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A story told by ten men who fought together in the Falklands War, with unflinching honesty, discussion of life-changing moments of combat and how they have come to terms with them since.
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00:00:00Okay, I've got my Sony Walkman here.
00:00:02I think it was one of the first in the country, waterproof version of the Sony Walkman.
00:00:07They were all the rage at the time.
00:00:11I brought that on board with me, but I realised that it didn't have any cassette tape.
00:00:16So I went to the Duty Free shop, and the only tape they had left was this one.
00:00:23It's called American Dream, Great Songs and Ballards.
00:00:27So what should the theme tune be for our documentary?
00:00:32The one I'd love would be Creedence Clearwater Revival.
00:00:37It's called Fortunate Son.
00:00:47This sums up the Falklands War for me.
00:01:06Argentina has seized the British Falkland Islands, whose ownership she's been disputing with Britain for two centuries.
00:01:18The Falklands and their 1,800 British residents are now under the occupation of more than 2,000 Argentine soldiers.
00:01:26Subordination and power!
00:01:30I'm not watching him go!
00:01:51God, they all look so young.
00:01:54They look so young.
00:01:56You can see most of us are teenagers, you know?
00:02:00Oh, Spud Ely, yeah.
00:02:03He was a patrol company, I believe.
00:02:06Oh, that's Tom, is it?
00:02:07That's a young Tom.
00:02:08Yeah, of course I know Tom.
00:02:11We have a respect for each other that we all went through the same thing.
00:02:17We were first on to the island, first in the battle, and we were fighting until the very last night
00:02:22of the war.
00:02:32If you want to know what the Falklands War was really like, you've got to get inside the heads of
00:02:37the men that fought there.
00:02:38The war, we survived in the veteran's brain more than on film, and that's just the way it was.
00:02:44There's a kaleidoscope of images floating around your mind.
00:02:59Why have you come?
00:03:01Closure.
00:03:03That's basically it.
00:03:04I just want closure on the whole thing.
00:03:11I've not told my story to anybody.
00:03:13Not even your family?
00:03:14Not even my family or children.
00:03:17I put it in a box and kept it there till now.
00:03:28What sort of war did you have?
00:03:30A dirty one.
00:03:32A dirty, horrible, wet, stinking war.
00:03:39Did you enjoy being at war?
00:03:41Yes.
00:04:10Why were you going to the Falklands?
00:04:12What were you told?
00:04:13We were going there.
00:04:15In simple man's terms, we were going there to kick them off.
00:04:17You know, they'd invaded the Falklands, and we were going there to make sure we hoofed them off there.
00:04:22You say that to a paratrooper, we're going to kick somebody off an island, we'll do that.
00:04:38I remember being on the Falklands, it's a North Sea ferry, so we got the bad end of the bargain,
00:04:44really.
00:04:45You're sharing a cabin, and the cabin probably weighs like six foot by six foot, and you've got all your
00:04:50kit in there, you've got your weapon with the air.
00:04:53The whole thing was crazy.
00:04:56Tonight in London, the Defence Secretary has again stressed the government's desire for a peaceful settlement of the crisis, but
00:05:02as we shall be hearing later, Mr Knott also had some tough talking for the Argentines.
00:05:08When we set off from Portsmouth, I wasn't really convinced that this was going to end up in, you know,
00:05:14a fighting war.
00:05:16Of course we will try to go on getting a peaceful settlement.
00:05:19No one wants it more than I do.
00:05:22It seems to me absurd that Argentine doesn't withdraw her young men from those islands.
00:05:28We wanted the war. We wanted to go on fire. Yeah, absolutely we did.
00:05:31Young men like to experience these things.
00:05:33It sounds awfully callous and weird now, but that's what it is.
00:05:38That's Lieutenant Waddington. He was my platoon commander. I believe he was about 19.
00:05:44For me, just coming in from Sandhurst, I was struggling to keep up because I was with people who had
00:05:49been in the parachute regiment 10, 15 years.
00:05:52So I had a lot to learn. I was just a boy, really.
00:05:55And they were pretty grizzled, tough, tough paratroopers.
00:06:01You must always sort of bear in mind, actually, when, you know, you don't get a chance, you know, in
00:06:06your lifetime ever again, you know, to get up there and actually kill the enemy, you know.
00:06:11So if you've got a chance of doing it, you're going to take that chance, you know.
00:06:14And that may sound a bit over the top, but it's true, you know.
00:06:17You know, you just, well, blokes wanted to get there and they wanted it.
00:06:26We're all going on a horse's holiday, maybe for a month or two, or three or four.
00:06:57Good evening. There are reports tonight that Argentina's only cruiser has now sunk.
00:07:02The cruiser, the General Belgrano, was struck by two torpedoes from a British nuclear submarine.
00:07:08At the time, it's thought there were a thousand men on board.
00:07:12What did you think then?
00:07:14Back then, we were quite callous with it, you know.
00:07:17What was the callous reaction, you mean, to the Belgrano?
00:07:21Oh, got the bastards. You know, fuck them.
00:07:24I mean, it's, you know, soldier's language, quite straightforward. Yeah.
00:07:29We were watching Burt Reynolds and the Mean Machine, crazy film, and they stopped the movie and announced that HMS
00:07:38Sheffield had been hit and sunk with the loss of lives.
00:07:47Suddenly, the whole mood changed on the ship. It became really serious. It's now not saber-rattling. It was, we're
00:07:55going to war.
00:08:02I was filled with trepidation, and I remember writing a letter to my father and just saying, you know, I
00:08:13don't know if I really can do this and want to do this.
00:08:16I don't know if I can take another man's life. I couldn't dehumanise, so they wasn't just Arges, that was
00:08:22someone's son, someone's brother, someone's loved one in my head.
00:08:29Because of my upbringing, being brought up in a predominantly Irish, very strong Catholic background, there was moral questions.
00:08:42They weren't doubts. They were just moral questions that I needed to answer in my own head as well.
00:08:47I spoke to the Padre, David Cooper, about it. I remember asking him, like, whose side's God on this one?
00:08:53And he went, God's not involved in this one, so, yeah.
00:09:10Tell me if this rings a bell.
00:09:13Mmm.
00:09:17That's the Parachute Regiment songs, Ride of the Volkerys. That was played over the ship's tannoy system as we were
00:09:23getting into the landing craft.
00:09:25What were you feeling, Josh?
00:09:26It was pretty fucked up, you know.
00:09:30That's what they woke us up with.
00:09:33Let's go! Let's go!
00:09:39Everyone was standing sort of humped over like an old beggar, you know, with a heavy Bergen, up to about
00:09:45a hundred pounds.
00:09:46And then you had the webbing round your waist, you're carrying your weapon, you've got grenades now hanging off your
00:09:51webbing, prime grenades, and this music playing in the background.
00:09:59I was almost expecting the enemy to be on the shore with machine guns.
00:10:04And, you know, I'm not going to lie, I was actually shitting myself.
00:10:07I thought we were going to get mowed down, just like they did in the Second World War.
00:10:11So the landing craft door came down, nobody was firing at us, so we all piled off.
00:10:18I remember getting off the landing craft and sort of up to my knees in freezing cold South Atlantic water,
00:10:25and that would be the last time my feet would be dry for weeks.
00:10:31For four hours we were steered through narrow waters with the assault troops, while all the while the Argentine attention
00:10:37was successfully drawn by a series of very heavy naval bombardments.
00:10:41These troops have been very busy spreading out and digging in, knowing that the Argentines are probably very close, and
00:10:47almost certainly by now know exactly where we are.
00:11:03Getting up to the top of Sussex Mountain took twice as long as it should have done with the going
00:11:09and the huge loads we were carrying.
00:11:12600-odd guys pitched on this mountaintop with, you know, the Argentine Air Force striking us every day, just strafing
00:11:22us up.
00:11:31It's quite spectacular.
00:11:33It was exciting to an extent that the fact is that, you know, these things are happening and then it's
00:11:40real.
00:11:43It makes your sort of teeth sort of sharpen up a little bit.
00:12:04Sankola Spagot and dubbed by the press as Bomb Alley.
00:12:18The destroyer Coventry has capsized after being attacked by Argentine bombers.
00:12:23Twenty dead.
00:12:24Atlantic conveyor destroyed by a missile.
00:12:27Four dead.
00:12:29One of the bolts went up and it was absolutely huge.
00:12:39And I think actually that sort of shook people.
00:12:43Blimey, you know.
00:12:45It was that big, it was that huge.
00:12:47And the ship obviously down.
00:12:57Seeing the Navy getting hit on a daily basis was really quite frightening.
00:13:03Seeing ships getting sunk was just surreal.
00:13:07It was, wow, you know, that was a big blow for morale and everything else.
00:13:16You pop your head over the rock and look down into San Carlos water and see the Navy burning away.
00:13:21And as a young soldier you think, my God, what the fuck is going on?
00:13:28We were worried that we were losing the war.
00:13:43The reason for Goose Green coming onto the equation in the first place was pressure from Whitehall, who were desperate
00:13:53for some success on land.
00:13:55British troops reported to have begun their push to retake the rest of the Falkland Islands.
00:14:00Mrs Thatcher said in the comments today that British troops were advancing their objective repossession.
00:14:06The House would not expect me to go into details about the operations in progress.
00:14:11But our forces on the ground are now moving forward from the bridgehead.
00:14:19Goose Green was actually at the end of a narrow channel of land with sea on either side.
00:14:27It was actually two or three, four miles of approach and the Argentinian trenches were sited along the isthmus.
00:14:37You had to go down clearing every Argentinian position before you could get to the settlement.
00:14:47I just felt relieved that the fact is that we were moving.
00:14:50Because we were up in that hill and it was bloody cold and you know we didn't seem to be
00:14:55doing anything you know.
00:14:56So I was quite relieved that to the fact is we're going to go and do something.
00:15:02People ask me what was it like in the Falklands.
00:15:04And I've served in the SES through Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Africa.
00:15:13Nothing compares to what we did at Goose Green.
00:15:35The noise was unbelievable. It just didn't stop.
00:15:39It was just a constant screech of bombs, rounds landing, screams.
00:15:49The idea of an attack in falls is to keep the speed.
00:15:53The faster you can go and take ground off the enemy, the least time the enemy has to sort of
00:15:59prepare a defence.
00:16:00If you stop the momentum in a battle, you're fucked. That's as simple as that.
00:16:07We're just going to keep on going forward, bit by bit.
00:16:11And if we meet anything along the way, we'll be taking them on, but always forward.
00:16:18While you're actually fighting through trench to trench, I think you just realise that everyone is a threat.
00:16:28And until they definitively are no longer a threat, you know, you deal with them by killing them.
00:16:35I mean, we came across these guys, you know, sleeping bags, the ostrich factor, as I call it,
00:16:42sleeping bags pulled over their heads at the bottom of trenches as if, you know, I'm not here, sort of
00:16:47thing.
00:16:48Well, they would get thrown into their trench the same as anyone else.
00:16:52You know, they were still, if they were alive, you fight on beyond them, they're still a threat.
00:16:56So, you deal with them.
00:16:58Shooting someone is kind of easy, but when you fall into a trench and you feel there's the enemy underneath
00:17:05a poncho
00:17:05and you have to deal with it pretty quick and you can't get your rifle down because the trench is
00:17:10small
00:17:10and you've got the bayonet attached to the end of the rifle, then you have to think pretty quick.
00:17:16So, I had to deal with that situation and the only way I could do it was to headbutt whatever
00:17:23was below the poncho
00:17:24and keep headbutting until such times as I thought, you know, I'd done enough to stop it being a threat.
00:17:34So, you were headbutting the Argentinian's head?
00:17:37Yeah. You know, it's kill or be killed again, it's that straightforward.
00:17:44Once you step onto the battlefield, then you embark on a, it's a voyage of self-discovery.
00:17:59This is a life-changing test.
00:18:02What will I be like under fire?
00:18:05Will I cope? Will I break?
00:18:07Nobody knows.
00:18:08You never know.
00:18:12People sort of deal with that situation in different ways
00:18:15because there's a good possibility that I could die today.
00:18:30B Company were moving forward but they came across enemy trenches.
00:18:35So much so that D Company were moving forward, the reserve company that came up
00:18:40and they came under contact with the enemy too.
00:18:43In the first 30 seconds, we were fired upon by a position
00:18:48and one of my section commanders, Gary Bingley, let out a cry and fell, fell down.
00:18:57It was killed almost straight away.
00:19:00Another machine gunner was wounded and a third soldier was shot in the stomach
00:19:06and suddenly we'd gone from normal life into complete chaos in the space of a minute.
00:19:12By the time I got there, which was probably 20 seconds,
00:19:20Corporal Bingley was already dead.
00:19:22But there were no time for tears.
00:19:25The fact that people had died and actually been killed around me,
00:19:28it made no difference to me whatsoever.
00:19:30At that stage, I gave my rifle to my runner.
00:19:36And then I ran out to try and pick up Gaz Bingley.
00:19:41But unlike the movies,
00:19:45somebody who weighs 150 pounds plus his equipment weighs 200 pounds,
00:19:49you can't pick them up.
00:19:51So I couldn't pick him up.
00:19:53So I then ran back to the platoon to pick up my rifle
00:19:58to go back and run out again.
00:20:02Why had you left your gun behind?
00:20:04I don't know.
00:20:06Because it was the worst thing.
00:20:09You never leave your gun behind, you know.
00:20:11And that's when my platoon sergeant ran over to me and basically,
00:20:15he basically said, you know, stop running around, start leading.
00:20:19And then I ordered the platoon to fix bayonets.
00:20:30Having a bayonet on the end of your rifle changes people
00:20:34because there's something almost medieval.
00:20:39And if you're going to go and use a bayonet, you have to be very aggressive.
00:20:52I was very, very angry then about what happened.
00:20:55We weren't going to forgive them.
00:20:57We wanted to get our own back.
00:21:00Our blood was up.
00:21:02And we wanted to go and kill people.
00:21:05We maneuvered forward.
00:21:07We got into the position and we jumped into the trenches with the Argentinians.
00:21:13There was an Argentinian in there with me.
00:21:16And I killed him with the bayonet.
00:21:23I remember the smell of the trench because the Argentinian was bleeding
00:21:31and he defecated, you know, as he was dying.
00:21:40And then I don't really know what happened after that.
00:21:48It was bloodlust in some sense.
00:21:56I saw just sort of at the very end of my vision, if you like, in the dark,
00:22:02Chris standing over one trench and clearly had begun to lose it.
00:22:08He was screaming, you bastards, you know, I'm going to get you and that sort of stuff.
00:22:14And I could see some of his platoon sort of looking on.
00:22:18And I just kind of thought, this isn't the way they need to be led right now.
00:22:23I was actually shouting to him,
00:22:26Mr. Waddington, Mr. Waddington, Mr. Waddington.
00:22:30And then Phil Names turned up and said,
00:22:33OK, Corporal Harley, I'll take over this now.
00:22:36So I just sidled up to Chris and kind of quietly said,
00:22:40Chris, you know, this is not what you, Tom's need or expect right now.
00:22:46The company commander grabbed hold of me and told me that that's enough.
00:22:58You're going to take casualties.
00:23:00The most important thing is don't flap.
00:23:03Just orientate yourself and just keep on going.
00:23:10The way I dealt with the possibility of death was basically to say to myself,
00:23:16you're dead already.
00:23:19You're dead already. If you worry about it, you're not going to be doing your job.
00:23:22And for me, doing my job was paramount because the decisions I make or don't make could be life or
00:23:33death to one of my men.
00:23:34And so for me, just accept the fact that you're dead and get on and do your job.
00:23:41Do you mean that in a literal sense? Like literally?
00:23:44Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.
00:23:52You have to accept death.
00:23:54The downside of that, of course, is that years and years later, you know, just, you're, you're, you're, you're now
00:24:01adjusted your mind to say, I'm dead.
00:24:05And you're happy with that.
00:24:08But just because you don't die, when you come back, because that is in your mind, you, you become a,
00:24:14a different animal.
00:24:16You just can't take that seed away.
00:24:19It's there and you, and it's there forever.
00:24:40The mission should have been completed by the following morning, but daylight had come over the battlefields and we were
00:24:47still fighting.
00:24:48So the odds were stacked against us. It was about three to one against and, and plus they had superior
00:24:55firepower.
00:24:56So it was quite bad.
00:24:59My platoon had been told that we need to go and look at a position.
00:25:03So four of us went out to look at it and there was maybe 12, maybe 15 Argentinians that we
00:25:11could see.
00:25:12I saw rifles and heavy machine guns with rosary beads wrapped around them, pictures of Jesus, pictures of Mary, our
00:25:22lady on them.
00:25:25It was, uh, just all a bit surreal really, because, because of my Catholic upbringing, you know, and, um, because
00:25:33I was having those moral questions in my own time before going into battle.
00:25:38So, yeah, that very question that the, uh, I asked the Padre, well, they obviously think God's on their side.
00:25:45So, you know.
00:25:53We decided to go back and get the rest of the platoon.
00:25:58And then went up and there was firing going both ways.
00:26:09So we had to physically clear the trenches and I just remember pulling back the trench cover.
00:26:15I saw the guy and I just let rip with the machine gun and, and fired into him.
00:26:25After I'd shot him, he was dying and I comforted him and when he died I shut his eyes and
00:26:34laid him in the bottom of the trench.
00:26:37What did you mean you comforted him?
00:26:39I cradled him.
00:26:40I cradled him while he was dying, taking his last breaths.
00:26:44I stroked his forehead.
00:26:46And I apologised to him at the time.
00:26:51And I felt quite bad.
00:26:56But that's an understatement, I felt awful.
00:26:58Yeah.
00:27:12At Goose Green, it was pretty frightening.
00:27:15We could hear the rounds flying past, the ground was getting cut up.
00:27:19And being a stretcher bearer, we all knew just how, um, how nasty and how hideous it was going to
00:27:27be.
00:27:27In my head, yeah, you know you're going to be seeing something that isn't going to be nice.
00:27:32It's going to be, in not so many words, the majority of times, it's going to be incomprehensible, you know,
00:27:37what you actually see.
00:27:43We came across three bodies lying side by side.
00:27:48I think that was the first time I'd seen our guys dead.
00:27:56It was devastating.
00:27:58It was frightening.
00:28:00And as this was all going through my head, we got attacked by a Pucara aircraft.
00:28:04And that's where I jumped into an Argentine trench.
00:28:08There was a young lad, and he was, he was on his, on his back, and he opened his eyes.
00:28:16I picked this guy up.
00:28:17I'll never forget his expression.
00:28:18He looked, he looked up at me as if to say, you know, I'm dying.
00:28:26You're the, you know, you're the last person I'm going to see on this planet.
00:28:31Um, and it's lived with me ever since.
00:28:37And I learned a lot that day.
00:28:41I learned what war can do to individuals.
00:28:51The Argentines used to shit in the trenches.
00:28:55So, grenades have gone in there, so they've got the intestines hanging out, and then you've got the smell of
00:28:58shit.
00:28:59Now, I can't tell people what that smells like.
00:29:02What I know, and I'll never forget it.
00:29:05And that's just one thing that I can't get out of my head.
00:29:10So, how does it affect me?
00:29:12It affects me really severely.
00:29:13So, if somebody was to fart, then I'd have to get away from that.
00:29:22If I smell that, it's not so much taking you back, even though it automatically does that.
00:29:28It's the anger.
00:29:33When I came back from the Falklands, I'd be walking with the wife down a high street, and then I'd
00:29:40be looking at everyone like they're a threat.
00:29:46I'm looking as if to say I want to fight you, and I don't.
00:29:49And that was dangerous, as far as I'm concerned.
00:29:51But I couldn't help it, and that's the way I was.
00:29:56So, I wear these all the time.
00:30:02People can't see the way that I am looking.
00:30:33We pushed on.
00:30:35We could actually see the houses of Goose Green.
00:30:38The Argentinians started firing at us.
00:30:41Soldiers ran back to take cover behind a tractor.
00:30:47I jumped into a trench that was in front of me, but obviously proper trenches in the Falklands fill with
00:30:53water.
00:30:53So, I was in the trench, in the water, as they were firing at me.
00:30:58I sort of realised that it wasn't survivable to stay in the trench because it was getting cold.
00:31:09So, I sort of plucked up courage and dived out of the trench and ran over to where the rest
00:31:16of my guys were.
00:31:19And this is when the cold started to get into me, and that's when I started to shiver.
00:31:28And that's when I knew I had to go and get some clean clothes, basically.
00:31:34I did my normal sort of company command a bit of, you know, getting the company settled in all-round
00:31:40defence,
00:31:40and then touring the platoons, just seeing how people were.
00:31:44And, you know, came across Chris, who was looking bitterly cold.
00:31:48And I just, you know, just logged it.
00:31:50Okay, need to keep an eye on him because he might just, you know, go down with something, hypothermia or
00:31:55whatever.
00:31:55I realised then that I was going to have to do something, so I had to go and take the
00:32:03uniform off a dead paratrooper,
00:32:08replace my wet smock and jumper on his body.
00:32:15Doing that, you know, manhandling his body to make sure he was decent afterwards.
00:32:21It was things that I'd never thought I would have to do in a war.
00:32:27And, you know, was so outside my experiences before that it was traumatic.
00:32:39It was traumatic, yeah.
00:32:46I mean, it was a necessity.
00:32:48I was completely drenched in water.
00:32:51I was already shaking uncontrollably.
00:32:54And, yeah, there was no way I was going to survive that night like that.
00:33:00I was in tears then. That was it.
00:33:03You know, to be in tears in front of your radio operator is, you know, quite an admission.
00:33:10That you're not as tough as you think you are.
00:33:19And seeing the look in their eyes, they expected more of me.
00:33:23And that was what changed it, really.
00:33:27I'm trying to imagine what would have happened next if you'd gone from worse to worse.
00:33:32What would have happened?
00:33:33Well, I would have, you know, I would have had to go back, you know.
00:33:37You could say it would have gone next to Battleshock or I think, you know, you call it PTSD now.
00:33:45That was, you know, that was the junction in the road.
00:33:48If I had taken that option, I would have been relieved of my command.
00:33:52I would have gone back and, you know, that would have been the end of my Army career.
00:33:57And my own self-esteem.
00:34:00Giving up really wasn't ever an option.
00:34:11At daybreak, the Paras took a final risk, using much of their ammunition in a demonstration of firepower, which left
00:34:18the peat and the gore smouldering.
00:34:32It was the early hours of the 29th, Major Chris Keeble, who took over from Colonel Jones, who was killed
00:34:39on Darwin Hill.
00:34:41Found a couple of English-speaking prisoners, wrote them a surrender document and told them to march back into Goose
00:34:51Green and tell the commander of the garrison there,
00:34:55you surrender or we can flatten you.
00:34:59We all watched this little ceremony take place between Keeble and the Argentinian Air Force commander.
00:35:07And then the chap had come out with his ceremonial sword on, drawing his sword and handing it to Keeble.
00:35:18And then, you know, we saw about 200 Argentinians emerge from the settlement.
00:35:24And about 20 minutes later, I suppose, we saw literally a thousand-odd soldiers pouring out of the settlement.
00:35:31What were you thinking?
00:35:32And we were just thinking, Jesus Christ, I'm glad we didn't have to fight through this place.
00:35:37It would have been a real messy do.
00:35:39It was a most extraordinary scene, because what the Argentinian officers wanted, above all else, was a ceremony to surrender
00:35:49with dignity.
00:35:49The Air Force first came out, and then came out the soldiers. Six, seven, possibly 800 of them.
00:35:58Nearly a thousand men in all, we couldn't believe it, to surrender, to throw down their arms.
00:36:03They sang their national anthem, sang a viva for Argentina, and then very, very happily, for many of them, threw
00:36:12down their arms.
00:36:25I just remember looking at these people, and I just was thinking, I wonder what they're thinking.
00:36:30You know, because there was us, by now, sort of 70-odd, bedraggled-looking people, like vagabonds, we must have
00:36:39looked.
00:36:40And they must have thought, you know, what the hell's happened? We've surrendered just to this lot.
00:36:44I mean, you know, I don't know. And I looked at their faces. I could discern nothing. They just looked
00:36:51numb.
00:36:52Did you feel sorry for them? Er, no. No. No, I just thought, you know, fuckwits. You shouldn't have done
00:37:04it.
00:37:11They stopped being the enemy. To me, the illness became some of the victims of the war.
00:37:17A lot of them were conscripts and didn't really want to fight.
00:37:21When we actually got to see them close up, we saw how badly they were equipped, how dejected they were.
00:37:31There was nothing to be gained by doing anything but helping them, really.
00:37:38Yeah, we just felt sorry for them more than anything else.
00:37:49They was in poor state. There were some dead ones there.
00:37:52There was a guy with his brains hanging out with a vest on his head, trying to hold it in.
00:37:57And these just looked like poor creatures. They were shivering, cold, and they were scared.
00:38:05I felt sorry for them. I, you know, I just looked at them and I just thought, you know, they
00:38:11don't want to be there.
00:38:14They're almost glazed over. There's nothing there. There's no sparkle. There's nothing.
00:38:20They're just, they're just basically almost dead themselves. So, once you've done that and you looked at it.
00:38:27And then he's looking at you and you can see he's absolutely petrified.
00:38:36What brought it home to me was seeing the Argentine prisoner with one leg.
00:38:43You know, he had the, he had the leg below his knee and there was skin hanging and he was
00:38:48crying and he was in pain and I thought, fuck's sake.
00:38:52The battle for Goose Green, according to BBC correspondent Robert Fox, who was in the thick of it,
00:38:57was won by the dash and heroism of the men of the parachute regiment who fought and died there.
00:39:03The Ministry of Defence say 1400 Argentines were taken prisoner by 600 British troops.
00:39:10The people of Goose Green were glad to see the back of them.
00:39:13They'd swapped one army for another and there was no doubt which they preferred.
00:39:17I haven't seen this footage before. I didn't join in in this gaiety. I was bollocksed.
00:39:26Tired? I was absolutely bollocksed.
00:39:28I have a great one.
00:39:30Tired?
00:39:32Tired?
00:39:41For the men of the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, it was a day for some relaxation after the battle
00:39:48which had lasted more than 24 hours.
00:39:51It should've been whisky, so, it should've been whisky.
00:39:57did you ever shed a tear in the war i did yeah in in in private um after you know
00:40:08still there but
00:40:09after after the battles yeah i shed a tear or two and how did your fellow soldiers react to seeing
00:40:16you cry um those that were with me said that um it was good that you cried woody because it
00:40:23it it
00:40:24made it all real and and and it brought us all down to to earth really
00:40:46lieutenant colonel jones captain wood captain dent
00:40:52lord lieutenant barry corporal hardman corporal sullivan corporal friar lance corporal bingley
00:41:06obviously there was the sadness of losing soldiers and dealing with that
00:41:14but no there was general relief i wouldn't say there's euphoria because
00:41:20the trouble is when you win the first battle but you know there's quite a few more battles to go
00:41:26that you realize that it's just the first round and you're going to have to do it again
00:41:30the grace of our lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit
00:41:36be with us all evermore amen
00:41:50the announcement of the seizure of darwin and goose green has ended a news blackout which lasted 48 hours
00:41:57the importance of this action was it opens up the vital southern route to port stanley
00:42:03the news that fitzroy was free of argentine forces enabled a and b companies of two para
00:42:09to leap the 30 miles to fitzroy and bluff cove as dusk fell on the 2nd of june
00:42:20we'd been helicoptered forward
00:42:26we were in the sheep sheds in fitzroy and we'd had a grandstand view of the ships on the water
00:42:36we were at bluff cove to para and we were we were dug in on on the shore
00:42:40and we could see the sir galahad in the in the distance
00:43:05you're taking a deep breath there yeah because i had to brace myself for it
00:43:11what why do you have to brace yourself because i don't know what you're going to ask me i don't
00:43:14know how it's going to start i don't know what your first question is going to be i'm going to
00:43:18think oh neither do i no um how have you been today i've been at a nosebleed this morning so
00:43:26i'm
00:43:27obviously stressed a bit yeah what are you stressed about obviously this yeah yeah because you're going
00:43:36to be talking about stuff that i've not spoken about for 40 years yeah oh i can feel my head
00:43:46tingling
00:43:49it's just the beginning of me getting worked up
00:43:55maz do you think it would help if you stayed with eddie for a while in our interview
00:44:00no probably why have you joined us today why have you come closure that's basically it i just um
00:44:12i just want closure on the whole thing it's been many many years um and it happened six months ago
00:44:19so yeah closure it feels like it was six months really yeah
00:44:27you tell us where we're going we go let's be honest our officers were in charge
00:44:33loved them to bits honest we trusted them honest
00:44:39we were going to go around get to fitzroy get unloaded and galahad would have been carrying on to
00:44:47its next drop-off point ideally before the argentinians knew where we were
00:44:53we were supposed to be in and out uh before daylights uh so perhaps two three o'clock in the
00:44:59morning both ships should have been emptied and gone and it was daylight we're becoming a target
00:45:09there was no protection vessels you know ones with big guns grounds where protection wasn't in place
00:45:18were you aware that you were vulnerable as a ship common sense said that we were vulnerable it was
00:45:24getting lighter and lighter as the day went on but we didn't really care we're indestructible you know
00:45:31immortal we didn't have any fears about dying or like that we could see the zerg alahad and it was
00:45:45actually glistening you know it was a bright clear day and it was glistening
00:45:51we'd seen them sitting in this water and we were saying jesus don't you know there's a war on
00:45:57yeah don't they fucking know there's a war on
00:46:02the guys decided that we needed a a moral boost so they brought out this brand new invention called a
00:46:09beta max and they proceeded to play a porn movie which we found highly entertaining because it was
00:46:18incredibly lame uh but the actor had forgotten to take his socks off
00:46:22we were watching porno we um it was um interesting for a brief period but when it started getting
00:46:33rewound and played again i got bored and hungry because we were getting close to breakfast time
00:46:39how many people were in the room watching the porno a lot as many people as could sit down or
00:46:46stand in a
00:46:47corner it was a full house we're watching this porn movie laughing our heads off and then this guy
00:46:55screams at the top of his lungs action stations
00:47:02in this beautiful calm day four fast-flying jets skyhawks i believe they were came up the valley
00:47:10i was writing a letter to my girlfriend telling her that we've moved up and then i remember putting
00:47:17gotta go we got an airstrike
00:47:24i remember firing at the aircraft and then boom the ship got hit right in front of us
00:47:39a thousand pound bomb comes through the ceiling which had gone through the bridge
00:47:43through our accommodation down into the engine room and exploded
00:47:50a thousand pound bomb had i believe landed on top of the mortars that the wash guards were pushing
00:47:58two rockets had come through the wall across the room taking some guys with it blowing up in the galley
00:48:05killing everybody in the galley and then just total blackness total silence absolute silence and then the screams
00:48:17i was on my back and the the area where i was it was in flames black smoke
00:48:24i thought i realized that my leg had been blown off
00:48:29it felt like dangly bits of cotton where my leg was had been
00:48:41what did you think
00:48:42what did you think
00:48:58shit
00:48:58so we found out that one of the bombs had taken out the rear staircase and that was all still
00:49:05on fire
00:49:12the corridor was filling up with smoke and it looked very much like a disaster movie
00:49:18especially special with the polystyrene
00:49:21false ceiling and the smoke um coming down um so it was realized that we weren't going out that way
00:49:30and uh when we uh turned to go back from where we'd come we found the door had been
00:49:39uh dogs shut and we couldn't get out
00:49:47the corridor was absolutely full and with it filling with smoke um we had to um
00:50:02uh start getting lower on the ground um to get clean air to breathe there were sparks coming off the
00:50:11lights
00:50:12fittings that were dangling fire at the end of the corridor that seemed to be getting closer
00:50:18it was at that point i realized that was a good possibility
00:50:23that i could die and i wasn't immortal
00:50:30i could feel my chest very hot and very sticky i didn't realize that was my blood
00:50:36uh and the choking began the absolute acrid choking the poison of the burning vinyl
00:50:50i started very slowly to move forward um all the armchairs and sofas had gone over there were
00:50:58barricades and i was just pushing away along pushing my way through um then i heard a noise in the
00:51:06darkness
00:51:07a man sobbing in the in the dark uh and
00:51:13i went back i was totally blind i was choking and i was just trying to find this guy that
00:51:21was
00:51:22obviously it's in the dark in trouble
00:51:28it was then that i was shouting out for help
00:51:32and chris came into the room and tried to get to me
00:51:39and then a fist came out the darkness and smacked me in the mouth and i it was kevin and
00:51:44i crawled onto
00:51:45a stump of the the leg which he'd lost from one of the missiles but anyway i grabbed him run
00:51:50from behind
00:51:53under the shoulders and i started towing him backwards where i thought i'd just come from
00:51:57he's a big lad kevin he's a big bloke uh when you've got no oxygen in your lungs no oxygen
00:52:04at all
00:52:04i was just passing out all the time two three times i passed out and the flames were getting closer
00:52:11and we were getting that we were getting the heats well and truly and i can remember him saying i
00:52:18can't
00:52:19help you i squeezed kevin and i told him that i i'm going now i'm leaving him and he just
00:52:27said i know
00:52:28and squeeze my shoulder in that situation you've got adrenaline pumping like hell you've got no concept
00:52:40of what time means and there were a palpable feeling of dread from everybody
00:53:01and then eventually door got opened and that was it we were out
00:53:16the first thing i did when the medics jumped on me slamming needles into me um the first thing i
00:53:23said was you know there's a guy just in there through the smoke
00:53:38when they came ashore it was probably the most horrendous thing that i've ever seen in my life
00:53:45these guys the casualties the state of these guys was was just it was absolutely horrendous
00:53:58people that were limbless on stretches and i'll never ever forget the expressions on the faces
00:54:11that will live with me forever to be honest it was it was it was absolutely
00:54:15that they suffered tremendously
00:54:19the level of burns the amount of injured people truly awfully injured people you know
00:54:28we were on the aircraft next on the seeking
00:54:34i was medically evacuated onto hms fearless and that's when i went to a very dark place a very very
00:54:44dark
00:54:44place and i was wandering around the ship i walked into the dining room all tables and chairs had been
00:54:51removed and replaced with a massive floor-to-ceiling stockpile of argentine weapons and uh confident that i was on
00:54:59my own
00:55:01i uh picked up a 45 automatic pistol put it into the front of my um combats and went down
00:55:12to the rear of the ship the stern of the ship
00:55:16um i sat on a bollard lit a cigarette wondered if it was going to hurt what what do you
00:55:22mean if it was going to hurt help us understand explain that
00:55:26bullets into bullets to the brain
00:55:30you wanted to take your own life i intended to because i realized that in my
00:55:38service career as a royal marine commando and everything everywhere i'd been everything i've
00:55:43done amounted to nothing because i left a man to die so i decided it's a a bullet between the
00:55:52eyes
00:55:52was a a good way to uh to to to to go and these two medics walked past with cups
00:56:01of cheer coffee
00:56:03uh they stopped and asked what my blood type was and i told them and they said oh we haven't
00:56:07got that
00:56:07or not much of that do you fancy giving us a pint i thought why the hell not so i
00:56:13followed them into the
00:56:15sick bay and as i went as i went through the door uh many many hands many dozens of hands
00:56:22slammed me to
00:56:22the wall and the weapon was removed from my waistband um so they had worked out somebody had seen me
00:56:31somebody seen me take the weapon the padre uh came to see me because he heard of this
00:56:39young raw marine that was trying to self-destruct
00:56:43um he came down spoke with me uh and that's when he said uh he's not dead
00:56:54so i'm lying in my hospital bed and i seem to remember the padre coming up to me
00:57:01asking me a couple of questions who i you know where was who i was and
00:57:06and he said i've got somebody that wants to meet you and we just both burst into tears and
00:57:12i think it was the most wonderful moment in my second to my son being born
00:57:18the most wonderful thing in my life you had saved his life yeah yeah
00:57:26and he saved mine by not dying
00:57:43i think i'll move that further back
00:57:56after i got back they'd lock me up in a um mental ward at woolwich hospital
00:58:06i really didn't care i didn't want to live i wanted to go back to the falton's and just lie
00:58:13there dead
00:58:18you know the ropes in the back of the garage but i can't get to it keep going past my
00:58:23motorbike and that
00:58:25discourages me from committing suicide
00:58:28there's a rope in your garage now today oh yeah it's all there it's all ready i know where i'm
00:58:33going to do it
00:58:35i've looked at suicide before well a lot of times what do you make of that man's the rope being
00:58:44there
00:58:45uh it's like a security blanket like he says there's a lot of things to get past to get to
00:58:52it
00:58:54so it's better having it there at the back rather than nothing there at all
00:59:00there's a there's a security and no one that it's there yeah it doesn't really bother me because
00:59:06don't think about it you mean you don't care a lot of people don't talk about what bad things have
00:59:24been involved in or yeah they like to keep it to themselves do you think it's been a good thing
00:59:31to to keep it boxed up and to yourself yes i do yeah this this was one of the hardest
00:59:37things i've
00:59:38ever done being here now to tell you but i'd like perhaps my children to know about what happened
00:59:46because i've never spoken to them about it and also my parents i've never really told them anything
00:59:59about it tragic though it was the injury and loss of life of fitzroy could not be allowed to delay
01:00:05preparations for the final battle if they say look we're going to withdraw and we're going to
01:00:12withdraw within the next 10 to 14 days then there will be no need for a battle mrs thatcher's offer
01:00:19tonight to argentina an offer made on what might prove to be the eve of the decisive battle for the
01:00:39there are underwear at this moment operations which i can only describe as extraordinarily daring
01:00:45which until they are completed cannot be revealed but which if they are successful will bring the end
01:00:51of this war that much closer after the battle for goose green two power then had to go and fight
01:00:58another
01:00:58battle wireless ridge you couldn't go into port stanley unless you had taken wireless ridge and mount
01:01:08tumble down because they were the two guardians of the approaches into port stanley
01:01:15we got lifted by helicopter uh for about 10 k's then we had to tab the rest to wireless ridge
01:01:23we were actually on our chin straps we were knackered
01:01:30we could see the lights of port stanley so we knew the end was there it was one last final
01:01:37battle
01:01:41tumble down is a couple hundred feet higher and totally overlooks while mr rich we knew that come
01:01:49daylight if tumble down hadn't fallen then you know the ground we were on was probably going to be
01:01:57our welfare depended on our welfare depended on the success of the scots guards
01:02:05now it was my opportunity my chance to get involved at the sharp end and i wasn't going to miss
01:02:12it
01:02:14our objective within the scots guards was that we had to remove their final and elite forces from mount
01:02:21tumble down and we had to do so by first light so that no counter-attack by artillery and forces
01:02:29that
01:02:29were in stanley could happen so what was at stake for the wider war effort with tumble down we would
01:02:36have lost the war
01:02:51it was a silent approach
01:02:57and then the fighting started and immediately came under severe enemy resistance
01:03:09i can remember taking a white phosphorus grenade stood up and threw it and screamed at my guys
01:03:16to come with me i was thrilled at the time and loving every second of it um and then we
01:03:24engaged the
01:03:24enemy and we went through them like a dose of salts
01:03:30i stuck a guy who was lying face downwards with his arms like that
01:03:36i stuck my bayonet into the back of his arm um and he's fan and snapped the tip of my
01:03:44bayonet
01:03:45and i did it because i didn't know whether he was down and dead or whether he might
01:03:53get up after i'd run past him and sort of shoot me in the back
01:03:57once i put the banner in him i discovered he was alive
01:04:01um at which point you've got a problem because you can't stop there so what did you do killed him
01:04:10with a broken bayonet which is what you end up doing
01:04:13and he spoke to you in english what did he say please it's impersonal i wasn't killing this guy
01:04:22because i didn't like him i didn't know anything about him
01:04:27we could see the fighting on tumble down and we had all the artillery that that was left firing onto
01:04:34wireless ridge before we ever got there
01:04:40we were moving down the spine of wireless ridge the artillery to our rear should be
01:04:47sneaking fire up in front of us and taking any any any enemy out but for some or none reason
01:04:53the rounds
01:04:54actually landed on our location due to a map reading error our own artillery fired onto my platoon
01:05:05it's a scream coming down a very very loud scream
01:05:12you know you could hear the shells burst and then you could hear all the whistling
01:05:16as the shrapnel detonated around you it was absolutely you know it was horrifying
01:05:26as it came in i i started praying to god and it was the first time that i'd ever meant
01:05:34it
01:05:38i survived and i saw um the body of the soldier next to me david parr just lying lifeless
01:05:48i went to power first i was the first one there
01:05:51i didn't feel a pulse but it's very very difficult you know he's cold i'm cold it's very very difficult
01:05:56at night i put my my face to his um to his mouth and see if i could feel anything
01:06:02i couldn't feel
01:06:04anything at all and after that you know that my job i don't know you know you i didn't even
01:06:12sort of
01:06:13think later on like you know oh perhaps if i gave him you know some of this you don't do
01:06:17that
01:06:17so you haven't got time to do that you're still actually in in in the battle zone i didn't you
01:06:23know it's it's not very nice seeing young lads go it but it didn't really um it didn't really bother
01:06:27me
01:06:30people with loving families being brought up well then people suffer when they see a dead body
01:06:38whereas when i said that body it just it didn't really it didn't bother me that's the way i am
01:06:50i'm not a psychologist and i'm and i'm sure if i was to sit down with a shrink and tell
01:06:55about my past
01:06:56and and one thing another that they'd probably sort of um find some reason why i can um function
01:07:04in them circumstances without worrying about it too much and i think the main reason is my upbringing
01:07:15i mean i was in care from the age of one and right up to the age of 18 and
01:07:19i was sent for pill of the
01:07:21post and you know homes and foster parents and adoptions and and all sorts of establishments
01:07:29i was sexually abused quite a few times as a as a kiddie i knew there was something wrong somewhere
01:07:35but i couldn't tell anybody because you know i would be seen alive and you know and that would be
01:07:42it
01:07:42and in the end i i stopped you know stop asking for help
01:07:50my upbringing was so severe and traumatic that it toughens you the wrong way as a child
01:07:59but needless to say it toughens you whether you like it or not
01:08:15it was very clear that the night was ending and it was very clear that we had to complete this
01:08:21task
01:08:23before daylight so myself and a couple of other guys went off engaging snipers and the last one
01:08:30i didn't see and i didn't see and he was sitting behind a rock facing the same direction as i
01:08:36was
01:08:36moving in and i ran ran past him and he shot me from behind i can recall it feeling like
01:08:44i'd been hit
01:08:45by a train or a huge slap across my head and my back i can recall thinking that wasn't a
01:08:53bullet
01:08:54it didn't feel piercing maybe it was shrapnel i can remember trying to rub the wound into the mud
01:09:03to get rid of the burning sensation i can remember the blood filling my ears and the blood filling my
01:09:09eyes and me going i have been pierced it has penetrated me that's blood i'll show you god what
01:09:16it looks like thanks my love so that is a 762 bullet oh that's not the actual bullet no this
01:09:27is a pen
01:09:28and from that shoulder to the tip is what hit me and if i give you an idea if i
01:09:36shot one of these at
01:09:37you from 500 meters away that bit would hit you a second and a half before you heard my gun
01:09:44go bang
01:09:45it's going fast 8 000 meters per second and i can remember lying there in amongst the turf and the
01:09:52heathery shite of the falklands thinking no one will see where i went down
01:10:00the battle wallace ridge was raging the royal artillery was pumping rounds into the ridge
01:10:06there were slithers of granite rock 20 foot high razor sharp and i seen this argentine soldier
01:10:14being cut in half literally just like sliced in half
01:10:22we got to the top heart pounding because you know what's coming and then we got there and there
01:10:29was these tents on top and there was pairs of boots so they must have been around somewhere they just
01:10:33ran
01:10:34off ran off all you could see was just argentinians streaming off the mountains all over the place
01:10:43heading back into stanley some armed some have chucked their weapons and we're just getting out of
01:10:48it the end was night
01:10:57the british shells kept falling remorselessly until the argentine line broke
01:11:058-2 roger out there is a white flag flying over stanley
01:11:10very marvelous
01:11:13what we did get told is that the argentines are retreating into stanley
01:11:18so take your helmets off and put your berries on so mine was in the side pocket just like most
01:11:23of the
01:11:23blokes were put me berry on and the feeling of elation and it's just unbelievable it's probably
01:11:31it probably comes before my kids being at the kids births it was it was a feeling that i'll probably
01:11:37never
01:11:38feel again
01:11:46we know that british troops are still advancing on the mountains but now their orders are
01:11:51drastically different they are to fire only in self-defense
01:11:58it's taken 10 weeks since we left portsmouth but this major objective has now been achieved
01:12:08thankfully i was a completely different platoon commander by that stage
01:12:12i knew that i had been tested right down to the very bottom of the bottom
01:12:19of the pit and pulled myself back up
01:12:33we walked into stanley from wireless ridge which i think is only two or three miles but it seemed
01:12:39like the hardest march i've ever done because um i think it was just that that relief of tension
01:12:49and that adrenaline maybe fear was draining out and i remember i got there we just we just fell asleep
01:12:59by the side of the road
01:13:16who was the first to pull up the flag i put it up again the first thing again that's right
01:13:22again
01:13:22the fire was bursting
01:13:31once that sort of elation went through us all there were thousands of prisoners to be dealt with
01:13:43the argentinian prisoners were being repatriated
01:13:47so we were basically told we need to process them get them through the lines and search them
01:13:54a number of them were carrying bags i searched a few sent them through the line and then i stopped
01:14:00one
01:14:01they had a big kit bag like a sausage bag they call it
01:14:08i opened the bag and pulled the contents out and it was a human being inside
01:14:14it was we got an argentine officer that spoke english and explained to me the situation and
01:14:21it was his dead brother that he'd he's promised his his mother that if anything happened to him or vice
01:14:28versa versa that they would they would bring each other home that just ripped my heart out that just
01:14:34yeah that snapped me that was just left me really quite emotionally knocked sideways
01:15:09when you hear the whistle of something coming in you're not sure you're not sure you're not sure
01:15:12sure what it is but you know it's nasty and there's somebody trying to kill you then you begin to
01:15:18see
01:15:18what the priorities are in life you begin perhaps even to talk to god
01:15:28now what i would say to you now before the war story starts what i would ask you to remember
01:15:35is what you felt when you thought you were going to die and what was important to you then
01:15:44it may have been your wife it may have been your girlfriend it may have been your dog
01:15:55it may even have been your life itself
01:16:00we have all experienced events in the last four weeks that have probably changed our lives
01:16:09considerably
01:16:25our padre managed to get onto the hospital ship uganda and he told me it was over
01:16:32and i was thrilled then because i didn't want my guys to go off some glorious battle without me
01:16:41how dare they do that
01:17:08my mum said i was really pissed off
01:17:11that day she said you had the hump you weren't happy
01:17:21we didn't have any decompression or any sort of wind down only on the ship on the way back
01:17:27it was a bit of a shock to see so many people there
01:17:31overwhelmed yeah totally totally
01:17:41i remember my parents picked me up from brysnaughton and i said to them not mum and dad i can't
01:17:47talk to you
01:17:48why was that do you think well because we were such a bond a band of brothers and
01:17:53it's kind of hard to explain to mum and dad can't go back to the niceties
01:18:00of of it just yet they took me to order shot and i went on the piss for two weeks
01:18:06three weeks
01:18:09usual shit fighting you know being sick it was just a mad couple of weeks
01:18:15i felt uncomfortable in london i felt uncomfortable with people
01:18:20people were asking stupid and dumb questions like did you kill anyone
01:18:24guys would come up in a pub and put a pint down and go hello mate i was in the
01:18:29falklands
01:18:30and you're like oh no please don't ask me and they asked that question did you kill anybody
01:18:36that was the other stupid question everybody come out with i just couldn't cope with it
01:18:42you know these are people that wouldn't talk to you or spit on you if you're on fire
01:18:46i'm sitting there why do you want to buy me a pint now
01:18:50i remember pouring one pint over a guy's head in the pub in stratham and just saying
01:18:55what you think you can pick my brain for a pint of lager
01:19:05it probably took me a little bit of time to adapt um you know when you sort of when you
01:19:10sort of decide you're going to accept death and all of a sudden you're not dead
01:19:17yeah your mind's got to go through some sort of process to to figure that one out just takes
01:19:23a bit of time to to get it through the system
01:19:26you were able to leave it behind no yeah yeah oh yeah well behind well we left it
01:19:31about years and years ago yeah but obviously some people haven't but people have killed
01:19:37themselves over it but you know they're not all they're not all the same thank god
01:19:48i had no idea how badly injured i was
01:19:54i had lost 42 percent of my brain i was completely paralyzed down the left hand side right down the
01:20:07i was told that i would never walk again and that i'd never use my left arm again and as
01:20:13far
01:20:13as my left arm's concerned they're correct as far as my left leg is concerned i have a very weak
01:20:19knee
01:20:19weak hip got no movements in my toes ankle and foot on my left foot but i get around
01:20:27uh so it was clear that my my fighting days were over and that's something that obviously you have to
01:20:35come to grips with but there's no point pretending that it's not over it is over
01:20:43it doesn't seem easy to talk about but because it's not easy i appreciate it no it's all right
01:20:52it's my wife that has to put up with it because i'm not easy you ask her
01:21:01marion am i easy dying no exactly well that's kind hey
01:21:27it is mom told me that when he came back from the falklands
01:21:31he lived at the bottom of the garden he just wouldn't come in at all he just dug his own
01:21:36trench
01:21:37a couple of feet wide just big enough for him to fit in and lived down there and she said
01:21:44she
01:21:44eventually got him to get into a tent rather than just the trench are you sleeping down there yeah he
01:21:54was sleeping down there for several months he just would not come into the house because he didn't feel
01:21:59safe she said a lot of the time she would hear screaming during the night
01:22:08why did you want to be at the bottom of the garden in a trench why was that important i
01:22:12didn't want to
01:22:12be inside anywhere i didn't want to be confined because of the corridor yeah
01:22:21you can have nights here where he'll be screaming in the middle of the night what can you do cuddling
01:22:27up to him reassuring him and that's really all you can do because you can't get too close because
01:22:35otherwise it can cause him to hit out through his flashbacks it's just a case like i say of giving
01:22:44him that comfort
01:22:55around 2012 i was just out walking around and i saw birds in the distance
01:23:07and straight away those birds that i saw made me think of sky hawks
01:23:13because that's what they look like when they're attacking you fast jets you just think it's a dot
01:23:17in the distance next thing you know you're getting attacked by planes and i thought they were in my
01:23:22head it was telling me it was planes i was pretty snappy and sue the wife recognized it because she
01:23:31knew
01:23:31me better than i knew myself and she said i think you should see a doctor just let's just see
01:23:37if there's
01:23:38anything wrong went down there and it got assessed and then the guy told me he said you've got severe
01:23:44combat related ptsd and my exact words to him were you're joking i've got nothing wrong with me
01:23:50but that's what he put in his report he put in his report he doesn't know what's wrong with him
01:23:54and he was right though
01:23:58sue she knew what i was thinking before i knew myself and what she'd do is quite simply
01:24:06get me away from whatever the issue was it helped me tremendously and she was always always by my side
01:24:14all the time
01:24:17although sue's gone she's there in spirit and she keeps me on the level still
01:24:29yeah i miss her so much
01:24:43i've got thousands of images up in my head many are very graphic and horrific
01:24:52they never go away you just control them i don't go around crying and you know i don't need to
01:24:58sort
01:24:58of uh go to sleep with lavender on my pillow you know i just get on with it
01:25:07both my ex-wives probably think i need counselling but
01:25:13yeah
01:25:23the whole experience of war changes you whether you like it or not
01:25:29sometimes for the better sometimes for worse
01:25:41you're living with it all the time but only people that have been to war know that
01:25:50we've been talking about things that i put in a box for 40 years
01:25:55it's actually been good to talk about it
01:25:57i wouldn't have talked to anybody else i wouldn't have talked to my family about it
01:26:06yeah i need to sort of get back to my normal life after this and put it back in the
01:26:11box to be
01:26:12honest and this time i'm going to put a big lock on it and never open it up again
01:26:32you know all these people they all forget that war's not a it's not a game
01:26:38real people lost their lives and it just seems an awful waste
01:26:47do you still feel emotion today for things that happened 40 years ago yes i do actually yeah yeah
01:26:55hmm those experiences are still so vivid 40 years later you know and and i felt we became a band
01:27:02of
01:27:03brothers and it ups it's upsetting to think that they didn't all come back they'd uh
01:27:14yeah gets me emotional
01:27:21they've done a great job
01:27:25and you know in a sense they carried me
01:27:28uh and uh so i was just hugely proud of them
01:27:36there's an old saying actually in the heat of battle
01:27:42it ceases to become a country or even a flag for which we fight we fight for the man on
01:27:50our left
01:27:51and we fight for the man on our right and when the enemy have scattered and empires fall away
01:28:00all that remains are memories of those precious moments when you stood side by side
01:28:09happy happy happy happy it's a wrap thank you sir
01:28:35Details of organisations offering information and support are available on the Action Line
01:28:41page of the BBC website.
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