# One of the UK's Deadliest Snipers | Ted Shirley | Ep. 386

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 14 Dec 2025, 1 h 20 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69034274/ted_shirley_audio.mp3

Ted Shirley is a former British Army sniper who served multiple deployments in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and the author of Afghanistan Sniper. He now speaks publicly about combat, moral injury, PTSD, and recovery, using his experience to challenge stigma around mental health in the military and veteran community. Grab Ted's book "Afghanistan Sniper" here: https://a.co/d/bpjg5zk Follow Ted on IG here: https://www.instagram.com/tedshirleyauthor/?hl=en Today's Sponsors: TrueWerk ⬇️ https://truewerk.com/house use code "HOUSE" for 15% off! GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 25% off! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:02 — START 01:02 — Growing Up Military | Why He Joined the Army 02:26 — First Afghanistan Deployment | British Infantry 07:06 — How Sniper Selection Works | British Army 14:33 — Pre-Deployment Training & First Combat Loss 20:52 — Counter-Sniper Fight | Enemy Sniper Encounter 26:15 — Helmand Firefight | “The Longest Day” 38:10 — 1-Mile Sniper Kill | Combat Turning Point 49:59 — PTSD & Moral Injury | Suicide Attempt 59:03 — Sniper Recovery | Therapy, EMDR & Writing the Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Special Operations, Cobert Ohs Spionage. The Team House with your
[0:13] Speaker 1: hosts Jack Murphy and David Park.
[0:22] Speaker 2: Hey, folks, this is episode three hundred and eighty six
[0:24] Speaker 2: of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy with our guest today,
[0:28] Speaker 2: the author of Afghanistan Sniper.
[0:30] Speaker 3: Ted Shirley.
[0:31] Speaker 2: He served in the British military from two thousand and
[0:34] Speaker 2: seven in twenty thirteen and the Royal Welsh Fusiliers giving
[0:39] Speaker 2: them sniper support and deployed to Afghanistan and then wrote
[0:44] Speaker 2: this book and now does some public speaking about his
[0:47] Speaker 2: struggles and recovery from post traumatic stress.
[0:51] Speaker 3: Ted, thank you very much for joining.
[0:52] Speaker 4: Us, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me man.
[0:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so.
[0:58] Speaker 2: Ted the first question, and I always ask our guests
[1:01] Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how
[1:03] Speaker 2: that took you towards military service.
[1:06] Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so. My dad was in the Navy and
[1:11] Speaker 4: he was in the Falklands War. So always I've had
[1:16] Speaker 4: all these stories growing up as a kid, you know,
[1:20] Speaker 4: this lack of adventure, So I very much wanted a
[1:23] Speaker 4: bit of that for myself. So then for thereous family
[1:26] Speaker 4: members and stuff had been in and yeah, it just
[1:30] Speaker 4: sort of led straight away really from school and I
[1:33] Speaker 4: knew I was always going to go in the forces.
[1:36] Speaker 3: Okay, so it really was, you know, like a family
[1:38] Speaker 3: tradition for you.
[1:40] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, very much. So, yeah, yeah, I had this.
[1:45] Speaker 4: I had this sense of pride about me that I
[1:47] Speaker 4: wanted to do something with my country at that age.
[1:51] Speaker 3: And so what part of the UK did you grow
[1:54] Speaker 3: up in as a kid.
[1:56] Speaker 4: So I'm in North Wales, so where just just a
[2:00] Speaker 4: tiny little bit on the left where the best people
[2:03] Speaker 4: come from them.
[2:04] Speaker 2: Good weather, I take it again, sorry, good weather.
[2:10] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's currently raining sideways.
[2:17] Speaker 3: Okay.
[2:18] Speaker 2: So two thousand and seven, presumably after high school, you
[2:22] Speaker 2: go into the army. Tell us about kind of that process.
[2:27] Speaker 2: Did you enlisted as an infantryman?
[2:30] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I started off in the infantry. Yeah, and
[2:33] Speaker 4: then very quickly I found myself after training and getting
[2:36] Speaker 4: to my unit. I was deployed to Afghana stand straight
[2:39] Speaker 4: away on my third first tour. So our unit was
[2:44] Speaker 4: based out in Cyprus at the time, so it was
[2:47] Speaker 4: quite quite a cool introduction to army life for me.
[2:51] Speaker 4: And then once we came back, that's when I then
[2:53] Speaker 4: got selected to go on sniper course and that's where
[2:57] Speaker 4: my journey really began to be honest.
[3:00] Speaker 2: Is your was your unit in Cyprus as part of
[3:02] Speaker 2: like the U. N. Peacekeeping sort of construct that exists there.
[3:08] Speaker 4: Partly, Yeah, we were mainly there was a quick reaction
[3:11] Speaker 4: force to the Middle East, so there was obviously a
[3:15] Speaker 4: big RAF based there, so that that's what we would do,
[3:19] Speaker 4: you know, be a last minute call and then off
[3:22] Speaker 4: we'd go.
[3:22] Speaker 3: Gotcha, gotcha?
[3:24] Speaker 2: And what was that first tour to Afghanistan like for
[3:26] Speaker 2: you as a young infantryman?
[3:29] Speaker 4: Yeah, my first tom it was it was okay, it
[3:34] Speaker 4: was it was enough I saw and did enough to
[3:37] Speaker 4: get by and say that, yeah, that was give me
[3:40] Speaker 4: the full experience. We were in a town called Masakala,
[3:43] Speaker 4: so it was quite you know, it was quite a
[3:44] Speaker 4: hot town. But yeah, it was a good introductions. The
[3:48] Speaker 4: first time I got shot at was I thought, it's hilarious.
[3:52] Speaker 4: To be honest, I couldn't couldn't stop laughing. It was
[3:56] Speaker 4: quite a surreal experience. Well, I will not. I was
[4:00] Speaker 4: talking so funny enough to another guy that I know
[4:03] Speaker 4: was a sniper and he was there on that day.
[4:05] Speaker 4: It was both our first tour and we were just
[4:07] Speaker 4: howling about how funny this was, you know, it was
[4:10] Speaker 4: the dirt's kicking up around you. You sort of burst
[4:13] Speaker 4: into this uncontrollable fit of laughter. It wasn't it wasn't nerves.
[4:16] Speaker 4: It was just it was more happiness, like, yes, we're
[4:19] Speaker 4: actually doing it.
[4:23] Speaker 2: And how did that day pan out for you guys
[4:26] Speaker 2: as you know you're taking effective fire?
[4:29] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it was actually a cheeky day. It ended
[4:33] Speaker 4: in a thirty kilometer tab across his plateau back with
[4:39] Speaker 4: no rations, no supplies, no nothing. It was it was
[4:42] Speaker 4: a good one. It was yeah, like I said, the
[4:45] Speaker 4: full experience.
[4:47] Speaker 2: And what what was sort of like the unit's mission
[4:50] Speaker 2: that took you guys out there.
[4:53] Speaker 4: So we were we were looking after a place called
[4:55] Speaker 4: Roshan Tower, which was, you know, a big mobile phone
[4:59] Speaker 4: unit on the top of it, and it was quite
[5:01] Speaker 4: a hot spot for Taliban activity. So we were looking
[5:04] Speaker 4: after that initially, and then we were to head towards
[5:08] Speaker 4: this place called Mount Doom, which I just thought was
[5:10] Speaker 4: the coolest name ever. It's going to be some super
[5:15] Speaker 4: bad guy in Mount Doom. So we headed down the
[5:18] Speaker 4: Woddy towards there and it got a bit more kinetic
[5:23] Speaker 4: than I think any of us realized it was going to.
[5:25] Speaker 4: We ended up getting a little bit cut off for
[5:27] Speaker 4: a couple of days. And then there was a Special
[5:30] Speaker 4: Forces unit the other side of the of the Woddy
[5:33] Speaker 4: as well, and they they they had the exact same thing.
[5:35] Speaker 4: They one of the guys got took out. So yeah,
[5:39] Speaker 4: it was a bit of a bit of a cheeky
[5:41] Speaker 4: couple of days. And it was boiling hot as well.
[5:44] Speaker 4: Oh my god.
[5:45] Speaker 3: Was this Helmand Province?
[5:49] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, in Helmond, Yeah yeah.
[5:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I know the Brits were there quite
[5:53] Speaker 2: a bit in Helmand also one of the most dangerous
[5:57] Speaker 2: you know, had its parts of the country.
[6:00] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was it, well, it was
[6:03] Speaker 4: when I spent all my time and everyone that I
[6:05] Speaker 4: was with, like we were always in Helmand.
[6:08] Speaker 3: And how long were you deployed there that first time?
[6:12] Speaker 4: That first time was four months, being obviously part of
[6:16] Speaker 4: this quick reaction force. The time that went for everybody. Yeah,
[6:24] Speaker 4: so after we'd after we've done that, we were only
[6:28] Speaker 4: in Cyprus for another couple of couple of months and
[6:30] Speaker 4: we got returned them back to the UK, back to
[6:33] Speaker 4: the rainy weather, and that's where we stayed.
[6:37] Speaker 2: That was like kind of a normal rotation of units
[6:40] Speaker 2: that go in and out of Cyprus.
[6:42] Speaker 4: Yeah, it goes every sort of two years or so.
[6:44] Speaker 4: Everyone moves about. Yeah, and then you find everyone trying
[6:47] Speaker 4: to go, oh, I need to actually stay here because.
[6:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, once you get settled in and everything, Yeah, you're
[6:55] Speaker 2: reluctant to.
[6:57] Speaker 4: Get a little bit used to the weather for sure.
[6:59] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[7:01] Speaker 2: So when you come back from your first deployment, what
[7:05] Speaker 2: was sort of your interest in becoming a sniper. Did
[7:09] Speaker 2: someone recommend that you go that route or was it
[7:11] Speaker 2: something you pursued.
[7:14] Speaker 4: To be honest, it happened by pure chance. It was
[7:16] Speaker 4: something that I really wanted to do. I always had
[7:19] Speaker 4: wanted to be a sniper, you know, obviously seeing all
[7:21] Speaker 4: the films that we all sort of grew up watching
[7:23] Speaker 4: and stuff. It was it was just my absolute And
[7:28] Speaker 4: then one day I was on and got talking to
[7:32] Speaker 4: somebody and they said, oh, there's actually a space that
[7:34] Speaker 4: needs fill in on the pre selection course. So I
[7:38] Speaker 4: was like, well, put my name down, and well, you know,
[7:41] Speaker 4: I really want to be a sniper a'l goo for this.
[7:43] Speaker 4: This is my dream. Let's do it. So that was it.
[7:46] Speaker 4: That's how it started. And then and then you sort
[7:48] Speaker 4: of do a pre selection phase in the British Army
[7:51] Speaker 4: and then those that rise to the top of that
[7:53] Speaker 4: are then sent away then to attend the course which
[7:55] Speaker 4: is six months long.
[7:56] Speaker 2: Holy shit, I didn't realize that was such an that's
[8:00] Speaker 2: of course they sent you, guys to.
[8:02] Speaker 4: Yeah, oh is the raising? What goods?
[8:05] Speaker 5: Yeah?
[8:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no kidding, So tell us about this course.
[8:09] Speaker 2: I mean they must have. I mean within six months
[8:11] Speaker 2: they can teach you really a lot.
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[10:16] Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, So it starts off. The first three months
[10:19] Speaker 4: are very much the classroom phase, the learning theoretical side
[10:23] Speaker 4: of shooting ballistics, how around flies through the air and
[10:28] Speaker 4: what affects it. And then correlating with that is the
[10:34] Speaker 4: range days where you constantly all day every day hitting
[10:36] Speaker 4: targets at you know, starting at six hundred meters and
[10:39] Speaker 4: then moving backwards. So from the offset, the learning curve
[10:44] Speaker 4: is very steep. If you fall behind that learning curve,
[10:48] Speaker 4: then that you've got no chance to catch up and
[10:51] Speaker 4: you sort of off you go, you'll fall to the wayside.
[10:54] Speaker 4: So the numbers reduce really really quickly. Once that three
[10:59] Speaker 4: month phases over. You then move to the Brecon Beacons
[11:02] Speaker 4: of South Wales, which is obviously where the Says do
[11:05] Speaker 4: their selection phase. So it's a nasty, nasty area with
[11:09] Speaker 4: some horrordous, horrendous weather, so you go there and this
[11:14] Speaker 4: is where the tactical phase starts then, so this is
[11:18] Speaker 4: where we would learn about the observation techniques, camouflage, and
[11:23] Speaker 4: concealment into all these different things, how we would actually
[11:26] Speaker 4: physically go about being snipers and moving ourselves being invisible,
[11:32] Speaker 4: getting into all these fire positions and whatnot, and then
[11:36] Speaker 4: which these all culminate then in a test week at
[11:39] Speaker 4: the end of that six month course, which involves things
[11:43] Speaker 4: like solo navigations and solo night navigations, sniper history tests,
[11:49] Speaker 4: which which was actually quite a big part of it
[11:52] Speaker 4: that I didn't realize it was going to be a
[11:53] Speaker 4: part of it. It felt a little bit like high
[11:55] Speaker 4: school again. But we really enjoyed it. It was good
[11:58] Speaker 4: and it it taught us how sort of creative the
[12:02] Speaker 4: job role of being a sniper was going to be,
[12:04] Speaker 4: you know, coming up with all these different funny, fair
[12:08] Speaker 4: fire positions and just exciting ways of becoming invisible. It just.
[12:14] Speaker 2: The Gillies were like Scottish hunters, right where the Gillies
[12:18] Speaker 2: suit comes from.
[12:19] Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so the Gilly suits. Yeah, they
[12:21] Speaker 4: used to be these shrounds that they'd wear as they'd
[12:24] Speaker 4: go off hunting. Yeah, which is it was a different story.
[12:28] Speaker 4: But me and one of the lads ended up winning
[12:31] Speaker 4: a sniper's competition and that the prize was to go
[12:35] Speaker 4: off and go hunting a stag in the Scottish highlands,
[12:39] Speaker 4: but we got too drunk and we missed the bus.
[12:47] Speaker 4: British squady fashion.
[12:49] Speaker 2: And when you were in sniper school, what is the
[12:52] Speaker 2: platform that they teach students on, how do you mean
[12:57] Speaker 2: which weapon system?
[12:59] Speaker 4: All the web system. So you start off with the
[13:01] Speaker 4: L ninety six, which was for us at the time
[13:05] Speaker 4: just about transitioning out. That was the old sniper rifle.
[13:09] Speaker 4: So it was a bit of a case of if
[13:10] Speaker 4: you know, if you if you can do it with
[13:12] Speaker 4: the EGb, I to do it with the better ones.
[13:14] Speaker 4: And then once we got into phase two, then we
[13:16] Speaker 4: had the three three eighths, which was one hell of
[13:21] Speaker 4: a weapon system. My god it was. It was heavy,
[13:25] Speaker 4: but you could place around wherever you wanted it, right.
[13:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't say I've ever fired a three three eight,
[13:34] Speaker 2: but I know the Canadians used them for many years,
[13:38] Speaker 2: you guys, and I think very slowly the American military
[13:41] Speaker 2: has gotten on board with the program.
[13:44] Speaker 4: Yeah. It was just the sort of happy medium I
[13:46] Speaker 4: think for the Brits between the sort of fifty cow
[13:49] Speaker 4: you know, and the three three eight. The L ninety six, sorry,
[13:52] Speaker 4: was just seven point six to two, so obviously, you
[13:55] Speaker 4: know I'm having that heavy a round to be able
[13:57] Speaker 4: to get those distances. But they were initially for helicopters
[14:01] Speaker 4: for shooting engine blocks out for step, and we went
[14:06] Speaker 4: at the lad to be able to carry them.
[14:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's an infantry and carry heavy stuff.
[14:12] Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I've been told that the round fire
[14:15] Speaker 2: is very flat, which I guess is what you were saying,
[14:17] Speaker 2: that you can put round time target at you at range.
[14:22] Speaker 4: Yeah, big time. Yeah. To the point where once we
[14:26] Speaker 4: finished the six month course and we sort of went
[14:28] Speaker 4: away as snipers in our unit and did our own
[14:31] Speaker 4: sort of pre deployment training one thousand meters, we were
[14:35] Speaker 4: hitting ten pence pieces, which is you know, you sort
[14:37] Speaker 4: of look about a quarter that sort of size coin,
[14:40] Speaker 4: and we'd hit them every single time.
[14:44] Speaker 3: Favorite and favorite part of Sniper's score.
[14:48] Speaker 4: Oh, favorite part was the stalks. I loved doing the stalks.
[14:56] Speaker 4: Worst part was weathering the Gillie suit. That was a tradition.
[15:02] Speaker 4: I'm glad you only go through once.
[15:05] Speaker 2: Just crawling oh the gilly wah Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
[15:11] Speaker 2: that was that was not fun.
[15:16] Speaker 4: The instructor's got a little bit too much enjoyment now
[15:18] Speaker 4: of that one. Yeah.
[15:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like they're they're a little assessment and selection
[15:22] Speaker 2: program that they run out there. Yeah, and so you
[15:28] Speaker 2: get you finished the sixth months graduate and then you
[15:33] Speaker 2: mentioned you go into pre deployment training.
[15:37] Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so this what what happened at this point.
[15:41] Speaker 4: So there was about eight of us left from the
[15:44] Speaker 4: course now at this point, which started off I don't know,
[15:47] Speaker 4: over one hundred. So we've then broken down into five
[15:54] Speaker 4: of us from my battalion which was the first battalion,
[15:56] Speaker 4: and then three of the lads where from the Second
[15:59] Speaker 4: Battle of the Royal Welsh they deployed. Those we deployed
[16:04] Speaker 4: pretty much straight away to Afghanistan on separate operations to
[16:08] Speaker 4: what we were going to be doing. We then deployed
[16:13] Speaker 4: to Kenya. We went to Kenya for two months pre
[16:16] Speaker 4: deployment training, which was absolutely incredible. It was something I'm
[16:22] Speaker 4: never going to forget in my life. But while the
[16:25] Speaker 4: other three were over there, and these were the closest
[16:29] Speaker 4: of brothers eker sort of you can get, one of
[16:31] Speaker 4: them was killed by an Ied and it started this
[16:35] Speaker 4: process for me especially, but for all of us, I
[16:39] Speaker 4: know it hit as hard. So we then our life
[16:42] Speaker 4: of pre deployment had had a bit of bit of
[16:45] Speaker 4: a different tinge to it, and it became no longer
[16:49] Speaker 4: this great fun enjoyment thing. It switched to yeah, we're
[16:53] Speaker 4: going to war now, this is going to happen. Our
[16:55] Speaker 4: reality tilted a little bit. So, yeah, everything sort of
[16:59] Speaker 4: got very seer from that point after Kenya.
[17:03] Speaker 2: And what sort of training did you do to prepare
[17:05] Speaker 2: for this deployment and also why don't you explain to
[17:09] Speaker 2: us a little bit about how sniper and the British
[17:11] Speaker 2: infantry supports the ground troops and how they conduct operations.
[17:17] Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, yes. So the idea we'd going to Kenya
[17:21] Speaker 4: was the altitude and obviously the weather being so warm
[17:25] Speaker 4: as being in soggy Britain, we don't get too much
[17:28] Speaker 4: heat to training, so getting over there and getting to
[17:32] Speaker 4: do that was incredible. And the scale of these exercises.
[17:35] Speaker 4: There were live firing exercises where we'd have real artillery
[17:39] Speaker 4: firing in and links helicopters coming in and these mock
[17:42] Speaker 4: villages built up, and it was it was as cool
[17:45] Speaker 4: as it was ever going to get, you know. It was.
[17:47] Speaker 4: It was real, real, real close to the to the
[17:49] Speaker 4: real deal. So our job as snipers because there was
[17:55] Speaker 4: only like so so many well how mean it was there.
[17:59] Speaker 4: It was five five of us split between a battalion
[18:03] Speaker 4: of about eight hundred men, so we were split thin
[18:09] Speaker 4: between everybody, so our job roles were quite quite filled
[18:15] Speaker 4: with pressure. We would most of the time would initially
[18:18] Speaker 4: go out on patrols with the guys on the ground,
[18:20] Speaker 4: and we would sort of be acting like ground troops
[18:23] Speaker 4: and when things kicked off, would climb up to a
[18:26] Speaker 4: rooftop and get into a position or something. And then
[18:29] Speaker 4: it gradually changed to a point where we would then
[18:33] Speaker 4: overwatch patrols as they were going out, and that became
[18:36] Speaker 4: much more efficient for us. But we were working alone.
[18:40] Speaker 4: We didn't have anyone being spot us for us, so
[18:42] Speaker 4: there was a it was. It was quite a high
[18:44] Speaker 4: pressure job.
[18:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting like uh change and raw like
[18:49] Speaker 2: it was the vision a lot of Americans have I
[18:52] Speaker 2: find is from stuff about the Vietnam War that snipers
[18:58] Speaker 2: operate independently by themselves and a sniper spader raw, you know,
[19:02] Speaker 2: crawling around in a gilly suit. But throughout the war,
[19:05] Speaker 2: the War on Terror, it was more like we were
[19:08] Speaker 2: direct action snipers, where you're actually supporting infantry on the ground.
[19:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, that was it, Yeah, exactly, and you know, you
[19:16] Speaker 4: know yourself, it was. It was sort of almost a
[19:19] Speaker 4: safety blanket, I think in a way, right, I know,
[19:22] Speaker 4: it brought a lot of confidence to to the lads
[19:25] Speaker 4: that I was over watching, that that I was over watching,
[19:29] Speaker 4: and it did quite a few of the times between
[19:32] Speaker 4: as snipers, it panned out quite well that we'd be
[19:34] Speaker 4: able to spot things that were happening in the distance.
[19:36] Speaker 4: For instance, one one of the lads spotted someone bashing
[19:40] Speaker 4: through a through a wall making a murder hole with
[19:42] Speaker 4: a Dutchker anti aircraft gun on the other side of it.
[19:45] Speaker 4: And the lads were patrolling down this road and they
[19:47] Speaker 4: were about to get the good news and he managed
[19:50] Speaker 4: to call it in and it got dealt with luckily.
[19:53] Speaker 4: But yeah, it became we we very much. We proved
[19:58] Speaker 4: we were wre the training that's put it yeah, sure, yeah,
[20:01] Speaker 4: and we were absolutely and usset.
[20:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[20:04] Speaker 2: I mean, this was un an operation I was on
[20:07] Speaker 2: in Iraq where one of our snipers and I won't
[20:12] Speaker 2: say his name here, but he's a great guy. He
[20:14] Speaker 2: was doing our overwatch for the assault teams that were
[20:17] Speaker 2: coming into the structure and two guys get up on
[20:20] Speaker 2: the rooftop. This is in the middle of the night,
[20:22] Speaker 2: and they were about to maneuver and start shooting down
[20:25] Speaker 2: on the assault team. And he whacked both of those
[20:27] Speaker 2: guys right off. And when the assaulters got up there
[20:32] Speaker 2: and search, these dudes had like fighting positions with like
[20:35] Speaker 2: RPKs and magazines.
[20:37] Speaker 3: Flag grenades like they were they were ready to roll.
[20:39] Speaker 4: Man.
[20:40] Speaker 2: So the snipers, you know, yeah, exactly like your story
[20:45] Speaker 2: about them spotting the dishka.
[20:47] Speaker 3: That stuff matters, Yeah, it does.
[20:50] Speaker 4: Yeah, it became I don't think, to be honest, any
[20:53] Speaker 4: of us really realized how important we would be out there.
[20:57] Speaker 4: We wanted to be snipers and we wanted to be
[21:00] Speaker 4: doing that job, but I don't think we actually realized WHOA,
[21:05] Speaker 4: we're changing battles, Yeah right, We're doing things that are
[21:11] Speaker 4: actually changing the way this the course of this thing
[21:13] Speaker 4: is moving to the point where where from from hearing
[21:20] Speaker 4: what our interpreters would listen to on Taliban radio frequencies
[21:23] Speaker 4: and things like that, we knew that they were scared
[21:26] Speaker 4: of us. They wouldn't moved if they one of us
[21:28] Speaker 4: was in the area, which was a great feeling to
[21:31] Speaker 4: have to be honest.
[21:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, force multiplier.
[21:35] Speaker 4: That's it. Yeah, we had these t shirts made with
[21:38] Speaker 4: Force Multifier. We love them.
[21:44] Speaker 2: So you get you're over in Afghanistan now as a sniper.
[21:48] Speaker 2: Back to Helman Province.
[21:50] Speaker 4: Yeah, back to Hellman Province. Yeah. We were rotating around
[21:54] Speaker 4: a place called Nabi Ali, another one called Baba Gee
[21:58] Speaker 4: and these were these were old. The numbers were in the.
[22:05] Speaker 3: Hundreds, numbers of enemies that you were encountering.
[22:10] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It was that they were
[22:14] Speaker 4: training in the area, they were doing all sorts. This
[22:17] Speaker 4: was very much where they were comfortable. So our tour
[22:22] Speaker 4: became kinetic very early on, and everyone, out of all
[22:27] Speaker 4: of the entire Italian everyone was fighting hard.
[22:31] Speaker 2: Uh And so there's a couple of stories that you
[22:34] Speaker 2: relate in your book that I'd love to ask you about.
[22:37] Speaker 2: One of them being when you faced off against an
[22:40] Speaker 2: enemy sniper.
[22:42] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is this is a day that
[22:47] Speaker 4: my therapist got sick of hearing about it. This was honestly,
[22:52] Speaker 4: this was this was terrifying, this experience and every single
[22:55] Speaker 4: one of us that were there were changed from this
[22:59] Speaker 4: from this experience. We uh so, what happened in the
[23:04] Speaker 4: past few weeks. We're about a quarters of the way
[23:07] Speaker 4: through the through the tour at this point, which was
[23:09] Speaker 4: a six month tour. Enemy snipers had been running wild
[23:16] Speaker 4: in the area and they'd been strategically taking out British
[23:19] Speaker 4: troops and they've been doing a good job of it.
[23:22] Speaker 4: So Task the task for task Forces sorry, were formed
[23:29] Speaker 4: and a sort of counter sniper operation began, which meant
[23:34] Speaker 4: that all of us snipers were brought back together for
[23:37] Speaker 4: the first time. We were all kind of interests going
[23:40] Speaker 4: on here and there's there's definitely something up where we're
[23:42] Speaker 4: going to be doing something good. Uh. So we were.
[23:45] Speaker 4: We were staying this little hangar on the outskirts of
[23:48] Speaker 4: pretty much a ghost town at this point. But what
[23:51] Speaker 4: happened was a platoon of British troops had been stranded
[23:55] Speaker 4: and pinned down by an enemy sniper. He was a
[23:59] Speaker 4: foreign higher gun, it turned out, potentially checking him, but
[24:03] Speaker 4: we weren't one hundred percent or not, and our job
[24:07] Speaker 4: was basically to go and collect these troops who'd lost
[24:10] Speaker 4: quite a few of their own and hopefully take out
[24:15] Speaker 4: the sniper that had them pinned down. So we moved in.
[24:18] Speaker 4: It was about probably a ten kilometer patrol in and
[24:23] Speaker 4: when we got there, we go through the compound gates
[24:26] Speaker 4: and I can remember just seeing their faces, the troops
[24:30] Speaker 4: that had been there for however long. They looked broken
[24:33] Speaker 4: and exhausted. They looked like they had been fighting for
[24:37] Speaker 4: their lives. And there was two tower positions, so as
[24:41] Speaker 4: snipers took ourselves to one side, our commanders went and
[24:45] Speaker 4: spoke with their commanders, and we came up with this
[24:47] Speaker 4: plan that myself and one of the lads Gray, We're
[24:50] Speaker 4: going to climb up this tower, and then one of
[24:53] Speaker 4: the other lads, Benny and Ady, were going to climb
[24:55] Speaker 4: up another one. So we did and as we got
[24:58] Speaker 4: to the top, we hadn't even set inn er anything
[25:01] Speaker 4: and this shot rang out and it was like nothing
[25:04] Speaker 4: we'd ever heard before. We didn't know what the hell
[25:06] Speaker 4: this thing was. It was powerful, so we've all sort
[25:09] Speaker 4: of gone down and shit, what the fuck was that?
[25:12] Speaker 4: So I poked my head up to try and see
[25:14] Speaker 4: if I could see what it was, and it banged
[25:16] Speaker 4: straight away and it was you know, and it's inches
[25:18] Speaker 4: away and you get that little the whistle sound. Oh fuck,
[25:22] Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, this is real closest. So
[25:25] Speaker 4: I've looked across at the other tower. Then he one
[25:28] Speaker 4: of the other boys has popped his head up and
[25:30] Speaker 4: instantly again bang this round. So it's gone through a
[25:35] Speaker 4: two meter hesco cage of gravel, threw a full seven
[25:39] Speaker 4: six two ambition and threw a railway sleeper and then
[25:43] Speaker 4: off into the far distance. It was some sort of
[25:47] Speaker 4: incredible mega weapon. We don't know what it was it was,
[25:51] Speaker 4: but he wasn't he wasn't messing and he wasn't going
[25:53] Speaker 4: to miss again. So one hundred meters to the north
[25:57] Speaker 4: of our position, now there was another pound. So it
[26:00] Speaker 4: was decided I would obviously we can't poke our head
[26:03] Speaker 4: up anymore because someone's going to lose a head, get
[26:06] Speaker 4: down and we'll come up with a different plan. So
[26:08] Speaker 4: the plan was that individually would run this one hundred
[26:11] Speaker 4: meter sprint across to the next compound and then hopefully
[26:15] Speaker 4: one of us will be able to get a different
[26:16] Speaker 4: angle and we'll be able to take this guy out.
[26:19] Speaker 4: So we've all sort of stood against the wall and
[26:23] Speaker 4: cigarettes are getting passed down the line and the lads
[26:25] Speaker 4: that don't even smoke it out in the over cool
[26:28] Speaker 4: and then eventually it's my turn. I'm sort of almost
[26:31] Speaker 4: hyper ventilating in the doorway, going, fuck, he's going to
[26:34] Speaker 4: go for me, He's going to see the niper rifle.
[26:36] Speaker 4: He's going to fucking shoot me. Here we go, And
[26:38] Speaker 4: that's all that was going from ahead, and then I
[26:39] Speaker 4: sort of had this moment where I, fuck, I need
[26:41] Speaker 4: to calm down. It's actually my turn, braced in the
[26:44] Speaker 4: doorway and just ran zig zagging like a madman, carrying
[26:49] Speaker 4: about seven stone of kit, but eventually burst through this
[26:53] Speaker 4: compound door. We've all made it through safe and there
[26:57] Speaker 4: was nothing to worry about because a couple of minutes
[26:59] Speaker 4: later she was in the air and it just evaporated
[27:03] Speaker 4: the place. Everything was gone. There was no more bad guy,
[27:06] Speaker 4: and we could all go home and try and shake
[27:09] Speaker 4: it off. But it took me a long time to
[27:11] Speaker 4: shake that one off. That fear was real.
[27:14] Speaker 3: Did you ever figure out what he was shooting at you?
[27:18] Speaker 4: We didn't know. I never heard. There was rumors, but
[27:24] Speaker 4: I don't know anyone that went anywhere near it to
[27:26] Speaker 4: be able to find out what it was. Right, someone
[27:30] Speaker 4: was saying it was an old lee Enfield.
[27:31] Speaker 3: Rifle three or three mm, Yeah, so it.
[27:36] Speaker 4: Could well have been. It sounded it sounded like something
[27:39] Speaker 4: that had had the exhaust cut off it or something.
[27:42] Speaker 2: It was a beast, right right, Yeah, I was going
[27:45] Speaker 2: to say it sounds like it wasn't an SVD or something.
[27:48] Speaker 3: It had to be more than that.
[27:50] Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it wasn't anything like that.
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[29:35] Speaker 2: was another chapter of your book called it was the
[29:38] Speaker 2: Longest Day.
[29:40] Speaker 4: Yeah, the Longest Day. Yeah. So this this all sort
[29:44] Speaker 4: of starts this chapter. A Delta Force team had actually
[29:50] Speaker 4: been in the area and they'd come into a bit
[29:53] Speaker 4: of trouble in one and one of one of many
[29:58] Speaker 4: injuries that the Tema sustained was the chopper pilot. A
[30:03] Speaker 4: few days later, we were told that there was there
[30:07] Speaker 4: was more enemy in the area than what had been expected,
[30:11] Speaker 4: and that our orders were to go and kick this
[30:14] Speaker 4: hornet's nest and see how many Taliban they're actually wearing
[30:18] Speaker 4: this town. We found out, We definitely found out. So
[30:25] Speaker 4: this job started about it was about four o'clock in
[30:28] Speaker 4: the morning. We all got on to Chinook's and we're
[30:32] Speaker 4: flown through the night sky and just as we've arrived
[30:36] Speaker 4: on the target area, they were waiting for us, the Taliban.
[30:40] Speaker 4: They must have known that we were coming, because these
[30:43] Speaker 4: Dushker aircraft weapons started going off as RPGs flying at us,
[30:47] Speaker 4: rounds of pinging off the side of the Chinooks and
[30:50] Speaker 4: we're just sat there and I'm sat there holding this
[30:52] Speaker 4: useless sniper rival thinking well, I don't like this. It
[30:57] Speaker 4: was so uncomfortable just having a rely on someone else
[31:01] Speaker 4: to keep us safe. It just felt so foreign. So that,
[31:04] Speaker 4: you know, the tail guns and the side guns on
[31:06] Speaker 4: the chinook auld go in like bark and they're sent
[31:09] Speaker 4: in thousands of rounds down and they managed everything quiet
[31:13] Speaker 4: and down a little bit, and they managed to drop
[31:15] Speaker 4: us in the middle of this mud, freshly plowed wet
[31:18] Speaker 4: field that was like mud up to your knees, every
[31:22] Speaker 4: steps heavy. You know you know what you know, the fields,
[31:25] Speaker 4: you know those ones that you get stuck in. Eventually
[31:29] Speaker 4: it all calmed down and we managed to get ourselves
[31:32] Speaker 4: out of this field. And then we had three predesignated compounds.
[31:37] Speaker 4: We were going to go in a triangular formation, take
[31:39] Speaker 4: up these compounds and see what happened. So the sun
[31:43] Speaker 4: had just started to come up at this point and
[31:47] Speaker 4: we entered our compound. That made it safe, and I've
[31:49] Speaker 4: climbed onto the rooftop. As I've done this, everyone around
[31:54] Speaker 4: me is filling sandbags and bashing holes through walls and
[31:57] Speaker 4: making firing points and all this sort of stuff. It's
[32:00] Speaker 4: going to be a bit of a tasty day, so
[32:03] Speaker 4: everyone's sort of getting prepared for that and getting ammunition
[32:06] Speaker 4: out and ready and whatnot. I've then noticed in the
[32:09] Speaker 4: far distance of motorbike going from left to right, and
[32:15] Speaker 4: it's got one guy on it, and then it's got
[32:17] Speaker 4: two guys on it, and then it's got one guy
[32:19] Speaker 4: in it, okay. And then I saw a mini busy
[32:23] Speaker 4: just the driver and there was full of fighting age
[32:25] Speaker 4: males comes back, just the driver. And then obviously the
[32:28] Speaker 4: Taliban were being dropped in fire positions, and this was
[32:31] Speaker 4: happening everywhere around us. We didn't know this, but a
[32:34] Speaker 4: couple of under Taliban were actually moving into a position
[32:37] Speaker 4: to start this day. So I've called down to the
[32:42] Speaker 4: boss on the ground who's on the radio below me,
[32:45] Speaker 4: and said, I'm going to let loose a warning shot
[32:47] Speaker 4: and let this guy know that I've seen them, so
[32:50] Speaker 4: don't want them getting a brand, letting their plan be,
[32:55] Speaker 4: you know, as good as it can possibly be. I
[32:57] Speaker 4: want to disrupt this early, so I've loose around and
[33:01] Speaker 4: as I've done that, this crescendo of noise just erupted.
[33:06] Speaker 4: It was like that sort of like five PM in
[33:09] Speaker 4: a jungle when everything just goes comes to life. It
[33:13] Speaker 4: was like that. It was it was intense RPGs and
[33:18] Speaker 4: machine gun fire and AK forty seven fire just came
[33:20] Speaker 4: from everywhere. The rounds were smashing into the walls and
[33:24] Speaker 4: chip walls of this compound where we were, and below
[33:29] Speaker 4: me were fighting like lions. That was sort of managing
[33:32] Speaker 4: to keep the Taliban back from these walls because there
[33:34] Speaker 4: was all these rat runs and little tiny anyways that
[33:37] Speaker 4: it was amazed basically up to the back of our compounds.
[33:40] Speaker 4: So they're keeping them back, and then I've noticed these
[33:44] Speaker 4: rounds are getting really really close to my head. And
[33:48] Speaker 4: so someone's clearly aiming for me here. So I've had
[33:51] Speaker 4: a look around, and I've spotted this guy. And at
[33:55] Speaker 4: this point, I'm twenty one years old. I've looked and
[33:59] Speaker 4: this guy I was probably same age as me, maybe
[34:03] Speaker 4: a couple of years younger, and he's gone AK forty
[34:05] Speaker 4: seven and he's firing bursts rounds at my head. And
[34:10] Speaker 4: this this became the turning point for me. This is
[34:15] Speaker 4: where I was so angry. I'd never been so angry
[34:20] Speaker 4: on my life. And a switch flipped in my head
[34:24] Speaker 4: where and I started to then blame this guy and
[34:27] Speaker 4: the guys that were firing from around the corner. I
[34:29] Speaker 4: started to blame them for the death of my friend
[34:32] Speaker 4: from the sniper course, and his face just kept coming
[34:35] Speaker 4: into my head, and I made it really, really personal,
[34:39] Speaker 4: and it got to this point where I wanted this
[34:42] Speaker 4: guy to suffer, and I sort of cast my mind
[34:45] Speaker 4: back to that. Now this is seven hundred and fifty
[34:47] Speaker 4: meters away, so not know nothing out of the ordinary
[34:51] Speaker 4: for a sniper. Cast my mind back to the tenpence
[34:54] Speaker 4: pieces on the targets and just thought, I'm going to
[34:57] Speaker 4: shoot him in the throat because I wanted I didn't
[35:02] Speaker 4: want it to be instant. I didn't want a headshot.
[35:04] Speaker 4: I wanted fact. I wanted revenge. So I let loose
[35:07] Speaker 4: this round. It's hit him in the throat. He's then
[35:11] Speaker 4: dropped his weapon and he's kind of holding himself together
[35:14] Speaker 4: a little bit and starts calling out to behind these
[35:17] Speaker 4: two buildings that were over to his left. And as
[35:20] Speaker 4: he's done that, another one has come out fired a
[35:22] Speaker 4: burst of rounds at me, and I then fired and
[35:26] Speaker 4: took him out. And then another one came. I've done
[35:28] Speaker 4: the same again, same again, and another one. Finally a
[35:32] Speaker 4: fifth one came, fired a bunch of rounds and I
[35:34] Speaker 4: took him out as well. And then so this went
[35:38] Speaker 4: on for like thirteen hours this day.
[35:40] Speaker 3: How it was?
[35:42] Speaker 2: You know, when you shot those five guys, how long
[35:47] Speaker 2: a time period do you think that is? Because it
[35:49] Speaker 2: sounds like you were racking the bolt, just going to town.
[35:52] Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how it was. Yeah it was. It was
[35:54] Speaker 4: probably the space of a couple of minutes. Yeah, they were,
[35:59] Speaker 4: they were of Yeah it was. It felt, Oh, it
[36:03] Speaker 4: felt like forever. It felt like everything had slowed down
[36:07] Speaker 4: into this moment that kept just kept me in this
[36:10] Speaker 4: little vortex to be honest, it was such a surreal moment.
[36:14] Speaker 4: And then after that happened, after this sort of whole
[36:18] Speaker 4: day had calmed down, the Chinooks came back, picked us
[36:21] Speaker 4: up and we went back to Bastion then where we
[36:25] Speaker 4: had a couple of days there get kit ready, and
[36:28] Speaker 4: then it was time for the next job, which was
[36:30] Speaker 4: Operation Master Rack, which was as went along with Marge,
[36:37] Speaker 4: wasn't it the Marga Marines as that, It was all
[36:40] Speaker 4: all part of the same operation. So at this point
[36:45] Speaker 4: I started to notice I'm having nightmares and my thoughts
[36:50] Speaker 4: aren't the same as they used to be. My temperament
[36:53] Speaker 4: is different, and I'm getting extremely irritable and angry. I've
[37:00] Speaker 4: kept my mouth shut because you know, I'm not going
[37:04] Speaker 4: to leave these guys. At this point, one of our
[37:06] Speaker 4: snipers he's been medically evacuated back to the UK after
[37:10] Speaker 4: an incident with a helicopter, injured in and the end
[37:16] Speaker 4: of falling out the back of a Chinook from about
[37:19] Speaker 4: twenty foot high onto a pile of rocks. Yeah, nasty,
[37:23] Speaker 4: it's fine now, I was not wronger now, but yeah,
[37:25] Speaker 4: that was so that was him home. So we were
[37:28] Speaker 4: spread out even thinner across the grounds and then off
[37:33] Speaker 4: we went. So my my start to operation Marster Rack
[37:37] Speaker 4: was jumping onto a black Orc and we were the
[37:41] Speaker 4: lead aircraft going in. And as we did, an RPG
[37:45] Speaker 4: that has been fired up at us, and the aircraft's
[37:49] Speaker 4: banned and the slide doors have been opened, and I
[37:51] Speaker 4: was sat on the edge and there wasn't enough seats,
[37:53] Speaker 4: and as it's gone, I fell out the bloody door
[37:57] Speaker 4: I fell out of. One of the guys has managed
[37:59] Speaker 4: to lean over quickly grabbed my kit and yanked me
[38:02] Speaker 4: back in. So I've had a heart attack on the
[38:04] Speaker 4: way in there, and it's not even daytime yet, it's
[38:07] Speaker 4: still dark. So I've gone in there. I've got a
[38:11] Speaker 4: bit of a sweat on. And then we've landed in
[38:14] Speaker 4: this misty field next to this canal, this sleepy town.
[38:22] Speaker 4: What we thought we were landing into, turned out it
[38:24] Speaker 4: wasn't at all. It was a mega stronghold, and very
[38:28] Speaker 4: quickly after us the aircraft all left, and this day,
[38:33] Speaker 4: by the way, was something like eighty two helicopters doing
[38:36] Speaker 4: wave after wave of dropping troops into the area. So
[38:40] Speaker 4: thousands of troops were being moved constantly that morning, and
[38:45] Speaker 4: all of a sudden, the tannoy speaker turned on and
[38:47] Speaker 4: someone started speaking in Pashdu, and obviously we couldn't understand
[38:52] Speaker 4: what they were saying, so I interpret a Mikey started
[38:55] Speaker 4: translating what they were saying, and they were saying that
[38:58] Speaker 4: anyone that lives in this town needs to leave or
[39:01] Speaker 4: join them in the fight. There's going to be the
[39:03] Speaker 4: biggest of holy battles, all this sort of stuff, and
[39:06] Speaker 4: it was it was a daunting message to hear, but
[39:10] Speaker 4: one that a quick cigarette and a laughing joker, we'd
[39:14] Speaker 4: shook it off. So the operation had begun and the
[39:19] Speaker 4: locals had moved out of this town. They were jumping
[39:22] Speaker 4: on anything that moved and off they went. So we'd
[39:26] Speaker 4: taken over a compound at this point, and just as
[39:31] Speaker 4: the other operation, everyone's filling sandbags and creating defensive positions
[39:34] Speaker 4: and stuff, because we were going to be operating here
[39:36] Speaker 4: now for the next few months. I've been on the
[39:40] Speaker 4: rooftop and all of a sudden, crack cack cack ak
[39:45] Speaker 4: forty seven bursts straight over our heads, and I thought, oh,
[39:48] Speaker 4: here we go. And then an RPG has come straight
[39:51] Speaker 4: after it set to air burst, and it's just popped
[39:54] Speaker 4: straight above our FOB. So this has obviously got everyone
[39:59] Speaker 4: running around on the around kind of what the fuck's
[40:02] Speaker 4: going on. So I'm corelating down to the ground to
[40:04] Speaker 4: the bosses what's going on there, relaying it over the radios,
[40:08] Speaker 4: and I'm talking and saying I'm going to lose this
[40:10] Speaker 4: guy in a minute. Anyway, it started, We've been there
[40:13] Speaker 4: for a few hours. I ended up taking this guy
[40:15] Speaker 4: out and then everything went quiet for days. It was
[40:18] Speaker 4: almost like it was a bit of a test, you know,
[40:22] Speaker 4: see what they could get away with, and the answer
[40:25] Speaker 4: was nothing. On the other flip side of this, behind
[40:28] Speaker 4: us sharing our compound with the French Foreign Legion and
[40:31] Speaker 4: they were working to the south, so we very quickly
[40:34] Speaker 4: established that we weren't messing around, you know, we weren't
[40:38] Speaker 4: playing games. So the tour progressed, and as it's done that,
[40:44] Speaker 4: my mental health has started to sort of decline. But
[40:47] Speaker 4: again quietly, I've not said anything. I've just people have
[40:52] Speaker 4: started making comments that I was in the middle of
[40:55] Speaker 4: the night, I'd be screaming in my sleep, I'd be
[40:57] Speaker 4: fighting in my sleep and things, and I just wanted
[41:00] Speaker 4: to write these poems. I didn't really understand what it
[41:03] Speaker 4: was at the time, but it was it was my
[41:06] Speaker 4: subconscious I think, just trying to alleviate some of this
[41:10] Speaker 4: weight that I was feeling and express some things I
[41:13] Speaker 4: couldn't or I felt I couldn't say to other people.
[41:17] Speaker 4: I was too scared of the stigma and the repercussions
[41:20] Speaker 4: of what happens if I do say something. So I
[41:25] Speaker 4: continued on, which then brings us to another story in
[41:31] Speaker 4: the book. This was it's called the chapter's called the
[41:37] Speaker 4: one Mile Shots, which was probably my most snipery moment
[41:44] Speaker 4: of the tour. This was the moment that there was
[41:48] Speaker 4: very much on my highlight reel of things that I'd
[41:51] Speaker 4: achieved as a sniper. We had we'd taken over a
[41:58] Speaker 4: compound and we've been there for a few months at
[41:59] Speaker 4: this point, and it was it was all right, you know,
[42:02] Speaker 4: we're again into firefights and the usual sort of stuff,
[42:05] Speaker 4: but it was it wasn't anything too heavy in our
[42:08] Speaker 4: compound where we particularly were. And then a couple of
[42:12] Speaker 4: clicks away, one of our units had come under quite
[42:15] Speaker 4: heavy fire and I'm just sat there playing cards with
[42:19] Speaker 4: the guys. At this point, nothing, nothing exciting, is going on.
[42:21] Speaker 4: A few people reading magazines and the message came through
[42:24] Speaker 4: to the radio that they might be heading in this direction,
[42:27] Speaker 4: that there's there's a they're not showing me how many
[42:29] Speaker 4: Taliban that were, but they might be retreating towards us.
[42:32] Speaker 4: So could I jump on the roof and have a
[42:34] Speaker 4: little luck in the distance. So where our compound was,
[42:39] Speaker 4: you've got us and then this next town, all this
[42:42] Speaker 4: this next group of buildings out and then nothing but
[42:44] Speaker 4: open poppy field all the way for a mile. So
[42:48] Speaker 4: it was it was perfect. Really there was that there
[42:51] Speaker 4: was not really that many opportunities for a shot to
[42:53] Speaker 4: be made like that. So I've jumped on the roof.
[42:57] Speaker 4: A couple of guys have gone up there with me
[42:59] Speaker 4: to sort of look for really protection and things like that.
[43:02] Speaker 4: As I'm looking and what I wasn't really expecting to
[43:05] Speaker 4: see anything, And then I saw some movement between two
[43:07] Speaker 4: of the buildings and there I saw playing playing a
[43:11] Speaker 4: day three Taliban AK forty seven's by the sides and
[43:15] Speaker 4: the walking in single file, and I thought this was
[43:18] Speaker 4: probably due to the ied threat in the area, which
[43:21] Speaker 4: was massive. There were so many IDs it was ridiculous.
[43:27] Speaker 4: What I did notice as well, though, as I was
[43:29] Speaker 4: observing them, was the guy in the center seemed to
[43:34] Speaker 4: be commanding the one to the front, and the rear.
[43:37] Speaker 4: They looked like they were his protection, almost his protection order.
[43:42] Speaker 4: So devised a plan. Now, my mind at this point
[43:47] Speaker 4: was different to anything it had ever been before. It
[43:52] Speaker 4: was it was callous, and it was quite dark. At
[43:57] Speaker 4: this point. What would left to be described as an
[44:01] Speaker 4: addiction to squeezing that trigger sort of took a hold
[44:06] Speaker 4: of me. And this, this campaign of revenge I suppose
[44:13] Speaker 4: that I had created in my mind. So I decided
[44:17] Speaker 4: that what I was going to do was I was
[44:19] Speaker 4: going to take out the insurgent at the rear, and
[44:22] Speaker 4: then I was going to take out the one in
[44:24] Speaker 4: the front, and then I'd take out the command the last.
[44:27] Speaker 4: And the idea was to create chaos and fear. It
[44:31] Speaker 4: was the one megatool that we had as snipers, was
[44:36] Speaker 4: the fear that we could cast into the enemy. So
[44:39] Speaker 4: I very much wanted to do that. So between me
[44:44] Speaker 4: and my potential targets were three separate directions of wind.
[44:50] Speaker 4: It was a nightmare. So I had one coming in
[44:55] Speaker 4: from the left, one coming in from the right, and
[44:57] Speaker 4: another one coming in from the left down towards them.
[45:01] Speaker 4: So it's it's taking eleven calculations in the end for
[45:04] Speaker 4: me to do this, and I am no good at maths,
[45:07] Speaker 4: no good, So I did it a calculator to have
[45:11] Speaker 4: this little calculator, like, here we go. So I've put
[45:16] Speaker 4: put on my clicks in and a mile away the
[45:19] Speaker 4: schmidten Bender scope that we aren't It wouldn't it wasn't
[45:23] Speaker 4: made to go that far. So I was actually having
[45:25] Speaker 4: an aim off the target, which was the first time
[45:29] Speaker 4: I've ever attempted anything like this, you know, I don't
[45:32] Speaker 4: even read about it and read the theory side of it,
[45:35] Speaker 4: you know. So it was quite a big moment. So
[45:38] Speaker 4: I've taken my hand, my body armor off, and I've
[45:41] Speaker 4: got my cap on, my shooting cap, and I've got
[45:43] Speaker 4: my force multiplier T shirt on and I've got comfortable right. Okay,
[45:48] Speaker 4: here we go. If I'm going to do this, it's
[45:50] Speaker 4: got to be now. Because the sun was dipping and
[45:52] Speaker 4: it was very much last night. There was a few
[45:54] Speaker 4: minutes to go, and I've I've laid there and I've
[45:59] Speaker 4: got into my bubble. So I talk a lot in
[46:01] Speaker 4: the book about the in depth about what it was
[46:04] Speaker 4: like squeezing that trig of the thoughts at the time,
[46:07] Speaker 4: thoughts before how it felt physically, and I've got into
[46:11] Speaker 4: this calm, meditative state of what it's like obviously pulling
[46:15] Speaker 4: the trigger for those distances, and I missed. I couldn't
[46:19] Speaker 4: believe it. I could not believe I missed. I thought,
[46:22] Speaker 4: I've done all these calculations right so very quickly. Then
[46:25] Speaker 4: it's been a kind of off the cuff job where
[46:29] Speaker 4: I've trained the next round and sent it straight away.
[46:31] Speaker 4: Same guy, same target at the rear, and this time
[46:34] Speaker 4: it's hit him. It's h him in the stomach and
[46:36] Speaker 4: it's folded him and off and he's gone down. So
[46:38] Speaker 4: with this the front insurgent and the commander. I then
[46:43] Speaker 4: turned round and as the realization of that is setting,
[46:47] Speaker 4: I've sent the next round for the front insurgent. He's
[46:50] Speaker 4: gone down. And then it turns out the guy in
[46:53] Speaker 4: the center was a Taliban commander. He's then run and
[46:57] Speaker 4: as he's run, I've sent the next round, and that's
[46:59] Speaker 4: that's gone through his tour. So all of a sudden,
[47:01] Speaker 4: the radio the radio letter and an American APACHE pilot
[47:06] Speaker 4: had been in the air and witnessed the whole thing,
[47:09] Speaker 4: and he called down saying, tell that sniper that was
[47:12] Speaker 4: some good shooting. So I was like, oh, thank you
[47:15] Speaker 4: very much, cheers. But then after that, I climbed down
[47:18] Speaker 4: off the roof and everyone, all the guys on the
[47:20] Speaker 4: on the ground around me, was sort of like, oh
[47:22] Speaker 4: my god, well done. You know them was a mile away.
[47:24] Speaker 4: Can't believe I'm far away. I just made these shots.
[47:27] Speaker 4: I'd be interpreted telling me, oh my god, that's a
[47:30] Speaker 4: Taliban commander that the net was going absolutely insane, and
[47:35] Speaker 4: my world just closed in like like I had a
[47:39] Speaker 4: tunnel vision, and everything became really muffled. I could hardly
[47:43] Speaker 4: understand what people were saying, and I couldn't I couldn't talk.
[47:46] Speaker 4: I just didn't speak. It was on my whole existence.
[47:49] Speaker 4: I was closing down. I walked down the corner and
[47:52] Speaker 4: just started smoking one after the other and just replaying
[47:56] Speaker 4: these events. But I wasn't in control of it. It
[47:59] Speaker 4: just out of nowhere happened. I have no idea what
[48:03] Speaker 4: the fuck was going on? No idea. And then the
[48:07] Speaker 4: following day another contact happened, and that was that was it.
[48:12] Speaker 4: The I had nothing left. I'd broke and I'd reached
[48:17] Speaker 4: breaking point and gone past it. And then people around
[48:20] Speaker 4: me gotcha Okay, yes, something's not right here, something needs
[48:24] Speaker 4: to be done, and then it was.
[48:27] Speaker 2: Here's something I'd like to kind of make clear to people,
[48:31] Speaker 2: and I'd like to hear your view also is there's
[48:35] Speaker 2: this there's a difference between being a sniper and being
[48:38] Speaker 2: an infantryman. That in the sense, when you're in an
[48:41] Speaker 2: infantry platoon and you get into a firefight, it's very chaotic,
[48:45] Speaker 2: it's not totally clear who shot who. You know, it
[48:49] Speaker 2: can be very difficult to pin that down. And so
[48:52] Speaker 2: after a mission, like guys can kind of like brag like, oh, yeah,
[48:55] Speaker 2: I killed that guy, but deep down everyone knows.
[48:58] Speaker 3: Maybe they did, maybe they did it.
[49:00] Speaker 2: We don't really know, you know, And so it becomes
[49:02] Speaker 2: this more like shared experience of like the platoon killed
[49:05] Speaker 2: those guys, whereas as a cleber, it's like, you know,
[49:09] Speaker 2: damn well, you fired on that guy and you killed
[49:12] Speaker 2: that guy, and you know you did that, and you know,
[49:16] Speaker 2: the combat you're describing to me sounds completely reasonable, and
[49:21] Speaker 2: you were fighting enemy combatants who were armed. You know,
[49:24] Speaker 2: there's nothing to be ashamed about. But nonetheless, you as
[49:29] Speaker 2: an individual have to find a way to live.
[49:31] Speaker 4: With that, right, Yeah, very much. So it was a
[49:35] Speaker 4: heavy burden to bear, to be honest, and it wasn't
[49:37] Speaker 4: really something that I thought too much about. I never
[49:42] Speaker 4: thought I've thought about doing it. I thought about what
[49:44] Speaker 4: it's going to be like. I never thought about the
[49:46] Speaker 4: aftermath of what that would be like. And it was
[49:51] Speaker 4: it was very personal. You know. I've described in the
[49:55] Speaker 4: past mating in the book where I'd see the face
[49:59] Speaker 4: of the person, never you know, like you talking about
[50:02] Speaker 4: their normal infanty. It might see a movement or a
[50:05] Speaker 4: shadow or a general direction splash of where everyone else's
[50:08] Speaker 4: rounds are going. Whereas I would be able to look
[50:11] Speaker 4: and see these people in the face and be able
[50:13] Speaker 4: to tell whether they were trained. Is this a trained
[50:16] Speaker 4: individual or is this someone that's had fifty bucks and
[50:18] Speaker 4: given a weapon and said go and shoot in that direction?
[50:21] Speaker 4: You know? And there were some of them, some of
[50:24] Speaker 4: them where those type of people. Others were trained, and
[50:27] Speaker 4: they were moving like you know, you can tell, can't you.
[50:29] Speaker 4: You can tell if someone's had training when they're moving
[50:31] Speaker 4: the way they're holding the weapon. So I never I
[50:36] Speaker 4: never had.
[50:37] Speaker 5: The the worry of saying, oh, you know, maybe it
[50:44] Speaker 5: was me, Maybe it was you know, it was them
[50:46] Speaker 5: on me that I couldn't.
[50:48] Speaker 4: I could never really settle with because I never saw
[50:51] Speaker 4: it as them on me. It was always it was
[50:54] Speaker 4: never going to be me. It was always going to
[50:56] Speaker 4: be them. So it.
[51:01] Speaker 2: That's doing your name, by the way, I should point out,
[51:03] Speaker 2: it's supposed to be them.
[51:07] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's the aim of the game. Yeah. So
[51:11] Speaker 4: it was something that I couldn't in the end. It
[51:16] Speaker 4: was almost like I lowered this wall of emotion before
[51:19] Speaker 4: going off. I didn't want to miss people at home.
[51:23] Speaker 4: I didn't want any distractions. I didn't want this distraction
[51:26] Speaker 4: of thinking that way before having to pull that trigger.
[51:29] Speaker 4: I was very close down, very much in a sniper's mindset,
[51:33] Speaker 4: and an angry sniper at that. So when I let
[51:37] Speaker 4: this wall down of feeling the type of way and
[51:42] Speaker 4: thinking that these people were responsible for the death of
[51:44] Speaker 4: my friend, I believe that is the moment where I
[51:47] Speaker 4: let empathy in. And then from that point it was
[51:51] Speaker 4: like a drip that just kept going and going and
[51:53] Speaker 4: getting bigger and bigger until I was feeling into their pain.
[51:57] Speaker 4: I was feeling into the look of horror or the
[52:01] Speaker 4: look of absolute fear that's all on their faces. I
[52:05] Speaker 4: started to imagine, Oh my fucking god. How terrifying must
[52:09] Speaker 4: that been, you know, watching that every time one of
[52:12] Speaker 4: your friends comes out, he gets killed and then you're
[52:14] Speaker 4: the only one left. How frightening would that have been?
[52:16] Speaker 4: It must have been a very horrendous experience. And having
[52:21] Speaker 4: then on the flip side of that, being shot at
[52:23] Speaker 4: by a sniper where we had we never spotted this guy,
[52:26] Speaker 4: We had no idea where it was, and how terrifying
[52:28] Speaker 4: that was. I started to put all these things together
[52:30] Speaker 4: and then thinking, Okay, they are the enemy, but they're
[52:34] Speaker 4: also a human being. And this is where my PTSD
[52:37] Speaker 4: became complex. And it wasn't until probably ten years later
[52:42] Speaker 4: that I actually managed to figure out what was going on. Well,
[52:47] Speaker 4: I didn't, my therapist did. I must We ever heard
[52:50] Speaker 4: of a moral injury?
[52:52] Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
[52:54] Speaker 4: That was something. It was like a light bulb moment
[52:56] Speaker 4: for me, which you know, our core value created as children,
[53:02] Speaker 4: and as much as I wanted to be doing this job,
[53:05] Speaker 4: my core values have taken a life and it being
[53:08] Speaker 4: that personal, it just didn't correlate. It didn't go well together,
[53:14] Speaker 4: and that I believe was where it all started to unravel.
[53:21] Speaker 2: That the tail end of that deployment. You said that
[53:24] Speaker 2: this PTSD issue really came to a head. What was
[53:28] Speaker 2: there something a final sort of catalyzing moment that when
[53:33] Speaker 2: you're a train of commander realized, O, hey, we need
[53:35] Speaker 2: to get ted some help.
[53:38] Speaker 4: Yeah, so people have noticed that I was doing these
[53:42] Speaker 4: these poems. I'd also been drawing my nightmares which were
[53:48] Speaker 4: happening at this point. They were no longer dreams, they
[53:50] Speaker 4: were nightmares. So I had to get them out with me.
[53:52] Speaker 4: I'm this creative person. I've always sort of drawn or
[53:56] Speaker 4: written music, and they've done all sorts of stuff, but
[54:00] Speaker 4: it was just coming out me. I had to let
[54:02] Speaker 4: it out somehow, but silently, and everyone had noticed. And
[54:07] Speaker 4: then we have this thing here called trauma risk management
[54:10] Speaker 4: where you sit down there's a questionnaire which is numbers
[54:13] Speaker 4: one to ten. So this guy has sat me down
[54:17] Speaker 4: and given me these tests and asked me these questions
[54:21] Speaker 4: and he turned around as he'd never seen scores this high.
[54:25] Speaker 4: It was like, fuck, so it needs to be done
[54:28] Speaker 4: like today and now, right now. So I'm still on
[54:31] Speaker 4: the front line at this point. So a massive vehicle
[54:33] Speaker 4: has been sent to collect me, which meant a patrol
[54:37] Speaker 4: of blokes had to come out get me, put me
[54:39] Speaker 4: in this vehicle take me back to a different Ford
[54:41] Speaker 4: operating base, and then a chinnook has come in and
[54:44] Speaker 4: took me back to Bastion. So it was a big deal.
[54:48] Speaker 4: But I'm so glad that they did, very glad. Once
[54:53] Speaker 4: that had happened, it was almost like this weight kind
[54:55] Speaker 4: of fell off me a little bit. I was instantly
[54:59] Speaker 4: in front of a psychiatric nurse, but I was let down,
[55:04] Speaker 4: to be honest. They told me that I was tired
[55:06] Speaker 4: and suffering with a bit of an addiction to squeezing
[55:09] Speaker 4: the suggar, and I should just go and work in
[55:12] Speaker 4: the stores, have a couple of weeks there, try and
[55:14] Speaker 4: get some sleep, and I'll be okay. So okay, smashing off,
[55:20] Speaker 4: I go. That's what I'll do. So I went to
[55:22] Speaker 4: work in the stores. It was humiliating.
[55:26] Speaker 2: You mean, like like logistics, like handing out boots and
[55:29] Speaker 2: uniforms to soldiers.
[55:31] Speaker 4: Yeah, that shit, Oh man, it was. And you imagine
[55:36] Speaker 4: can you imagine? So, as I'm doing this dog shit job,
[55:42] Speaker 4: one of our blokes got killed, Several got injured, and
[55:47] Speaker 4: one of my very very close mates, he was catastrophically injured,
[55:51] Speaker 4: losing eyesight and limbs, multiple limbs have then received the
[55:57] Speaker 4: back of his kit working in the stores, received this
[56:00] Speaker 4: plastic bag and I'm like, what the fuck seeing his
[56:03] Speaker 4: name on it. Fuck ah, man, it was. It was
[56:08] Speaker 4: a shit moment. So then we had about ten days
[56:11] Speaker 4: or so left on the tour at this point, so
[56:13] Speaker 4: it was right at the end it was fucking shit.
[56:18] Speaker 4: But then one of the bosses, well he's a platoon sergeant.
[56:22] Speaker 4: He said, look, it's this ship. We've got ten days
[56:24] Speaker 4: to go, but I need a group of guys for
[56:26] Speaker 4: a volunteer operation in a bit of a shit area,
[56:30] Speaker 4: so straight away me get me out there. And I
[56:34] Speaker 4: managed to just fucking lie my way through doctors appointments
[56:39] Speaker 4: and nurses and all sorts of stuff that I was
[56:41] Speaker 4: absolutely fine. You're right, Oh my god, you were so right.
[56:45] Speaker 4: I was just tired and needed to work in the stores.
[56:48] Speaker 4: Fixed get me back out there. So I was allowed
[56:52] Speaker 4: out back off the front line with the condition that
[56:56] Speaker 4: I didn't take my sniper rival, which annoys me, but
[57:01] Speaker 4: it is what it is. I don't know the reason
[57:03] Speaker 4: for it, the speculation, but I don't know.
[57:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, they were afraid you were going to be the
[57:08] Speaker 2: sniper and saving Private Ryan, like reciting versus from the
[57:12] Speaker 2: Bible up in the bell Tower.
[57:16] Speaker 4: That's pretty much what I've heard. I get that dangerous man.
[57:23] Speaker 4: So yeah, that happened. That ten day ended in a
[57:28] Speaker 4: couple of Taliban digging in an ied for us on
[57:31] Speaker 4: our main supply route. They got vaporized by a predator missile.
[57:36] Speaker 4: And then two days later, I'm back in a pub
[57:39] Speaker 4: in my hometown, completely naked, stood on a table with
[57:42] Speaker 4: my parents and all my family around me, drinking pints
[57:46] Speaker 4: of vodka and trying to pretend that I'm normal and
[57:51] Speaker 4: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I had a
[57:59] Speaker 4: bank full of money. I'm just a desire to drink.
[58:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, to a point that it gets unhealthy.
[58:06] Speaker 3: I get it.
[58:07] Speaker 2: So tell us kind of about like you said, there's
[58:11] Speaker 2: it sounds like it was, you know, maybe a decade
[58:13] Speaker 2: long process of kind of processing these experiences. What was
[58:19] Speaker 2: that like from you know, being drunk in the pub
[58:22] Speaker 2: two days back home to you know, getting and recovering.
[58:26] Speaker 3: I guess.
[58:28] Speaker 4: It was. Yeah, it was a very slung like, long
[58:31] Speaker 4: drawn out process. I was drinking then heavily relying on
[58:37] Speaker 4: it as a crutch. I wasn't dependent on it, but
[58:40] Speaker 4: I used it to make excuses for my behavior. I'd
[58:44] Speaker 4: go out and get into fight a lot, sometimes to win,
[58:48] Speaker 4: sometimes more often than not lose, just to sort of
[58:52] Speaker 4: feel this. I feel this about. Is it this pain
[58:56] Speaker 4: that I felt I deserved? I felt a lot guilt
[59:00] Speaker 4: and shame for what I've done, and I was really
[59:03] Speaker 4: uncomfortable on what we called civ Street. I couldn't I
[59:09] Speaker 4: just couldn't deal with it. All I wanted to do
[59:10] Speaker 4: was get back to Afghanistan, which we were going to
[59:13] Speaker 4: be doing the following year. And then one day everything
[59:17] Speaker 4: came to a head. I'd been having panic attacks and
[59:21] Speaker 4: flashbacks and things, but I didn't know what these things were.
[59:26] Speaker 4: I had no idea, and I just played them off
[59:28] Speaker 4: and still managed to keep everything until one day I
[59:32] Speaker 4: was I was living with my parents and my sister
[59:35] Speaker 4: at this point, I in a black outrage ended up
[59:39] Speaker 4: flying across the table and attacking my dad and we've
[59:42] Speaker 4: got a fantastic relationship. I don't remember doing it, didn't
[59:48] Speaker 4: know I was doing it at the time, and that
[59:50] Speaker 4: scared the life out of me until I came around
[59:52] Speaker 4: and we're on the floor and I've kind of let go,
[59:55] Speaker 4: and what the bark grab a kit bag in the car,
[1:00:00] Speaker 4: drove back to camp, and then the following morning, I've
[1:00:04] Speaker 4: gone to my platoon sergeant and said, look, this is
[1:00:07] Speaker 4: what's been happening. It's been under the radar, but it's
[1:00:10] Speaker 4: gone a bit too far out. I didn't mind fighting
[1:00:13] Speaker 4: strangers and you know, things like that, but this is
[1:00:17] Speaker 4: where I draw the line. Very luckily there was a
[1:00:20] Speaker 4: psychiatric nurse in camp at the time. My first fault was, why,
[1:00:29] Speaker 4: who's lost the marbles in camp? I've never heard of
[1:00:32] Speaker 4: it before. I know, I'd never heard of PTSD before.
[1:00:34] Speaker 4: I'd not heard mental health before in my fucking life.
[1:00:37] Speaker 4: I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know
[1:00:39] Speaker 4: what was happening in my brain. I just knew that
[1:00:42] Speaker 4: I was really angry, and then never got in trouble.
[1:00:46] Speaker 4: It felt better for a little bit. I then got
[1:00:49] Speaker 4: in trouble with the law and things were rapidly going downhill.
[1:00:55] Speaker 4: This then ended with me starting to see psychiatrists once
[1:01:00] Speaker 4: getting given ridiculous amounts of medication, still in the Army
[1:01:04] Speaker 4: at this point, and then on a cold, rainy day
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: in November twenty twelve, I decided that I was gonna
[1:01:14] Speaker 4: kill myself. I couldn't take this anymore, so I've driven
[1:01:17] Speaker 4: off in my car, parked up next to a river
[1:01:20] Speaker 4: and slipping wrists. Immediately realized that I don't want to
[1:01:25] Speaker 4: fucking die. I want to get better. I just don't
[1:01:28] Speaker 4: want this.
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: I don't want to die every day.
[1:01:33] Speaker 4: Yeah, it was like this moment where I just woke
[1:01:38] Speaker 4: up for a second and I was back to this
[1:01:40] Speaker 4: depressed state, but just for a second I felt alive.
[1:01:45] Speaker 4: That then very quickly ended up, though, with me spending
[1:01:48] Speaker 4: three months in a psychiatric ward, locked up on the
[1:01:51] Speaker 4: other side of the country, no contact from anybody. It
[1:01:57] Speaker 4: was a very tough time. I need to get out
[1:02:00] Speaker 4: of the hospital after three months and was a few
[1:02:04] Speaker 4: months later medically discharged from service. So that's when I
[1:02:08] Speaker 4: sort of found myself just flailing in the wind a
[1:02:12] Speaker 4: little bit. I had no identity and no job. My
[1:02:16] Speaker 4: closest friends and the people closest to me in my life,
[1:02:19] Speaker 4: would i've gone and I was lost, they'd be lost. Luckily,
[1:02:25] Speaker 4: I received a letter and the Army had arranged a
[1:02:28] Speaker 4: therapist appointment with the NHS, so the National Health Service
[1:02:32] Speaker 4: over here. I went for a few months and started
[1:02:39] Speaker 4: to get better, but then this niggerly voice in my
[1:02:43] Speaker 4: head started to tell me that I wasn't worth this
[1:02:46] Speaker 4: guy's time, and somebody else is in a worse state
[1:02:49] Speaker 4: than me. Someone else should be having this appointment, not me.
[1:02:53] Speaker 4: And I imagine he saw it a lot, and I
[1:02:57] Speaker 4: now know that a lot of people do do it.
[1:03:00] Speaker 4: So I withdrew from therapy, but I'm glad I did.
[1:03:04] Speaker 4: It didn't feel right, but it didn't feel wrong either
[1:03:07] Speaker 4: at the time. It allowed me the time to go
[1:03:11] Speaker 4: and travel the world, which is then what I did
[1:03:13] Speaker 4: for the next few years, starting in Asia and then
[1:03:17] Speaker 4: Australia and then Canada, America and Mexico. It was a
[1:03:23] Speaker 4: great few years.
[1:03:25] Speaker 3: I just found myself backpacking around.
[1:03:28] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was amazing. There were six
[1:03:32] Speaker 4: of us that bought We went to Calgary and bought
[1:03:35] Speaker 4: a motor home we called the March and it got
[1:03:39] Speaker 4: driven all the way down to Nicaragua through California. It
[1:03:42] Speaker 4: was it was an epic trip. It was good. So
[1:03:47] Speaker 4: you can read all about lying in the book March.
[1:03:50] Speaker 4: She was a beauty. So while I was doing all this,
[1:03:53] Speaker 4: I was I was still struggling, but I was doing
[1:03:56] Speaker 4: all these amazing things. I was getting up as much
[1:03:59] Speaker 4: stuff as I could, but I felt better, but I
[1:04:05] Speaker 4: was just distracted from it all, to be honest, with drinking,
[1:04:09] Speaker 4: partying and all sorts of adventures. I then returned to
[1:04:13] Speaker 4: the UK and my PTSD came back tenfold. It kicked
[1:04:18] Speaker 4: my ass. So that's when I then managed to get
[1:04:24] Speaker 4: back in touch with my old therapist. But there was
[1:04:26] Speaker 4: a twelve month waiting list. This yeah, so I was
[1:04:31] Speaker 4: quite lost at this point for what the fuck am
[1:04:34] Speaker 4: I going to do? How am I going to get
[1:04:35] Speaker 4: through this next twelve months. So for a few years
[1:04:39] Speaker 4: prior to this, I'd already started to meditate and sort
[1:04:42] Speaker 4: of look into the spiritual side of life. Nothing religious,
[1:04:46] Speaker 4: just the idea of meditation and wellness and mindfulness. So
[1:04:52] Speaker 4: I leant into that, and obviously, while backpacking, I was
[1:04:57] Speaker 4: introduced to how do we put it, let's put its
[1:05:01] Speaker 4: plant medicines, so cannabis being one, magic mushrooms of psilocybin
[1:05:08] Speaker 4: being the other one, and then d M T would
[1:05:10] Speaker 4: be in the third one. And they were. They didn't
[1:05:16] Speaker 4: cure me by any means. I have to sort of
[1:05:18] Speaker 4: be careful when I say this, but I really do
[1:05:21] Speaker 4: believe that they have got a strong place in giving
[1:05:25] Speaker 4: people the ability to recover from these things. They allowed
[1:05:28] Speaker 4: me to do work internally that I wouldn't have normally
[1:05:32] Speaker 4: been able to do. They allowed me to face things.
[1:05:36] Speaker 4: There were horrendous memories in incredible detail without becoming overwhelmed.
[1:05:42] Speaker 4: As well as the idea that my mood was lifted
[1:05:44] Speaker 4: from cannabis. I was able to sleep better, my mood
[1:05:47] Speaker 4: was stabilized rather than having these huge dips and props.
[1:05:52] Speaker 4: It was my life was starting to feel manageable then
[1:05:58] Speaker 4: at therapy. So this was then two years of weekly
[1:06:02] Speaker 4: therapy sessions, combined that with the plant medicines, and it
[1:06:09] Speaker 4: was a very interesting journey, to say the least. Let's
[1:06:12] Speaker 4: let's say that going through the idea of going to
[1:06:17] Speaker 4: therapy terrified me at first. I thought that people would
[1:06:22] Speaker 4: think I was weak, or you know, that I wasn't
[1:06:26] Speaker 4: meant for the job that I was doing, and all
[1:06:29] Speaker 4: these sort of stigma things that that's just nonsense, just
[1:06:34] Speaker 4: absolutely nonsense. That's why I've written this book is to
[1:06:37] Speaker 4: just try and blow all this stigma stuff out of
[1:06:40] Speaker 4: the water. Because people can read about Sniper doing all
[1:06:42] Speaker 4: that sort of stuff, and then in the same book
[1:06:45] Speaker 4: they can repeat you can read abow all this depression
[1:06:48] Speaker 4: and sadness that I felt. Then you know, hopefully it
[1:06:53] Speaker 4: was you know, the full spectrum of a human experience.
[1:06:56] Speaker 4: That's what.
[1:06:59] Speaker 3: I know.
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: This is like a long process. There wasn't like one
[1:07:02] Speaker 2: moment that like, oh I'm recovering now, but sort of
[1:07:05] Speaker 2: like what was that sort of path to recovery? I mean,
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: was it going back into therapy and having a consistent
[1:07:11] Speaker 2: sort of traction there?
[1:07:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, very much. So. Yeah, it was having these weekly
[1:07:17] Speaker 4: therapy sessions and then firstly being taught techniques that would
[1:07:22] Speaker 4: enable me to ground myself and cope after panic attacks
[1:07:27] Speaker 4: or sometimes even prevent having a panic attack. I think,
[1:07:30] Speaker 4: you know, breathing exercises and these sorts of things and
[1:07:32] Speaker 4: grounding techniques. That was a big part of it. At first,
[1:07:36] Speaker 4: I needed something that would enable me to calm down.
[1:07:41] Speaker 4: So once that was addressed, it was then CBTs Cognitive
[1:07:45] Speaker 4: behavioral therapy. This addresses our behaviors really, so that simplified
[1:07:52] Speaker 4: version would be something happens our brains think a certain way,
[1:07:57] Speaker 4: we then act in a certain action, So me things
[1:08:00] Speaker 4: like road rage, for instance, someone cuts you up on
[1:08:03] Speaker 4: the road, you start screaming and shouting. Next minute, I'm
[1:08:06] Speaker 4: out of the car, chasing this car down the road,
[1:08:08] Speaker 4: which happened multiple times. It was ridiculous. I was this
[1:08:14] Speaker 4: unhinged madman that was just a little ball of anger,
[1:08:18] Speaker 4: horrendous arender us completely different to who I am. It
[1:08:21] Speaker 4: completely changed me as a person. So this CBT therapy
[1:08:25] Speaker 4: enabled me to address that, address how I dealt with anger,
[1:08:29] Speaker 4: how I doubt virivitability, and things like that. So that
[1:08:31] Speaker 4: was the next phase, and then we moved on to
[1:08:34] Speaker 4: something called emdr M. Sure if you've heard this, I
[1:08:37] Speaker 4: movement desensitization and reprogramming. So this is where for me,
[1:08:42] Speaker 4: there's various ways you can do it. But I had
[1:08:44] Speaker 4: a light bar in front of me, and there's light
[1:08:46] Speaker 4: would go from left to right, right to left, almost
[1:08:49] Speaker 4: like sort of hypnotism kind of thing. And what that
[1:08:51] Speaker 4: does again, as a very simple version, when we sleep
[1:08:56] Speaker 4: at at night and we go into rem sleep deep
[1:08:58] Speaker 4: sleep or memories and thought process from left to right,
[1:09:01] Speaker 4: left to right, and they go back left to right,
[1:09:03] Speaker 4: left to right, le's right, and then they're stored weigh
[1:09:04] Speaker 4: and along to it memory traumatic memories. Imagine that's a
[1:09:08] Speaker 4: clerk in your brain that puts all these files away
[1:09:11] Speaker 4: in the correct places. These thoughts or experiences are too
[1:09:16] Speaker 4: traumatic for them to be able to deal with, so
[1:09:17] Speaker 4: these pieces of paper are just left to fly around
[1:09:21] Speaker 4: Willy Nelly. So what AMBR does with the left to
[1:09:24] Speaker 4: right eye movement, it imitates that practice while being you
[1:09:31] Speaker 4: can move your eyes from that the right, left to right,
[1:09:33] Speaker 4: think about these things and what would happen. It wouldn't
[1:09:35] Speaker 4: be so much a guided thing. The therapist will very
[1:09:38] Speaker 4: much most of the time be quiet and just listen
[1:09:41] Speaker 4: to where my mind would go. And it would go
[1:09:43] Speaker 4: from things that happened in afghan to the childhood memory,
[1:09:48] Speaker 4: sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones. Nothing ever really bad
[1:09:51] Speaker 4: as a child ever happened to me. But it was strange.
[1:09:55] Speaker 4: It was almost like a map of where my mind
[1:09:58] Speaker 4: was working. And then it would go for on sixty seconds.
[1:10:02] Speaker 4: I'd say, what report what I'd seen in my mind,
[1:10:05] Speaker 4: and then I'd go back into it. Is back into
[1:10:07] Speaker 4: it that correlated a lot for me. It freed me
[1:10:15] Speaker 4: of the shackles. The emotions that were attached to these
[1:10:17] Speaker 4: memories were no longer there. So it enabled me now like,
[1:10:21] Speaker 4: for instance, there's never in a million years I'd have
[1:10:23] Speaker 4: been able to sit here and talk to you in
[1:10:26] Speaker 4: detail about these things that had happened, and that happened
[1:10:28] Speaker 4: in the book. I'd never been able to write the book.
[1:10:31] Speaker 4: But now I can think back at these events in
[1:10:37] Speaker 4: the detail that's required, and it doesn't affect me. It
[1:10:40] Speaker 4: doesn't mean I don't feel any type of way, or
[1:10:42] Speaker 4: I have no remorse for the loss of a life
[1:10:44] Speaker 4: or anything like that, but I have no overwhelming emotions
[1:10:48] Speaker 4: or nothing like that. I'm not going to go away
[1:10:50] Speaker 4: and I've nightmare tonight or be thinking about it all
[1:10:53] Speaker 4: day and night.
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: Right, it's not out of control anymore.
[1:10:57] Speaker 4: No, I own those memories now. They they very much
[1:11:00] Speaker 4: do not own any space in my mind, if you know,
[1:11:04] Speaker 4: they belong to me. So it was it was learning
[1:11:07] Speaker 4: that at this point now in the therapy, it was
[1:11:12] Speaker 4: I began to learn that this could actually go away,
[1:11:15] Speaker 4: This could actually really disappear. Now. I'd always been told
[1:11:19] Speaker 4: for the past ten or twelve years that I could
[1:11:22] Speaker 4: only learn to live with my symptoms, and that I
[1:11:26] Speaker 4: thought people would just be able, people just went about
[1:11:29] Speaker 4: their lives with PTSD, just having PTSD and shaking babies
[1:11:32] Speaker 4: to death and things. And you know what I mean,
[1:11:35] Speaker 4: I just thought it. It was this thing that are
[1:11:38] Speaker 4: you're a veteran with PTSD, unlucky man like. It was
[1:11:41] Speaker 4: this life sentence, right. My wife was not going to
[1:11:47] Speaker 4: stand for that, no way. So yeah, So I've refused
[1:11:54] Speaker 4: to give up. And my therapist was very sort of
[1:12:00] Speaker 4: encouraged by this, and we worked really, really hard, and
[1:12:03] Speaker 4: in the end I was able to get rid of PTSD.
[1:12:07] Speaker 2: I do.
[1:12:07] Speaker 4: I don't have PTSD anymore. I don't have any any
[1:12:11] Speaker 4: issues whatsoever. And back when I was at my worst point,
[1:12:17] Speaker 4: I would have loved to here say that there was
[1:12:21] Speaker 4: no one I'd ever heard, there was no hope. Now
[1:12:25] Speaker 4: I am quite literally here and I've written this book.
[1:12:28] Speaker 4: I've done this whole thing for hope, for people to
[1:12:31] Speaker 4: be able to just hear the message that you can
[1:12:34] Speaker 4: dedicate your life to change and you can change your life.
[1:12:38] Speaker 4: I'm not here to be some sort of like salesman,
[1:12:41] Speaker 4: cheesy person, but it's a message that I'm just so ah.
[1:12:45] Speaker 4: People need to hear it. I've lost too many people
[1:12:47] Speaker 4: to suicide and everyone has and it can all be
[1:12:51] Speaker 4: fixed with talking. I didn't do anything magical. I talked.
[1:12:56] Speaker 4: I was it talked to someone that listened once a week.
[1:12:59] Speaker 2: How did the idea for the book come about? When
[1:13:02] Speaker 2: did that start to percolate in the back of your mind?
[1:13:06] Speaker 4: Oh? There was, There was little diaries and journals that
[1:13:11] Speaker 4: I'd started writing while in Afghans, again a way of
[1:13:16] Speaker 4: letting these bits and pieces out, So I had bits
[1:13:19] Speaker 4: of paper floating around from that, and then with all
[1:13:22] Speaker 4: the therapy came a lot of homework, so a lot
[1:13:26] Speaker 4: of paper. So I've got a couple of folders over
[1:13:28] Speaker 4: there that are just filled with notes. So a lot
[1:13:31] Speaker 4: of it comes from that, a lot of it. It's
[1:13:34] Speaker 4: almost like a fly on the wall. Watch this happy
[1:13:37] Speaker 4: young man go to Wark, get facked up by it
[1:13:40] Speaker 4: and then go therapy and see what happens in therapy.
[1:13:43] Speaker 4: You know, it's it's a it's It was a nerve
[1:13:48] Speaker 4: in ad first having this book come out, so I
[1:13:50] Speaker 4: was quite I felt quite vulnerable and open to the world.
[1:13:53] Speaker 4: But that is the whole point is to show that
[1:13:57] Speaker 4: that's all right.
[1:13:58] Speaker 3: So what is the the response to the book to
[1:14:01] Speaker 3: spin out?
[1:14:03] Speaker 4: Amazing? The messages of support that I've had have been incredible,
[1:14:09] Speaker 4: and more importantly to me, the messages and comments of
[1:14:15] Speaker 4: how it's helped other people. People have been able to
[1:14:17] Speaker 4: see someone that's in their shoes.
[1:14:21] Speaker 3: You know.
[1:14:21] Speaker 4: I've had a message from somebody that's currently in hospital
[1:14:24] Speaker 4: suffering exactly what I was going through, and I was
[1:14:29] Speaker 4: able to just spend two minutes talking to them, give
[1:14:31] Speaker 4: them a little bit of advice, and it's helped. So
[1:14:35] Speaker 4: that's what it's all about now for me, obviously, I'd
[1:14:37] Speaker 4: like to make a living out of it as well.
[1:14:38] Speaker 4: So everyone's going by the book.
[1:14:42] Speaker 2: It's available now. People can find it on Amazon or
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: in the bookshop.
[1:14:46] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. I think Barnes and Noble is
[1:14:49] Speaker 4: it the big one.
[1:14:50] Speaker 3: That's another one.
[1:14:52] Speaker 4: Yeah, they've got it, yeah, but Amazon, Amazon's the main one. Yeah,
[1:14:55] Speaker 4: let's get it up those rank.
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have we'll have links down the description for
[1:14:59] Speaker 2: people want to go and check it out.
[1:15:01] Speaker 3: And you've also gotten into doing some public speaking.
[1:15:06] Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is something that I've just just the
[1:15:09] Speaker 4: past few weeks started to do. Now, it was never
[1:15:12] Speaker 4: anything I intended on doing, but it's kind of gone
[1:15:15] Speaker 4: hand in hand with writing the book. I'm loving it.
[1:15:18] Speaker 4: I am really enjoying it. It's very much much based
[1:15:22] Speaker 4: around the book, but a little bit more of an
[1:15:26] Speaker 4: in depth look of how PTSD happens and how people
[1:15:31] Speaker 4: can in a way protect themselves forward from it, expect
[1:15:37] Speaker 4: what it can bring, but in the end, how you
[1:15:40] Speaker 4: can get rid of it.
[1:15:45] Speaker 2: Anything else that you're working on today that you'd like
[1:15:47] Speaker 2: to talk about, or anything I haven't asked that you'd
[1:15:49] Speaker 2: really like to get into.
[1:15:52] Speaker 4: Nothing in particular. No, I have started writing another book.
[1:15:55] Speaker 4: It was in the very early stages just because I
[1:15:58] Speaker 4: miss the writing ques. Yes, yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
[1:16:02] Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm starting at a fiction version of fiction Sniper.
[1:16:06] Speaker 3: Story next cool.
[1:16:08] Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, I love it and I'll read it
[1:16:12] Speaker 2: when it comes out.
[1:16:13] Speaker 4: Can shup there you in about ten years?
[1:16:18] Speaker 3: I get it. Anywhere else we can direct people. Do
[1:16:23] Speaker 3: you have it? Or you on social media at all?
[1:16:25] Speaker 4: Anything you want to Instagram you can find me at
[1:16:30] Speaker 4: Ted Shirley author and TikTok as well. I'm on TikTok.
[1:16:35] Speaker 4: I do little bits of what I want to called
[1:16:37] Speaker 4: Ted's Tips, which are mental health tips on that which
[1:16:41] Speaker 4: is Ted dot Shirley.
[1:16:43] Speaker 3: Awesome.
[1:16:44] Speaker 2: I mean it sounds great, and I really hope that
[1:16:46] Speaker 2: between you're speaking and your book that this gets into
[1:16:49] Speaker 2: the hands and into the minds of veterans out there.
[1:16:53] Speaker 3: It is an important message.
[1:16:56] Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah. Thank you so much as well for helping
[1:16:59] Speaker 4: me with platform anytime.
[1:17:05] Speaker 2: So thank you, Ted, appreciate it again. The book is
[1:17:08] Speaker 2: Afghanistan Sniper by Ted Shirley. We'll have links down the
[1:17:12] Speaker 2: description for you to go and check out the book
[1:17:15] Speaker 2: and thank you for joining us. I hope everyone has
[1:17:17] Speaker 2: a great holiday season and we will see you next time.
[1:17:23] Speaker 2: Hey guys, I want to tell all of you today
[1:17:25] Speaker 2: about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both
[1:17:28] Speaker 2: the team House podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the
[1:17:32] Speaker 2: high Side News outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor.
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's
[1:17:39] Speaker 2: going to come into your inbox and you're going to
[1:17:42] Speaker 2: get the most current podcasts on eyes On and the
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: Teamhouse and whatever's topical or current on the high Side.
[1:17:49] Speaker 2: So it's another way for us to get the information
[1:17:52] Speaker 2: out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: and you never really.
[1:17:56] Speaker 3: Know what you're going to get. So this is a
[1:17:58] Speaker 3: once a week email.
[1:18:00] Speaker 2: It'll slide into your inbox and it will have you
[1:18:02] Speaker 2: know the greatest hits of that week. It's really good
[1:18:05] Speaker 2: checking it out the website for it is Teamhouse Podcast
[1:18:10] Speaker 2: dot kit dot com, slash Join, Teamhouse Podcast dot kit
[1:18:15] Speaker 2: dot com slash join. Uh, you go there and you
[1:18:18] Speaker 2: enter into your email lists or you enter your email
[1:18:21] Speaker 2: into the little thing on the website and you're good
[1:18:24] Speaker 2: to go.
[1:18:25] Speaker 3: And that'll be it.
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll
[1:18:29] Speaker 2: consider signing up.
[1:18:30] Speaker 4: Where's the link?
[1:18:32] Speaker 3: The link will also be down in the description if
[1:18:34] Speaker 3: you're looking for it
[1:18:35] Speaker 2: There, And that's Teamhouse Podcast, dot Kit, k I, t
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: Kilo India, Tango dot com backslash Join

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