I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast
that is Transcend.
Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did
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Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have
seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely
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So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology
and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down
my throat.
Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason
why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.
They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first
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So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood
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In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been
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knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.
Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies
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So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely
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So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the
Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.
This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.
I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and I've used their products ever since.
From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female
responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've
worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they
are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance
project.
We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier.
I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been
my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.
One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick
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They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching
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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts
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So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do
want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around
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But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every
time you make a purchase.
And if you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen
to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayers.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week
it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show 3 Para legend and Falklands War veteran
Mick Southall.
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from him enlisting in the British
Army at the age of 16, the Junior Para program, entering depot, finding himself at war with
the Argentinians on the frigid Falkland Islands, the courage he witnessed with his own eyes,
his homecoming story, mental health, Northern Ireland, his journey into EMS and so much
more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for
others to find and this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now so all I ask
in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to
every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said I introduce to you Mick Southall.
Enjoy.
Well Mick I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time, your afternoon
in England, mine here in Florida in my morning and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast
today.
No problem at all thanks for inviting me.
So where exactly in the UK are we finding you today?
I live in Chester, it's in Cheshire, I'm in a triangle, I'm sort of just between Manchester
and Liverpool.
Brilliant.
Well I want to start at the very beginning of your timeline so tell me where you were
born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Okay I was born just there, about 500 yards from where I am now, I was born in a house
in Chester in 1964.
I have two sisters Debbie and Anne.
My father was a train driver, my mother used to work in care homes and did a variety of
jobs.
My father left when I was quite young so I was brought up as a single parent family on
what we would call these days a social housing but I still call it a council estate in Chester
called Blayken.
Now what do you remember about your dad and the train driving?
Because I would imagine as a young boy, I mean being a firefighter obviously you get
a lot of kids come to the fire station.
Train driver I think is another one of those things when you're little that you kind of
revered.
So did you ever get a chance to actually go on the train with him?
Yeah, yeah I went to work with him a couple of times, it's obviously hazy because I was
about nine when he left.
So yeah it's a little bit hazy but I can't remember going to work with him, you know
little events but yeah I was never drawn towards the train, no, not as a job.
Alright and then what about your mum and the care homes, the healing element, the kindness
and compassion, what do you remember about that and the caring part of her profession?
Yeah, my mum used to work in what's called Florence Grogan home, it's just about again
about a mile from here and she worked as a carer, she also did other jobs like a cleaner.
I would say by today's standards she wasn't very academically qualified so she would do
any work that came her way.
So she was sometimes a cleaner, sometimes she would work in the care home, you know
whatever came her way to make money.
Obviously it was difficult when my father left to have three children to look after.
Absolutely.
What about sports and exercise, you ended up doing a very physical profession, what
were you doing when you were in the school age?
I was always into sports, football, cricket, mainly football, I loved my football, soccer
as you would call it over there Sully.
In the high school, that was in my junior school, I did all the other stuff that anybody
would do like you know the sports days, but I wasn't in any sports club so to speak apart
from a local sort of five-a-side club that was run by a couple of guys, you know get
the young boys playing football, get them off the streets and that kind of thing.
But I was never in any sort of organised sports club so to speak.
And what about career aspirations, when you were at the same kind of junior, senior school,
what were you dreaming of becoming back then?
Well most of my life I was kind of obsessed with being a soldier, I just wanted to be
a soldier, from as young as I can remember.
I really can, from films like the old ones like The Longest Day into Hell and Back with
Audie Murphy and all those kind of films.
Right up to when I went to the cinema in 1977 so to speak, I'd seen A Prisoner Too Far and
that was it, that was me.
I knew what I wanted to be from the age of say 13.
Now what kind of actual conflicts had you been aware of though, was there much on television
as far as the British military?
I can remember World War, sorry I can remember TV about World War Two, a great documentary
series called World at War that was narrated by Laurence Olivier.
That got me interested in history, I was always interested in my history anyway.
But I can remember the Vietnam War, I can remember the Civil War in Angola, I can remember
the war between Israel and Egypt, I think it was the Six Day War, I might have that
slightly mistaken, but I can remember the war between Israel and Egypt, I can remember
various conflicts around the world.
When you look back now, the reason I'm about to ask is a lot of us in uniform, when there's
any sort of emotional struggles or challenges, a lot of people go, oh it's because you're
in the Falklands.
When actually now I realize, almost a thousand interviews later, that so many people, there's
elements of their upbringing that also contribute to maybe struggling when you're in uniform,
it wasn't just the Gulf War, the Grenfell fire, whatever the thing is.
When you look back now, obviously council estates are known to be rough sometimes, and
as you mentioned about single parent upbringing, were there any elements when you look back
now that maybe even contributed to pursuing the military or contributed to maybe any kind
of challenges later in life?
I wouldn't say being a part of a single parent family contributes to me joining the forces,
because I wanted to be one for as long as I could remember, so maybe I wanted to be
one for even when my dad was there.
The second part of the question was again, sorry, excuse me.
That's okay, so when we look back, even sometimes when you've got people that have struggled
in uniform, there's that myopic focus of, oh you were in this conflict, but a lot of
times when I hear these stories, actually it was earlier in life that was a big part
of why they struggled later in life.
I suppose I had quite an aggressive stepfather, so he was quite aggressive, especially when
he had alcohol, I believe he had an alcohol issue.
So when he had a drink, he could be quite violent towards me and my sisters and my mother,
but I'm not entirely sure if that's got any influence or any bearing on any issues I might
have had later on in life.
I suppose you could say because my father left and my stepfather wasn't very nice, that's
why I didn't have children.
Right, you didn't have children you said?
No, I didn't know.
I've not got children.
Because another thing, when you listen to people that go into uniform, whether it's
military, police, fire, there's an element also of wanting to be the protector and a
lot of times they felt victimized when they were younger.
And it's a positive impact to that.
You want to be the change, you want the buck to stop there and you're the part of the solution.
So it's always interesting.
Yeah, that's why I didn't have children because I wanted to stop the cycle because I'd only
seen bad fathers and I'd seen no need to continue it.
Now prior to entering the military, as you mentioned, your dad left when you were nine
and then you had this stepfather that obviously wasn't perfect.
Were there any other mentors in your life in the kind of school ages before you went
to the military?
Yeah, there was a PE teacher at Catholic High, my middle school.
He was a national serviceman, so he would have been conscripted in the 50s.
He knew that I wanted to be in the army on a number of lots of occasions.
When he found out that I wanted to be in the forces and I wanted to join the powers, he
used to take me running at lunchtime, he used to try and get me fit.
So by the time I arrived, I had at least a base level of fitness to work on.
He stopped me in the cross-country team just to get me running, to get my fitness up.
He was a big influence, not a big influence, but he was definitely an influence on me,
Mr Dempsey.
He helped me a lot.
Brilliant.
I'll always tell you, Mr Wichard, my PE teacher in school, was an inspiration.
We'd go cross-country and all that other stuff and it wasn't extra at lunchtime, but it was
in the actual sports because I always felt I was a bit shit academically.
It was the one area that I felt that I was somewhat good at.
I wasn't great at football, but it's amazing how just those moments – and he probably
was unaware at the time, but we're still connected on Facebook to this day – it's
amazing how some of these teachers, male, female, whatever it is, it might just be a
moment of compassion or just taking the time to do a little bit extra with the child that
years later pays dividends.
Oh, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
I doubt if he – I don't know if he's still alive, but I doubt it, but I suppose you never
really realised how much of an influence or impact that he had on me just by doing those
little things like making me run cross-country, which I suppose at the time I didn't really
appreciate, but when I got to the depot I did.
Well let's talk about that then.
So for a lot of people listening, if they're here in the US, they graduate at 18, back
home we graduate at 16.
So walk me through graduating school and then your journey into the military at only 16
years old.
Well if I'm honest, we didn't graduate school, we just left.
We just left.
Nobody cared.
Did you take O-levels back then?
Is that what it was?
No, I took CSEs, yeah.
Yeah, so did you actually take those?
Because I said the same thing, like we didn't have any sort of ceremony.
You took your exams and then school was just done.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think I ever officially left school, I just stopped going.
And no one seemed bothered.
Very nice of a problem.
In those days the teachers, I will say that some of the teachers in our school were nothing
short of bullies, they weren't educators, they were just dogs and I don't have a lot
of time for any of them.
If they're still alive then that's up to them, but I have very little time for my teachers,
any of my teachers, apart from Mr. Dempsey and maybe one or two others.
The rest of them were just dogs who had absolutely no interest in the children they were educating.
Yeah, mine was a mixed bag definitely.
It's funny, on a group chat a while ago now, I mentioned one of my previous teachers.
I thought it was just me, but then there was a stream of other fellow pupils that were
like, yeah, he was an absolute sociopath.
So a dangerous place to put an adult when you're amongst children.
I would say 95% of the teachers that I had in my Catholic high school, no way would they
be allowed to teach today.
Not to children.
Yeah, ironically I went to a private junior school, state school as a senior school, and
it was the junior school that I saw the real cruelty, ironically, one where they paid more
money to actually go to.
But my middle school, I'm still in touch with some of my teachers from my middle school,
I would just do the complete opposite if you don't mind me saying.
I would say that my middle school teachers, Mr. Poole and Miss Hart and people like that,
were much better to me.
But when I got to the high school, then I seen real, nothing short of brutality, I don't
care what anyone says.
So with that then, you walked me through not showing up at school anymore and then how
you ended up enlisting with the British Army.
Well I went to join the army in 1979 because you could guarantee your vacancy then at 15
to go in at 16.
Now that might seem a little bit strange by today's age-restricting standards, but that's
what you could do.
You could go to 15, go through all the process, guarantee your vacancy.
And I got my vacancy guaranteed in around March 1980 to join the depot, what we would
call a depot of the Power Street Regiment on September the 9th, 1980.
So between March and August, September 1980, I wasn't really interested in school, they
weren't interested in me.
So I'd already had my vacancy to get in.
You go to the local careers office, you get talked to by people who've been in the forces
and you tell them what you want to do and they tell you if you can do this, if you can
do that.
Then you go to what's called a reception centre.
I went to Harrogate and you get some more lectures, some more leaflets about different
units within the army, what you want to do.
I'd already had my mind made up, I knew what I wanted to join and even though a couple
of people tried to dissuade me from joining the Power Street Regiment, they were never
going to.
And when I finally got my vacancy, I went in on September the 9th, 1980.
So I was the second smallest kid in my whole school year.
Wasn't the smallest, it was almost worse.
It wasn't even the best at being the smallest, I was the second smallest.
But it took me a long time.
I had literally genuinely had my growth spurt at 18 years old, 18, so I was tiny for so
long.
Walk me through your physical size at 16 and then let's talk about the baby power, that
kind of hoarding pattern that you were in.
There were many of us that were obviously not fully developed at 16.
Some of the guys were because they were big tall.
A lot of us were underdeveloped.
I probably weighed about maybe seven or eight stone at 16 years of age going in.
It was quite daunting because there was no difference made between us and adults.
We were just told, you're just a small adult, get on with it.
There was no, not like there is today, there was no consideration made for our lack of
physical development.
So I was about seven or eight stone, about five foot three, five foot four.
And I suppose if you looked at the pictures, if I said to somebody, I'm going in the power,
they would have looked at me and said, what else?
Wait.
There was nothing of me, to be perfectly honest.
So what was that kind of on ramp like for you specifically at 16 years old?
You've obviously got all the adult kit that you've got to move around.
It's the same with the fire service.
I mean, the ladder is not going to get lighter because you're 16.
It is what it is.
What did that kind of journey to actually being a paratrooper look like for you at 16
years old?
When I joined at 16, I joined under Lieutenant Neil Young and Sergeant Ozzie Howes with three
junior NCOs, corporals.
And you joined in between.
And in those days, what we did then was you did about a year of as a junior soldier.
In the junior, they also carried on your education.
I actually got more qualifications while I was in the junior army than I got when I was
in school because the people in the junior army were educators rather than folks.
So I learned a lot through them.
And I actually got more qualifications through the army education system than I did in civilian.
So there was a mixture of adventure training, sport, obviously very, very intense military
training.
So even at 16, you were still allowed to fire live weapons.
And you had to be proficient on all of those.
You carried out exactly the same weapon handling training, weapon safety test as an adult would
carry out.
Absolutely.
On all the same weapons, rifle, general purpose machine gun, et cetera.
And you were built up.
In fairness, the PT program built you up.
You didn't get there and you were expected to start going up and down hills carrying
55 pounds.
Not at all.
They did build you up.
And you got, it was a very, very intense, because obviously being airborne forces and
we had a selection process, it was a very, very intense physical program of constant
testing.
That's what I do remember.
You were constantly being assessed.
Every PE lesson you were being assessed.
Okay.
Are you up to it?
Will you be able to pass the selection process?
And this is all at 16 years of age, me and another five lads in one room with all our
equipment living together, never known each other until we arrived, if you know what I
mean.
We were living in a room, all helping each other in a platoon of about 60 or 70 people
or 60 or 70 young guys, helping each other, trying to get through as best we can the training
that they put in front of us.
Sometimes I believe there's a thin line between bullying and character building.
What I would say, there was a lot of character building done because you obviously had to
be tough to be a soldier, tough to be in the infantry and tough to be a paratrooper.
And they made you tough.
Sometimes you might not have thought that that's what they were doing.
You may have thought at the time I was just picking on me.
They were trying to make you tough because heaven forbid you should have to do it for
real.
I've witnessed obviously being on the fireside, the impact of shared suffering on team building,
on that tribalism.
What did you witness with these young boys that you first stumbled into the barracks
with and then a year later, the bond that was formed?
Yeah, we found out very quickly and it was fostered by if somebody in the section is
weak or somebody in the section fails something or then it's everybody's fault.
It's everyone's fault.
No, no, you're a section, you're a team.
If you like them or dislike them, I didn't dislike anyone in my section if I'm honest.
If you like, that's got nothing to do with it.
You help each other.
So when you see somebody struggling, you don't stand there.
If somebody's struggling putting their kit on or struggling ironing their kit or for some
reason I was quite good at ironing, so I would iron people's kit because they weren't as
good at it as I was.
And other stuff, you know, you worked as a team and if anybody fell back or failed, it's
because he's been let down by the guys in his room, not just perhaps his own personal
qualities.
He's been let down by his guys and that's what the fostering the team spirit was really
important from the start.
I think that's a lesson that needs to be relearned in a lot of the countries at the moment.
We're so fortunate and so comfortable in our day to day lives that it takes a village mentality
has kind of been lost a little bit.
And in some areas, it's no, no, no, look at me.
I'm important rather than we are important collectively.
Oh yeah.
I mean, if somebody was falling back on a march or something like that, okay, the staff
didn't like you taking their weapon off or taking a kit off them, of course, but they
would expect people to go back and help them.
They're struggling, so help them, you know, encourage them perhaps.
So I was in a depot for 18 months because we had a very large intake of young men in
September.
By the time we got to the following September, not as many people had actually got out as
they thought would.
So we had quite a lot of guys left.
So they split us into two groups.
We have numbers in our platoons.
We had two platoons at the same time.
One was 476 and the one behind that was obviously 477.
So a number of guys went to 476 and the rest of the guys went to 477 and we made up our
own platoon.
And that was the only way they could manage the amount of junior soldiers that joined
in September 1980.
That's the only way they could manage the amount that were left, which is split them
in two.
Then when we went from what we would call junior power to adult or recruit power training,
477 went back to week one, day one, which I think made it quite easy for our staff because
they were taking us for lessons that we already knew.
So I think they had quite an easy, I don't think Nick Butler would appreciate that, but
he was one of my full-school couples, which I still talk to now, fantastic guy.
But we all knew everything.
So it was quite a relaxed, shall we say, because there wasn't any pressure on us to learn,
because we'd already learnt it.
But because of the numbers, they made us go back to week one, day one.
And then we did another six months adult training then, which of course included three very,
very key elements of selection for airborne forces or for the parachute regiment forces.
And that's basic Wales, pre-parachute selection, and what we call advanced Wales.
If you fail any of those three, then of course you can be back squadded to another platoon
because you're not deemed to be at the required standard at that stage.
Basic and advanced Wales, is that Snowdonia training or something?
Well, the infantry battle school at Brecon, which is in southern Wales, is actually the
parachute regiment battle school.
The parachute regiment founded it in the 50s.
So the parachute regiment always did their training in South Wales over the Brecon Beacons.
Basic Wales was just to confirm some basic field craft stuff.
Then you did what's called pre-parachute selection, which is the big physical test that everyone
has to pass.
When I did it in November 1981, it consisted of a number of tests.
It was milling, which I don't know if you're aware of what milling is.
Do you know what that is at all?
Please educate me.
Milling is one minute basically fighting your mate.
Okay, like what they call combatives now.
Yeah, well some people call it control sparring.
Some people call it apparently it's under control these days.
It still is difficult.
I'm not for one minute suggesting what I did was any more difficult than what the young
lads do these days.
They're still doing the same stuff.
They're still brilliant.
But yeah, it was just a case of fighting your friend in a ring with boxing gloves on for
a minute.
That was in the morning.
In the afternoon you would do a 10 mile march.
You had to complete that in one hour 40 carrying a rifle and a Bergen.
Weighing approximately 44 pounds.
Stay out overnight.
In the morning you had the stretcher race.
The stretcher weighed 175 pounds.
You would carry it between a team over the distance of seven and a half miles.
You had to do that in one hour 50.
Then in the afternoon, sorry after that you would do the confidence test, which is a gymnasium.
It's like an assault course but it's about 30, 40 feet up in the air to test your nerve.
Then after that in the afternoon you would do either the steeple chase, which is three
miles.
I started two miles in 18 minutes over a cross country steeple chase.
Then the assault course.
Then we also had the log race.
I think I remember everything there.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, that was pre-parachute selection where you had a number so the staff don't know who
you are.
You've just got a number.
You have to recue a certain amount of points over all the events.
If you get the correct amount of points, then you pass what's called pre-company or pre-parachute
selection.
That's the big test.
It's open to everybody in the army so anyone can do it.
It's called pre-parachute selection for service with Airborne Forces.
What about mentally though?
What was it that allowed you to carry on when, as you mentioned, some of the recruits tapped
out?
The biggest fear I had was failure.
That was the biggest fear I had was failure.
That's what kept me going.
They built it or you could call it a kind of brainwashing or conditioning that failure
is just simply not an option.
You can cry.
You can throw up.
You can have broken bones.
You can do what you like as long as you don't quit.
That's what we were told pretty much week one, day one.
Do anything.
If you vomit, if you throw up, if you cry, all the rest of it, don't care.
Just keep going.
My fear of failure is what kept me going.
It's interesting asking people that their career spanned a big conflict in their life.
For example, a lot of the guys that deployed to the Middle East, what was the training
focus prior to that?
For example, in the US, really the big conflict before that was really Vietnam, before the
first Gulf War.
Some of the training, some of the tactics ended up morphing as they stayed out there
in IEDs and all these horrendous things that happened.
When you look back now, what was the preparation like without even knowing that you would end
up on the Falkland Islands a few short months later?
Was it still apropos?
At this stage, I'm not even in a regiment yet.
I'm still in training at this stage.
After the P company, then we do the advanced worlds, which is lots of field firing, more
advanced movement with live weapons, moving up to section of platoon attacks, all live
to conditioners for going on to the battalion after a pass out parade.
It's like a graduation.
That happened on February the 19th.
Then we moved to the battalion.
That's where you are now considered a trained soldier.
Up until then, you are not a trained soldier until you join your unit.
I know some American units, they leave with medals and with ribbons and that.
We don't leave with anything.
You're not a trained soldier.
You go to your unit, then you start earning things.
There's nothing wrong with the American system.
It's not our system.
On February the 19th, when I joined, sorry, two weeks after that, approximately the 24th
of March, give or take a bit, I then joined three para.
That's when, even at this stage, even on the 24th of March, nobody had any idea that we
would be going to the focus.
When you reflect though, you mentioned the Brecon Beacons and some of these other areas
versus the urban warfare that some of our soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq ended up having
to focus on.
Was the training that you guys got still somewhat comparable to what you ended up enduring on
the Falklands?
Actually, there's an old phrase that the Waterloo was won on the plain fields of Eaton.
Well, the Falklands was won on the hills of Brecon because the Falklands and Brecon are
pretty much identical.
The terrain, the weather, the conditions.
Training in the Falklands and in that environment was no shock to Power Street Regiment soldiers
at all.
No.
So basically, the training that we did in South Wales was extremely comparable to what
we engaged, both two and three para engaged, during the Falklands.
Yeah, it was basically the same.
So you mentioned about passing out in February and then, you know, Falklands was April 2nd,
so walk me through that.
I mean, you literally are barely, you know, put your feet in the new position and then
war breaks out.
So, walk me through those weeks for you.
So in those sort of weeks prior to the 2nd of April, we were doing Northern Ireland training
because we were on what's called Spearhead.
Spearhead was the lead unit of the British Army at the time.
And it was usually deployed to Northern Ireland to support units in the province.
Now ironically, I wouldn't have been allowed to go to Northern Ireland because it was an
internal country insurgency warfare.
So I would have had to be in 18.
So I couldn't have gone there.
Okay.
But when the Falklands came up, nobody questioned our age, to be honest.
Nobody said, oh, can they go or not?
We were asked if he wanted to go.
But I digress slightly.
So the weeks before that, we were doing lots and lots of Northern Ireland training, getting
used to what we might be doing in the province.
Just doing basic, doing stuff like going to the ranges, doing PE, physical training, sorry,
around Tidworth.
And then after we'd done our Northern Ireland training, we were given a long weekend, went
home, we came back, and then we were supposed to be confined to camp because there was talk
of something going on somewhere.
So we were confined to camp.
And even though we were confined to camp, they still put signs on the train stations
to tell the guys to come back after what we would cut to him.
The balloon went up on the Friday night to say that we've all been withdrawn, we've all
been called back to barracks, okay, and we're going to the Falklands.
I was actually in my bed at the time when somebody came round to get me up, to go to
what we would call the company office and start phoning people to tell them to get back
into barracks because we've been put on standby to go to the Falklands.
I had John Geddes on the show and Philip Neame, and I'll ask you the same question I asked
them because I was a little boy.
I remember the Falkland conflict.
And ironically to me, at that young, young age, realizing that something can happen and
that initiates sending a load of our boys, in this case, to war.
And obviously, a lot of them didn't come back.
It really kind of opened my young eyes.
Oh, so a politician can basically decide if they send someone or if they don't.
And it kind of shifted my career path a little bit because I loved the military stuff.
I had all the action men and all that stuff too.
Talk to me about the invasion and then was there an opportunity for diplomacy or were
our hands tied and the combat side the only option?
Well, diplomacy was tried all the way down.
Mr. Haig from the United States was constantly going to and from London to Buenos Aires,
Buenos Aires back to London.
In Mrs. Thatcher's book, she asked Mr. Haig, when you talk to the Argentines and you talk
to us, what is the main difference?
And Mr. Haig said, you're usually sober.
So how they can deal with how we are supposed to deal diplomatically with people who aren't
even sober.
It was very difficult for Mrs. Thatcher to get any kind of answer from General Gautieri,
cost amended, I believe his name was, their sort of foreign secretary.
It was very difficult to negotiate with people who had a completely ulterior motive.
Their motive for invading the fourth war had nothing to do with sovereignty or the island,
had nothing to do with that.
It was to distract their people from the fact that their country was going bankrupt.
So as a unifying factor to get the country on their side, they invaded the Falklands
because they thought we wouldn't do anything.
This is something that's such a reoccurring theme when there seems to be this kind of
mission under color or race or patriotism.
More often than not, when you reverse engineer it, it's about greed and power.
And it's so sad that even to this day that a leader with no ethics can create an environment
that sends their children to war.
Yeah, and that blame lies solely, and nobody will ever convince me, it lies solely with
General Gautieri, not Mrs. Thatcher.
Solely with that man.
And many people had the opportunity, when I say many people, some people had the opportunity
to shake hands with the generals in Port Stanley and they decided not to, thank you, because
you caused all this.
Lots of your young men and lots of our young men have died and you caused it.
So I'm not shaking your hand.
I don't have an issue at all with me being sent to fight for, I believe it was a very,
very noble war.
I believe it was because we had 2000 British people on the islands and all the Argentinians
would do is turn them into the disappeared.
I don't know if you've heard about those.
No.
They were called the disappeared in Argentina, where the military junta, any opposition,
they just disappeared.
Approximately 30,000 of them.
Now they sent their main guy to Port Stanley, okay, to sort it out and he was, I think it
was called the either the butcher of Buenos Aires or the death angel of Buenos Aires, something
like that.
And his solution was, what's your problem?
Just kill them all.
No problem, just kill them all.
Then we haven't got a problem, then have we?
Okay, and that's how brutal they were.
That's how brutal they were.
And when I hear people blaming Mrs. Thatcher for the fall of the wall, okay, could she
have done anything?
I don't know, but I put the blame solely, solely at the feet of General Galtier.
Yeah, and this is why it's important to hear the voices that were actually there.
Whatever we're talking about, you know, there's news stations that will present their version
or you can ask the men and women that were actually boots on the ground.
Oh, if that if it be and I mean, as I said, it was the last when I say noble, okay, I
mean, the Americans and British have been involved in conflicts since then.
I would never ever question.
I don't question the young men and women that are involved in them.
Okay, I don't.
I would never ever question them or their motives or their loyalty or patriotism.
But British soil had been invaded.
British people were going to be killed.
So I'm afraid I'm quite I would go and do it again now.
I would not bat an eyelid.
Well, let's walk through that then.
So as you said, the balloon goes up.
You know what?
What does that look like?
You're 17 years old.
You just graduated as it were.
What does it look like as far as from that moment to being on the ship heading south?
I say this all the time.
I just found it incredibly exciting.
I didn't think for one minute we were going to go through.
I just thought we're going to do a bit of Sabre rattling.
They'll do a bit of Sabre rattling.
Maybe we'll go round the island a few times and come home.
So I found it all really, really exciting.
I'm on a coach with motorcycle escorts down to Southampton.
I'm getting all this kit given to me that I've never seen before and all that sort of
stuff.
So I'm not going to lie.
I found it quite exciting.
And I didn't think and can I just say a lot of people didn't think we would actually get
to fighting.
So I found it quite quite an adventure.
I'm not going to lie.
It was an adventure.
You know, I was I'd never been abroad in my entire life.
And here I am on the third biggest cruise liner in the world with three thousand other
people and we're staying into war like we used to do in the old black and white films.
And I'm thinking surely not.
Yeah, here we are.
Did you have that thought?
I've heard I think both Philip and John had this that initially when they heard Falklands
war they thought it was somewhere around Scotland, you know, the Falklands Islands.
Did you know where that island was initially?
Now, this is actually quite sad because I did I did actually know where they were.
And that's all because of the fault of watching nature programs when I was younger.
They did a special a survival program called Survival did a special on the Forkland Island.
And I remember the name of the capital, Port Stanley.
So when he said the Forkland Island, everyone was going, where's that?
I think that's in the South Atlantic.
Wasn't the telly a few years ago.
It was.
Oh, it is down there.
So I was quite I did have an idea where they were.
But most people know they weren't in the of the nation's consciousness at all.
No one no one paid much attention to them.
No, no, no, no.
Most people didn't know where they were.
No, they didn't.
I think it was it was John, I think, that told the story that there were civilians on
some of these ships that volunteered to go down with you guys that were doing entertainment
and all that kind of thing.
Talk to me about that.
Oh, yeah, there was no to pilot.
I think John Geddes and Philip Neame were to para.
I was three part of two part of went down on an old North Sea ferry called the Norland
to power.
So excuse me, I do apologize.
Three pilot were on the camber with four to four or five commander or 40 and 42 commander
solid was getting mixed up.
No disrespect to the of our colleagues, but I was getting mixed up.
So we still had civilians.
They were building helipads as we were leaving Southampton.
A lot of them did volunteer, the laundry people volunteered.
OK, all the chefs, a lot of people on the camera did volunteer to stay on board now
on on the Norland.
They had a very famous guy called Wendy.
That's what they called him.
And he was a pianist.
And he entertained the guys every night in the bar.
That's what he was talking about.
Yeah, that's yeah.
Well, I didn't experience that until on the way back because that we came back on the
normal.
I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.
So two and three part of work together, we were on separate vessels.
So you're sailing down south, kind of walk me through how the war escalates and, you
know, again, your, you know, your position in as far as making ground.
So on the way down, as you can imagine, polishing up on training, first aid, communication,
navigation, history, vehicle recognition, aircraft recognition, polishing up skills
on the way, working a lot on fitness.
I was very fortunate in the fact that I'd only just finished training, so I was really
fit, but we didn't have any unfit people anyway.
Okay, not to use my due process.
So we were doing all that working our way down, getting closer and closer.
Now on the way down, we stopped at Ascension Island.
I'm sure you've heard of that place where again, I would go up, I went up on a deck
and I would see, wow, there's there's like 100 ships around me.
Again, very, very sort of like, wow, for 17 year old.
On the way down, we did lots and lots of training.
When we got to Ascension Island, it was the first opportunity we got to use landing craft
because we were told we were going to have to land as in the old sort of D-Day beach
landing.
Okay, so we had to learn how to use those.
You may say, oh, it can't be that difficult, you know, how to get on them, how to get off
them, et cetera.
We did a practice on Ascension Island.
We did a walk down to Ascension Island, then got back onto the Canberra and started making
our way then past Ascension Island, getting closer towards the island.
And this is where it started, hang on, we're getting really close here.
You know, is diplomacy, is Mr. Hague, you know, is Mrs. Thatcher, will, you know, Costa
Mendes, will Galtieri, will they get together and stop it?
Because we seem to be getting awful close to the Argentinians here.
You know, at what stage are we going to go?
Yeah, well, it's not for real guys, we're going home.
But obviously we didn't.
The big turning point for me and for a lot of people is when we heard the General Belgrano
had been sunk.
And obviously the next day HMS Sheffield was sunk.
And then I would say, I personally felt a tangible change in the atmosphere.
Hang on, no, this is real.
Okay, so instead of just checking your pouch maybe once, you check it twice.
You know what I mean, you'd heighten up your skills rather than just doing something, you
would check it again.
Okay, and I found people in my cabin, I was here with Gasjule, if I was here with Scouts
Lloyd, Andy Stedman, and we would be constantly checking our kit, make sure it's okay, because
it was going to be for real.
When did you find yourself actually getting onto the land itself?
Okay, well we transferred from the SS Canberra onto HMS Intrepid, which is a troop landing
ship.
There was only two, the Intrepid and the fearless.
We transferred to the Intrepid probably on the night of the 26th or 27th of May.
We were fed, really well looked after by the Navy guys.
Then while we're on that vessel, we moved into San Carlos water, okay, and then after
being fed, sorting out the last pieces of equipment, doing things like climbing grenades
for instance, making sure the grenades were ready to go, all that kind of stuff.
Then we started to land from the Intrepid at approximately first light on the 28th of
May.
Did you experience resistance?
I think it was John that was saying that they were bracing for, like you said, a Normandy
experience receiving fire when we actually got on there and there was no one there.
Nobody was 100% sure it would be unopposed.
Okay, obviously our special forces were on the ground doing their job, okay, but the
information they were getting, they weren't sure it would be unopposed.
There was one enemy observation post on Stilme called Fanning Head, where I believe either
the SBS Special Air Service, one of those group of guys, they took that out.
But we weren't sure whether the landing was going to be opposed until obviously the first
couple of landing craft got in and no one was there.
It was very fortunate.
Having looked at things like, sorry, I don't like quoting Hollywood, but looking at the
things like sort of saving private land, I'm very, very pleased it wasn't an opposed landing.
Yeah, absolutely.
So then what did the next few days look like?
As you said, going back to your training in the Brecon Beacons, you're marching a lot,
you're experiencing climbs, etc.
What was the next kind of mission for your guys?
For the first sort of seven to 10 days, we just stayed in San Carlos on the hills.
And this is where we were watching, for want of a better phrase, the air raids carried
out by the Argentinian Air Force.
The Argentinian Air Force were not bombing the soldiers that were digging in, as I would
call it.
They were going for the ships.
So they were just flying over us and bombing the ships.
So we were in what, and it was nicknamed then Bomb Alley because it was constant air raids.
Now while we were there, we were doing things like patrolling, etc. during the air raids,
you know, dominating the ground to deny the enemy the ground or movement.
And we were making plans for our helicopter assault onto the mountains around Port Stanley.
Now I'm not entirely sure if you're aware of this.
All the helicopters were on something called the Atlantic Conveyor, which is a very, very
large vessel, probably the size of an aircraft carrier.
And it had all the helicopters on it.
The Argentinians sank it.
So Brigadier Julian Thompson's plan to heli forward all his power stupas and commandos
was scuppered.
He had no helicopters.
And that's when a decision was made that four or five commando and elements and three commando
and supporting elements would walk.
And correct me if I'm wrong.
That was the decision that the Argentinians weren't expecting that you guys would actually
just physically walk to that place.
I don't think they thought we would be mad enough to walk.
I'm going to sneak a tradition.
Some people on our side were thinking that as well.
But yeah, four or five commando with supporting elements and three with their supporting elements,
not just power stupas.
We had our chefs, we had everyone with us, not just power stupas.
And the commando is the same.
They had their supporting elements of artillery, we, me, chefs.
So it's called a battle group.
So although people say, oh, three pattern march, there was other guys with us.
And we started off.
I can't remember the date that we actually left San Carlos and started walking.
But it became very, very clear or very, very apparent very quickly that this was not going
to be a quick walk across the hills.
The terrain was absolutely horrendous, as were the boots that we had issued.
And as obviously the weather, the terrain and the elements were so against us.
It was unreal.
Yeah, because for people, listen, this is not far from Antarctica, is it?
No, no, it's not.
No, it's not far from Antarctica at all.
No, you're talking about a wind till factor at night.
I've read recently or read in books over the years that the wind till factor for ourselves
and four or five commando, it would get it down to about minus 20 minus 25 degrees, sometimes
even worse than that without any, without any specialist Arctic equipment.
We were just in a soldier would be wearing in Brecon.
We had no specialist equipment.
Now what about rations?
I mean, now, like you said, you're walking on the island.
What were you, you've gone from from being well fed on the ships.
What did it look like when you were on that march?
Well, we were all used to eating rations.
Absolutely.
Okay.
No problem with rations.
You can eat them hot or cold anyway.
But we were told to make a 24 hour ration pack last 48 hours.
Okay.
We eat half one day and half the next.
And people would be eating stuff that they wouldn't normally eat if you know what I mean.
Oh, we've got this ration pack.
Well, I don't like that bit.
I don't like that bit.
They would eat everything.
And we were given Arctic rations.
Now Arctic rations, you might think, oh, and they were much better.
They were much better.
But they were called Arctic rations because you could use the snow to cook them.
You needed an awful lot of water to cook them.
But we didn't have the snow wasn't that bad.
So we would actually be making our meals with water that puddles.
Yeah, absolutely.
Water that streams and puddles to make the meals up.
Okay.
It was quite, I know my very, very good friend, Sully Eladji and other people I've spoken
to about it, sort of Grant Grinham, another very, very good friend of mine, Harry Harrison,
all those kinds of guys that I served with, they all said the same thing.
It was the hardest thing they've ever done.
Yeah, I can imagine.
The distance was about between 70 and 90 miles.
And you say you had 55 on your back as well?
Well, I would have.
I would have been carrying about 80 pounds.
Yeah.
I mean, that reframes it completely.
Easily, easy about 80 pounds worth of equipment.
So then take me to Mount Longden.
Okay.
So as we're walking across, obviously getting in briefs during the walk across, obviously
Tupara attacked Goose Green and we found out that Tupara had a bad time and even a commanding
officer had been killed.
The Welsh Guards got hit at Bluff Curve.
We're getting all this information as we're walking across.
And then we all sort of, when I say we all, everyone sort of converged on somewhere called
Mount Astansia, which is approximately, or Astansia House, excuse me, which is about
10 to 12 miles from Mount Longden and the other features of Two Sisters, Mount Harriet,
Mount Kent, sorry, Mount Harriet, Sapper Hill, all of the features around Port Stanley, about
12 miles away from Astansia House.
And this is where we all received our orders to say exactly what we were going to be doing.
All right.
Making sure, again, making sure all equipment's ready to go.
Getting briefs from our company commander, our platoon commanders, our section commanders,
getting a sort of a realistic chat is what I would like to call it, a realistic chat
from our company sergeant major, Mr. John Weeks.
In the American Army, I suppose, I don't know what the equivalent would be, okay, but he's
a senior non-commissioned officer within the company and he gave us what I would call a
reality talk and he said to us, be aware, some of you will not see the morning tomorrow.
If you have a God, if you believe in that kind of thing, go and pray to him because
some of you will not see daylight tomorrow.
That was quite daunting for 17, 18, there was a lot of 18 year old lads, not much difference
between 17 and 18, 19, I think the average age in B Company was 21.
The only young lads, I think the average age was 21.
Somebody may be able to correct me on that.
So we had the brief off the company sergeant major and then everyone got their equipment
together and let's go and we walked the sort of then the 10 miles or so or 10 or 12 miles
from Astantia to Mount London.
And talk to me about the fortified position that they had built on Mount London.
Okay, if you look at any of the pictures of Mount London, it looks from one end when you're
looking at it from where we were on the start line with the moon behind it, it looked like
a medieval castle because the lights coming through and the shape of it, it looks like
a medieval castle.
It is almost impossible to sort of fight through it in a traditional manner because the rocks
are so close, the night and being at night as well, you could go past somebody, they
could be behind a rock here and you would walk this side and miss them completely.
It was so close to fighting.
We're talking feet, not meters, we're talking feet between opposing forces, we're talking
feet.
Mount London is a very, very jagged rocky feature, approximately six or seven hundred
feet high.
Six or seven hundred feet high, it's not much to that then, six or seven hundred feet high
and approximately two, two and a half miles long.
It's a huge feature and I believe on there, there was approximately three, sorry, approximately
six hundred Argentines, give or take a bit.
So how were you and your men able to navigate that?
Okay, so we were on what we call a start line, it's where everyone gets there, it's a single
line, sorry to be patronizing, start line, everybody moves to the start line, lay down,
make sure everything is ready to go and we basically get up at the same time and it was
called an advance of contact.
Now how we got to where we were without the Argentinians seeing us, I have absolutely
no idea because we were literally on top of them before they even realized we were there.
They had no idea we were coming, none at all, because our commanding officer Lieutenant
Colonel Pike had decided to make it what's called a silent attack, so in other words,
most military, before they attack a position, would artillery it to soften up the enemy,
where in this case the commanding officer said no, we don't want them to know that we're
coming and that went the same for the commandos on Two Sisters, Mount Harriet, Mount William
and the other positions that the commandos took, okay.
It was a silent attack and the Marines and ourselves and the paratroopers, we got very,
very close to the enemy without them even knowing we were there.
We got within about 50 meters without them even knowing we were there and then unfortunately
a colleague of mine, Corporal Brian Mill, put on a mine, okay, and that was the first
indication that they had that we were there and of course then they opened up with everything.
Talk to me about that battle then because I know if we're taking again the kind of
mirror sun headlines of back in the day, you hear, oh, they were all just young farm boys,
but then I listen to the actual veterans and they praise, for example, the Argentinian
Air Force and their bravery.
There seems to be a lot of mutual respect from the Brits for the Argentinians that we're
fighting, so what was the kind of level of resistance that you were experiencing at that
point?
Well, considering, and I've heard this before, can I say, I've heard this before, that the
Argentinians were only conscripts, they were only farm boys.
Well, they managed to put up a pretty good fight.
They managed to kill 24 paratroopers, so they weren't too bad.
They put up a very, very good fight and it's very disrespectful to the Argentinians.
As I said, they believed in what they were doing as much as we did, so I'm friends with
the Argentine veterans, I don't mind saying that.
We will never agree on the islands, of course, but we can agree that there's a mutual respect,
okay?
And to say that they didn't fight when they were farm boys and all the rest of it, I just
think it's a little bit insulting to them, to be honest.
And it's not a term I'm actually comfortable with when people say I'm very quick to correct
people with that.
Well, it's also disrespectful to you guys because it downplays what your men had to
encounter.
I mean, to be honest, you could put a 15-year-old guy on a clock tower with a rifle, he'll hold
people up.
Absolutely, he'll hold an entire town up because no one wants to move, so it doesn't have to
be that well-planned either.
So I wouldn't say it denigrated what we did, but I just find it a little bit insulting
to the Argentinians to say that they didn't put up a fight because they most certainly
did.
So the Argentinians, they did put up a fight.
Now, when it comes to tactics, I can't possibly comment about tactics because I was only a
17-year-old private and all I...
Not the only command, but the first command I got was run, and I did.
I ran forward as quick as I could, and I found myself on my own for about five or 10 minutes.
I was actually on my own in the rocks trying to find my unit, okay?
I got shot at, okay?
I got shouted at, I got shot at.
Eventually, I found myself back with my unit, but for about 10 minutes, I was actually on
my own or separated, which was quite daunting at the time.
It's daunting now, but it was daunting at the time, that's for sure.
How did you overcome the fear?
Fear is real and it's present.
It's not like these people that we see on television, oh, I'm fearless.
There's no fucking thing such as fearless, but you have to at least control your fear.
Now you're separated from your unit on a foreign island surrounded by enemy combatants.
How were you able to stay in that calm state to navigate yourself back and not get killed?
I'm sorry, I'll go back to the phrase I used before.
Fear of failure, fear of letting people down, fear of letting myself down, fear of letting
my regiment down.
That's a big thing, okay?
Don't want to let the power of your regiment down, of course.
Okay, and that was a big thing.
Okay, yeah, I'm in a bit of a bit of a bit of stuck here, but there must be a way out
of it.
If I panic, if I panic, then I will either get captured or I'll get killed.
So I have to think, yeah, and I'm not for one minute suggesting that there wasn't a
moment when I went, well, hang on, right, let's just take a deep breath.
Right, let's go this way.
That sort of thing.
So the fear, I didn't think about it at the time.
I didn't, I'm not going to say I wasn't scared, but the fear didn't overcome me at all.
I was, I kept putting it to the back of my mind and for me it worked.
I'm not saying it would work for everyone, but for me, that's how I dealt with it.
I put it to the back of my mind and just cracked on with what I was told to do.
So what collectively contributed to you guys taking the mountain?
Well the Argentineans described it as football hooligans coming towards them, shouting at
them.
So they said that, they sounded like football hooligans shouting at each other, communicating.
What helped us take the mountain?
Roar aggression.
Thought from week one, day one.
Roar aggression, fear of failure, fear of letting people down.
Okay.
For me, that's what this was.
Fear of letting people down.
Okay.
And just, there's no way in this world we were going to lose.
So walk me through what happened next.
You were successful on the mountain.
What are the next few days like for you?
We were successful on the mountain.
It cost us a lot of, it cost a lot of our colleagues.
It cost a lot of dead and injured.
It wasn't just, it wasn't a case of, oh, now you've took the mountain.
You know, sort of, sorry, no disrespect.
Oh, you know what happened next.
We do have to talk about, I do wish to talk about the fact that the cost of that mountain
was very, very high.
Please.
On both sides.
It was very, very high.
We were down after, not after the battle, because the battle didn't end until surrender.
So when people say, oh, the battle ended on the 12th of June, well, it didn't really,
because the artillery fired at us for the next 72 hours.
So you know, because the Augustinians wanted to pin us down.
Thankfully, somebody took those guns out and that allowed us, along with the other soldiers
around us, to parry, fought another battle on Wireless Ridge.
We had Mount Trumbull down taken.
I believe it was Mount William was the last one to be taken.
Okay.
And then the British had Port Stanley surrounded.
All the features around Port Stanley, looking down into the city, because it is looking
down into the town or the city centre, were all dominated by the British.
So the Augustinians had nowhere to go.
And thankfully, thankfully, they surrendered.
To mention the cost.
So let's expand on that before we kind of talk about your ride home again.
You know, what was the totality of that?
The totality was 24 killed from three parry.
Three of my friends, three of my friends, my Pursuit Sergeant who took me through training
was killed.
My Section Commander was injured, caught with Bailey, MM.
My Section 2 IC was injured, caught with Lenny Carver.
We only had one NCO left.
We had three guys that died who were under 18.
Okay.
They were people I joined the army with.
Okay.
And we had a lot of people injured, life changing injuries sustained either in the battle or
during the artillery barrage.
Okay.
It was, it was a very, very brutal sight the morning after because obviously, as the Duke
of Wellington said, the only thing worse than losing a battle is winning one because then
you've got to clean up.
So we had to clean up things like our own dead, Argentinian dead, even if it is just
covering them up and, you know, for a bit of dignity and a bit of respect.
We've got to handle all these young Argentinian soldiers who are wandering around lost and
terrified because they think we're going to kill them and we're not.
We're just going to take them prisoner of war.
So we have to clear the mountain and make it safe for us to stay on there.
And as I said, that included moving our dead, enemy dead, prisoners of war.
Okay.
So it wasn't, it wasn't just a case of, oh, the battle's ended here, lads, that's it.
There was a lot to do afterwards.
An awful lot.
How did you and your men process that?
I mean, such an acute event, you know, your own life almost being taken, lives of your
nearest and dearest being taken, you know, surrounded by the enemy that have fallen as
well.
How does a 17 year old process it back then?
I don't think I did.
I don't think I did process it.
I think I just put it, I just, whatever I've seen in front of me, I just, not pretended,
but I just sort of, I cannot understand, I cannot explain that I just didn't see it as
anything.
I just did it routinely.
Afterwards, perhaps I would have been a bit more reflective, but at the time I really
wasn't.
I was on a walk with my platoon commander, Mark Cox, and we both came across an Argentinian
soldier whose face wasn't there.
It was just a hole.
All his face was gone.
And I know Mark wasn't very old, and obviously I wasn't, and I know we both sort of said,
you know, we really need to cover him up.
And we did.
Okay.
But that was, I just remember that quite closely.
And I know Mark does, seeing that guy with his face completely blown off, no way of recognising
him at all.
And that was quite, what's the right word?
It stuck with me.
I didn't, I wasn't sick or anything like that.
It was just something I thought, put that to the back of your mind, Mick.
Got other things to do.
Got other things to do, Mick.
So that's how I dealt with it.
What I found really difficult though was dealing with the death of my friends, three of my
friends that I joined the army with, I found that very difficult to deal with.
And I know other guys who were my age who helped them like I did, I wasn't the only
one, other people were greatly affected by it, which actually stopped them, actually
stopped them during the battle.
They just couldn't go on because it affected them that bad at the time.
Not a criticism in any way, shape or form, but they couldn't carry on fighting because
they'd just seen their friends died.
And myself and one other, we were very, very close to one of our friends who died.
I was at his feet and my colleague was at his head and he died while we were trying
to hold him and trying to make it better, but then unfortunately he just went.
And it was his 18th birthday.
And that was very moving for me and my colleague, sorry, should have said his name, Mark Isles
Thomas.
We were both with Neil when he died.
I know it affected Mark a lot and it did affect me as well, without a doubt.
Did you collectively have time to decompress when you got on the boats again and headed
north back to the UK?
Well, after that we had about a week in Stanley as well, you see.
We had a week in Stanley because again, it wasn't just a case of, you know, there's
lots to do.
Obviously the surrender had to be taken.
There was like a demarcation.
So, you know, a lot of cleaning up had to be done.
You know, a lot of administration before we were allowed back on the boats.
Now the decision was made that 2 and 3 Pada would go back on the Norland.
So we travelled with 2 Pada on the Norland and 40, 42 and 45 would go back on the Canberra.
Why that decision was made, I don't know.
I know there's lots of rumours as to why it was made, but I've no idea why it was
made.
But on the way back, we didn't have any decompression as such.
There was no organised decompression.
You know, there wasn't any activity organised on the boat.
You were just left to your own devices.
A lot of people obviously drank a lot.
I still wasn't old enough to have a beer, although I was allowed.
So yeah, there was a lot of, I suppose, reflection on the boat.
There was talks, there was briefs.
People came to visit us.
General Bramwell came to visit us on the Norland and said what a great job we've done and all
the rest of it.
And that we were going to have a Heroes Welcome when we get home and all that sort of stuff.
And we were just left to our own devices.
There wasn't any organised counselling or anything like that to help you decompress.
You were just left to your own devices, which might have been a good thing, might have been
a bad thing.
I don't know.
You mentioned the Heroes Welcome.
Talk to me about how you were initially received and then did that kind of feeling last for
very long amongst the British people?
Well, when we arrived back at RAF Price Norton, we then had to go down to Tidworth to handle
all our kit in.
We were given warrants to go home, travel tickets, but unfortunately there was a train
strike on.
Nothing new there.
So we were given bus tickets and we'd missed the last bus.
So we were stuck there.
So thankfully everyone sort of clumped together and we got lifts home and I got home.
I stayed at a pub.
I stopped at a pub called the Bridge Inn.
I went in there for just to get a Coke and to call a taxi.
I went in there.
Now the only clothing I had was an SS Canberra sweatshirt.
So I was wearing that and I was stood at the bar and I had a Coke and they came on the
news, so it must have been about nine o'clock, came on the news about the paratroopers returning
and they mentioned the Canberra and this guy looked at me and said, where did you get that
sweatshirt from?
And I said, well, I'm one of them.
He went, you what?
I said, I'm one of them.
Oh yeah?
I said, yeah, I just got back now.
He said, what are you drinking?
I said, a Coke.
He said, do you not want a drink?
I said, I'm not old enough.
He didn't believe me.
He went, you what?
I said, I'm not old enough.
I'm only 17.
I'm not allowed to drink.
He went, you must be joking.
You can have a drink.
So he got me a drink and then my taxi arrived, went home and drove up and outside the house
was all the banners.
There was loads of people there waiting for me and I said to the taxi driver, keep going.
Don't stop.
He went, is that for you?
I went, yeah.
Don't stop.
Just keep going, mate.
I can't be asked for that.
I didn't want all of us.
I didn't want it because for me, all the guys that we'd lost, it didn't seem anything to
celebrate.
That's what at that moment I felt that way.
The taxi driver said to me, I'll never, I can't remember his name.
I just remember his car.
He had a Ford Granada, nice car.
So he took me to the pub and he said, you know, mate, have a drink.
He said, just relax and then we'll go back when you're ready.
And he waited with me.
Bless him.
He waited with me and I said, yeah, come on and we'll go back.
So we came back and he actually came into the house for a drink as well.
In the end, I went back and it was a bit of a hero's welcome.
I got interviewed by the local paper.
I did a couple of charity events to raise money for the injured.
And then I would say within two weeks, yeah, I'll say two weeks, I'd gone from being a
hero to being that gobshite.
Here he comes, the war hero, boring bastard.
These are people that were in the army.
Yeah, here he comes.
He did fuck all.
He did nothing.
He's bluffing.
He's a liar.
He didn't do anything.
So, no, it didn't last long that bit.
Can I just say, not everyone, not everyone, but some people were quite, what's the right
word, not nasty because I couldn't give a fuck what they thought.
Sorry, I do swear.
I couldn't give a fuck what they thought.
But they were very nice to me.
Here he comes.
Here's the war hero, boring, you know, all that sort of stuff.
But when you say, can I just say they're the minority?
Even today, if I go out or my friends go out, we've got a Falklands t-shirt on or something
like that, people still come up and say, well done.
And it's 42 years later.
Okay, so the British public do remember, yeah, in the main they do.
A lot of people do come up and say, oh, you know, nice one, mate.
Was you in the Falklands?
Yeah, I was, mate.
Oh, was you?
I put my neck.
All right.
So I wouldn't say it ended that quick.
I'm just saying that familiarity breeds contempt, doesn't it?
So the fact that they were supposed to be my friends, but they were nice at first, but
then they were like that.
Oh, fucking off, boring bastard.
So, okay, so I don't talk to some of them now anyway.
I'll sleep.
Are these people that didn't go though?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
People didn't go.
They were jealous.
So it's jealousy.
Yeah.
Because some of them were in the army and never did nothing.
So they were jealous.
That's all it is.
Pure jealousy.
Well, if they're jealous, they can have the memories I've got.
On you go.
You have them.
Yeah.
Everybody wants to do it until it happens.
Yeah.
What about the environment then?
Can I just say, I've got great friends around here.
I go out socialising all the time.
I'm not bitter in any way, but when people ask me about the heroes, welcome, I just make
a point that, yes, I got one, but some people, no.
Okay.
They weren't very nice at all.
And quite frankly, I don't care about.
Yeah.
That's an important part of the whole conversation.
What about the environment around them?
When I looked at the time that a soldier maybe would be leaving if they just did a short
stint in the military, we had the biggest depression when it came to unemployment and
that kind of thing.
So what was the nation like when you came back those next few years?
I've heard people say that the nation was much better after the Falklands War because
we were from the 70s, the late 70s to sort of about 1982.
Everyone thought Britain was finished.
It was a country.
But then the Falklands War happened and it made us think, oh, we can do things.
We can do.
Okay.
I'm not for one minute suggesting that it was the political panacea for everything,
not at all.
It was just, it was a mouth in the country felt better.
Oh, we can achieve things.
We can do things.
Perhaps we're not as bad as everyone thinks we are.
So there was that part of it.
But of course, yeah, the country was still in really dire straits with regards to, you
know, industrial action, unemployment, jobs, the financial situation wasn't very good
for people.
No, it wasn't.
Okay.
Now, what made you stay in the military when a lot of people transitioned out into the
civilian community after that?
A lot of people left the forces after the fall because they'd done what they wanted
to do.
They only wanted to go to war.
So they've done that.
So I don't want to go back to being a peacetime soldier.
I don't want to go back to doing exercises or maneuvers.
I don't want to go back to doing this and standing on the gate of God and all that.
No, I don't do that anymore.
I've done the real thing.
So I'm leaving an awful lot of people left.
An awful lot of people.
I remember this is quite a weird thing.
By all my September 1982, you know, so June, July, August, September, three months after
the war had finished, I still wasn't even in the army because I hadn't signed on.
Because you don't start your military service till you're 18.
So I didn't start my, I still hadn't started my service, believe it or not.
Isn't that weird?
That's really weird.
You already got combat under your belt.
Well, no, no, no.
I mean, I couldn't get out because I hadn't joined yet.
It's weird.
It's a source.
It's a source of slight irritation, but it's also a weird thing.
There's no record of me serving the Falklands War, for instance.
That's crazy.
No, because records start when you're 18.
After my service, when I got my, what we call, you know, as you get a service pension, like
you may get from the fire department, my pensionable service starts on August 6th.
My service in the Falklands doesn't count towards anything.
I've tried to challenge it, but I've got nowhere.
That's bizarre.
Absolutely bizarre.
What about serving in Northern Ireland?
Well, from 1982, it wasn't until 1989, so a whole seven years, that three panellists
actually went to Northern Ireland.
It's a very, very long gap, very unheard of, and I've no idea why.
But we did a tour in Cyprus, United Nations in Cyprus.
We did six months there, and we did lots of exercises, working with five airborne brigade,
lots of maneuvers.
OK.
It was Mrs. Thatcher's baby, shall we say.
She loved five airborne brigade, so she kept giving us lots of equipment.
We got rid of lots of overseas tours, you know, like America, France, that sort of thing.
And it wasn't until 1989 that we actually went.
That was my first tour of Northern Ireland.
Seven year gap is an awful long time for a parachute battalion not to go to Northern
Ireland.
And I've no idea why.
I'm sure maybe somebody higher up could explain.
So we went to Northern Ireland in 1989, and I was a young Lance Corporal then in charge
of a team of four men on the street in Northern Ireland.
How was that received?
How did you feel about that?
The reason I ask is, you know, obviously when you're in the Falklands War, you know, you've
got people from a country a long, long way away that look different to us as well overall.
But the people I've had on here that were in Northern Ireland struggle with the fact
that it was our own people.
And I've always said this when people say, oh, do you hate the Welsh or the Scottish?
I'm like, what are two rocks in the middle of the ocean?
I consider everyone on those two rocks to be, you know, the same kind of nation that
I'm from collectively.
What was your perception of kind of policing, you know, arguably your own people in that
particular event?
Half of my family are from Southern Ireland.
Okay, so the Irish will always be my family.
But I used to consider everyone in the United Kingdom and even Southern Ireland, and then
we've had our differences, Southern Ireland, part of the British Isles, if you want to
call it that.
And I used to think that until I went to Northern Ireland.
And then I found a group of people who, for whatever reason, detest, despise and hate
everything that I love.
They absolutely despise it.
And that's up to them.
They're entitled to their opinion.
So am I.
I'm British and proud of it.
You're not.
On you go.
And like, I really found it difficult.
Can I just say, not everyone in Northern Ireland, not everyone, but some people in Northern
Ireland despise everything there is about the British.
And if they even call the British Army terrorists, and that's just the biggest insult you could
ever give to a soldier is to call them a terrorist.
It's an absolute disgrace to even utter those words.
It really is.
But they hated us.
They hated us.
Yeah, it's so hard for me to comprehend again.
Firstly thinking about that we're all the same kind of people.
And then you've got the Catholics and the Protestant, and you've got the Loyalists and
all these different kind of pigeonholes that we put ourselves into when we're all the same
people.
You've got those two groups of people who hate each other for whatever reason.
Not everyone, please don't get me wrong.
Not everybody.
I'm not for one minute generalizing that everyone's like this.
But you've got the Catholics and the Protestants.
I would sum up Northern Ireland like this.
If somebody was killed, the first thing, you've got two groups of people, and as soon as you
said where they lived, one group would be upset, the other group wouldn't be bothered.
Also Mr. O'Rourke from the Falls Road, all the Protestants would go, yeah, so what?
And then if you say, oh, blah, blah from Newton Ars Road, all the Catholics would go, so what?
Not the fact that a human being's dead.
Oh no, no, no, not that.
Oh, doesn't affect us because he's not one of ours.
And in the middle, they would put us, okay, trying to keep those two groups of people
apart and stop them killing each other.
Okay, it was just the way I viewed it.
And I couldn't get my head around walking out of a police station, walking five yards,
and having someone spit in your face.
And we had to show the utmost restraint, of course.
If we retaliated, we would have been prosecuted.
Not them.
Oh no, we would have been.
Absolutely.
But again, it goes back to this, what is the real root cause amongst these groups?
Are there people at the top that are fueling the fire, that are gaining money, gaining
power from this, you know, carrying on?
And you look at Gaza, you look at all these places where people are basically the same
background, have been doing this for decades, if not hundreds of years.
And it's just, when are we going to evolve as a species to realize that it's the few
that always cause the problem for the masses?
Well, the Northern Ireland problem, people say, oh, the trouble started in 1969.
No, they didn't.
That'd be ridiculous.
They most certainly did not.
They started long ago.
They'd been ongoing for years and years before that.
Long time before then.
Long time before I arrived in the problems.
Okay, I've done all I can to try and understand the situation in Northern Ireland, but I wouldn't
say I'm any wiser than anybody else.
I've tried to look at it from both sides.
But it's just that at that time, when we went there in 1980, we were in between two groups
of people who, for whatever reason, despised each other, all the rest of it.
And then they go into Belfast city centre on a Saturday night and drink next to each
other.
Okay, bizarre.
It's a weird, weird place.
Someone made an observation on this show about two years ago now, and it was so spot on.
They were like, you have, say, Everton and Liverpool fans that will literally beat each
other up in the streets.
But then if they both go to Spain on holiday, they'll be like, oh, you're from England.
Yeah, I'm from England.
You know what I mean?
So the moment you remove some of those...
I might just correct you there on that one.
The chance of Liverpool and Everton fans beating each other up is actually quite remote because
you all know each other.
There we go.
But can I just, as an example of that, I would be on holiday and I have tattoos, okay, and
if I'm wearing shorts, you can see a Power Street Regiment tattoo, okay, and you'll get
people from Northern Ireland, from the Catholic side, and I'll just say hello.
Whereas 20 odd years ago, they would have laughed at me if I was bleeding to death.
That's the other thing I couldn't comprehend.
If I was Indian in the middle of the streets in Northern Ireland, everyone would stand
around me and just watch people eat to death.
And I just couldn't get my head around that.
No, I just couldn't.
Not get my head around it, but I'm not going to say it made me dislike them, but I'm not
going to say I had a lot of time for it, because I didn't.
Well you mentioned before about having to compartmentalise the horrors of the Falklands
War and now you're still serving, you're in Northern Ireland, so you've got these other
traumas building.
Was there a point in your life where they did arise or you did start unpacking them
to make sure they didn't become something that would be detrimental?
I couldn't put a date on it, okay, because if I put a date on it, that means I must have
known it was happening, but I didn't.
I didn't know.
I'm a completely different person now than I was in 1988 or 1989.
Completely different.
Anyone who knew me in 1989 would probably go, you know, you weren't very nice and I
wouldn't agree with that.
I probably wasn't, okay, because I didn't know.
It wasn't until about 1996, 1997 that somebody mentioned that you think it might be that
and then I started to explore the possibility that there might be some sort of mental health
trauma from the Falklands, nothing along the lines of PTSD or complex PTSD, okay, not at
all.
But maybe that's why I've got the attitude towards certain things that I have and maybe
I need to explore.
I wonder if that's the issue.
Can I get rid of some of the anger that I had?
Okay, yeah, and eventually, as I said, I'm a completely different person to what I was
in 1988, 1989.
Completely different.
I really like that kind of, not even phrase, the description, the umbrella, there's moral
injury because PTSD, as you said, you hear a car backfire and now you're under a table.
There are very specific things that happen with that.
No, exactly, but most of us don't.
The firefighters, the cops, all the people, most of it is more of the moral injury.
It's the emotional side of loss, of trauma, of some of these other things, organizational
betrayal even, that can contribute to that kind of response versus the true classic flashbacks,
I can't sleep PTSD thing.
So I have nothing but sympathy for people who do stuff with that.
So what were the tools, what were some of the things that you found started helping
you processing, started helping you be positive outlets for some of this?
Just, I suppose, just trying to chill out a bit more.
I found myself with like, chilled out people.
Instead of spending my entire time around soldiers, I started to go to a lot of, I mean,
I've always gone to them, but I started to go and make civilian friends at concerts and
festivals and I'd make friends with people who I'm still friends with now.
They weren't interested in the army and I could go to a festival for five days and not
even talk about the army.
Great, whereas before, everything would be around the army.
So I started doing other things outside of the military, like I started to play football
a lot more.
I started to play, not just for my unit, I started to play football outside, so meeting
civilian friends and getting friends with civilians.
Rather than just constantly surrounding myself with soldiers, I've got obviously all my best
friends and my brothers are soldiers.
But I found that that was helping me to get away from, you know, the sort of constant,
what's the right word, constant soldier sort of attitude to everything.
So I started to do that and towards sort of the mid-90s, I met a major at a place called
Arborfield and he said to me, it is clear that there is something wrong, there is something
wrong there, so we need to, and he put me in touch with a few people, yeah, to sort
of try and get, I suppose, no, no, you would call it counselling, but it was just chatting
to people and explaining and them saying things to me and I'm going, Fluminette, yeah, is
that what that is?
He went, yeah.
All right, okay.
Didn't realise that, he said, that's what that is.
You know, like sort of guilt complex, you know, whenever I hear my mate's dead, that
sort of thing.
Yeah, survivor's guilt.
I thought that was really, really weird and he said, no, no, no, it would be really, really
weird if he didn't have that.
I went, oh, okay then.
So it's normal, he went, yep.
All right, okay.
So what I thought was abnormal, when people started telling me, no, that's perfectly normal.
That's perfectly normal to be like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, when you've been indoctrinated in an organisation, and
I mean that in a positive way, like, you know, the military or police or fire, your baseline
is seeing horrible stuff, whether it's at war, for us, it's, you know, literally almost,
you know, on a weekly basis, certainly, and then you come out of that and people tell
you like, you know, you're not supposed to see that, right?
And it was interesting, I was at Heathrow last year on a plane waiting to go back to
America and a guy had a heart attack on the plane and I ended up working him CPR and the
fire came on and the ambulance came on.
But it was the first time I'd worked a code for four years since I left the fire service.
And you know, it was kind of weird because I helped him all the way until I was like,
hey, do you need me anymore?
They're like, no, you're good, we'll come find you.
So I went to the bathroom on the toilet on the plane, washed my hands, got the blood
off and then went and took my seat.
It's kind of strange.
So I didn't have that unit with me.
I didn't have my equipment.
I didn't have other people that knew what they were doing.
And then I didn't have that decompression.
We go to the hospital and we wash the gear and, you know, go back in service.
And it kind of shook me for a day or two.
And I was like, what is going on?
You know, I 14 years, I did this like almost every single day and I realized, oh shit,
this is how you're supposed to feel when someone dies.
It was so strange, but we forget that because we're in it.
Yeah, because we're told to look, that's part of the job.
Don't worry about it.
You've seen that, you know, your mates have died.
You've seen this, you've seen that.
Okay, but that's part of the job.
But then when you leave, you find out that what you would consider to be the ordinary
is actually extraordinary.
99.9% of people never ever deal or see a dead person.
They don't.
They never.
Okay, because why?
Because that's extraordinary to see that.
Whereas we did it, you know, in different guises in different areas and it was considered
the norm.
But it's not, is it?
No, it's not.
Exactly.
Well, speaking of that, that's a good segue then.
So talk to me about when you decided to finally transition out of the military and how did
that lead you to EMT training in America?
Well, I served a total of 28 years, I served.
I left in 2008.
And at that time, there was a lot of money to be made in the security industry, a lot
of money to be made in places like Afghanistan, Iraq as security guards.
But a lot of the guys were doing it.
So it was actually quite difficult to get a job.
Now, a good mate of mine called Stu, Stu Richards said, Mick, what they can't get is medics.
And I'd always been a sort of first aid, a medic, team medic, all the rest of it in
the forces anyway.
So I said, okay, so I'll do that.
So I went to America, I went to Pelham training in Indianapolis, and I trained in EMT basic.
Then I was hopefully going to go on to do the paramedic course.
However, I had a metal hip fitted.
So I couldn't have done it anyway.
Not with a metal hip.
I don't think I could have.
But what happened was I then got a job, okay, working in South Sudan with some guys from
our regiment working out there with the USAID working out there.
I did that for about four months, four or five months.
It was really enjoyable.
It was really good.
Okay.
Bit of a strange world.
Bit of a strange world because obviously they have a different, they put a different value
on life, that's for sure.
Life seems awful cheap in some places in the world.
Awful cheap.
And I just went, I went down to EMT because it's always interested me.
Now while I was out in South Sudan, okay, the contract finished or sorry, I had my contract
finished, sorry.
I then came back and then ended up as I am now teaching first aid.
I did a couple of other things in that as well.
So yeah, what else was it about the EMT you'd like to know?
That was it really.
But when you just go back to Sudan for a second, what was the kind of the philosophy amongst
that culture that created a lower value of human life?
I've no idea.
It was a case of if somebody's got something, then you take it off them.
Quite lawless.
We were in the capital city, Juba, and it was quite a lawless place to say the least.
They just had a very low value on life.
And they were very tribal.
For instance, somebody from South Sudan wouldn't get into a vehicle with someone from Kenya,
you know, that kind of thing.
It was very tribal.
I found that a bit strange, to be perfectly honest.
But I don't know why they have such a low value on life.
I really don't.
But they do.
They don't seem to be...
For instance, myself, obviously as a white person out there, obviously with colonialism,
etc., if we weren't allowed to carry weapons, for instance, that was the South Sudanese
law.
We weren't allowed to carry weapons.
So if they wanted to kill us, they could.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's just a cheap...
Sorry, life seems so cheap.
Sorry.
I've said this a lot.
We look at evolution and people look at, oh, we have the internet now and we have AI.
And I disagree.
I think human evolution is kindness and compassion.
If you look at the barbarity of some of our ancestors a long time ago, even from the UK
and the torture and all that kind of stuff, I think that's the ultimate evolution.
And this goes back to the comment earlier in the interview.
If we keep allowing these few people to be tyrants, we're not going to evolve as a species.
But if we actually collectively work together and raise a whole community or a whole country
up, that also then allows us to help some of the countries that are struggling.
Yeah.
But the utopian vision that we all have or we would all like, part of human evolution
is also that we are mammals and we are survivors.
And I'm afraid you will always get the odd person who doesn't evolve.
And like you said, it is a minority, I get that, but you look at people like, well, look
at some of the politicians in the world today, without naming any countries or anything like
that, because you don't want to get into a political argument.
But one or two people or maybe two or three people are ruining the world for everyone.
Yeah.
And I don't think that's politics.
I think that's humanity.
And this is actually an interesting thing.
Most of us will evolve and try and be better that way, but some people just won't.
They just won't.
They're stuck in the past.
Or maybe have different role models or different ideas about how things should be done.
100%.
Well, just one more area and then we'll go to some closing questions.
An area where people seem to struggle a little bit when they've been in uniform, especially
for a long time, is that transition out, that ultimate transition out.
We've had that try, we've had that sense of purpose.
And then one day, I would say in the fire service, the door closed behind us on the
fire station and we ceased to be part of that anymore.
We are always going to be firefighters.
You will always be a paratrooper in your heart.
But it can be quite jarring for people to be on the outside.
What was your transition like?
And if it was good, what were the tools that you used to make it better?
I found a transition getting out of the military and getting into military.
I think because of the amount of time I served and I kind of left on my own terms, if you
know what I mean.
They said, oh, do you want another job?
And I went, do you know what?
No.
Whereas I suppose if somebody comes to the end of their time and they're forced to get
out, I can see where they might get a bit of a panic and a bit of a ground rush.
Oh my God, I've got to do this, I've got to do that.
So I had 12 months to prepare to leave, you see.
I had 12 months to get everything ready for me to leave the military.
It was, there's no point in saying it wasn't a wrench because it was, it had been my life
since, well, for me, being a parachute had been my life since the age of 12 or 13 years
of age.
So it had always been what I wanted to do.
So it was a wrench to leave.
And I suppose you could argue, if I look in my front room now, I'm going out with my friends
tomorrow, what I'm going to wear, parachute regiment t-shirt.
So yeah, and I understand that.
Maybe I haven't let go completely.
But I found the transition quite easy in a way, but I did have the, just like everybody
else, I had the, I definitely had the problems.
Yeah.
I mean, somebody said to me, you won't keep your first job.
And they were absolutely right.
My first job was working in South Sudan with people that I'd served with and I messed it
up.
Yeah.
And I don't mind saying that.
I messed it up.
So that was correct.
You won't get your first job.
And I spoke to somebody, quite an older guy, and he said to me, listen, civilian life has
been doing really, really okay.
I'm really, really well while you've been in the army.
Okay.
And the sooner you realize that they don't care or not that they don't care, they're
just not that interested.
The easier you will find it.
And I started giving myself the mindset, listen, no one gives a toss.
So don't get upset about it.
And that's how I dealt with it.
I never, I'm going out with my colleagues tomorrow, any of that, ex-military, that's
why I'm wearing that t-shirt.
But I don't, when I go to work, there's nothing, no insignia on me to say that I was in the
Forties or anything like that.
If people ask, I'll admit it.
I'll say, yeah, I was.
If they don't, then I won't mention it.
And sometimes it's easier not to mention it because sometimes they come up with the same
usual questions.
Did you kill anyone?
Did you do this?
Did you do that?
I don't mean anything by it.
It's just not the questions you want to answer.
No, absolutely.
And it's funny because even I think the realisation that the moment we walk out of that profession,
that there's a fresh body in our seat, the next shift, the next day, that's jarring too.
But oh my word.
Yeah.
And somebody also said to me, be very, very careful what you tell people because there
will be some of them that can't wait to use it against you.
And he was right.
He was right about that.
Just be careful what you tell people because they can't wait to either go away and use
it against you to other people.
That silly question.
Did you kill anyone?
If you say yes, they won't believe you.
And if you say no, they won't believe you.
So it's a no-win situation.
It's a no-win situation.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, then I want to go to some closing questions if you don't mind.
The first one I'd love to ask, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Three Days in June, written by my very good friend, James O'Connell.
It's an outstanding account of the battle for Mount Longden.
It's outstanding because James went round and interviewed everybody from every rank,
not just the officers.
And no disrespect to the officers, I'm not being critical at all.
I'm just saying that when people interview, when anyone's ever interviewed on the TV,
the only team to interview officers, they never asked the private soldiers what they
were doing.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
Three Days in June is a fantastic book.
And you can get it on an audio book if you don't want to read it.
All right.
Perfect.
Well, what about films and documentaries?
Any of those that you love?
I tend to avoid war films.
I would rather watch Jurassic Park or Star Wars.
I find them more realistic.
But there is a book, sorry, there is a film made by the Argentinians and it's called Blessed
by Fire.
OK.
And that's a film about the battle for Mount Longden and how the Argentinian veterans were
treated when they got back.
We got a hero's welcome.
They most certainly did not.
Really?
And it's a good insight.
It's a good insight.
I know people, people shouting at the screen now go, Mick, how can you say that?
If German soldiers and British soldiers from the Second World War can sit in a bar with
each other, then why can't Argentinians and British soldiers?
That's just my way of thinking.
I don't hold anything against Argentinian soldiers.
And I do understand where people totally disagree with me on that.
And that's fine.
OK.
And when I see British soldiers and German soldiers standing together at memorials, I
think, well, why can't we do that?
We weren't the enemy, the politicians were.
I couldn't agree more.
Yeah.
We were just the young guys, all young guys doing a job and we should respect each other.
And I do respect the Argentinians completely.
I've got nothing against them whatsoever.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
I mean, it's funny.
I had a guy who's one of the founding members of Delta in the US here and his first deployment
was Vietnam.
His last was Mogadishu, the Black Hawk Down incident.
So pretty storied career.
And he went back and was actually through GORUCK, which is like a backpack company,
to source material for shoes.
And he ended up meeting some Viet Cong fighters that he probably would have been pursuing
or pursued by.
And they swapped stories and drank together and this is just it.
I mean, as you said, these young men and all women are sent overseas.
And again, don't get me wrong, if you were part of exterminating Jews in Auschwitz, that's
a different kind of person, but your average soldier.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
The massive difference needs to be made between soldiers and what those vultures were doing.
They weren't soldiers, they were cowards.
Yeah, but how many of the Russians and Ukrainians, if they sat on a table together, realized
they had way more in common than they have differences?
Probably.
I wouldn't put that there in the same football shirts.
All right.
So then the next question, is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the
world?
I wouldn't like to recommend anybody.
I could ask some people, but I wouldn't like to put their name on here in case you don't
want to.
No problem.
If there's someone you think that would be good, by all means.
I do have a couple of people who can talk quite well about it.
And I'll ask them and see what they say.
But sometimes, especially if people were injured or had life changing injuries, they might
not want to get involved.
But I can only ask.
I can only ask.
Well, a good way to do it is if they listen to your episode and then if they like the
way it was done, then maybe it will peak their interest.
I only do this.
I only do this and I only do presentations.
I do presentations about my long-distance for no other reason than just to keep history
alive.
Because unfortunately, and I'm going to get political now, we live in a country now where
our history is hated.
And I don't like it.
So I do this just to keep history alive.
Okay.
We have children now leaving school who don't even know what the Second World War was.
And we should be teaching them about our history.
Otherwise, you'll only make the same mistakes.
So yeah, that's why I do this.
I got to say, I'm extremely proud of my son's schools here in Ocala where we've raised because
every single day he's in AP like the advanced history.
He's educating me on World War Two and Vietnam.
Did you know it was actually this?
And I'm like, no, I'm learning.
I just learned about JFK and some of the bad stuff that he did.
In America, you can raise you can fly your flag outside your house.
It's considered to be a patriotic thing to do.
If I fly my flag outside my house, I'm branded a racist.
Because the National Front.
Well, no, no, I'm just branded a racist because there are far too many people in this country
who hate it.
Yeah, but isn't that initiated by I mean, it was kind of like hijacked from some of
the neo-fascist groups with these absolutely small slithers of British people that kind
of fucked it up for everyone else.
You could say that you could say that but I would look at it from the other side.
There are far too many people who for whatever reason dislike anything and everything even
before anyone even heard of the National Front.
Even anything that Britain has done is wrong and bad.
And we're all horrible and we're all racists and all the rest of it.
And yeah, that's why I do this to keep history alive.
Well, this is the thing with history and I'll give a perfect example.
The statue they pulled down in Bristol and I'm from Bath originally.
So down the road from where I grew up, it was the guy because he was a slave trader.
And I'm like, yeah, then fucking leave it up and change the plaque.
Say this is the goods that this guy did.
But by the way, he was also a slave trading shit bag.
So leave it there.
So we all know like some of the stuff that we did, the British, you know, our forefathers
did was hands down categorically wrong.
But we've also done a lot of good as have so many other nations in the world.
So teach the good and teach the bad so the next generations can learn and go, all right,
well, we're going to do this.
We'll make sure we won't do this though.
But we live in a nation, I'm afraid we live in a nation here now where if I put the television
on, if you say, oh, yeah, well, Britain had a slave trade, which they did.
That's fine.
OK, but we also we were the only country to put stop to it.
Oh, no, that doesn't count.
I'm not interested in that.
Mm hmm.
We have selective outrage.
We have a living.
Yeah, we have selective outrage.
We're outraged about that, but that's OK.
Yeah.
So yeah, without getting without getting too without getting too political, I live in a
country where I now I'm not spoken for, because I'm a white middle aged man.
No one's no one's interested in my view anymore.
Yeah, it is bizarre, though, because, I mean, you know, obviously America was built on immigration
and then the UK because of the colonization.
I've always to me, if you want to sum up what the UK is, you look at the opening scene of
Love Actually, and he's at Heathrow Airport.
And I remember thinking the same thing as like an eight year old boy being there.
It's all cultures and colors and that is what makes up Britain today.
And that's something to be celebrated.
But it's not, you know, like you said, the white people are bad and everyone else is
good.
It's like we're all part of this beautiful tapestry that represents the entire planet.
Well, this is the problem.
You see, I'm constantly I'm sorry about this, but I'm constantly bombarding that I am 59
years debate.
So I must be a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe.
No, I don't.
I have a I have a great philosophy.
I don't care what race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation you are.
If you're a dickhead, you're a dickhead.
It's got nothing to do with where you're from.
Yeah, that's the way I look at it.
I've always said you could summarize all the holy books in one phrase.
Don't be a dick.
That's it.
No, I don't.
I don't subscribe to any religion.
Yeah, I believe in a higher power, but not a specific doctrine.
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
I had a guy I had a guy on the course yesterday asked for time to play by all means.
Right.
No problem.
By all means, just because you shout when you finished and you came back in on the course.
Yeah, no problem, mate.
Yeah, but I don't believe in it.
I think it's a lot of rubbish.
All right.
So when he said then, if you've got a God pray, what did you do during that time back
on the forklift?
I see that.
That's where I did believe in God.
So what shifted?
12 hours later, I didn't.
Really?
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, because they say there's no atheists in foxholes, but I can see how the converse
would be the same too.
Oh, yeah.
I would brought up a Catholic, an Irish Catholic.
So yeah, very, very indoctrinated religion.
Yeah.
I don't talk to God anymore.
He doesn't seem to bother.
So neither am I.
All right.
Well, then the very last thing before we make sure everyone knows where to find you.
What do you do to decompress these days?
What?
Oh, well, when I'm not injured, I'm on crutches at the moment.
I like to go running.
I like to listen to my music.
I listen to an awful lot of music.
I go to an awful lot of concerts.
I go to as many as I can.
I like to socialize with my friends, go out, have a drink, have a laugh, that sort of stuff.
But at the moment, I'm a bit of a grumpy at the moment because I can't run.
Because the metal hip I had replaced 16 years ago needs replacing again.
And it's not quite as simple as people think.
So I'm on crutches at the moment, so I can't do a lot of physical exercise, unfortunately.
But that's the man.
My little dog.
My little dog is a great source of hope, shall we say.
Although he's having a sleep at the moment.
They're very therapeutic.
I've got one right outside my door as well.
Oi, oi.
Oh, and he's not going to come over.
He's well away.
Lemmy?
No, he's not going to come over.
I thought he might come into camera.
He did in one of the interviews.
He came in Salem.
Did you say his name was Lemmy?
Lemmy after Mo Ahead.
Mo Ahead.
Lemmy.
Mo Ahead.
That's his name.
Brilliant.
All right.
Well, then very last thing.
If people listening want to kind of find you online, reach out to you, et cetera, where
are the best places?
Well, I'm on the only social media.
I'm really on his Facebook.
I don't really do Instagram.
I don't do Twitter.
You know, for many, I certainly don't do TikTok for many reasons.
So I mean, I'm on Facebook.
I'm on LinkedIn.
I'm on LinkedIn somewhere.
Yeah.
But yeah, if anybody wants to contact me or anything like that.
Yeah.
I mean, if you share this to Facebook, then people could probably, if you wanted to message
me or whatever, could talk to me if they wanted to.
Brilliant.
Well, Meg, I want to say thank you so much.
I mean, there's been so much depth to this conversation.
When people come on and they were at a conflict or a fire or whatever it was, that's just
a little part of someone's entire journey in life.
So it's been so powerful listening to your perspective on all the things we've talked
about today.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the
Behind the Shield podcast today.
No problem at all.