Welcome guys to episode 160 of Behind the Shield Podcast.
My name is James Gearing and I want to start by saying Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.
I hope you guys get to spend some time with your family.
And this week I have an incredible man who ironically, Christmas Eve is an anniversary
for him.
Royal Marine Mark Omrod who actually knelt on an IED back on Christmas Eve in 2007, lost
both his legs and one of his arms and what happened after that, what his team did, what
the medical staff did, the road to recovery is such an inspirational story.
I know you guys are going to be amazed by his journey and then to come out of that and
be such an altruist and want to help even more just like several of the people we've
had on the show already is another incredible part of his story.
So as I always say before we start the interview, go to your podcast app, subscribe and then
make sure you rate the show, leave us feedback.
I love to hear your comments and then most importantly, share the hell out of this.
Social media can be such a powerful tool if it's used positively.
So take some of these episodes that you've loved and then send them to people you know
who will get something out of them so we can get everyone listening to these incredible
human beings that have been kind enough to share their stories with us here on this podcast.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Royal Marine Mark Omrod.
Enjoy.
Well Mark, if I want to say initially thank you so much for agreeing to come on.
I'm always blown away by people like yourself that I reach out to and immediately you turn
around and say that you'd love to talk to the audience that listens to this show.
So my first thing is thank you very much.
No problem and thank you for saying blown away.
That was the perfect choice of words.
Let me take my foot out of my mouth a second.
You're putting feet in your mouth.
All right so where are you calling from right now?
I am calling from Plymouth in England.
Plymouth sounds familiar.
So that is very close to where I grew up in Bath.
Were you born there originally?
Born in Brennan Plymouth yeah and I was in Bath this week actually.
It was about a three hour drive from where I am but there's a couple of twisty roads
so you know it's not too far in terms of mileage but you know how it goes when the roads are
a bit twisty.
Yeah it's not exactly a straight shot when you're driving in England.
So then if you wouldn't mind I'd just love to explore your family unit because clearly
you know your journey in life created the resilience that you've shown dealing with
the hurdle that you were given.
So what did your parents do and how many brothers and sisters did you have?
So I actually have a twin sister.
Not a lot of people know that.
I don't know why they don't.
It just never really came up in conversation over the years but I have one sister.
She is a twin.
And we were born, my entire family, mum, dad, sister, born and bred here in Plymouth.
My parents I think like most people who were that generation had a couple of jobs over
the years.
My dad's main one was as a toilet.
So he was a ceramic toilet.
He used to do a lot of work with Tesco's on big contracts around the country and then
obviously a lot of private work when he could on people's houses, on our own house.
That kind of stuff.
And yeah my mum had a lot of jobs too.
She worked, you know I can remember them all but she had various jobs over the years doing
what she could to provide for the family.
And I just had a very normal, quite privileged upbringing really.
Did you have any military people in your family or extended family?
So here's a funny story.
Last year my nan who is 86 now, I went round to see her and she said I've got something
that you might like.
So she went off to her room and she got it out and she brought out this little box.
Now I kind of recognised the box anyway and kind of guessed what it might be because you
know being in the military and been on operational tours myself I've received medals over the
years and this box she brought out was what I assumed to be some sort of medal or medals.
So she opened it up and there were five in there and I said who's are these?
She said oh well my dad was a Royal Marine in the Second World War and your granddad's
dad was in the Royal Navy in the First World War.
You had no idea?
No I said no I joined the Marines in 2001 do you not think it would have been a good
idea to tell me that then?
Because when you join the military it comes up in conversation a lot have you got any
family in the military?
And I've always been like no, no, no one immediate, no one that I know of really.
And I did but I only found out last year and actually you know she gave me those medals
and I got them tidied up and I got the ribbons replaced because they were all battered and
torn and I wore them this year to remember them for the first time ever which was a really
proud day for me.
That's amazing I had a similar experience and it was my great uncle but I became a firefighter
and it was kind of a sad thing because he was just getting senile when I did but I didn't
think I had any firefighter in my family and being a legacy is kind of a you know it's
a revered thing too but he was one of the senior volunteers in the London Fire Brigade
during World War II and I only found that out when he was kind of you know on his way
out so it was sad in one way but it was like you at least you found out.
Yeah, you're right.
Right well I want to talk about another area so here you are and obviously fast forward
to when we get to your career the strapping Royal Marine.
When you were young self-described you were not the most athletic of children initially.
No I was not I was chubby I played a lot of computer games when I was a kid.
Exercise you know I did the usual stuff running around with friends running through the woods
climbing trees a bit of a kick around with the football every weekend but nothing you
know there wasn't anything really that I was focused on when I was really young you know
I mean not until I turned about 13, 14 I started getting into sport a little bit and started
to discover the joys of training.
And then was it your journey into martial arts that was the pivotal point though as
far as your body change?
It wasn't really so you know I trained in Muay Thai full contact kickboxing from about
11 or 12 years old but never really seriously you know I just did it because I enjoyed it
I was quite good at it I didn't really see it as a career or really as a way of keeping
fit as such I just did it because I enjoyed it and it was actually when I was at school
when I was about 13 or 14 I think I was 14 and I was sat in the canteen and I was eating
one of those like pastry buns with pink icing on top that was filled with like jam and cream
in the middle and I was sat down and if you imagine like a button-up shirt you know I'm
sat down and it's kind of compressed and from the side you could see in through my shirt
and you could see my chest and one of these guys walked past and like I said I was quite
chubby and he kind of looked in through the hole in my shirt and he said to me your body's
disgusting and then he just walked off and I was like what?
And so I put this bun down I'm like that was a bit of a weird random comment and I've never
really thought about that before so I ditched the bun and then I kind of took myself off
and we had a little gym in the school and it was like a broom closet pretty much there
was I think if I remember right there was a treadmill in there there was a bike like
a lap hold down machine a pack deck and a handful of free weights and I kind of went
in there and I locked the door and I ended my shirt and I looked in the mirror and I'm
like yeah that kid was right you know my body is pretty disgusting I'm pretty fat I'm pretty
out of shape you know I'm 14 years old I shouldn't look like this I should be pretty fit and
healthy and literally in an instant that was the minute I was like well let's say the way
I'm letting things go you know and I was in the gym anyway I only went in there to use
the mirror because I knew there was a flaw to see the mirrors in there and I was like
right I'm gonna start looking into this training thing now and seeing you know I already did
the kickboxing like I said in the muu tie but you just turn up twice a week and then
you know an hour here and an hour there and I was like well I need to do this seriously
you know I need to get in shape loose and white I had no idea really why I was doing
it I just didn't like what he said of the way it made me feel and so I started training
at lunchtime so I'd lock myself in that gym and I started training with no real idea what
I was doing I just knew that I liked being in there you know I liked the feeling when
I finished and it made me feel productive like I was achieving something.
Did you change the way you ate as well?
Only slightly because I wasn't very well educated in that you know back then you kind of thought
as a 14 year old you starve yourself and just exercise those and that's really really healthy
which it isn't but I just kind of changed a few things you know and cut down rather
than having this mountain of chips at lunchtime I would have half the portion and you know
every now and again I'd reach for a piece of fruit rather than a bag of crisps you know
because I didn't really know what I was doing and we didn't have the internet back then
either so it was a lot harder to find the information out and to figure out what it
was you were doing you just kind of knew general information and made the best of it.
Yeah and I've talked about this a lot on the podcast we were just given the wrong information
too like told that oh if you're an athlete you need to have bowls of pasta and you know
Gatorade or Lucasade in England you know and then you realize that it's actually all sugary
shit and we shouldn't be needing any of it.
Yeah no I know and I don't know if you agree or not but I think sometimes nowadays with
the internet it can be even worse because there's so many people out there contradicting
each other you know one person says you need to do this other person says you need to do
that and if you're new to it and you're trying to figure it out it can be quite overwhelming
all the information and not knowing what to do.
Yeah well if you just give me an idea I'm going to start a brand new fitness podcast
where I can change your body shape and you give me 20 bucks I'm just going to send you
an email saying your body is disgusting and then off you go.
I'm going to start a new one as well it's called the landmine diet where you can lose
six stone in a split second.
I do not recommend it.
Immediate results guaranteed.
Exactly.
All right so then if you wouldn't mind me walk me through from this you know this new
zeal and this desire to train and obviously you know like we all know that people do train
that feeling of you know the endorphins that you get from training but that area in your
life to the career choice of the military.
Yeah so you know like I said I was I was figuring it out for myself and so I eased into it and
like you just mentioned there you know I didn't know what it was back then but I would finish
the workout and the endorphins were released and I'd feel good and I found that helped
me in school actually it helped me focus it got rid of a lot of stress and you know being
sat down all morning learning stuff was quite stressful I didn't realize back then but then
training at lunchtime would help to alleviate that stress and refocus me for the afternoon.
And then when I go training with the kickbox and the muay thai I started to notice a bit
of a difference in my fitness I was getting fitter I was getting a little bit stronger
and you know I liked that as well because I saw some progress in that area of my life
and then it wasn't really until about a year and a half later when I was just approaching
my GCSEs and I've been training consistently I wouldn't say it was I was training really
hard you know I was just being consistent with it and doing a little bit every day and
then I thought to myself you know when I turn 16 and I do these exams after the exams I've
got to make a choice am I going to go on to college to go to university to carry on with
education or am I going to get a job? Now I knew I wanted a career as opposed to a job
I wanted something that I could progress in that I could build on that would help me develop
as a person I didn't just want a nine to five job and to keep chopping and changing every
five minutes and I kind of knew that I didn't want to go on to further education as well
you know I didn't hate school I did pretty good I got 10 GCSEs nine of them were A to
C's I got one D so I could have easily gone on to further education but I kind of had
that that feeling inside that I wanted to go out there and make a name for myself and
carve my name in the universe type thing so I started thinking about it and I kind of
narrowed down the list of jobs that I wanted to do and I think the training the fitness
had a big impact on it because if I remember rightly it was either the fire brigade the
police or the military and so I started you know asking friends teachers family about
all these different areas and pretty soon after a bit of research I kind of marked out
the the police and the fire brigade and focused on the military now it's a bit weird because
I live in Plymouth and it is quite famous for homing lots of Royal Marines but I didn't
know who they were when I was a kid you know I just thought like I think a lot of 15 year
olds do if I want to be a soldier I go and join the army so I had a lot of the people
that I grew up with were in the same school as me but they were two or three years older
and I had friends who had already left and were already in the army serving in Germany
Kosovo Bosnia you know and all those places and their lifestyle looked kind of cool to
me they were coming home you know on these leave periods they had brand new cars they
had money in the bank you know it looked kind of cool to me so I thought right I'm going
to do that I'm going to join the army so I went down to the careers office with one of
my friends who was serving in a tank regiment we spoke to the sergeant major down there
we got all the paperwork I came home I had to get my parents to look at it because I
was too young at that point to sign up myself and then my dad told me that I had an uncle
who was an officer in the Royal Marines now he's one you know when you have the people
in your family that uncle you call them uncle but they're not your mum or dad's brother
type uncle yeah yeah close friends right and then so we went in the car and he only lived
about 15 miles from where I am just in a little place called Buckfastly and I went up to see
him and he had served 22 years and finished as a captain and he told me a little bit about
life in the Royal Marines and how it was different to the army I went back the next week to the
career center again I spoke to the Royal Marine he sat me down and showed me a video and from
the minute I saw that video I was like this is what I want to do you know I mean because
they had these guys that were jumping out of planes they were going into contacts via
boat they were going in the contacts on their feet carrying these big packs they were operating
in the Arctic in the jungle in the desert in the woodland you know these were like in
my eyes then the ultimate flexible soldier like some sort of superhero and the whole
thing you know the aura and the mystique or whatever you want to call it around about
earning this green beret just kind of really appealed to me you know being told how many
people fail to earn it and how hard the training is and you know what wearing that thing on
your head actually means and I was just obsessed from that minute I was like this is what I
want to do I want to test myself you know do the hardest thing that I can do and I want
to earn one of those green berets so for the rest of my life I can say you know I did that
and I earned that and no one could take that away from me so I went and applied for the
Marines instead.
Right and just to clarify because we have you know Marines in America and obviously
the Royal Marines back home and then you use the term commando and green beret can you
sum up because I'm terrible at tripping over military terminology being a fireman and I
call Marines soldiers and I get in trouble and use the wrong ranks so if just just give
me like a two minute overview on on the description of Marines green berets and commando so he
wouldn't mind.
Okay so the correct term is Royal Marines commando that's our full title and I guess
the closest equivalent in America what you would compare us to and some people will agree
some will disagree is probably the Navy SEALs we are the Navy's infantry over here and we
are we're an elite regiment elite unit of men it's the longest and hardest regular
forces infantry training in the world apart from special forces and at full strength we're
only 7000 men strong so it's a very small tight-knit elite group of men and it's very
very difficult to get into.
Right so what did that because it's 30 week boot camp when you did it it's 32 now is that
right?
That's right yeah it started when I did it and I believe they extended it by two weeks
because of the the larger number of weapon systems that people get trained on now when
we're in Afghanistan they started using different weapons and they extended the training to
incorporate that.
So what just if you again give us kind of lead us down the road of what kind of training
that you did in those 30 weeks and what made you successful versus the people that got
washed out.
So you start off the first two weeks are in what they call the foundation block which
is where you learn and it sounds daft you learn how to brush your teeth how to shave
how to wash yourself properly you learn how to iron your clothes how to make your bed
how to polish your boots how to wear your uniform all that kind of stuff it's like your
little induction into the Marines it's still pretty fast paced you know you're up again
every morning at five o'clock you're going to bed late you know learning all these skills
you're in one massive room with you know between anywhere between 50 and 70 strangers to start
with and then when you do that and you finish the foundation period you then move into your
your main body of infantry training which stretches on for another 24 weeks I believe
my maths are right and then the last like I say it might have changed now the last four
weeks you go into maybe six weeks actually you go into what they call the commando phase
which is where you do your specialist training which is what makes you a commando so it's
all that you know all the stuff you've learned in that accumulated period put into this commando
phase and then they throw in all those tests that we do so the endurance course the 30
mile speed march the nine mile the the Tarzan assault course the field the live firing exercises
the final exercises you know the big yomps across the moors all that stuff into that
last little bit of training and then the very final week is the marching about and the parade
and the ceremony of stuff getting ready for finishing your training and what we call passing
out and going to your unit. Brilliant right now again that seems like you set the bar
very high and it does kind of parallel with a lot of the special ops guys that I've had
here in my profession I'm a true true believer that if you set that bar high you end up with
some incredible men and women you know firefighters police officers whatever profession it is so
what again what what was it that got you through when that bar was set high where you only
end up with 7000 men at the end total. Do you know what it was when you got a bear in
mind when I joined I was 17 years old and I remember those first two weeks in that foundation
block just every night going to bed thinking this is shit I want to go home and I only
lived 45 minutes away and I just kept on thinking to myself I'm just going to get on the train
and go I don't want to do this don't like this this is out of my comfort zone you know
I've got weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks to go yeah and I'm only you know just started
I'm going to quit but then I kind of just broke it down into you know one day at a time
and I thought well just focus on doing one day at a time you know and then before you
know it a week will be gone and then you're one week closer and then break that next week
down to a day at a time and then another week ago you'd be another week closer and so I
started doing that and as it progressed the training and it got progressively harder and
those thoughts crept into my mind again about quitting and giving up I somehow had this
ability to really vividly imagine myself stepping off that train back in Plymouth where I came
from having not earned that green brain I could tell everybody that I failed and I just
couldn't it made me feel sick and then you know 17 years old I'm like what am I going
to do the rest of my life if I quit and that really drove me on when you're cold wet tired
hungry sleep deprived your feet are bleeding and covered in blisters you've got webbing
bands all over your back you know you've been in the field for a week and you just want
to you just like I want to go back to my bed I want to watch a DVD I want to get a takeaway
pizza and just be a civilian you know that thought of stepping off that train and saying
to everyone I failed I wasn't good enough I was like no way there is no way I'm doing
that because I'm 17 years old and I have to carry that around me for the rest of my life
and so I just said no matter what happens I'm just going to push myself to my absolute
limit whenever I need to and I want to get through this day by day until eventually I
get that green brain.
Beautiful and I think that that's that shows that it's a good system and a good a good
series of training because when you take a step back and look at the career that you
do you did that I do if you quit when you're on the job you know your fellow Royal Marines
are going to die or the civilians you're protecting are going to die and in my case you know someone's
going to burn to death or bleed to death in their car and I think that's why it's so important
to keep these bars set high and test people like you and me to see if we're going to quit
because when the shit hits the fan you don't have that option or literally someone is going
to die.
Right and do you know what's beautiful about that is that when the shit does hit the fan
you can look to your left and you can look to your right and you can do it calmly knowing
that those people left and right of you have gone through exactly the same training that
you have and that they're going to get your back you know they're going to have your back
and you're going to get through whatever it is you're facing because you know how good
they are.
Yeah well I'm looking forward to talking about you know the event where that did happen I've
heard you recount the story before and it sounds like the men to your left and right
absolutely did what they were trained for but before we do that I'd love just to explore
your first tour to contrast it and then you know progress chronologically to that point
so when were you deployed and where were you deployed?
So my first deployment was in 2003 when I was 19 to Iraq and that was on what was called
Operation Telek 1 and I was working with Royal Marines headquarters we were first over that
border from Kuwait into Iraq we took over Azerbaijan naval base and set up a command
post in there and pretty much worked out there for the three and a half months that we're
in country but to be honest you can't even compare the two Iraq and Afghanistan you know
this sounds bizarre maybe but I found Iraq very boring the time just dragged out there
you know I didn't fire one round while I was out there I got a very good suntan but honestly
I just found it boring there was nothing going on for me personally and the guys I was working
with and I kind of came back quite disillusioned you know you've got to imagine as a 19 year
old with a green beret having just gone to war all before your 20th birthday and you
come home and think is that it?
Did all that training and pushed myself that hard to go and sit around and not do much
for three and a half months in a war zone and I thought that's what it was going to
be like in every deployment that I went on you know?
Yeah and then just to backtrack for a second had you already enlisted when 9-11 happened
or was it right after?
So I enlisted on February 2001 and I finished my training in October that year so literally
four weeks before I finished my training was when we all saw 9-11 happen so we knew that
we were going to be going straight out into some sort of conflict and early 2002 January
2002 I think it was I was put into pre-deployment training to go to Afghanistan on something
called Operation Jucana now that for whatever reason didn't happen to the scale that it
was meant to I think it ended up being more of a special forces thing so I didn't go and
then 2003 rolled around and we went to Iraq instead.
So after that first deployment you actually came out didn't you is that right?
I did I came home in 2005 my first daughter was born, Kezia and I thought right I would
have served my minimum time of five years I've been to war I've had my green beret
I was still I think 21, 22 I would have been when I left still young enough to start a
new career so I put my notice in and I'll leave and so that's what I did you know I
signed off, saw out my 12 months I came outside and you know things didn't work out on my
daughter's mom as I was leaving and so my life was in a bit of chaos I ended up going
to South Africa and training as a bodyguard and I came home and while I was looking for
work as a bodyguard I started working on nightclubs as a bouncer.
Now I don't know if it was because I was so young or I just didn't know anybody in the
industry but I couldn't get any work as a bodyguard either you know in the UK doing
what I thought was a glamorous stuff looking after celebrities or back out in the desert
doing that more commercial stuff living out of a duffel bag for a couple months at a time
I just couldn't get my foot in the door and it was also the time where the security industry
was getting regulated by the SIA so we all had to have these licenses and these badges
which I had but the police were kind of clamping down on Dormon because I think they were quite
notorious back in the day for being thugs and bullies so literally this sounds like
an exaggeration but I could have stood there and got punched in the face in front of a
policeman and I would have got arrested you know it was going that crazy at that time
and I ended up getting arrested a couple of times and I think I panicked you know I was
like this is what's going on here one minute I'm a high-flying Royal Marine with this massive
career ahead of me proud of what I'm doing and you know the world is my oyster and the
next minute I can't even go and do my job without getting arrested and getting looked
at as a scumbag and a bully and a thug you know and it was happening multiple times and
I was like this is not good you know this I don't deserve this this is not me I'm not
a bully I'm not a thug I just seem to be getting the wrong end of the stick all the time so
I kind of panicked and you know ran back to the careers office and went look I'm a civilian
now I've been outside for like 10 months I don't like it let me back in so they drew
up the paperwork and I signed back on a dotted line and because I'd only been a civilian
for it was just about a year I think at that point there was no need to go through all
that training again you know it was just a case of doing some annual tests like shooting
and fitness and NBC training with the CS gas and that kind of stuff and then I was back
in early 2007 I rejoined was back in and got drafted to a place called 40 commando which
is about an hour and a half north of where I live just outside of Devon.
Right and then so you guys were deployed back out to Afghanistan?
Yeah so I had a choice when I rejoined I could have even gone to Limston which is where we
do our training that's a non-deployable unit which you know isn't particularly exciting
if you're fresh in your career it's kind of somewhere you want to be where you're finishing
off if you're trying to sort your life out or they would send me to 40 commando who were
due to go out to Afghanistan next so it was kind of a no-brainer for me you know I kind
of felt at that point in my life really overwhelmed and out of my depth and I thought getting
out the country for a bit and just resetting and refocusing would have been a good thing
you know and I could have came back after Afghanistan and picked up my career with a
nice fresh positive spin on it and start taking it in a good direction so I joined 40 commando
quite excited to go out on this deployment and to sort myself out and that's what we
did on the 7th of September 2007 we landed in Afghanistan.
Right now leading up to Christmas Eve what kind of action had you seen this time around
obviously Q8 like you said was not a shot fired but what was your experience the second
time?
It was completely different like it didn't matter what time of day it was day or night
whether you're sleeping eating sat on the toilet if you're on a foot patrol whatever
in any split second from anywhere you could have got attacked you know you're in constantly
in firefights constantly having rockets and mortars thrown at us you know constantly having
to observe the enemy going out and taking the fight to them at the same time protecting
civilians it was very kinetic very full on we had to be very proactive out there we weren't
sitting around for any length of time we were doing stuff every day you know just always
on the move always doing something and always in some sort of action.
Right so then I guess that takes us to Christmas Eve 2007 so I know you've obviously recounted
this story many many times but some of the kind of bits and pieces I've heard from when
you've spoken about it before it's such a fascinating incident from a trauma medicine
point of view as well so if you don't mind I'd love to explore that evening a little
bit and ask you some stuff about you know the triage and some of the treatment and things
like that.
Yeah no problem so we just got tasked with going on another one of our foot patrols you
know we'd be doing it for three months to that point and the ones we we'd done prior
to this one we had a an objective and a mission we would push out one two three how many miles
we'd be out for five six seven hours at a time you know we come back having gathered
intelligence and you know all this kind of stuff we had an objective when we left but
the whole idea of this patrol was that we would leave the camp out of the rear entrance
we'd go in two sections with eight men in each section one would go north one would
go south we were to patrol the immediate perimeter around the camp and then meet at the front
entrance close things down and come back and come back in the camp so it was really because
we didn't have much going on at that period around Christmas it was really more of a show
of presence you know because we were aware that we were always being watched so we had
to show that we were always out there doing something and getting boots on the ground
and taking the fight to the enemy even if we weren't you know particularly doing that
we didn't have much of a mission to go out and conduct so we left that morning on Christmas
Eve ours in this section went north the other one went south and then we went out and we
did all the same basic low-level military kind of stuff that we done to that point about
six hours into it both of these sections now find themselves at the other side of the camp
at the front entrance ready to do close things down and finish up for the day and the section
I was in was tasked with giving the other section overwatch so we basically had to get
into fire positions protect them when they were vulnerable so they could come back into
the camp they would then get behind the perimeter of the camp they would then provide cover
for us so we could get back in safely and then we finish up for the day you know quite
pretty standard stuff you know looking out for the rest of the guys and just making sure
everyone's safe so we all started taking up fire positions I kind of waited till near
the end to take mine up I was actually second in command of the section so I had to be in
a specific location and do some checks and when everyone was happy with their positions
and the area of responsibility I walked over to the position that I'd set for myself and
as I went to get down on my stomach I knelt on a detonated and improvised explosive device
right now I heard you mention about the traditional IEDs were a certain power they were just looking
to maim so then obviously you guys all flock to your injured comrade and then they do the
secondary attack what was different about this particular one that you stepped on?
So my IED was a it was an anti-personnel mine which as you just said it is designed to maim
someone to blow a leg or a foot off so that when they when the rest of the guys come to
help him the enemy will follow up with like a small arms attack and try and kill everyone
but on top of the anti-personnel mine was also the warhead of a 107 millimeter Chinese
rocket so they had double stacked this thing so that when I stood on or now on the warhead
of the rocket it put pressure on the anti-personnel mine the two plates in the anti-personnel
mine touched and detonated which then detonated the mine and the warhead so I kind of got
blown up twice if you like and you know a 107 rocket warhead will take the side of a
building off if you fired it out of a building it'll put a big old hole in the side of a
building so I was very very lucky I think because what we took cover was like in a bowl
I think that this device must have been at some sort of an angle because if it exploded
straight up there would have been nothing left of me it would have just been a pink
cloud so yeah it must have been at some sort of an angle and I was just very lucky that
it detonated in a direction that it did.
It's just it's crazy listening obviously from from someone that's never been in that
situation but I had Rob Jones on a while ago who's a fellow Invictus athlete on the American
team and he lost both of his legs but if my memory serves me right one of his friends
stepped on the IED but because it blasted outwards his friend that stepped on it wasn't
hurt but Rob was right next to him and he he lost both his legs.
Yeah so yeah all right so then you you have this explosion again if you wouldn't mind
I know you've told the story many many times but just kind of walk us through the next
few seconds really and minutes at most.
So initially I didn't know what happened because I was in no pain and when this device had
exploded it created a big dust cloud because the ground in Afghanistan is very sandy and
very dusty and I thought initially that we had been attacked you know I thought someone
had fired a rocket or a mortar on our position and so my initial reaction was find out where
the attack came from and then just start raining hell down on this position and get all the
lads out of there and make sure no one gets hurt.
Now I couldn't see initially because of this dust cloud but in my head I was you know I'm
filled with adrenaline right now and I'm trying to figure out what to do when this dust cloud
settles and I remember thinking that where I was positioned about 600 meters behind me
down beneath us because we were quite high up there was a small rectangular forestry
block and everything around it was just flat mud fields so I remember thinking if someone's
going to attack us if they've got any sense that's where they're going to do it from so
I was thinking right wait for this dust cloud to settle turn around get eyes on the forest
even if you can't see anyone just start firing into there because the chances are that's
where it's going to have came from and then hopefully somebody in camp will get on the
HMG and then just tear the forest down with a machine gun.
So you know this all happened really really quickly you know I couldn't possibly comprehend
the time realistically but basically this dust cloud settled and as I was trying to
turn around I kind of realized I couldn't and then sort of looked down to figure out
why and then there was both my legs have been ripped off from the knee down.
Right and in the documentary obviously you actually get to see the extent of your injuries
it's pretty graphic but I mean you know they got some incredible video footage of your
actual post-injury excuse me post-exposure injuries so what was the initial treatment
for the guys around and also let me back up what was the initial reaction and did their
training kick in as far as an event like that?
Yeah I mean the guys around me were absolutely phenomenal you know I noticed that I saw what
happened to my legs and it's so difficult to try and explain unless you've been through
a traumatic incident what it feels like you know it's very surreal it feels like you're
dreaming there's no pain you kind of know it's happening but it doesn't feel real and
I remember looking around and seeing the guy in charge of the section who was a friend
of mine Sean that I went through training with and while I was looking at this and trying
to make sense of it and not really believing it had happened just a look on his face kind
of said to me yeah it is happening Mark you need to do something about it and I kind of
went back to look at my legs to give myself some sort of final confirmatory signal that
this was real and I had to do something about it and as I was looking back I saw my arm
lying in the sand and at that point I actually asked Sean to put a bullet in my head because
I you know I just was in so much shock at what I was looking at my immediate reaction
was well this is shit I don't I don't like this so I'd rather die and obviously he didn't
do that he's a bit more level-headed than I am and all the guys around me they just
did exactly what they were trained to do it was so cool you know because you'd think in
that situation people would panic and everything would go to shit and it would be just chaos
but everyone just did exactly what they knew they had to do before we'd you know the tasks
that we were given before we'd been on the patrol so one guy's on the radio and he's
calling in an evacuation you know one guy's making sure that we're in a defensive position
in case he was a small arms attack follow-up the guy closest to me is on his belt buckle
clearing a safe route to me for when the medic gets there so he doesn't risk running over
any other devices and everyone just clicked straight into their their role and their responsibility
and when the medic did get to me he ran straight in because the path had been cleared he was
protected because someone had already cordoned off the area made it made us well protected
and then the medic got in and he started putting tourniquets on my limbs he asked me to help
tighten the one up on my arm because I was you know I was lying there with my eyes closed
just literally bleeding out and he needed to keep me responsive he then pulled a stretcher
out and he went to put me onto the stretcher he hooked both his hands under my armpit and
he dragged me onto the stretcher now I wasn't in any pain until that point and when he when
he put me on that stretcher it felt in my right leg like somebody had just jammed a
screwdriver under my kneecap and just started ratcheting up on it and so I kind of asked
him to put me down and I looked down to where the pain was coming from and there was like
a tendon or a nerve or something coming out of my leg and it was going into my boot and
my foot was still in my boot so he I guess where he had pulled me and the weight of the
foot and boot had stayed on the floor it pulled on this nerve or whatever it was and caused
a pain so he had to then pick that up and put it on my stomach and put me on the stretcher
they got me off the high feature that we're on out the minefield they put me in the back
of a vehicle as the vehicle was going up the incline to go back into camp to the helicopter
landing site the the driver you know he was driving quite aggressively because of the
terrain and the fact that we had to get back for this helicopter me and the medic fell
out the back as I was kind of half in half out the driver swung around grabbed whatever
he could grab to keep me held in the vehicle and ended up holding on to the femur bone
that was poking out my right leg he then he left the medic because the other section that
we were working with earlier in the day they were still at the bottom of this hill so he
was protecting he was safe and then he got me to the helicopter landing site and the
last thing I remember is the helicopter landing and the heat of the exhaust beating down on
me and then just the sandstorm that it created from the propeller blades and then I blacked
out which is the point where they tell me I effectively died I showed no signs of life
yeah well I want to go back just to the scene for a moment so there's no better illustration
than what you just told us as far as training drilling to the point where you fall back
to that level of training where it's impulsive and also having a selection process that when
as we said earlier in his interview when the shit hits the fan those men in this case not
only fall back to their training but act instead of freeze yeah you've got a bear in mind I'm
lying there I'm trying to figure out what's actually going on and make sense of it I'm
bleeding to death and one of the things I can remember is these guys are fucking awesome
like just they just doing it you know I mean yeah they're just professional as hell and
they're doing what they're trained to do and even though you know to look at there's just
so much blood and stuff coming out of me I kind of knew in the back of my mind that was
going to be okay because I knew that I was in the best possible hands that I could have
been in yeah and it sounds like you were I mean it sounds incredible because no one really
knows what they're made of until they're faced with something like that and it sounds like
everyone on the scene there stepped up and did exactly what was required of them yeah
and it's funny because when you when you drill this stuff and you train people will get
it wrong a hundred times but when you need to do it for real it's just slick and I don't
know what it is I just guess something kicks in in your body and you're like I can't fuck
this up and they just get it right and you know luckily they did yeah well it's a hundred
times muscle memory as well and that's the problem that I see you know in my profession
is there are people that are afraid to go to training they don't want to look stupid
and it's like that's exactly where you're supposed to fuck up over and over and over
again because then just like you said when when you get that adrenaline and you get that
flow state hopefully you'll fall back on that and you will get it right exactly right well
let's talk about the back of the helicopter and triage because that's another incredible
twist in your life story yeah so when I was put on the back of the helicopter they obviously
checked me for my vital signs so they checked for a pulse and I didn't have one they tried
putting fluids into me through an intravenous line but all of my veins had collapsed because
of a massive blood loss and they put an oxygen mask on me which they were hoping would steam
up to show that I was breathing but it didn't so they put me in the corner and they just
called it they said right this guy's dead leave him now the reason they did that was
because another guy was injured in the blast but he just had shrapnel in his back so the
way you prioritize a casualty in that situation is if you've got a guy that's dead and the
guy that's dying as harsh as it sounds you leave the dead guy and you start to work on
the guy that's dying because you could potentially have two dead guys so they had to make a very
quick call and be like right this guy's not responsive leave him let's get the work on
this guy now luckily as one of the medics walked past me to get some equipment to go
and work on the other guy he saw my eye flutter which meant that my heart was still beating
and he then alerted some of the other medics who came over to help him and they performed
procedure on me which had only been cleared for use three days prior to this incident
and had never been used on a human casualty in the field before you know it only ever
been practiced in a nice clean calm sterile surgery room you know like a practice facility
and now you've got a major on the back of a chinook helicopter people are dying people
are dead there's sand and dust everywhere there's helicopters banking from left to right
everyone's filled with adrenaline you know so the first time they get to do it for real
that's the situation that they're facing and the procedure involved them taking two drills
and one person going in through the front one going in through the back into my hip
bone and then put an intravenous line into my hip right next to all my vital organs and
everything and they'd never I think if I'm right normally you do it in the femur or maybe
the tibia and fibula yeah the legs the tibia normally just below the kneecap okay but obviously
I didn't have one no and they didn't even know if it would take but somehow fortunately
when when the guy Mills he drilled it in he locked it in first time got the fluids in
there and they said within about three minutes I was back up and awake and responsive and
answering their questions so and again yeah and then another another you know win for
training and that's the thing is is thinking around it because now we actually get to do
it in the shoulder too so in theory you're one good arm it's just probably something
they discovered years later that would have been a sight in 2018 but I think at the time
yeah the tip was the one and then if you did this the sternum you had to have a special
set of needles it's like a round one with multiple needles on it so you take away what's
traditionally you know your normal sight you're now again he was talking earlier about outside
your comfort zone now you're having to to fall back in your training and be in you know
use ingenuity to figure out how are you going to get around you know the soldiers or this
excuse me this Marines injuries yeah and again just pure professionalism you know like I
I love my job my job was easy you know I mean here's a gun here's a bad guy go look after
the good guys and it's pretty easy you know I kind of felt naturally like that I was good
at that kind of stuff but you give me like a syringe or something and say save this guy's
life when all that chaos is going on and I don't think you could have seen a very professional
soldier in that situation from me but these guys were so good at it and you know they
just you know they just thought on the spot and okay let's try this boom and it worked
you know and I think about that a lot you know literally I'm so lucky to be here it's
ridiculous yeah I mean yeah I mean it is the way you tell your story and all the things
that could have gone wrong initially and then like you said especially with triage most
people to notice someone that you've black tagged that you've called deceased you know
breathing you know with with with signs of life I mean that in itself I think was was
bigger than than earthly powers if you believe in all that stuff or the universe or whatever
that was obviously meant to happen you were meant to be you know to to be safe and obviously
then ultimately do the work that you're doing now yeah now I'm very lucky right well let's
talk about that so you're on the helicopter they they get the the blood pressure back
you're talking to them so what were the next few months of uh you know surgery and then
recovery for you um following the injuries yeah so this helicopter flew me back to another
base in Afghanistan where the field hospital was and obviously I was a bit of a mess and
the surgeons I think if you look at the photos there was you know my legs were like amputated
through the knee at that point but all the flesh and tissue was dead above it so they
had to pick a site where it was still alive and amputate there to reduce the the possibility
of any further surgeries so they literally just locked them off above the knee and then
my arm above the elbow well the flesh and tissue was healthy uh they bandaged me up
and then they flew me home on Christmas day and I got back to the UK I think about three or
four o'clock in the morning on Christmas day in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham and then when
I got there I was in a coma for three days and then I spent another four days on the intensive
care ward and I had to have around the clock medical care because there was a lot of dirt
and dust and sand that was blasted up into my open wounds which could have caused an infection and
I could have died from that so I had to be monitored 24 seven for that first week and then
I kind of fought all that off got out of intensive care in that first week and went up to what was
called the burns and plastics ward upstairs which was where they were going to gradually reduce me
off the pain medication they were going to introduce some light physiotherapy into my day
it gave me an opportunity to as I came off the medication and got a little bit more with it it
gave me the opportunity to accept and understand my situation and then try and figure out a little
bit and I think when I was up there if I remember rightly I only had three follow-up surgeries and
they were just what they call cleanouts just to clean out any debris shrapnel dirt and dust or
whatever was in in my open wounds and reduce that infection risk again but I did six weeks
in total in hospital and then I moved off to rehab to start learning to walk again.
Right now you had an interaction with a certain medical professional and I think this is very
important to highlight kind of his his bedside manner and the effect that it had and this isn't
even to blame this is something that we see in our profession with what I call compassion fatigue
people that are kind of burnt out so that it was the amputation specialist was that right?
Yeah it was it was about three and a half weeks into my recovery and I was I was doing pretty
well you know I was feeling pretty positive about things and this guy walks in and he
introduced himself to me and he told me he was the the expert on amputations he'd been doing it for
33 years and he said look you're gonna have to get used to life in a wheelchair because I've never
met anybody in my experience that's only got one leg missing above the knee that uses prosthetics
all the time because it's too painful it's too difficult to use and it takes too much energy
and then literally turned around and walked out you know and I'm like shit that's not really what
I wanted to hear and you know of two low points in my whole recovery that that was the first one
you know at 24 years old you know a week earlier or a couple weeks earlier you know I'm six foot
two 16 stone peaking my physical fitness running around Afghanistan now I'm 24 years old nine stone
four foot tall being told that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair
yeah and this is this is based on just because he'd never seen this happen
just because he yeah I mean I mean the guy had you know 33 plus years experience so I couldn't
really question it and I didn't know anything about being an amputee I'd never seen a guy missing
feelings before running around on prosthetics because it just wasn't on my radar you know
beforehand because I never known anyone in that situation so I just took what he said as facts
you know and I just started trying to figure out what was going to do the rest of my life in a
wheelchair 24 years old yeah that's like Roger Bannister going well you know no one's ever run
a mile in four minutes before so fuck it I'm just going to give up right exactly yeah yeah so so if
you don't mind just the the mental side because obviously I'm sure people are wondering about that
having been told that what was your mental journey like for those next few weeks
well it was only about a week to be honest but it sucked you know I ignored phone calls
a time visitors away um you know stopped my rehab just kind of ended up just watching DVDs back to
back to try and escape reality and about a week later I had a visit off someone um and this guy
knocked on my door and I invited him in because I was feeling a little bit better at that point
and he came walking in our room on two prosthetic legs uh he was a double above me amputee like me
he sat down and he told me how he was blown up by a suicide bomber in Iraq when he was serving the
army he taught me through the entire process of getting from where I was in the hospital bed to
where he was at that point he took the legs off he put the legs on he took me through the fitting
process he told me what was difficult what I'd find challenging and he told me what was difficult
what I'd find challenging you know I just spent hours with me telling me his story and sharing
his experience with me you know and letting me know that actually you know you can have a decent
life once you get out of here once you heal yourself and get strong again you know and that
really excited me you know once I'd seen this guy doing that and I know he had two arms so I knew
it was gonna be a little bit more difficult for me I'd lost my dominant arm as well but I knew
that there were there were prosthetics out there and there were aides out there that could help me
get my independence back so I got a laptop in my room and I just started researching everything I
could you know just trying to find other people around the world who had injuries similar to mine
that were out there living their life using prosthetics and enjoying themselves you know
Did you tell him that he was a week too late because if he timed it perfectly the doctor
would have said I've never seen anyone do it and he walks in right behind him
Perfect no we've been joking apart so you just went on on the internet and you googled this injury
and all of a sudden there's these pictures of people that are doing it and I know that you found
a group in America that again shows some of the closed-mindedness of some not not saying all
some of the professionals that are dishing out this advice to patients on a daily basis
based on you know their own journey and yet you can freaking google above knee amputees
google above knee amputee and you find all these people that are doing the exact opposite of what
that doctor told you yeah I mean it was it I'm not gonna say it was hard but it was a little
bit different back then because you remember dongles no I don't the little they were little
like usb sticks what you put in your computer that was the only way you could get on that was before
wi-fi existed I think so and it was rubbish trying to get on the internet so it was it was a little
bit difficult trying to do the research because the connection was so bad but um yeah I found
people all over the world that were out there you know doing things and living their life it was a
little bit disheartened sometimes because a lot of these companies made these marketing videos
and you know I remember seeing a guy with an above elbow amputation with a prosthetic arm playing
basketball and I had no idea whether you could or couldn't play basketball and you can't really
with a above elbow prosthetic but it kind of got you all excited and then you're like all right okay
you can't really do that so you had to self-manage your expectations but you know I found some people
doing some incredible things and used that as motivation as I left the hospital and then
transitioned into rehab and started learning to walk again right now I just want to explore one
thing that you mentioned a little while ago I know you do talk about this on the documentary but your
friend Damien you know you were talking about missing some calls are you you feel comfortable
telling us about that yeah yeah yeah no problem so Damien Mulvihill was a friend of mine he was a
corporal in the marines from Plymouth same as me we'd served together in air defense troop back in
2003 2004 and Damien was on the same tour as me and he came home January 2008 for two weeks R&R
and he left me an answer phone message like I said I wasn't answering the phone back then I didn't
really feel like talking to anyone and he asked about coming to visit me and I never bothered
phoning him back because I wasn't up for it and then he went back to Afghanistan and in February
2008 he was killed by an IED so you know I never got to speak to him or to see him before he went
back which is something I regret but you know I just wasn't in that frame of mind to see anybody
at that point I just wanted to be on my own you know and just lock myself away from the world
yeah that's completely understandable but it's just so heart-wrenching as well just as a tangent
for a moment that you know you I'm sure you and so many of the other men and women sign up
hoping to go out there and the outcome I guess that's what I'm looking for of your efforts out
there results in civilians being saved and de-escalating the violence but you just see
over and over and over again from whatever military forces we have out there the IED is
just taking life over life over life yeah this is a pretty cowardly way to fight a war if you ask me
you know as a Royal Marine I think most of us would happily stand toe to toe with anybody
anywhere in the world you know and have a dust-up but you can't really have a fair fight with an
explosive you know so yeah I mean I think a lot of us actually you know a lot of us would we used
to say in the early days of deployment I'd rather be dead than go home missing a leg
but you always think all right it would never be me it's never me it's going to happen to
until it happens yeah yeah exactly all right well then so you did find a group
the dream team prosthetics in America so how did you find them and what was the
the experience with that kind of adventure out to the states so one of the guys I found online
was a guy called Cameron Clap now Cameron's a triple amputee he was run over by a train in 2002
when he was 15 years old and I mean this guy was phenomenal he is phenomenal and he was doing
all the stuff what I was getting told wasn't possible you know he was um his legs were similar
to mine his arm was a lot shorter than mine but he would wear his prosthetics all day every day
you know he never used a wheelchair he didn't have any sort of adapters in his cars he was just
driving using his legs he was an adaptive athlete running swimming surfing doing all these kind of
things and just really living his life and dominating and I used to watch his videos and
read his blogs online and be like yeah this is what I need to achieve I need to go and do what
this guy's doing because if he can do it then I know I can I've got the same injuries the same
technology you know I just need to figure it all out so I used to watch him for a little bit online
for motivation and then I eventually reached out to him and said look mate this is who I am
this is what's happened I think you're pretty awesome and I'd really like you to teach me
and train me so I can get to a level of independence similar to yours so he emailed
me back about a week later you know we became friends he then introduced me to his team you
know the guy that would make the sockets for his legs the guy that would program his legs because
they have to be plugged into computers the guys that would do all the adjustments and alignments
on his legs the guys that would train him to walk the guy that made his arm you know the whole team
of people that were behind the scenes that got him to where he was he introduced me to those guys
and everyone started helping me online they would send me emails saying you know if you've got pain
in your legs then try doing this and it will get rid of the pain in your legs and you know if you
want to walk down a ramp do this is the technique you need to use and they would tell me all this
stuff online and I put it into practice when I went into rehab and it just helped me break through
those plateaus that I was hitting you know every couple of weeks as I was progressing and then just
stopping and not being able to get any on any further now eventually and it was only about six
weeks into it and but eventually these guys invited me out to America and said look come meet Cameron
come train with him spend some time with him and let's see if we can get you
close to the same level of independence that he's at so I booked my flight
I got my accommodation sorted out and on the 9th of June 2009 I flew out to meet Cameron
the only thing was when I flew out there they said to me you have to come on your own which was
pretty scary considering that I had people all around me all the time doing everything for me
and I wasn't allowed to use a wheelchair so I had to leave my wheelchair at home which again
you know at that stage of the game it was so painful to just get around for like half a day
I was like how you expect me to go to the other side of the world now to get in airports carrying
my own baggage getting on and off planes and all this stuff without any help without a wheelchair
when I get tired and they said look this is the deal you got to either do what we ask you to do
or you know you're wasting your time so I bit the bullet in the end and I flew out there on my own
on the 9th of June 2009 I met Cameron I met his team and that was a trip that changed my life
I never used a wheelchair ever since that day now you said about painful I want to illustrate
something that people are listening so above the knee amputees so when you're walking this is the
same with Rob Jones when you're walking with your lower limbs you all your body weight is basically
on that femur bone pushing down against the skin that's been folded over it yeah and your groin
with the socket ends at the top and your ischial tuberosity which is the bone which basically is
connected in the top of your leg to your ass you know so all your weight is going through all that
all the time you know and it takes between three and five hundred percent more energy for an above
knee amputee to do anything than it does for an able-bodied person so you're you know constantly
tired in the beginning and you're in pain a lot not just from the prosthetics but from your body
readjusting you know to having no limbs and all the tenderness and soreness and everything that
brings with it so yeah it was it was pretty hardcore if i'm honest yeah well i got to see
i got to witness it firsthand when uh rob jones that i talked about them the american marine
i met him in new york he did a fundraiser and climbed the world trade center now i climbed the
world trade center you know lucky fucker with with all my limbs still intact but rob basically
bear crawled you know 100 floors vertically and again it was just amazing because you realize
when you're watching you know athletes like him and you the the the adaptations that you have to
make and all the the the normal biomechanics that that we're used to are taken away and you have to
literally reinvent locomotion with what you've been left with exactly yeah and you just have
i find now that you you use a lot more of your body than you ever thought about using
and prior to being injured you just take it for granted you've got hands feet toes and fingers
you know now i use my arm stump my chin my shoulder you know whatever you know all these
other bits that you think are useless i now use it for for different things you know like
i'm just trying to think of an example um like when i do jiu-jitsu you know i've only got one arm
but it hurts like hell if i drive my chin into your sternum and start wiggling it about or put
my arm stump on your throat you know so you even though you think some parts of your body are
useless now you just learn how to use them and make them useful again yeah you know it's funny i had
the kyle maynard on i don't know if you've heard of him he's a american mountaineer at uh uh what
they call a congenital amputee arms and legs and yeah he started uh wrestling and doing um mma
and at first he was getting beat up no one had a problem with it but then when he started winning
people were like whoa this isn't fair and it's funny when you said about the the the chin all
those other things you could just see how as you start winning people like wait a second these are
in the rules you can't do chins yeah you can do what you want you can do what you want yeah exactly
well speaking of uh of sports so we got you up to the point where you're working with dream team
prosthetics so what was the first uh sport that you delved into as far as you know post injury
oh god when i went out there they have a thing called the endeavor games
and they put me on some running legs i never never ran before and prosthetics and i didn't even like
running when i had legs and they ended me in this 100 meter race and it was just awful i was just
garbage i came last and i was in a lot of pain um and i really just didn't want to do it it was
horrible i was i was i was quite chubby again back then um because i was kind of still eating
what i ate before but obviously not being as mobile so i was a little bit out of shape um
um which made everything more difficult but yeah i remember that first time running it was just
horrendous just the energy that it takes and the balance and the concentration and the skill
um and i hated it but i never really did sport in the beginning i waited nine years to get into
sport right so after that horrendous race you know what what were some of the ones that you
found you did enjoy did you stay running or did you go to rowing or you know what was the
progression from there none of it to be honest and i i'm lucky i've got a couple friends that own
gyms here in plimber and i i knew i couldn't do kickboxing or tie boxing again so you know but i
used to enjoy weight training so my friend gave me the key to his gym and he'd let me go in there
about five in the morning when they were closed and i spent about six months just training and
trying to figure out how to exercise certain body parts by adapting exercises because i didn't want
to do it when the gym was open because i was quite conscious that i'd be getting in everyone's way
and pissing people off um so i did it when it was closed and it took me about six months to figure
out and i developed these routines where i could get really good workouts um and actually feel like
i used to feel at the end of a workout i'd feel pumped up and out of breath and tired and like i'd
actually achieve something but i didn't do any of the other sports rowing swimming hand cycling
any of that until 2017 that was when i started getting into all of that right now this is in
preparation for the invictus games yeah so what what i do is every year at christmas and i'll
be doing it in about two weeks i sit down right right where i am now at my desk in my office
and i just start scribbling down all my goals that i want to achieve achieve in the following year
and i sat down and usually i'll put like subheadings so health fitness family finances career whatever
it may be and i sat there and i was scribbling away and i just had this niggling feeling now
that i was missing something and i was forgetting to put something down and so i closed my eyes i
just sat here in this chair and i kind of waited for something to pop into my head and this jigsaw
puzzle came up and it was like you know like i say one piece was was fitness and health one was family
one was career and there was one piece in the middle that was missing and i was just trying to
figure out what it was and eventually i realized that it was sport you know in in nine years of
recovery i hadn't done any sport and so i started scribbling down all these goals for what i wanted
to achieve in in the world of sport now i had seen a lot of my friends from rehab taking part in the
invictus games but it never really appealed to me because i'd never rode before i didn't really swam
post-injury i'd never done those sports before the athletics and all that kind of stuff it didn't
really get me excited but i thought you know these guys have done really well not just in what they
have achieved in sport but it's helped with their recovery a lot and with their life a lot
both mentally and physically so why don't i give it a go you know i've covered most of the other
things in nine years i've got a full family now i've got a job you know that's all going nicely
you know let's do something i've not done before so i applied for the invictus games i didn't think
i'd get in because i didn't really know anybody i wasn't in those circles i wasn't in those cliques
um i've never done any of the sports before i had no experience so i thought they'd just look at me
and be like well you're not going to be any good so we don't need you but fortunately after applying
and going through the trials i made the team and got to represent the uk in canada back in 2017
at the invictus games yeah the trials were in bath is that what you're saying yes they were yeah very
cool my hometown it's it's interesting because in 2016 the games were in the disney area and i was
that working for the fire department that protected disneyland at the time and ironically and this is
going to sound very unimpressive compared to your injuries but i tore my knee literally about week
before so i wasn't able to be one of the medics that was you know attending that but when when
people ask about the royal family that's always the thing that i i kind of point to is the
generation of you know william and harry and the altruism that they seem to have inherited from
their mother it appears the invictus game seems to be one of the most uh it makes me proud to be
british if that's if that's what the royalty of that generation is going to be about the charities
and and paying back to the people that serve their country yeah it's cool it's really cool
right so in 2017 then what what was the result and obviously i'm going to lead into then
what happened in 2018 so yeah 2017 we went out to canada my first experience of any adaptive sports
apart from the the camps i've been on i i didn't know what to expect i didn't really if i'm honest
in the sports of that i didn't really know the rules completely or the etiquette or the procedure
or what it was like to compete in those environments i just kind of went into it blind
um but we did all right i ended up with two silver medals two bronze medals and then the jaguar land
rover award for um overall best athlete of the games which was kind of cool if you think about
every nation every athlete and competitor you know i managed to get that out of all those people
which i was really chuffed about as for my first games ever i didn't think it could have gone much
better than that yeah so then what about 2018 well when i left 2017 obviously i'm i'm armed
then with a lot more knowledge i had the experience of competing i knew what the atmosphere was like
i knew how it all ran i'd like more about the sports but in canada i was very you know it was
all brute force and ignorance for me there was no techniques no strategies and anything i did it was
just fitness fitness fitness and just muggle my way through it but in 2018 i thought well i've got
this experience now you know maybe i should learn how to do these sports properly you know listen to
my coaches a bit more and then try and be a bit more scientific with it and so that's what i did
i applied again you know again i was lucky enough to be selected and we started training and i just
changed my approach i looked more into strategies and the techniques um focused more on recovery
just didn't i didn't worry too much about thrashing myself as much as i had the previous year um and
it was really handy to to have that experience of actually having competed once because i knew what
to expect now when i went into i didn't have any of those things to worry about because i'd done it
before yeah what was the result so this year was four gold medals one silver medal and two bronzes
so a little bit better than last year and a nice way to finish off my invictus career
yeah exactly well i want to just kind of underline because now now you told us about the two years so
you went into these sports having not really you know done them really before do you think that
it was again back to your role marines training you know physically obviously but then more so
because you had those limbs taken away from you more so the mindset that got you to that level
in such a short amount of time as far as preparation do you know what i think it is
and i've thought this for a long time right if if you were born fit and healthy and with all the
same advantages that most of the rest of the planet are born with i don't really see any reason why
if you see someone that's successful you can't be as successful if not more than they are that was
my mindset when i went to meet cameron i thought well this guy's a triple amputee i'm a triple amputee
he's got this technology i've got that technology he's doing what i want to do why can't i do it
all i've got to do is copy what he did and that's what i did when i went out and met cameron allowed
to walk again and then i did the same thing with the invictus games i looked at the people that
have done it before and i thought well he's injured similar to i am and he can do that sport this guy
is injured similarly to me and he can do that sport so i should be able to do him too you know
and that's what kind of pushed me into it and then i thought now all i need to do is copy what they
did and then figure out a way to take it a bit further you know because i wanted to be what in
my mind i thought was successful and that was winning medals and i wanted to win medals yeah
and it's such a simple concept but it is obviously so true is the difference between you and some
people you know there's a lot of uh victim mentalities going on people they've had next to
nothing happen to them in their life but is just saying you know here's where i'm at how can i
how can i make this work how can i succeed instead of focusing on you know on on what's negative on
what's what's challenging you or the walls it's like all right how can i jump this wall or walk
around the wall or dig under the wall yeah and if someone's done it before then you know i don't
want to get too crazy on you but in in you know what nlp is neuro linguistic programming uh yes
yes so in that there's a thing called modeling which basically means you take somebody that's
achieved what you want to achieve and you model their mindset and their physical actions so if
if you want to lose a bunch of weight find someone that's been in a similar situation to that's done
it and just say how did you do it what did you do physically what did you tell yourself mentally
you want to be a millionaire you know in i don't know by selling cars go find a successful car
salesman who's a millionaire and say what did you do how did you do it i want to do it as well and
just copy them that's as simple as it gets you just copy them that's what i've done all throughout
my recovery i found somebody who's achieved what i want to achieve and i figured out what they've
done or i've asked them and i just copied it that's it yeah and that sounds horribly close to the
term mentorship you know finding someone that that can teach you but be prepared that they're
probably gonna say it was really fucking hard and you know that's where you realize that there is
no shortcut there is no life hack for coming back from you know losing three limbs or you know
whatever it is but like you said if they got there using that method then you will but you've got to
understand that you've got to put in a shitload of work as well and that is where sadly a lot of
people stop and draw the line you know i mean they a lot of people that's where they make excuses
and they say oh you know i don't really want to do that and then they'll turn around and say to you
oh you're so lucky why am i lucky because they get up at quarter past five in the morning and
i bum walk into a freezing cold garage and i do an hour on my bike and then stretching and strength
and conditioning training and then i train again in the evening i'll do that six times a week
and then i've been successful how does that make me lucky yeah i've worked really really hard
to get where i am there's been a little bit of luck involved i don't doubt it there always isn't
any success story but you know you've got to put the hard work and grind it and take action
yeah and there's always an excuse i mean i've had it you know as as a again i've never had any
physical trauma really of any significance but i've always been very skinny so as a fireman
people were like oh it's easy for you you don't put on weight i was like no it's not easy for me
i'm built like a fucking toothpick i've had to work to get my strength you know everyone has areas
that they've got to work on and no one wakes up in the morning as this elite athlete without putting
the work no i know you're right 100 right um but people just they look at it and yeah it just
annoys me when they say you're so lucky i'm like okay cool you call it luck i'll call it preparation
hard work yep exactly chance favors are prepared so when the luck comes along if you're not ready
then it's just going to bypass you so you have if you do get luck you've got to be ready to accept
that opportunity as well yeah exactly right well i want to highlight another area because
i i am just so endeared by people like yourself um and i say this for one specific reason
whether you've been injured whether i've got soldiers or you know people that have come on
the show that didn't have any injury they just had a career as a a seal or a firefight or whatever
it was but you served your country in your case you served and you know you had a life-altering
injury as well but when you came out one of your goals and this has happened on many many of these
people have had on was how can i do more and and i know that you've done you know fundraisers for
the royal marine association royal marines foundation so what was that aha moment when
you realized that that was something that you wanted to do as well after your uh your rehab
you mean the fundraiser sort of thing yeah yeah just just giving even more than you'd already given
it's a bit of a combination really first of all these charities are lifelines and you know some
of them don't publicize a lot of the stuff they do my family have been hugely supported from day
one particularly by the royal marines charity you know and you can't just go through life taking
you know and you never i never once felt obliged to give or to help but i just felt compelled to
i wanted to say thank you and there were more and more people coming through the system
i knew that the money was getting spent and and i wanted to do a little bit selfishly to make
myself feel better you know to do a little bit of good but also to make myself feel better you know
and it helped in my rehab i would set myself some sort of physical challenge like in 2010 you know
me and a bunch of mates ran across america from new york to la it was a physical challenge a
mental challenge but also it was a way to give back and to say thank you to these charities so
you you kind of hit all three points really you know mental challenge physical challenge contribution
so this is from a guy that couldn't that hated running 100 meters and he decided to run across
america yeah but it was very slow regardless it's 2500 miles yeah it's a long way it took a long
time but um it was slow but you know even even that you just break that down into little daily
challenges you know and you figure it out but it's just nice to be able to give back it makes you
feel good um you know and you can you can have everything in the world that you want big houses
fancy cars millions of pounds but the only way i think you can really feel truly fulfilled is if
if you're doing something to help other people yeah that's something yeah absolutely there's
something that i've seen so much in people especially they've been through the uh the
physical trauma but even the mental trauma some of the people that come out the other end been some
really dark places some of them literally were about to complete suicide that feeling of purpose
that feeling of i'm valuable i'm able to give back i'm able to contribute was so life-altering
for them and i see it all the time now in some of the you know the camps and organizations where
they they were you know the the attendee they were the the subject of that camp and then they
become the mentor role and then they they are shepherding other people now and that seems like
such an important uh kind of place physically and mentally for someone to get to yeah because it
gives you a sense of purpose like you said and we all need a sense of purpose to to be motivated and
you know give yourself a bit of an identity of who you are and what you stand for but also you know
these situations that we find ourselves in when you faced adversity and you know you've got these
challenges they also give you a really powerful platform in this especially in this day and age
with social media you know you can you've got this platform now where you can raise awareness you can
do a lot of good and you can do it pretty much 24 hours a day seven days a week with social media
it's not like the old days where you know you had the one or two stand out people like you know you
had simon weston from the falcons douglas bardo lost his legs and learned to fly again those are
the guys back then they were like the unicorns but nowadays there's so many people in my situation
all over the world doing crazy things and just putting out on social media it reaches so many
people and does so much good you know that you've got it's the way of taking a shit situation
and making it into something positive yeah absolutely and then and then you're such an
inspiration to everyone else like aside from the ones that can relate because they've been hurt
they've been at war whatever it was hopefully anyone with any ounce of humility is going to
look at people like you and you know simon weston and all these other you know amazing people that
have overcome their challenges and then recalibrate their own life like yeah i know it's really hard
that my iphone screen cracked but my life is fucking amazing so let's you know let's go out
there do some good today instead of being a whiny little bitch exactly exactly i think that was a
bible quote i can't remember all right well i want to talk about one other area before we
go to some wrap-up questions but another side of this obviously is the mental health it sounds like
your resilience and just your your hard wiring really you know kept you strong through you know
a huge adversity really how is mental health being addressed in the royal marines specifically
are they doing a good job with that we we do a phenomenal job um we i said earlier we're only
7 000 men serving that full strength and i think there's like maybe 120 000 of us who are veterans
so we're a small organization and we like to look after our own we've got what we call the
royal marines family in the extended family so when it comes to things like mental health
you know you know you that your uncle was there for you and we've got there are things set up in
place and it's brilliant you know i've got a friend jamie who was a sniper he was a sergeant
he suffered himself with mental health issues he was very close to taking his own life and now he
runs an organization what helped other people that are struggling and he takes all of his experiences
all of his training everything that he's done over the years and learned and he helps other people
you know and and it just goes round in a circle and i think we're particularly good at it um
you know i don't think anyone's ever really gonna completely conquer it but we're pretty close i
think yeah well we need to look at your model then because i know in in the fire department for
example we're starting the discussions now we're definitely taking down some of the walls but
there's a lot of that bullshit 1980s fake machismo around it where it's stigmatized still and you
know talking about feelings is weakness and i'll give you an example i live in this little community
right down the road last night a 17 year old was killed after he wrapped his car around a tree and
burnt to death basically in there if he wasn't dead on impact so the responding crews on that
particular day had to go and extinguish that fire and then obviously you know are faced with the
scene of that poor kid that uh you know went through that and this is a daily event in emergency
services so then to have the audacity to say that that shit doesn't affect people is ridiculous so
the the people like the royal marines for example that are actually way past that and redefining it
because if there's ever you know a definition of a man i'd say that royal marines is is definitely up
there it's it's role models like you know your organization and mine that are in in the position
like you said to lead and say hey i'm a fireman i'm a policeman this stuff is real and i think
we're pretty manly men or you know womanly women or whatever you want to put it but we we need to
lead from the front and and make people realize that it's it's strength when you reach out and
ask for help not cowardice or you know weakness yeah i agree 100 and i think in a situation like
that what you're talking about um i don't know what systems you've got in place but we had a
thing called trim trauma risk in management so when i got blown up that was tragic for me but
the rest of my section and my friends had to watch that so as soon as i was evacuated and they were
taken back to camp they were what we call trimmed so a trained counselor who happened to be the
sergeant major came down and worked with them immediately after the incident to make sure they
were okay and then would follow up with them throughout the rest of the tour and then when
they came home you know the responsibility is kind of on them then that if they find themselves
suffering they have to reach out for help but then they know what's available so i think in that
situation you're saying you know like i said i don't know what you've got in place but from my
point of view it's it's your higher act is responsibility to immediately after an incident
like that get the guys back to the station and be like right not who wants to talk because that
singles people out but everybody get in here now and do some sort of professional session with them
or something to to monitor them follow it up for you know the next couple weeks couple months
and then make sure that everyone is completely clear that if they find them so struggling
this is available and this is where you go right and is that included when you're entering that
profession is that kind of from day one something that you guys are taught about so that you always
know that's there it wasn't when i went through but i think it is a lot more now right um because
mental health now is something that we promote proactively and it's not just things like post
traumatic stress everybody on the planet i don't care how tough they are everybody has mental
health like they have physical health you know and there are different levels of it you know your
physical health you get overweight it's bad you get too underweight it's bad you balance it out
you know and your wellness and health and it's all good it's the same with your mental health
you spend too long experiencing traumatic incidents thinking negative thoughts then
your mental health is bad you spend i don't think you can spend too much time you know thinking
positive things and experiencing positive things and filling your mind with that but you've got to
balance it all you know and your physical health is as part of me your mental health is as important
if not more important than your physical health because if your mental health is bad then
inevitably your physical health will be because you start comfort eating or you start drinking or
you start taking drugs and then your physical have deteriorates and then it's a vicious cycle
but for some reason like you said everyone thinks when you say mental health you know you're not a
man if you reach out and ask for help and i think it's the opposite i think you've got our balls
to reach out and say look i'm struggling can you help me and then if you've got a bunch of
assholes who are in charge of you going what are you talking about man up then you know that doesn't
help at all and those kind of people need to be re-educated or weeded out yeah i couldn't agree
more mate and you hit on a very important point as well that we don't do very well
which is we have CISD which is kind of like TRIM critical incident stress debriefing and it will
happen you know for example like that that incident down the road here and they'll come and they'll
talk that day but what people miss is what you said in the next breath which is and then you follow
up the rest of the tour so for us it could be the rest of the career you know you're always checking
on these people because you know i've been on those calls where i've had a three-year-old
and i've cut a dead three-year-old out of a car you know those are pretty pretty uh you know
impactful moments in in your life and it may not hit then it may hit you know 400 sleepless nights
later when your sleep deprivation is just wrecking you just found out your wife was cheating and that
is the moment that everything comes flooding back right yeah right well i really appreciate your
your perspective of that and it's great to hear how progressive the Royal Marines are
so i want to i want to underline something well a couple things before we transition to the closing
question so your autobiography is manned down and you just released um the documentary no limits so
let's talk about no limits for a second what point did you decide to put your story on screen
i had the idea a couple of years ago um but you know it was just one of those pipe dreams don't
know you never think you could do that or you know the right people you've got the ability to do it
and i started working with another former Royal Marine called Matt Elliott who was finishing
university and getting his degree in photography and videography and media studies and we just said
a couple times messing about you know oh you know we should make a documentary you know like a fly
on the wall thing where i show people you know a little bit deeper than what i show them in social
media and you know i talk about what life is really like and i show myself walking under my bum and
brushing my teeth in the morning taking the kids to school and you know just reality you know i
mean fly on the wall kind of stuff so we agreed to do it and then we started doing the documentary
and then obviously i got accepted for the team for the Invictus Games and we completely changed
direction with it and we went with that instead but um you know i just i really enjoyed the whole
process and i just i didn't think i would you know but i really did and it was just so nice to be able
to share the experience and know that people are going to watch it and it might help in their lives
you know and i've had such good feedback from it um 20 000 views now up on youtube um
not a single negative comment loads people contact me daily about it you know they're telling me
they've just watched it and you know they one minute they're laughing one minute they're crying
and all this kind of stuff so it's just something i'm really proud of and you know i think i've got
a couple more in me if i'm honest you know that i could do and if the opportunity comes up then
that's something i'd love to do again yeah well i'll just testify i watched it the other day
obviously in preparation for this and i hadn't really heard of it until we started the you know
connecting but um it was amazing from several different levels from a trauma medicine point of
view like when you have the people that were treating you and they had the you know the footage
of your injuries that was just mind-blowing because it set up just the the grotesque brutality of war
you know in in those scenes and then how your you know medical personnel was still moved
you know decades later um recalling the story but then there is that fly on the wall side like you
were saying where you know i believe that that little video clip that you just put up today
of you carrying a daughter up the stairs that was in the the movie as well wasn't it when she's on
your shoulders yeah so so that's the the fly on the wall normality that you're a dad and doing the
same as the rest of us and then the invictus games you know the adaptations which i've talked a lot
about to several the adaptive athletes that i've had but what a great time it is for adaptive
athletes where in the crossfit space and the paralympic space and the invictus space it's not
oh i don't have the right limb so i can't do this or i have ms so i can't do this it's just how am
i going to work my way around you know the four-limbed you know traditional human physique and
adapt in a way where i can suffer exactly the same next to a fall in person on a concept too
with my one arm and we all can relate how fucking awful it is to row on that damn rower
yeah you got it so yeah it was amazing so i just wanted to say everyone out out there
go to youtube and watch the uh documentary no limits you will not be disappointed it's incredible
thank you right well then the first closing questions i know we've been going on for
over an hour and a half now um your book is man down um is there any other books that you love
to recommend to people that you've read it can be about something that we've talked about today
or something completely different so a couple years ago one of the things that really flipped
my mindset and changed the way i looked at things or maybe not changed it but opened it up more was
when i started reading i read a book by a bloke called tony robbins um i think i forget now there
were two of them i think it was called awaken the giant within and it was a personal development
self-development book and it was brilliant and it was kind of saying all this stuff that i knew
and some of it was common sense but i knew i wasn't applying it and it really helped me to
apply things and then i started training in neuro-linguistic programming and that again
opened my mind up to a whole new way of thinking and a mindset and i started to realize what i was
saying earlier that your your mental health is important as your physical health and you need to
read and go on courses and attend seminars just as much as you need to eat the right food and go
and train right and rest right and you know all those personal development self-development books
you know just get just have as many as you can and just digest as many as you can i read them all the
time and i love to go on courses and seminars now as well and just meet other like-minded people
you know and that's it's a big part of my life now brilliant did you ever see his uh i think it
was a netflix special documentary i am not your mentor i was in it oh yeah so that for a brief
second i was i was at that seminar called date with destiny in florida and uh there's a point
where i'm the camera pans in on the audience i'm sat there with a purple shirt on taking notes
while he's on stage but i have to watch it again now look for you yeah all right well speaking of
movies are there any other movies that you love and or documentaries you know i i grew up i was
born in 83 i grew up as a massive swachhnega stalone john claw van damd dole flungren boost
willis kind of fan so i loved all that kind of stuff growing up but when i went through rehab
after that low point for me i watched a movie called bronson with tom hardy in it and he no
one i don't think we knew who he was back then and i watched this film and i'm very proud to be
british and i watched this and i thought this guy's awesome you know this film's really cool and um
that kind of turned me on to the new age of sort of action superstars uh in hollywood
and so i just i just watched anything with uh with tommy but i think my favorite movie of all time
and i don't mind admitting i cried at the end of it was terminator 2 really i cried at the end of
it when i first watched it when he lowered himself into the lava i got so caught up in the story
they made me cry but that's got to be my favorite movie of all time was it was it the thumbs up
that went down at the end it's just like how this human being developed this real real relationship
with a robot and the robot had to sacrifice himself and the boy didn't want his friend to die
and all that kind of stuff and i'm like yeah it's quite sad actually well yeah i'll tell you this
was funny is i was a stunt man before i became a firefighter and i worked for universal studios the
theme parks not the uh the the films and i was a stunt double in the terminator 2 live show i was
the bad guy robert pottrick no wow really so i was the asshole that made you cry technically
that's cool all right well uh the next question that i always love to to ask because it just
opens up so many you know rabbit holes as it were but is there a person that you would recommend to
come on this podcast as a guest to talk to the first responders and military of the world
oh man there's loads um so many people that i've met through through rehab through invictus
um i mean i don't know if you do you do you speak to people all around the world yeah literally i
can i can skype anywhere on the planet and space if they've got an internet connection
oh man i have to think about that there's so many people that i can think of um
let me think and i'll drop you an email brilliant yeah yeah perfect all right so then the very last
question before we talk about you know where we can find you and where people contribute to the
charity um what do you do to decompress when you are not making movies writing books and doing
charity fundraisers i train that is how i decompress it's it sounds bizarre but it it's so
therapeutic for me just uh because i enjoy it so much just to do something i enjoy
you know at my own leisure training lifting weights doing cardio doing crossfit doing jiu-jitsu
that's just how i decompress um and then if you want to talk about something that's not physical
you know really relaxing i'm just a big movie buff i just love watching films especially this time
year when all the all the christmas funds are just about to watch jingle all the way actually
with the kids but they've gone to bed now that was based on a true story wasn't it
was it um you know one thing i forgot to talk before we do that very final one you said jiu-jitsu
so tell me about royal marines jiu-jitsu oh man that's awesome you know like i said i was i was
a full contact kickboxer and a muay thai fighter before i was injured and i just loved everything
about martial arts the physical aspect the mental aspect the respect the honor the discipline all
that kind of stuff and you know when i was injured i thought well that's that's my life in the martial
arts world over and then this guy i didn't know at the time a servant of all marine color sergeant
physical training instructor called sam sheriff came up to me and said look do you want to try
jiu-jitsu now in the beginning i was like not really mate no because this is just some sort
of pity thing you're going to do where you're going to let me win and i'm at this easy session
you're going to say how great you think i am and it's a way to make me feel good but i went down
there and i got my ass handed to me and i had to really work for it and i found out actually
it was probably the most inclusive martial art that you can do as a as a disabled person
because there's there's nothing you know in karate or kung fu or you have to kick you have
to punch you do the the cat is in the movements you know it you have to have all your limbs to a
degree but in jiu-jitsu you don't because you're down on the deck you're rolling you're choking
people you're submitting people you know you're crawling all over the place and someone in my
position can actually compete with an able-bodied person you know and in certain situations it's
an advantage to be me in jiu-jitsu because there's not so much to grab on to and like i said earlier
i'll use my chin my my stumps you know i'll jam them into parts of your body that other people
can't jam them into and just do what i can with what i've got left to win the fight you know i love
it yeah it's it's amazing and it just doesn't matter who you are people just if people try
jiu-jitsu and again it's that work ethic if you try jiu-jitsu and you don't like being choked out
or you know not humiliate is the wrong word having your pride questioned i guess is a more you know
gentle way of saying it then you're probably going to run away but for the rest of the people that
are prepared to to leave their ego at the front door and and you know uh go on an evening play
even playing field no matter who these people are it doesn't matter it's just it's loved by everyone
the navy seals and the business people and you know you name it it's just such a an amazing art
and actually speaking of which i'm sitting down with hoist gracy next week to interview him for
the show okay so i've trained with yeah are you training with him he's an ambassador for
reorg in fact hoist signed my white belt i've got a signed white belt by voice really okay i'll have
to i'll bring that up when i interview and then that's so reorg is a is a foundation he works with
hojja does yeah he's an ambassador for it gotcha brilliant all right well it's been such an amazing
conversation but i want to make sure that we talk about where everyone can find you online where
they can find you on social media and then if they if they want to contribute where's the best place
to do them so i'm in all the normal places instagram facebook twitter linkedin i've got
the website mark onward.com you can pretty much find me anywhere if you just google mark onward
and i'm active every day on social media like most people are trying to keep up with it and
respond as many people as i can but it's getting progressively harder and if they want to donate
to the charity i i have a page set up just given you just google mark onward just given there's a
page there where they can contribute or failing that just go onto the rawmereans charity website
and you can leave a donation there brilliant all right well i just want to say thank you so much
you've been so generous but the reality is your story is so incredible i think it just takes this
long to really tell it properly and you know then obviously all the the things you've done
you know since then so i really appreciate you being so generous with your time my pleasure