kind of people.
And this is what's been so amazing about this podcast is when I have conversations with
people like you and John and other great humans, they're so nurturing.
Whereas if you talk about a football game and you know, that's absolutely fine if that's
your thing and that's your decompression.
But you know, at the end of it, you've talked about someone else playing a sport when you've
learned from, you know, a mental health practitioner or a soldier or, you know, whoever it is,
you've kind of learned a little bit, you've grown a little bit.
So that's kind of what I found myself leaning towards.
And it can be someone who's never delved deeper than that before, but if I do engage in someone,
you know, I don't want to talk politics, I want to talk sports, I want to learn about
who they are.
And you know, when people open up, it's, it's incredible the stories that human beings have
if they can get past that kind of distraction that's kind of, you know, put in front of
our eyes.
Absolutely.
No, I agree.
And there's, you know, you see, you should never judge a book by its cover, especially
with people because you never know what they've gone through.
You never know the stories that they have.
And I found, you know, when I have gone to Florida or Arizona, and we've been around
a fire, and it's been like a long day, and we've, you know, been hiking all day, like
some of the true stories really come out and you really like, even though you think you
know somebody, you really don't until you've kind of like, had a serious deep conversation
with them sat around a fire, you know, shared a meal together.
But yeah, no, it's definitely the human mind is pretty incredible.
Absolutely.
Well, you mentioned the UK.
So let's start the very beginning of your timeline then tell me where you were born
and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Yeah, so I was born in Portsmouth in 1993.
I was there because my dad was in the Navy.
And so about six months into my life, we moved all the way up to Scotland.
And then we was in a naval base in Helensburgh.
And that's where my sister was born.
And so it was me and my sister for the first 13 years of growing up, my dad had kind of
like, you know, gone to the Gulf War and done a few other different bits and pieces.
And after 12 years of service, he decided to leave the Navy.
And then we moved down to Essex.
And that's where my brother was born.
And so we're kind of all dotted about the place.
And yeah, so I've got my brother and sister, my mom and dad still together, still happily
married, I honestly don't know a couple which is kind of as happy as that maybe because
my mom wears the trousers and he just says yes, like that's probably just how it works.
But yeah, I grew up in Essex.
I spent a lot of my kind of like teen life in Essex and, you know, the skateboarding,
the smoking weed, the kind of getting the fake ID and going to nightclubs and pubs before
I was old enough.
And I just didn't know what I really wanted to do with my life.
I hated school.
I just couldn't get on with the education system.
I found myself kind of like itching to just always be outside.
But you know, I was trapped in a classroom.
And so therefore I became the class clown and was always in trouble and was always getting
detentions.
And then so when I left school, I, you know, got a job in working in a kitchen.
I love cooking and I've always kind of cooked.
And I just thought like, what am I doing with my life?
Like how am I going to, you know, look back in 20, 30 years and be like, oh, I'm proud
of what I did.
And at that moment in time, I couldn't think of anything.
So my dad kind of said to me like, Harry, you know, you're getting a little bit older.
You're going to be 18 in the next, you know, kind of six, seven months or whatever.
What are you planning on doing?
Because, you know, when you're 18, you're old enough to vote, you're old enough to do
this.
You're going to have to figure it out.
I said, I just have zero idea.
I don't know what I want to do with my life.
I have hobbies and I have passions, but I'm not really like, I don't really know how to
like make that career or make money from it, especially in the UK.
And he said, just join the Navy.
Like that's what I did.
And I was like, I'm not fucking gay.
Like I'm not joining the Navy.
I've always kind of joked with him and, you know, he was on the submarines with a bunch
of men.
I'm like, you must have got bored at some point in your life.
You know, we joked about it and he goes, yeah, it's okay.
Like the Navy is obviously not for everybody.
And so I was talking to my mom the next day and I was just like, no, dad was talking to
me about this.
I hadn't really thought about it.
I don't know what to do.
She goes, well, you don't have to join the Navy.
You can join the Marines or you can join, you know, the army or the air force.
Like if that's what you want to do, like you could do that.
And so the next day we went to the, um, the kind of like, uh, it was kind of like a shopping
center and they had like a military kind of sign up for the army there.
And I just went in and just spoke to someone and they're like, yeah, join up.
And I was like, okay, I guess.
Like I had no idea.
And so they said, come back in a week, you'll do a test and then we can figure out, you
know, how clever you are and what jobs you can do.
And it's called the bar test.
And so I went in and I did this bar test and I got a list of like 120 jobs that I could
do.
And there was like things in there like dog handler and, you know, chef and mechanic and
all these different things.
And I was like, no, I just want to, I want to be an infantryman.
I just want to, I want to be on the frontline.
That's it.
Like if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.
And like naive 17 year old Harry Turner was just like, you know, go out there and just
kind of like, I don't know, make your country proud.
I don't know what the hell I was thinking.
And so I did a few tests, physical training tests and you know, other things like that.
And they said, right, you're going to go off to basic training September 4th.
And I was like, okay.
And my birthday is September 2nd.
So I was like, I get to spend my 18th birthday with family and friends and then that's it.
You know, so I had my 18th birthday packed my bags the next day on the 4th.
I went to I see ITC, Katarik and spent six months in training there, which was honestly
like some of the hardest training I've ever done.
I did it from, you know, September all the way through March.
And so there's some very cold months, especially up in North Yorkshire and just, you know,
bayonet training by like smashing ice with your elbows and you're just crawling through
ice water for like, it felt like a very long time, but it was a hard training.
And then I got out of training and I went into my battalion and I spent two weeks in
my battalion and then I was shipped off to Afghanistan and I spent, you know, another
six months there.
So that whole year of turning 18 and becoming 19 being, you know, a nobody to, you know,
being broken down to then being sent off to Afghanistan as a battle casualty replacement.
I basically just went there to replace someone who was either injured or dead and then spending
time there at 18 years old and then coming back.
It like I never ever cried in Afghanistan.
I never got upset in Afghanistan.
I saw some horrific stuff, but I never emotionally felt like I had to express that.
Like I had to release the pressure or something.
And then as soon as I got back and work was kind of just like, oh, we don't really know
what we're doing anymore.
Like go back to your rooms and go play on your PlayStations or, you know, drink your
life away, go do whatever you want.
And I was just for four or five months.
I just had no purpose.
And my head was just going and going and going and I was thinking about all the stuff I'd
seen.
I was not sleeping.
I was drinking excessively.
I was just, I was getting super, super sick.
And yeah, I kind of broke down.
I just lost it.
And I only did one tour and I know a lot of people have done a lot more.
And a lot of people will say to me like, oh, you did one tour.
Like you're that's, you know, you did it.
Like you're good.
But like I felt like I just hadn't completed what I should have completed.
I didn't do my four years, you know, after I got medically discharged, it was like more
like three years and a few months.
And so for me, like I felt like I'd failed.
I felt like I went to Afghanistan and failed.
Even though I came back alive, I felt like a failure.
And I felt like I was letting all the people in my battalion down because I was just mentally
not there.
And then I felt like I was letting my family down because I was just like this kind of
like sad excuses, a human that kind of went to war.
And, you know, I didn't see a great deal of stuff, but the stuff I did see really tortured
me.
And yeah, I just felt like a massive failure and just, I don't know, just, I just didn't
want to live anymore.
I want to go back to early life and then obviously we'll get to your homecoming and the struggles,
which is not uncommon whatsoever.
But while we're in the early life still, and the reason I ask this, as I interview more
and more and more people, I become more educated and we're almost 900 interviews now.
And I realized that first responders, military, a lot of us in uniform have some, you know,
maybe a lot of trauma prior to us ever putting the uniform on that we don't think about.
So if, you know, as you kind of very briefly touched on in a documentary, you know, there
were some scenes that you witnessed that were extremely traumatic while you were in uniform,
but that is built on the foundation of what you brought through the door.
Now you mentioned that your parents are happily married.
When you look back now with this kind of older wiser lens, were there any elements of your
early life that you think contributed to your struggles later?
Yeah, I do.
My grandma was like a huge inspiration to me and she was a huge kind of like religious
person, a very godly person, went to church all the time and, you know, was always talking
to us about believing in God and all these things.
She I guess she was like my rock, you know.
I loved her to pieces.
She's my mum's mum.
And so she was married to an Irishman and my grandparents were like, I love them to
pieces.
And my grandma got extremely sick with, you know, several forms of cancer and just died
rapidly.
Like, I remember seeing her and then seeing her like six weeks later and she was like
half the weight she was.
And my face was just unrecognisable, like hair falling out, like I couldn't recognise
her and it was awful.
And I remember just like thinking if there's a god and this woman truly believed there's
a god, where the hell are you?
Because this is sick, you know.
And all this crap with like, oh, God works in mysterious ways and all that.
Maybe he does.
Maybe if there is a god, you know, I personally don't believe in God.
I believe that there's more of a spiritual thing and I'm more of a scientist.
So I kind of more believe in evolution.
And then that was just like awful.
And then like a year later, my granddad passed away from cancer as well.
And so my mum went from having, you know, two kids and both her parents to having three
kids and no parents.
And it was just like this horrible kind of traumatic time where I wasn't sure, like whilst
I was kind of becoming more of a teenager, what was kind of like hormonal and what was
kind of like, I guess, just awful life, you know, just existing and what was kind of like,
I just didn't know what was normal.
And I think that that's about it really.
Like I look back with wiser eyes and think that I put a lot of pressure on myself as
well to have a relationship like my parents.
And I just don't think it's normal.
I've never seen them fight.
And I think they've had like one argument in their life.
And to someone like me, who is very kind of, I'm very precise and exact with a lot of the
things I do, I wouldn't really necessarily call it like OCD or anything like that.
But I'm definitely, you know, a little bit there on the spectrum.
And seeing people be so happy and then, you know, getting in your first relationship and
then having your first argument and you're like, oh, no, no, this is not the person for
me because we have one argument and it was, you know, five minutes long.
No, this isn't right.
My parents didn't do it.
So I shouldn't do it.
And I look back on that and I just think, you know, that's not a healthy way to kind
of look at it.
But I last year got a therapist.
First time in my life I'd ever spoke to anybody about some of the stuff I'd done.
And we've been talking about pre-war and post-war.
And what were my kind of like issues and triggers and what were my issues and triggers afterwards?
And before you go into the military, you don't have a test done to see whether you have PTSD
of any kind.
You just get chucked in the deep end.
And then when you come out of it and they say, oh, you know, you got some similar traits
to PTSD, but you know, like you just, you just as a little bit depressed, you know,
get out.
I'm trying to, you know, I'm talking to my therapist and now trying to figure out, did
I have some of these issues before going to war?
And have they just been heightened, tweaked and made worse because of war so that now
I struggle with complex PTSD?
Or, you know, was I a normal somewhat kid going through hormonal changes and then I
went to war and then I came back and was completely, you know, messed up.
But because we don't have the data and the kind of like information to show previous,
I'm trying to work through what I was like before that.
And I definitely have some issues.
Obviously, I am way better off than a lot of people in this world, but I definitely
did struggle slightly before the military.
And then obviously afterwards I struggled severely with mental health, self-harming,
suicide attempts and just daily struggles of, I guess, just not feeling like I should
be part of this world.
Firstly it's an interesting perspective when you have parents who have an incredible relationship
because I've never thought of it in reverse.
You know, there's a lot of people out there that thought their extremely toxic family
that they grew up in was normal.
And that ended up being their baseline that they ultimately had to stop that domino from
falling and they didn't pass it on to their children too.
But when you happen to be born into a great family, and obviously we get glimpses of your
parents in the film too, I'd never thought of it that way.
That sets you up for this is what it should look like.
And you know, for anyone, anyone who has not fallen in love with their childhood sweetheart
and then married them and happily married, it is a montage of good and bad experiences.
You know, relationships that last a day, some last five years, but we're all chasing that
one.
But that only exists for a few people.
Sometimes it takes us multiple people to finally find the person.
And my second marriage is my soulmate and that was I met her at 38.
But also when I think about what you've told me, you know, the feeling trapped in school,
you know, the classroom isn't the right fit for everyone.
And then even your transition into the military, and I'm curious if this is how it felt, you
create this tribe, you're training with the men and women that you got recruited with
and that became your battalion.
And then you get plucked out and put into somewhere else as a replacement.
So you almost kind of lost your tribe in that element too.
What factor in the soul did you feel like you didn't belong initially when you found
yourself overseas in a different unit?
As I was the young looking, blue eyed, blonde haired kid that kind of like got chucked out
there, it was definitely hard.
You know, I was in a battalion with people who had been on tour before, people who were
a lot older, a lot more experienced.
And you know, I have my fair share of crude jokes.
But once you kind of get with some of these kind of more weathered and worn people, you
really start to be like, wow, like, I am nothing like these people.
And so going from training, where I had, you know, where I had a group of maybe 25, 30
people that I spent six months with, I, you know, I still talk to a lot of them.
A lot of them are great friends of mine.
A few of them are still in.
A few of them got out after a few years.
I became very close with them people because I had to, you know, I was going to bed at
one in the morning and waking up at five in the morning.
And I was with these guys every single day.
And then when we got to a point in training where we were actually able to leave, you
know, the base, we would go out and we would go drinking and we would, you know, go paintballing
together and we would do everything together.
I think I went home in training like three times in six months.
And that was because Christmas and that was because I can't even remember what it was.
But like, it was just because I didn't have to go home and I didn't.
And so I was with these guys constantly.
And then in training, we were training for infantry, but not for battalion.
So then we get picked out of our, you know, we get to choose, okay, do you want to go
to this battalion, this battalion and, you know, okay, there's enough space for this
person, this person.
So I, you know, chose the first Royal Anglin Regiment.
And only about three of the people who I was in training with went over with me.
And then when I was there, my battalion had already, the day that I got there, they were
packing and then three days later they'd flown to Afghanistan.
And so I had to stay back to do the required training for two weeks before I could fly
out to Afghanistan.
Then I had to do more training in Afghanistan with random people.
Then I had to become, you know, part of this battalion where we're brothers, we have each
other's backs, we, you know, would do anything for them.
I had no idea who they were.
How are they going to trust me to save their life if that really came down to it?
How are they going to, you know, allow the trust of me?
And it was a, it was a really kind of like difficult time and being 18 and being kind
of like this young, I was, I looked young.
I was young mentally.
I was naive, like all of these different kinds of things.
Like I went out there and I was just very shocked about kind of what predicament I'd
got myself in.
I found myself often thinking like if I had done the bar test again and chose one of these
different professions, would I be in a different, you know, state of mind right now?
So I want to ask you about the deployment and the way I phrase it really is because
and it's not so bad in the UK, I don't think, but certainly out here in America on, on the
media, we get a very polarized view of war.
You see the very pro war, kill them all, like I'd sort them out or a very anti war.
They're all baby killers.
And in the middle are literally in this case, the children that we send overseas wearing
our flag on their shoulder.
So you know, it's getting their actual perspective boots on the grounds perspective.
And it's a two part question.
The first part, regardless of the politics that sent you to Afghanistan specifically,
was there a point where you witnessed some horrors that you realized there were some
horrific people that needed to be addressed?
That's a good question.
Yes, I did.
Probably within the first five days of being there.
This is a hard question.
I went out there because I was made to go out there.
Obviously I joined the infantry to do a job.
But when I was out there, I didn't really understand what we were out there for.
And my job in Afghanistan was to work with the Afghan national army and the Afghan national
police to train them to work better together and to understand kind of like groupings and
you know, patrols and communications between others.
So that then when the British and the US armies left Afghanistan, they were able to go about
their lives as if we were still there.
But you know, with more of a kind of like slower pace because Taliban were retaliating
to issues with foreign militaries.
And I guess like it was one of these things where when we were there, we were trying to
do good.
But ultimately, like when I was there, I was like, why am I here?
I have no idea what I'm doing here.
And I remember we were teaching people how to use an AK-47 as if they didn't already
know how to use an AK-47.
But it was, you know, we were on the firing range and we were looking at kind of like
groupings and we were looking at kind of like ways that you could kind of fire a weapon
and make sure it's safe for somebody and cover and all these different things.
And one guy just turned around with his AK and just pointed it straight in my face and
was saying something that I couldn't understand.
And I was like, you know, am I going to die?
Like I had no idea.
I'm trying to teach these people what to do and I'm literally staring down the barrel.
And then chaos breaks loose and everything kind of like is just kind of jumbled up because
people are just like trying to figure out what's going on.
And then the translator later on at dinner after we kind of settled it was like, oh,
yeah, he's Taliban.
He just wants to know what we're trying to train everybody.
And everyone was like, what?
So we're teaching the Taliban what we're meant to be teaching the Afghan National Army so
that then we can send them out so they already know what's going to happen.
So then what?
Like, why are we here?
What are we doing?
You know, and then no one said shit.
Like people were just like, oh, well, you know, they'll figure it out themselves, you know.
And it was kind of one of these things where it was like, I'm not talking badly on the
British military.
I'm talking badly on the Afghan military or the police.
But it was just a lot of people in one place not understanding what their role was, me
included, and people just wanting to be that hero.
And a lot of people in the military out there were just wanting, you know, kind of like
kill counts and just wanting kind of to feel like they can do something illegal legally.
And it didn't sit very right with me.
I've heard that from quite a few people.
And obviously, and I'm going to get to the other side of the coin, you know, there is
a lot that our men and women did in uniform, you know, that did make a difference.
They did add security and put water back in towns and reopen schools and those kind of
things.
But there's a lot of them that said we would just cycle.
You know, you get up, you do your patrol, you come back, you get it.
And they've never felt like there was a kind of, you know, a plan.
Like what is the exit strategy?
And then you add in obviously the mass exodus of Afghanistan and now all these people that
serve that did so much, some left, you know, physical health there, you know, lost limbs,
some left their mental health there, some left, you know, their men and women deceased
there.
And then we pull out and then, you know, you add to that mental health question.
But I think as people are starting to unpack some of these conflicts now, I'm hearing more
and more Afghanistan, you know, Iraq, these veterans saying usually at the beginning,
yeah, we were doing good.
But then why did we stay and stay and stay and stay?
Now again, this is a firefighter talking, I am completely outside the circle looking
in.
But hearing these same kind of conversations over and over again, these are coming from
our men and women that were out there in these countries.
Yeah, and it's I also, you know, as just one person have kind of witnessed this.
And I've also spoken to a few people who I was in Afghanistan with about similar things.
And so it's you know, is a very recurring kind of conversation.
And also, probably one of the main reasons why my mental health really did deteriorate
is because I felt like I was part of like a huge mass murder.
And I was just another number put into this kind of thing where it was like, kill, kill,
kill, let's just go for it.
And it's just, you know, I felt responsible for not the deaths of the bad people, but
the deaths of collateral damage, and people who didn't deserve it, and people who just
living their lives.
And you know, the kids throwing rocks at the mastiffs and everything like that.
It was like, these little shits that throwing rocks at us and blah, blah, blah.
But what would I have done at age 10 or 11?
If a different country had come over to the UK and were killing people like my uncle and
great uncle and cousins, and you know, didn't give a crap, and they were just rolling through
in big tanks and trucks and would just kind of like, I would have done the same, I would
have thrown rocks at them.
So looking back on it, you know, I was like, I feel terrible.
I feel sorry for these innocent people.
And yeah, a lot of my trauma is because of the kids.
Well, I mean, firstly, that's humanity.
You know, I mean, you should care.
And this is the thing.
This is it.
There shouldn't be shame in that thought.
Now, are you thinking about that in the middle of a gunfight?
Of course not.
You're trying to, you know, protect your own people and get home safe.
But you know, when you have that afterthought, absolutely.
And I've had many veterans on here that have been in tears talking about some of the collateral
damage, some of the innocents that were killed, you know, during some of the conflicts that
they were around.
But then there's also the organizational betrayal.
There's an element of trust.
If you are going to join a fire department, a police department, a military branch, that
the people above you are going to make the right decisions and minimize hopefully the
time of the conflict, minimize the collateral damage.
And then, you know, that doesn't happen.
Now you're kind of it's kind of a bait and switch.
Then you've got these men and women that signed up for the absolute right reasons, went out
there for the right reasons.
And then on occasion, you know, they're asked to do the wrong things, you know, and the
things that is a reoccurring theme in Afghanistan specifically, a lot of the special forces
guys I had on here were like, we should have gone in primarily with special forces, taken
out the training camps, taken out the key targets and then left again.
You know, and even I've had Afghanis on here.
They're like, you are doing amazing things.
And then Iraq happened and it got diluted.
You all went there instead.
Taliban got stronger.
And then we ended up staying there for decades.
So again, fire fire that knows almost nothing about this.
But when I hear the same reoccurring thing, now you bring these men and women home and
they get to ruminate on what they did.
This is one of the reasons why I think it haunts so many of our veterans.
I definitely agree with that 100%.
Well the other side of the question is kindness and compassion, something we also don't really
see on our screens.
So in those those six months that you're out there, whether it's from your own soldiers
or the indigenous people that you were there to help protect, what were moments of kindness
and compassion that you remember?
I remember that there was, we was on a patrol and I can't really remember exactly what happened,
but I remember that we were kind of like trapped.
Radio signal was a little bit bad and we were kind of like in this area where we were like,
I don't really know what we're doing here.
Something's wrong.
I know that something's wrong.
And this Afghani opened his doors and was basically like, come in.
You have a place to stay, you have shelter.
And I remember sitting on the floor surrounded by bowls of rice and bowls of different kind
of foods and breads.
And we took our shoes off and we went in and you know we were like, what the hell are we
doing here?
And then we took our like gloves off and we were just eating with our hands, with our
legs crossed on the floor with this family and we had no idea who they were.
And they just wanted to make sure that we were safe and that we were all right.
And then I, so I'm writing my book at the minute and we'll get probably onto that in
a little bit, but whilst writing my book, I have been kind of going back to times of
Afghanistan to times of Khan, Keanu, even, you know, growing up, I'm kind of doing an
autobiography, but with some, you know, some of the stories that I've done.
And it doesn't really fall under your question of kind of like kindness and compassion, but
I remember going out one day and I was on top cover of the Mastiff.
There had been an explosion and it was like three in the morning and we had to go out
and so we went out and I had the night vision on and I remember just kind of pulling up
to this area and seeing people running off with like limbs.
And I remember like looking into the dirt and it was kind of blood stained and there
was like fingers and toes and whatever, you know, I could try and picture.
I can't even, it was so messed up that I didn't know what I was looking at.
And so we're kind of like in this between two mud walls in this Mastiff and I'm looking
about and I'm like, where the hell are these people going?
I don't know if I'm going to get shot at because I'm at the top.
Like I have no idea.
So the decision was made to turn back and come back when it was light.
And so we got back and I remember just like laying on my cot bed, just shaking because
I was like, what are we going to go back to tomorrow?
And we went back and there was rocks piled on top of each other.
And it's a way that the kind of kids in Afghanistan let other people know that there's an explosion
or an explosive in the area.
And they put these rocks out as kind of like a warning.
And I remember pulling up and seeing these rocks piled up and piled up on each side because
I was on the top cover again.
And we get to this area where we had just turned around and there was bloodstained sand
everywhere.
And I'm just absolutely petrified.
I'm like, these people have been here.
I just saw them running away.
Are they still in hiding?
What is going on?
And then all of a sudden I'm just like reflecting on my life.
Am I going to see my family again?
Like all these things running through my head and this Kingfisher just flies up and just
lands like on the wall.
And I don't know what species it was.
It had like oranges and blues and whites and like it was just like this beacon of hope,
you know?
And it just changed my mood completely.
And in my book, I talk a lot about my mental health and how animals and how nature have
healed in many ways.
And people underestimate the beauty of Afghanistan.
It is an absolutely incredible and beautiful country.
And I would go there happily again just to see the beauty of it again.
And this moment of Kingfisher calmed my nerves, calmed my anxiety, calmed everything.
The team got out and they did, you know, their sweep, just checking if there was any more
explosions anywhere.
There was not the people who were trying to bury the IED had blown themselves up trying
to place it to kill us.
It was something along the lines of like a five or six kilogram explosive that would
have easily shot the tire of a mastiff, you know, 200 feet.
Like it was a big explosion.
And just the surrounding and the natural beauty and everything just changed my whole viewpoint
of that one experience going from death, destruction, anxiety ridden, like horrible feeling to then
one animal.
And that was it.
Amazing.
Well, I want to get to that part of your journey before we do.
When you reflect, how embedded were you in nature?
And did you have any pets growing up prior to even entering the military?
Yeah, growing up, I always wanted a snake.
That was like one thing that I always wanted.
Mum and dad were like, no, we'll compromise and we'll get you a hamster.
So I named the hamster Snakey because I was like this.
And then, you know, I was like, still want to snake and they're like, let's get some
rabbits.
And, you know, we had a dog as well and cats.
And I remember when I got my first snake, I was just like over the moon and just like
a red rat snake, a corn snake, you know, what you have in Florida.
And yeah, so I kind of grew up and I was actually talking about this with my with my neighbor.
I walk our dogs in the back of the forest where I live.
And we were talking about, you know, because I grew up in naval bases, was there like any
forests and stuff that I could kind of escape to.
And, you know, there were there were kind of like wooded areas that we could go to and
we'd walk the dogs and living in Scotland for seven years, there were mountains and
just like it was it was really beautiful.
But I never really like and because I was so young, I had to kind of obviously do what
mum and dad were doing.
So I never really like I never really kind of like went into nature just alone.
But when I moved to Essex, I got into trouble all the time with my parents because they
would be like, right, you got to be back at this time.
You can't go to the forest.
You can't do this.
I would go to the forest every single time I would ride my bike.
I'd go to the park and I'd go over the little like BMX tracks and I would just wander in
the forest.
And I remember when I was younger, mum was like, Harry, don't go to the forest.
You've got to be back in like an hour for dinner.
Do not go into the forest.
And I went into the forest, climbed this tree, fell out of this tree and landed on this like
broken branch and it went straight into my back, like kind of like my lower back.
And there was blood and I had a snack part of kind of stick in my back.
And on the walk home, I found this feather and I picked it up and I was like, how am
I going to tell mum?
Like, what am I going to do?
Like, do I lie?
Do I not?
And I went back and I was like, well, I found this feather in a tree.
So I climbed it and I fell out.
She was like, you're so full of shit.
I was like, damn, like she's like, I told you not to go to the forest.
But every moment I could, I was trying to get to nature as much as I could.
And so I think it was just natural for me to try and kind of get to a, I don't know,
I guess it was just natural for me to just want to be outdoors, but becoming a teenager
and becoming kind of like conscious of the fact that I needed a career and I needed money
and I needed these things.
It kind of like stopped me from going to nature until I went.
So let's talk about then you come back from Afghanistan, kind of lead me through that
downward spiral that you found yourself before you ended up deciding to go to Peru.
Yeah.
I came back and was ruminating about everything that I had seen and done.
And I was drinking heavily and my nightmares were becoming awful.
I remember having to listen to this one album from Radiohead, The Bends, and I just had
to listen to it on repeat because that was the only album I found that would help me
go to sleep.
And it was the kind of like, I don't even know how to call the noises, but it's like
the reverberation kind of sounds in that album really helped me calm down.
Because I needed to do something to help me sleep and the alcohol wasn't helping and I
was not really, I didn't really have a purpose because we'd come back from Opera XVI and
we didn't really have any kind of goals in sight.
We were just in the barracks and we were just having to keep fit and just in case we might
have to go back in a year or two years or whatever, we're going to continue to do classes
and lessons and we'd go to the fire and range every now and again.
But I started just losing my mind and I started thinking about suicide and I started thinking
about self-harming and I just was getting so heavily intoxicated that these kind of
like thoughts became like what ifs, you know, what if I did kill myself.
I wasn't just thinking like, oh, you know, go hang yourself.
It was like, how would I hang myself?
Where would I hang myself?
How would I hang myself in a way that wouldn't upset my family members or friends?
And then all my friends that, you know, my brothers that I was in the military with were
just drinking and having fun and in my head I was thinking, how are these guys okay?
Like what's wrong with me?
And so I was packing to go on like a week long exercise and I had everything kind of
like scattered out in my room.
I needed to take, you know, I needed to take my first aid kit and I needed to take, you
know, my waterproof notebooks and different socks and talcum powders and underwear and
I need to take this and this and this and I'm just like looking at everything on the
ground and I was just like, just, I was like, I don't want to fucking be here.
Like, I really don't want to go on this exercise.
I'm not in a good head space.
I can't do this.
And so I went to my, I think I went to my corporal at the time and was like, look, I'm
really not doing good.
Like who do I go and see?
I don't know who to talk to.
I don't know what to do.
And he said, how about you go to, how about you go and speak to the Padre?
And I was like, okay.
So I went and spoke to this, this guy and he was like, you know, do you believe in God?
And I was like, fuck no.
Like my grandma died and I really like don't believe in God.
Like this sucks.
Like I just got back from Afghanistan and if you believe that there's a God, then something's
wrong because like, no, I don't.
And he's like, okay.
You know, how are things going?
I was like, I am not doing good.
Like I don't want to be here.
I don't want to go home.
I don't know where I want to be.
I can't sleep.
I have no appetite.
I'm drinking so much vodka just to try and help myself.
Like I, I'm lost and he goes, right, I think you need to go see, like, I need to think
you need to go get like an examination done in the medical office.
And so I went to the medical office and I was just sat there for hours.
Nobody spoke to me.
Nobody came out and I was like, fuck this.
I don't want to be here.
Like this is, this is done.
And so I left and I went back to the part where I said, I went there for hours and nobody
saw me.
Nobody spoke to me.
Like I know that I'm not the only person in this world, but like that was just pure disrespect.
Like I don't want to be here.
I'm going to, I'm going to go home.
And he goes, you can't go home.
You need to get a letter to go home and you need to go through this process.
And so he said, I'll go with you.
So the next day he goes with me and we sit there and I go in and they go, so what are
you, you know, what are you thinking about?
And I was like, I don't know, like suicide.
And they're like, okay.
Have you attempted suicide?
No.
Okay.
Well, what are you doing to kind of like get over that?
And I was like, what do you mean get over it?
Like I have no idea.
Like what kind of questions are these?
And I just remember getting so angry and I was like, are you, are you joking me?
Like I'm here asking for help and you're basically just like questioning me as if I'm like a
suspect in a murder or something.
Like what the, and I was just like, this is absolutely ridiculous.
I was like, give me a note so I can go home because I'm not doing this exercise.
I don't want to be here.
And they were like, well, have you thought about suicide?
And I was like, absolutely.
And so they wrote me a note saying, you know, private Turner has thought about suicide.
He should not be able to use or be anywhere near a weapon.
And so when we would go on exercise and when we would go out running with all of our equipment,
they gave me this wooden gun, like a wooden kind of like cut out of like a SA-80 assault
rifle.
And I had to hold this wooden piece of just cut out kind of like plywood whilst everyone
was running.
They're like, why the fuck are you holding that?
Why are you holding that piece of wood?
And I was like, cause I told them that I was depressed.
And then they basically like have shunned me and they told me I'm not allowed to use
a weapon, even though there's no ammunition, there's no nothing.
We have basically screwed this kind of like yellow cap onto the end of the rifle, you
know, so that when you do have blanks, just in case someone messes them up, it would,
you know, not kill anybody.
And I just got made fun of, like this young kid who can't hack it is now running about
in the field with, you know, everyone who he was on tour with, with a wooden cut out
of an assault rifle.
And I was like, you know what?
And I went to, I went to my Sergeant Major at the time and I, and I just said to him,
I was like, you can keep the wooden cut out.
I'm, I'm leaving.
I'm not until you can like figure out how to deal with mental health and until you can
figure out, you know, and he felt awful.
I'm still talk to him.
He's a, he's a great guy, but he felt awful.
And he said, look, here we go.
Here's a note.
Go home for a month.
Do what you need to do with family, with friends.
Like you'll still get paid, go back.
And when you come back, hopefully you're refreshed a little bit and we can kind of like talk
about medical discharge or we can talk about something like that.
And so I went home and got drunk every single day, but didn't know how to deal with it.
Um, was, I don't know.
I didn't have a purpose yet again, still.
And so I was just at home, just struggling, living under a roof with my parents, which,
um, you know, after you've left home and then you're forced to go back into home with your
parents, even though they love you unconditionally and you love them and you are grateful and
thankful for everything they've ever done for you in your whole life.
It's not the same.
I've been to war.
I was struggling.
Mom and dad were like, Harry dinner's ready.
And I'm like, no, I can't do this.
Like this is, I love you guys, but please, like, I can't just be like, I can't come back
into this setting and be normal and be okay.
And so I wasn't.
And so I went back and I got medically discharged and, um, it took a very long time.
And as soon as I got medical discharge, they said, it's not P you don't have PTSD.
You, um, you have a current depression, uh, because they asked me about my grandma.
Uh, and they said, oh yeah, you were depressed back then.
So this is just part of it.
And I was just, it's just recurrent, you know, like I was like, I thought recurring like
happened multiple times.
Like I was young.
My grandma died.
I got upset.
I told you about it and now you're using it against me.
Like I just don't get it.
And so anyway, they, they discharged me.
I had a little bit of money in my account and I just, I just was like, I need to kill
myself and I don't know how to do it.
So I Googled, um, volunteer work in the Amazon rainforest.
I found a place called fauna forever.
Uh, they had a reptile and amphibian program.
I said, I'm going to go there and I'm going to kill myself.
My mom and dad and brother and sister will think that it was an accident from either
a venomous snake or a tree fall, or, you know, just being in a dangerous country.
Nobody in my family had ever been to South America before me and, uh, booked a ticket
sold as much things as I could.
And uh, and I went there and I had the intention to commit suicide.
So talk to me about what happened when you got there then.
So you, you know, you've grown up in the UK, then you go to Afghanistan for war.
You come back to the UK.
Now you find yourself in a Peruvian rainforest.
So what would the, you know, what were the following weeks and months like for you and
how did that shift that suicide ideation?
So in my, uh, anger and complete, uh, mental block that I had, I had just, you know, blinds
on.
I, uh, I booked this trip with the intention not to return even, I bought a return flight
because I didn't want it to look suspicious.
If I was just going to go there, you know, I, I need, I wanted to make it look as if
like I was actually kind of like trying to figure myself out.
And when I landed after a 30 hour trip, um, from the UK, I then, you know, had to go to,
uh, I think I went to the U S and then down from the U S I stopped in Columbia and then
I landed in Lima.
And then I had a flight from Lima to Puerto, which is like the jungle kind of town.
It took me about 30 something hours to get to Puerto and I get there and I get out and
I'm wearing like black jeans and like a black t-shirt with a black hoodie.
And I have my like military duffel bag filled with kind of clothes and you know, some essentials
I thought that I might be needing.
And uh, I had no idea what they were saying.
I didn't even know they spoke Spanish.
And then I was like looking in my wallet and I was like, I have British pounds on me.
What currency do they use here?
Like how am I meant to pay for a taxi?
I have no idea.
Literally no idea.
And I look, and I was looking through my emails because I'd screenshot it on my phone, some
emails because I didn't have, um, internet roaming for international.
And I think I was with like orange at the time and I'm like looking and I'm like, okay,
so I'm meant to meet somebody here, but I have no idea who this person is.
And I'm surrounded by Peruvians who are all like, you know, tiny little people just rushing
about, grabbing their bags, speaking Spanish at a thousand miles an hour, doing this, doing
this taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi.
And I'm like, what have I done?
I don't know what I'm doing here.
And then out of the kind of like combination of like Hispanic people, this like white girl
just walks towards me and shows you're Harry.
And I was like, thank God.
Yeah, yeah, I'm Harry.
She was like, oh, okay.
I'm Zoe.
And I was like, hi Zoe.
Like, ah, what do you do here?
She's like, well, I'm like the volunteer intern and you know, I'm helping you get from A
to B and you're going to be going up river in about two days, but there's been some rain.
So we're not sure if you're going to be going up.
And then I get to this place and I dropped my bags off and everyone, and I'm just alone
in this house and the police come and the police are like, there's been five missing
people, you know, your volunteer group was here.
And I'm just in my shorts.
First day being there, not knowing what these people are saying in Spanish.
I, you know, it was bit, someone was there translating.
And I was like, I don't know anything about these missing people.
Like I've just landed.
I have no idea.
Well, the week before I landed there, there was a group that went out and they rushed
back to go and see a football match and there was a tree fall.
So they went around it and got lost for like three days in the forest.
So I go to this place and then they're like, there's police everywhere and they're doing
all this.
And, and then I'm like, dude, this is, I don't know what I'm doing.
This is absolutely chaos.
I have no idea.
It was raining constantly.
They said, Oh, you're going to go up tomorrow.
So I packed all my bags up.
No, it's too much rain.
You're going to go up the next day.
I packed my bags.
Okay.
Like we can go and took like seven hours to drive to this boat.
And then on this boat, we were in the rain all the way up.
All of my stuff was soaked.
I was like, Oh man, like, what am I doing?
Like, right.
Eat some food.
Figure it out.
Figure out how you're going to kill yourself over the next few days and just do it.
Just get it done with like, there's people being lost everywhere.
You don't know what language they speak.
Like it's going to be very easy for you to kill yourself.
That's it.
Right.
So next morning I wake up and the dreams I had were just absolutely nuts.
You're in a place with no wifi, with no nothing.
The sounds of the jungle are everywhere.
There's a little bit of electricity from a generator that you can charge your stuff,
but they turn it off.
I meet a few people there and I go out and I catch some snakes and I'm going out and
doing bird surveys and I see my first ever monkey and I see my first ever toucan and
I see my first ever macaws and I'm just like, okay, all right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Tomorrow you're going to kill yourself.
I see my first ever fergalance and it's like five and a half, six foot.
This venomous viper, like this snake is just absolutely gorgeous.
And I'm like, God damn, like I grew up with a corn snake.
Like this is just blowing my mind.
And then I'm finding all these different vipers and all these different things and I'm seeing
all these different monkeys and they're coming down to like, just eat these fruits in these
trees and I'm just like surrounded by nothing but nature and people in like minded conditions
and views, right?
And every morning you're going to kill yourself.
Today you're going to kill yourself.
And then I went out fishing on one Sunday and went out fishing, caught a bunch of fish.
We were going to come back and we were going to fry it up and we're going to eat it with
rice and salad.
And I caught my first big catfish in the Amazon and I was just like, this is cool.
I'm going to eat this.
Like this is what I, I'm not going to bloody Tesco and buying fish out of like a fridge.
I'm catching it in the river and I'm eating it.
And on the way back there's like the cores flying everywhere and then the sun starts
to go down and the bats start taking place with the birds and the sun is reflecting on
the river and the boat engine is in the back and we just kind of like slowly just going
up river and I'm just sat on the boat with like my boots just kind of like dangling over
the edge.
And I just thought, why do you want to kill yourself?
You have a family at home that loves you.
You have like everything that you could possibly ever need.
You're struggling.
You're sad.
Like why do you want to kill yourself?
Your little brother at the time, I think he was like eight or nine at the time, your little
brother is going to miss you and your parents are going to think what they did wrong and
your sister is going to cry for days and your friends are going to wonder what happened.
And I just remember like thinking like, why do you want to kill yourself?
You know, like I had this like epiphany and it was just like on the front of the boat
and I just was like, I don't know, I just went back and I ate the fish that I caught
and I charged my lights and I went on a hike and I found some cool animals and I was just
like, you'll be all right.
And then I spent another two weeks in the jungle and every day I just loved life.
I just loved waking up and I just loved walking and I just loved the rain and I loved the
food and I loved the people there and I loved like the colors seemed colorful again and
the smell smelled smelly and the just I just could hear again and I could like, I don't
know, the gray had just lifted from me after two weeks being in the jungle, 14 days being
in the jungle.
And so I was like, you're going to go home and you're going to spend time with your family
and you're going to get a job outdoors and you're going to go do whatever you want, go
to music festivals, go to this, go to that, whatever.
And so I did, you know, I went home, I didn't kill myself, I went home, I didn't even try
to after them 14 days.
I went back and you know, I started doing bits and pieces and I got a job on a farm
and I went to a festival called Sonosphere and during that festival I saw Alice in Chains
and Master Don and Metallica and just saw like some incredible bands and was getting
paid and was living, you know, like a really awesome summer and just was, I don't know,
just living my life.
And then winter came again and I hadn't been in nature for a while and it started slowly
getting worse and worse and worse and worse and that's when I tried to hang myself.
And then after that failed, it was a really shitty attempt, you know, I guess if you've
ever been so depressed you think that something will help and then when you look back on it
you're like that was so fucking dumb, like why did you even try and attempt suicide in
that way?
And I was like, you know what, I'm selling everything.
I sold my car, I sold my shoes, I sold my TV, I sold absolutely everything and I said
I'm going to the jungle, I'm not going to come back.
So I did, you know, I saved up all of the money that I could potentially save up before
my flight.
I flew to Peru and that's kind of like when, you know, I went back to the same river that
I had had my epiphany on and then that's kind of where filming started for my documentary.
I didn't mean for it to be a documentary, you know, I just was filming because I was
living like this incredible life.
So as, you know, we start seeing you through the film, you know, you obviously, it's you
and Sam, they're together and then you come across an Esselott called Khan.
So walk me through again the element of healing that you found through bonding with a cat.
Yeah, so I kind of was there and this Esselott needed help, you know, it was taken from its
mother whether the mother was killed or whether it was just kind of found in a tree that they
had cut down and they were going to take it to sell it for more money because you could
sell an Esselott for more than what the trees were, honestly.
And we argued for like seven hours forwards and backwards and, you know, these Peruvian
guys had machetes and shotguns and they're like, we're not giving you this cat.
And I'm like, I don't want this cat.
This cat needs help.
If you take it on this road and you take it back, it's going to die.
You're not going to get any money for it.
You're not going to get anything for it.
They said, buy off me $250.
As I dude, if I had $250, I would consider it, but I do not have $250.
And I'm a white guy.
If I am seen buying a wild, you know, exotic animal from you guys, I'm fueling a fire,
which is just never ever going to be put out.
And I was like, I'm not buying it from you.
Like I'm going to argue with you and I'm going to try educate you.
And I'm going to say, look, I think that this is going to be a better idea.
And so I bought them dinner instead of paying for the animal.
I bought them dinner and said, look, you've spent time and money bringing this cat down.
I understand living a life is not easy.
Here's some food.
Let's eat and let's talk about it.
And I took this tiny two and a half week old ocelot back and I remember like laying in
my hammock and just had him kind of like on my shoulder.
And he was just kind of like, he was so sick, you know, his, his stomach was bloated with
parasites and he was just like really lethargic.
And so I gave him some, some kind of like anti parasitical medicine with very, very,
very small doses because he was so young.
His eyes weren't even open.
You know, like ocelots usually as, as most kittens do, they usually open their eyes after
two and a bit weeks.
And then they start to kind of like, they have very blue eyes and they, they can visually
see it like about a month and a bit.
So his eyes weren't even open.
Like he was like sick, so I'm giving him these small doses and I'm giving him milk.
And I'm like, you know, just sleeping with him and making sure he's resting and just,
he was so young, I had to like get a piece of wet tissue and like basically like rub
his penis with it so that he would pee because his mom would usually stimulate him to pee
so that he wasn't just peeing over everything, you know, in the fallen tree or, or wherever
he would have been born.
And so, and I, and I knew this because, you know, growing up we had, you know, animals,
but I didn't know this from like a wild standpoint and all these things.
And so after he came back, I was thinking, who can we give this ocelot to?
You know, cause I, I didn't know anything about it.
A few years ago, I was going to kill myself because I was lost and now I'm in the jungle
and I'm finding myself in this predicament where I have this baby ocelot and I'm like,
what do I do with it?
I'm going to go home soon.
And I was like, why are you going to go home?
What do you possibly have in England, which is even cooler than this?
Like, and I'm not like saying it's cool as in like, it's a pet.
I fought to save this animal's life.
And now what am I going to do?
Is give it to someone that it might go to a zoo?
And I was like, no, like I have to see this through.
And so I was like, I'm going to message a few people, see if they have any kind of like
information and all this.
And I just was like, I'm doing this.
And I was like, I'm not going home.
I'm going to stay here.
And then me and Khan are just going to, we're just going to live our lives.
And that was the start of the Khan project.
Now, the goal was to get into a point, not where he was domesticated, but to actually
get him prepared to be a wild cat again.
Yeah, that's right.
The goal was for him to become so independent that he would be able to go off and fend for
himself in the wild.
He would be able to hunt for himself.
He'd be able to survive.
He would be scared enough of humans that he wouldn't come close to anyone other than myself.
And he would just be free where he belonged.
And that was it.
We wanted him to become just this wild cat.
And I did absolutely everything in my power to make sure that he became wild.
I became nocturnal to some point.
I lived alone for months and months.
I walked every single night, whether I was sick or whether I was injured or whatever.
I walked and I hunted.
I learned how to trap animals without using a weapon.
I had a little air rifle that I would shoot rats with if they were in my kitchen.
I made a slingshot so that I could slingshot birds out of the trees.
I was hunting for him and sharing everything with him and spending every hour of waking
day with him and teaching him what were the dangers of the forest and what were edible
and what was...
And in turn, he was teaching me so much.
I learned so much from this cat.
He taught me so much.
And it wasn't just teaching me how to love myself again or love anything again.
It was teaching me about the rainforest.
It was teaching me about sounds.
It was teaching me about direction, navigation.
He really put me on a path to success, obviously, until...
Well let's go there.
When I was watching it, and I'll preface this, I posted a video this morning that moved me
so much that I was in tears the whole fucking time.
I was trying to do the text that went with it, trying to put the subtitles on and make
sure that they lined up.
And it was a young man with Down syndrome going to his mother's grave site to tell her
that he just graduated.
And I'm actually welling up now just thinking about it.
It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
And then I watch your film and then I watch the bond that you have with Khan.
And it was beautiful.
I showed you my dog right before we hit record.
I had a German Shepherd prior to her and I have this little one now.
But when there's that bond between a human and an animal like that, whether it's a horse,
an ocelot, a dog, you can't even put it into words, but the film captured it so beautifully.
When you're both lying there on the forest floor and you send them off to go chase, I
forget what it was now, you see that.
So at that point, we realized just how beautiful a relationship that is.
So talk to me about what did happen next with Khan specifically.
Yeah, so I was fairly confident that he was getting to a point in his life where he was
going to be able to go off and start hunting and doing everything.
He was going off for hours and hours every single night and coming back with a full belly.
And I was watching him and helping him catch rodents.
And he was catching small caiman and I was teaching him all these things.
And we got to a point of where it was like, right, he's going to be a year old soon.
Like I'm really excited for the next four months because it means he's going to start
becoming this cat that I've worked so hard to get him to this point.
I've worked and I've exhausted myself and I've been in this country illegally because
I've missed my exit time and everything was dependent on Khan and he had to be successful.
Whether it was going to take another six months or another two years, I was going to ensure
that he was going to be a wild cat.
And one night we were just walking and someone had set up a, it was like a poachers track,
like a sawn off shotgun.
And he triggered it and just, he didn't die instantly, but it blew his right arm off and
I did everything I could to save his life.
And he just bled out and he wasn't able to survive.
He was killed by the greed of humanity.
You could just see the pain through the film and obviously we're seeing it again raw and
I'm sure that's never going to go away.
When we're on this subject for a second, talk to me about that through the Peruvians lens,
because I just watched a documentary on Brazil and some of the indigenous tribes that are
being in some cases murdered as they're logging and deforestation is happening.
What were you seeing around your area specifically?
A lot of deforestation, it's more selective logging.
People would go in and cut down huge, huge ironwood trees, which would be homes to hundreds
and hundreds of animals, whether it be from the smallest insect to one of the largest
birds of praise to ocelot kittens and just plants and fauna and flora.
They would go in and they would kill anything.
They'd kill monkeys to eat them.
They would kill snakes out of fear.
They would cut down these trees and cut them up and take them down river and sell them.
When they're doing their thing, they're setting up shotgun traps or they're going out on
the river and they're shooting different animals just to eat.
In hindsight, I feel sorry for them because their government and their lives are hard
because they are trying to feed their families.
They're trying to just put food on their plates and they're trying to provide for their families
and every tree that they cut down, they probably get like $100 and it's like six weeks work
that they'll go away for and then they'll come back and they might make like a few hundred
dollars in that time.
In Peruvian solace, that's nothing really.
They would just take over the forest and just cut down trees and kill animals and just try
and survive, I guess.
But obviously that meant killing innocent lives and that meant Khan as well.
Well, this is the other side of the story.
I've talked about the Somalian pirates a few times.
I don't have people that were in anti-piracy and all these kinds of things.
You look at the origin story, that's an overfishing of Somalian oceans basically that are then
causing the fishermen to have less and less to bring and there's poverty and starvation
and they turn to crime and you see that in a lot of these other areas.
A lot of times we're responsible, the UK, the US, Australia, the places that are receiving
the goods.
We're the customer of a lot of these things.
I think it's a conversation that we need to be made constantly aware of is our impact
in other countries.
Speaking of impact, I lost my older German shepherd just over a year ago now and it absolutely
fucking devastated me.
I've been a firefighter for 14 years and she was my Khan at that point.
Even though she got to like 10 and a half, it was still young.
She was very, very healthy and a shepherd can live up to 16, 17, 18 years old.
It knocked me sideways and I actually happened to have my younger one.
I overlapped deliberately but it was absolutely brutal.
You pour your heart and soul into this beautiful cat, all of a sudden it's taken literally
the squeeze of a trigger.
What impact did that have on your mental health again?
Now you are a few steps back all over again.
With Khan, I felt like I had won mental health.
I was with him and even though I was struggling still, I was with him and everything was great.
As soon as his heart stopped, so did mine.
I don't really like to make it sound similar to pets and German shepherds because Khan
wasn't a pet.
He was this project which was meant to be going off into the wild and going on to breed
and have offspring and to go back into the ecosystem where he truly belonged.
There's something I just cared about that so much.
I have two dogs here.
I have a dog from Peru called Mika.
My wife actually rescued her and I have a rescue from California.
She's a Doberman, Olive.
I love them to pieces but I definitely didn't.
I don't love them as much as I love Khan and Keanu.
It's a different love because this love here that I have is a partner.
They're going to be with me until they die or until I die, whoever goes first.
They're going to be there and I'm going to love them and support them and feed them and
play with them and they're going to give me so much joy back.
Whereas Khan and Keanu were wild animals that had been put in a really horrible predicament
and it was my job to make them as wild as possible and to make them as ferocious as
they possibly could so that they could go off and so that I could leave them and let
them go so that they can go on to do exactly what they were put on this planet to do.
That love for them is different.
Even though I love my dogs to pieces, I love them in a way which is so completely, is so
much more complex and hard.
But I started cutting myself deeply.
I started thinking about suicide every single day.
I went to Australia and I was handling some of the world's most venomous snakes and I
didn't give a crap because I was like, if I get bit, I'll get bit, whatever.
I'll die.
Thank God.
You know, do a Steve Irwin and kind of go out doing something you're passionate about.
But I was not well.
I thought that I had kind of like overcome some stuff but I had been put back many, many,
many steps in my progressive kind of path.
And yeah, I just did not do.
But something deep down inside me was telling me to go back to the jungle.
I had not finished what I needed to do there yet.
And I didn't know why.
But I was in Australia and I had a year visa to work there and to do all these things.
So I worked there but I only spent six months there because I was like, I can't do it.
My mom was sick at the time so I went home to see her for a few days and then I flew
straight back to the jungle.
I didn't know I had no plan.
I was terrified to go back because I was just so distraught and I didn't know what I was
going to do in the same area that Khan had been killed.
I was angry.
I was hateful.
I was sick.
I didn't give a crap about anyone else apart from me.
That goes for, you know, the native communities and the local people and the gringos in the
area.
Like, I didn't care what anyone thought about me.
I was just in the jungle.
And I would go off for days and days and days and just spend time in the jungle fishing,
catching fish, just like sitting around a fire, just like contemplating what I was doing.
Why did your stomach tell you to come here?
And I've always been a follower of my gut.
Why did it tell you to come back here?
Why?
Like, why, why, why?
And I bump into Trevor, who is one of the directors on Wildcat.
And he said, Oh, I heard from, you know, Paul Rosalie that you've got a pretty cool story.
And I was like, who are you?
You know, like, he met me and I was like in my jacket because it was cold as a thing called
free, oh, hey, where cold weather comes in.
I was like, who are you?
And he follows me on Instagram and I look on now and he's got like 400,000 followers.
And I'm like, who the hell is this dude?
Like, I, I don't care about him.
Like whatever.
He goes, I've heard some stuff.
Can I please see some footage if you've got any?
So I said, yeah, whatever.
Like, what can it do to her?
And he said, I want to make a documentary in memory of Khan.
Would you be open to that?
And I was like, yeah, I guess we could do something along the lines, like whatever.
And so like I showed him some stuff and he was like, crap, man, like this is some powerful
footage.
Um, we've got to try and figure it out.
And so we were kind of in talks and we were going to talk about doing it.
And then I was in the jungle again and I would, I just got on this huge walk and I think I'd
seen like three or four different snakes and I'd seen some really cool stuff.
Um, I come back and there was like, there's another Ocelot in the local community.
And I just remember just breaking down and crying and just being like, this could be
my opportunity to make sure Khan's life wasn't for nothing, you know, like, and so I, I was
sick, you know, like mentally, physically, like I put everything that I possibly could
into Keanu because I knew that I was doing what I did with Khan and it felt weird.
It felt like Khan was my teacher and Khan's life was like this lesson to then teach Keanu
what I had already learned.
And I had, I didn't have to like go through the basics step by step manual.
Like I went and I dove into it.
I did anti-parasitic medicine.
I was feeding him.
We were walking.
We were, we were hunting.
We were like going out for hours and hours and hours and hours and, and, and just beating
the crap out of the forest, you know, just like any mouse we saw, we would tag team it.
I would even try and jump on it or smack him.
I'm a shit alien.
He would go around one side of the log and I would run the other side and I would scare
it into his paws and he would grab it and just rip its head off.
And we were just ripping the forest up.
And it got to a point of where, you know, he was so healthy and it was coming up to
the point of where he was almost going to be a year.
And I was getting petrified that he wasn't going to live, you know, like just reliving
that memory over and over and over and over and over again, just in my head, like, what
about if he doesn't make it?
What about if he's not successful?
Like, this is all about Keanu, but ultimately I want Khan to be present in this and I don't
know how.
But yeah, and then I just, I just spent the next few months just filming absolutely everything
I could, making sure that he was as healthy as possible, making sure that he was fearful
of people, making sure that he was, you know, not super, super like injured after he'd come
back from fights with different cats.
And, oh man, like I, I went full tilt.
I was feral at the time.
My wife's friends call me feral because when I came back from the jungle after doing the
Keanu project, I was just like stick thin, just completely like deteriorated.
My hair was just like an absolute mess and you can kind of see it in the film, you know,
and I'm like leaving and I'm just like, I just don't look good.
Like I look like I'm physically exhausted.
I spent 674 days working with Keanu and out of them days I was illegal in Peru for 510
days and I, in that 674 days I left to go to the city 16 times.
That's days, 16 days out of 674 days.
I spent, I spent a long time in the forest.
I didn't need a watch anymore.
I knew the timings to a, to a five minute interval.
I knew it from the sounds of the birds, from the, from the sun in the sky, from everything.
I knew if there was an animal in the area because the monkeys would make a specific
sound and they wouldn't make the sound that they would make when they saw me or they saw
Keanu or they saw us together, it would be a different sound.
So I knew that there was something over there and we would just like, I didn't use deodorant
for, for years.
I didn't use shower gels or anything like that.
I occasionally use some shampoo and I occasionally just use some soap, but usually it was just
washing myself with water, eating what I could, getting back out, filming, doing absolutely
everything because I needed.
I didn't want this to just be a success.
I needed this to be a success.
This was my redemption.
This was absolutely everything.
And I, I did everything I possibly could.
That was it.
And when I was able to finally let him go, it was one of the absolute hardest things
I've ever done in my life.
So my, my son is 16 at the moment and he basically has about 18 months till he graduates high
school and is probably going to go off to some sort of college somewhere.
And so I'm kind of in an adult world there now, like my, my oldest has already gone.
My youngest is going to be gone probably in this time period.
And you've poured everything into a child now for, in his case, you know, 16 and a half
years, like everything.
If you're trying to, you know, parent correctly.
And there is that there's on the one hand, like, I hope I prepared them properly.
I'm excited for them.
They're going to go out into the wide world.
But on the other hand is that fear and what they did for you, you're going to be losing
that thing that, that, you know, reciprocated unconditional love that you get from a child
most of the time.
So talk to me about that.
How hard was it to finally let go?
And then again, what did the following weeks and months look like after, you know, it was
a mission success, but you'd lost this beautiful creature, not lost, but you, you weren't
present in this beautiful creature's life anymore because you had succeeded.
Yeah.
So I knew that in the next following weeks, I was going to have to leave to go home.
Like there was only one way that I could do it and it was, you know, just taking it day
by day and then just having to just drop everything and leave because mentally I wasn't doing
very well.
Um, even though I was in this most beautiful place, like I, I was, I hadn't seen my family
well, my family had come out to see me and you see that in the documentary, but I hadn't
seen my family properly.
I hadn't been home prop, you know, in a long time, I hadn't seen my friends in forever.
How long?
And uh, I knew that like for my state of mind, I had to kind of go home.
And Keanu at this point was going off for five days and coming back and a little bit
kind of like beaten and battered and weathered, but it's the jungle he's going to be.
And then we'd go out and we'd, you know, and he'd catch like big birds and big rodents
and he'd eat them.
And then I would walk off into the forest and he'd go off and then I would come home
and uh, when I say home, I mean to the platform and uh, he would then return maybe four or
five, six, seven days later.
And at this point I'm just sitting there and kind of, you know, like doing the same thing
that I did after Afghanistan.
I come back and I'm just kind of sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting every sound, oh,
is that Keanu?
No, it's not, you know, it's just a armadillo or whatever.
And so I knew from my sanity that he was going off and he was doing well and he was successful
in my head.
He was already successful.
I just had to then be like, when is the correct time to say goodbye?
Because I need to, I need to for him.
I need to for me and I need to just be like, this project is done.
He's a success.
And so I, you know, like booked a ticket and um, and uh, was just ready to kind of leave,
but at the same time felt awful leaving him because what if, what if he needed me?
What if he got sick?
What if, you know, any of these things?
And so, uh, I, uh, I was just beating myself up and torturing myself because I was like,
you know, he, he isn't, you know, like your kids hasn't got a phone and isn't able to
just be contacted.
Like when I leave him, I'm never going to see him again unless he's super, super sick
and I get a message from Christian or, you know, someone and they're like, I think you
need to come back.
And I was going to just, you know, I had money in my bank set aside in case when I went home
I need is to come back and I'd fly immediately.
Like, it doesn't matter how much it's going to cost me.
I'm getting back.
But I knew that this was probably going to be the last time I was ever going to see him.
And so letting go was an absolutely awful feeling and, um, coming home, I, uh, in the
documentary you see that I surprised my family.
They had no idea I was coming and, uh, it was this just really beautiful moment, you
know, like I, I got to see my family and I surprised them.
And like, I was just like, thank God, like I've done something and I should be proud
of the thing that I've done.
And but new years, well, Christmas came around and new years came around and I just was struggling
to fit back in.
It was this like horrendous feeling of like, I'm back where I belong, you know, at home,
but where I belonged was in the forest and, uh, and I couldn't go back because I didn't
want to get like trapped into that kind of like situation.
I was trapped there before with, with Keanu and, you know, I didn't need to be there and
I definitely didn't want to be there because of the people.
And, um, and so I was like, right, you know, like, what am I going to do?
And I was just like, I was talking to, uh, Lexi at the time who is now my wife and she
was helping me greatly through this process of transitioning from feral as hell to society.
And then the pandemic, and then the pandemic happened and I was stuck in England for seven
months and my, my mental health was just absolutely, it was just like, I just hate, I hated that.
And as soon as I could, I found a loophole where I could fly to Ecuador for one week
and I flew to Ecuador and just stayed there for six months.
And I just lived in the forest.
I discovered a new species of frog.
I was like helping a team called tropical herping.
Uh, some of my really good friends with like research and I was taking cool photographs
of cool animals and, um, you know, seeing some really diverse parts and, and I fell
in love with Ecuador and, uh, and so me and my wife have now started a nonprofit called
Emerald Arch and, um, we are going to be in the next, you know, year or so buying land
in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Uh, currently it's kind of a dangerous place to be kind of low looking, but ultimately
anywhere in the world with people is the dangerous place in the world, you know, and, um, and
with Emerald Arch, we want to protect land and we want to do projects similar to Karnakeanu
and we want to reintroduce potentially and, you know, if they need it, fingers crossed,
they don't need it, but rehabilitate and we want to work with, you know, local communities
and we want to help spay and neuter, you know, domesticated dogs and cats in the area to
stop issues with, you know, interfering with jungle ecosystems.
But the main goal and mission for Emerald Arch is to take veterans struggling with PTSD
to the jungle because, um, if you're struggling with suicidal ideation and you're thinking
about ending your life and self-harming as a constant and, um, what you saw on tour or,
or just being kind of in a military kind of like career, if you go to the jungle, I know,
I know that like I'm one person in this whole world, but I know that nature helps heal and
I know that it helped me from killing myself.
So why can't I take people who also have a love for nature or who are also struggling
to the jungle so that then they can kind of walk like a few steps in my shoes?
And I think that, you know, it's going to be a long road to get everything up and running,
but I think once we do and we have like a few veteran retreats where people can come
for a month and they can, you know, no phones, no laptops, no nothing.
You're in the jungle, you go on hikes, you're doing scientific research, you can go fishing,
you can do whatever the hell you want to do under supervision and with psychiatrists and,
you know, because I went there just to do it.
I didn't have no support.
I want people to have that support where they can go, Harry, I'm not feeling great today.
Do you mind if I take a day off from doing all these things?
And in that, you know, ultimately it's like, well, how are you feeling?
Can we speak to someone like, are you feeling suicidal?
Are you feeling sad?
Are you just missing home?
Are you missing your family?
Like what is it?
And just take them, every person step by step as an individual, how they're feeling and
just try and put them on a path to success in their own life.
Well firstly, I think that's incredible.
The one question that I have when I was watching the documentary, you know, especially towards
the end, and you mentioned about having counseling, which is beautiful.
I mean, as far as the understanding of, you know, community, of purpose, of time in nature,
those are so obvious.
And when we reflect now on what a lot of the governments told people to do during the pandemic,
it was the polar opposite of what actually makes people heal.
So I hope we will learn that lesson next time.
But when we're talking about South America, an incredible healing modality that seems
to have resurfaced from ancient wisdom to current first responders and military members
are the psychedelics, the plant medicines out there.
Were you ever exposed to them in your journeys?
Yeah, I have done ayahuasca.
And so I was doing the Keonig project and I heard that there was like a group of people
down river.
And so I went down and just happened to be the night that they were doing ayahuasca.
And they said, do you want to join?
And I was like, yeah, like, I guess so.
I had just gone through like a pretty traumatic experience the night before where I was actually
reintroducing a monkey.
It was a howler monkey and his mom had been shot for me and he had been shot in the shoulder
through her.
And so I was reintroducing this monkey and we were like climbing in the trees together.
And I came down and I said, Max, you've got to come down.
Like it's dangerous up there without like a group because monkeys are group animals.
And so it came down, I put him away and then like he was crying and crying.
He wanted to come out again.
But obviously I was trying to do the Keonig project as well as this.
So I went out with Keonig and I come back and I let him out and he goes up in this tree
and he's not coming down.
I go, right, okay, I'll go get a banana that I've been growing.
And so I went and got a banana and I went in and I just was, I think I was making a
cup of tea, you know, and I just see this shadow just come over and this Harpy eagle,
largest eagle in the jungle had just taken him from this tree.
And he was screaming and screaming and I climbed this tree and I'm shaking and I'm like three
meters away from this Harpy eagle.
And I'm not joking you, the talons, these eagles take sloths out of trees.
Their talons can go all the way around us.
Like these talons are like inches long.
And he's just like looking at me and he's just so angry and Max is like falling down.
I'm trying to catch Max and I get him to the ground and yeah, just he ripped his spine.
So he was paralyzed.
The puncture wound went through his lungs and it's just nature, you know, like that's
what it is.
He died in a natural way.
And so, you know, I just, even though I get upset about thinking about it, like it was
a natural way that he died.
I you know, obviously in their moments, I'm trying my best to do something.
I'm not a primate by any means.
I don't climb trees perfectly.
Like I have some pretty fucked up toes, but it doesn't mean that, you know, I can just
like walk up a tree and on a branch, you know, 30 feet up.
And I felt so like, ah, this is, this is my fault.
You know, like I felt horrible.
And so when I went down, they said, do you want to do ayahuasca?
I said, you know what, like whatever, give me whatever, just to forget about this.
And I, oh man, it was crazy trip.
Like I have done mushrooms before and I've smoked weed before.
And, you know, I've done a few other drugs in my life, but this was like, I drank one
of the cups and it tastes like, it tastes like you're drinking like a thicker Marmite,
like a thinner Marmite.
Sorry.
Like it's kind of like a liquidy Marmite, a veggie Marmite type thing.
Horrible.
It tastes like crap.
And I drank one cup and I'm like feeling my stomach going and I'm like, okay, you know,
something's happening.
And the shaman comes over and is talking to me and says, because apparently they'd heard
about my story.
Maybe because you've been in the jungle a long time, one cup isn't enough for you.
Maybe you should take two because you're already part of the natural ecosystem.
Like you have been here for so long.
Maybe you should do two cups because clearly your body has just absorbed this and you're
not going to get high and you're not going to have this healing experience.
So I downed this second cup and I was sitting there and my stomach was kind of gargling
and I was like, right, I'm going to vomit.
Like this, this purge is about to happen.
And so I stood up and I went to go get some water and everything felt like it was rushing
by me.
And I went outside and I got onto my knees and I put my knuckles on the ground and I
just project I'll vomit it.
Like all of this anger, hate, it just was expelled out of my body.
And my knuckles are on the ground and I'm like eyes closed and I opened my eyes and
I'm like, where are my fingers?
I thought my fingers are completely gone.
And I was like, oh no, because one of the biggest fears about being in Afghanistan was
that I was going to lose a limb.
So I'm petrified that my fingers have gone and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, this
can't be happening.
Like what is like, have I just woken up?
Like what's going on?
And then at the start of the matrix where it's like all the numerical zeros and ones
and greens, I turned my hand around and it's just like running like the matrix.
And for the next seven hours, I was just in and out of some of the deepest trips I've
ever had.
At one point I was like a hexagonal kaleidoscope type spider just going through the trees,
just spinning webs.
And then I was going through all these different experiences and I didn't feel like I had achieved
anything from this experience, but I definitely felt like I was definitely a little bit happier.
And I walked off into the forest, which I wasn't allowed to do, but I was very good
at just kind of like getting away and just walking barefoot wherever.
I just sat down and I just talked to Khan and I said, like, I love you, man.
Like I'm doing this for you.
And I just absolutely am so sorry that this happened.
And I sang the Chris Isaac song Wicked Game to him as he was passing away.
And I just remember sitting in the forest and just singing Wicked Game because the world
was on fire and no one could save me but him.
Just them lyrics really just mean a lot to me.
And I have Khan tattooed on my throat and it has Wicked Game tattooed underneath on
top.
And yeah, I just sang it to him.
And that experience, I think I was in like a hallucinogenic state for about six to seven
hours and for about three to four days afterwards, I was the happiest I'd ever been.
Crazy and mushrooms as well have definitely helped me.
I microdose on mushrooms, not daily, but once or twice a week, I'll have a few little bits
and 0.2 milligram capsules.
And every now and again, I'll do a little spring cleaning and I'll do like a gram and
really trip some balls.
And then kind of like the last time I did trip out, I was in Eastern Washington and
I was in this mountainous range and the trees were just speaking to me.
They were just waving and the wind was just talking to me and it just solidified everything
that I was doing with Emerald Arch.
Keep saving us, keep saving us, please.
We believe in you.
Really like, I do, it was weird.
And then my friends were like, hey, Harry, we're going to go on a walk.
And I'm like, dude, the trees are speaking to me.
And they're like, oh, fuck, we need to take more mushrooms.
But I've definitely had some kind of like psychedelic help, but I have not found that
it has cured my mental health.
Like a lot of people who have been struggling with PTSD have had some breakthroughs with
whether it be ketamine, whether it be mushrooms or whether it be ayahuasca.
Like I know a lot of people have definitely felt the powers of that, but I have felt the
powers of it briefly.
Well, I'm glad I asked because I mean, again, it's all these different perspectives.
A lot of people I know were in crisis.
They went and did ayahuasca, ibogaine, et cetera.
And there's a lot of them that took multiple goes before they had breakthroughs.
But even then, now you're processing what was in the closet.
You know what I mean?
So I think the more stories we hear, the more hope we infuse because the toolbox is so,
so large.
And for you, clearly, one of the most healing things was simply being in nature and having
purpose like engaging with other beautiful animal souls and going on the journey with
them.
For others, it was EMDR and talk therapy.
That was all they needed.
For me, clearly, the canine element is a huge part of my journey.
So just hearing this combination of all the things that you've talked about today, I
mean, even watching your dad cry on your shoulder when you surprised him, and the joy in your
brother's face when you took him on the walks and he came back saying, I didn't say much,
all these snakes and all these insects and all these animals, these little moments, all
these kind of factor into that jigsaw puzzle.
So it's absolutely beautiful to hear.
I want to make sure that people know where they can find Emerald Arch and support what
you're doing there.
So where's the best place online or social media for that?
Yeah.
So we do have an Instagram, which is just emerald.arch.
And then online, it's just www.emeraldarch.org.
They're the best places that you can really find what we're going to be getting up to.
This last year has been kind of a slow one, getting 501c3 status and going through everything
that goes with the IRS is obviously a pain.
But this year, and hopefully with my visa coming in and being able to travel, buying
land is the first hurdle.
So we're going to have to be fundraising for that.
But if anyone is a veteran or if anyone is struggling with PTSD, you don't have to have
served.
That is not anything that we want to, if you are struggling with your mental health, whether
it be serving in the military, serving in the fire service or just any first responder,
or if you've just had childhood trauma, whether that be abuse in any kind of way or PTSD from
car accidents, whatever it is, if you are struggling and we have the land and we have
everything in place, I want people to be able to just open up to Emerald Arch and myself
because I've been there.
This is a thing, you know, like when you go to psychiatrists and doctors, you don't know
what they've been through.
You don't know if your story is going to relate to them.
You don't know if opening up to them is going to help you in any way.
But if you know that someone like myself has been in a place of darkness and in a place
of absolute chaos, then you might be able to open up and feel a little bit more freer
about trying nature and trying freedom as a healing, as a way of healing.
Absolutely.
Well, the film I know is playing on Amazon Prime right now.
The film is called Wildcat.
If people want to reach out to you specifically, aside from the nonprofit, where are the best
places online and social media?
Yeah, so best place to reach out to me is usually just via my Instagram, which is just
harry underscore underscore Turner.
And I'm usually pretty good at getting back to people.
After the documentary, I had, you know, quite a few people messaging me.
Only a few assholes, which were like, you're an idiot, but a lot of them were really, really
nice messages.
And it really did encourage me to go on to more podcasts and to go on to more platforms
in this.
And it's encouraged me to write my book as well, because I know that this film means
a lot to me, but it also has meant a lot to a lot of other people.
And it has made people understand mental health in a way that they didn't before, because
it's so vulnerable.
And so I will try and get back to people on Instagram as quick as I can.
But usually that's the best way to contact me.
Well, I just want to say thank you.
It's been an incredible conversation.
I acknowledge the fact that when you're reliving some of the things, whether it was Khan, whether
it was the Middle East, it takes a little piece of you pulling the scab off the wound
a little bit.
But I think there's so much value to people hearing the struggles and then seeing the
hope on the other side and then the loss of Khan.
But the incredible story of Keanu and finding out that six months later, he's still thriving
and out there.
But this, again, like I said, this courageous vulnerability is what we need in 2024.
This is what masculinity and femininity actually is.
There's times where we have to be tough and there's times where we absolutely have to
be compassionate with others and with ourselves.
So I want to thank you so, so much for being not only, as I said, courageously vulnerable
today, but also so generous with your time.
Thank you very much, James.
I really do appreciate your time.
And this has been a great podcast.