 You hear a pin drop and that's what I like. And from there. And I saw a glint in the far distance and it was an antenna. Friends at home so you know what we're talking about. I was in charge of the snipers on the ground and I made a command decision to move. Craig, good to finally meet you brother. No worries. You're looking well. Thank you and you're looking well as well mate. Well, I do my best. I've had days feeling better. I told you didn't I put my back well put my back out as an understatement. I've shown you my MRI and it's not looking too good. But every day in paradise. So I don't really care. So thank you for your book mate. It's a bloody big old thing to write. In fact, before I do that Craig, I'm going to say a few keywords because apparently if I say keywords at the beginning of a podcast, YouTube recognize them through their like hearing software. And if it matches the title of your podcast, here you go folks lesson for you in YouTube, then then they put it out to more people. So Sergeant Craig Harrison, former blues and Royals. Craig's going to come on and tell us more about this. But I think the first sniper in their history seen a bit of the old combat, can we say? And been on the all ends of it. But also something that we have in common, other than the military side of things is with both authors. So yeah, congrats on your book mate. Thank you. Thank you very much. My guy Luke's going to be like flashing it up on the screen. But just a quick look for friends at home. So you know what we're talking about. And that's funny, isn't it Craig? When you mentioned like who's got the longest sniper, everyone comes out of the woodwork and starts. And then my mate in the Paris. Does it really matter? No, but boys get like really men get really like childish about that sort of stuff. But yeah, how's the book? How's the book doing? You were saying it's doing quite well. Yeah, it's doing all right. Yeah, it's still selling. You know, it's been out a while now and still going quite strong. You know, doing these podcasts and speaking and all that. More people know about it. More people want to know about me. So, you know, I wrote the book just because about the sniper shot really. And I just couldn't write one chapter. So I had to fill it in with my life story, basically. And people find that more interesting than the actual shot sometimes. So yeah, it's all good. It's interesting reading military books because we've all had such in, we've got so much in similar people that joined the forces. You talked about your brother a lot. Didn't you in the book? Have you got a brother? Yeah, Mark. Yeah. And did he join up before you? Yeah, he joined the ball art too. King Street? Yes. Okay. Yeah, sorry, Craig. I've got a memory like a bloody civ. I can listen to an audio book, get to the end of it and I have to listen to it again because if I'm saying, I'm all right in the car. It all goes in really well. But if I'm saying my workshop making something, I think my concentration goes on the thing that I'm doing. And I'm like, I do that as well. You're not the only one. Yeah, but it's interesting, isn't it? If you read people's joining up stories and there's normally some similarities, the old trip down a recruitment office. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Getting your money for selling legions to the Queen. Yes. Get you a couple of 15 quid I think I've got. Yeah. Yeah. And you sell your allegiance to the Queen, who you swear it and all her heirs and successes. Yes. So if Bobo the clown is the next one in the asset, fellas, you'll all be driving around in them little car, little coloured cars that go boom. The wheels come off. Yes. Yes. Writing. It's just the one book you've got. Yes, that's correct. Yeah, I've got another book as well, but it's about I write everything in a book. And like if I'm feeling depressed or I'm getting anxiety or something like that, I write all my dark thoughts down in this book. And it's got a lock on it. It's got a lock on it. My wife bought it for me. It's a leather bounded book and it's nearly full. And what I'd love to do is publish some of this book to tell people this is mental health. It's not sitting there talking about it. I'm actually living it. And this is in black and white. And this is what one person's hell goes through every day. And it just tells you about how the military let you down, how the government lets you down and stuff like that. But no one's willing to publish it because it's too to the bone, which is a shame because people need to know. I'm not the only one out there with mental health issues. There's other people out there that just get totally ignored. Yeah. Well, I can help you with that, mate, because all my books go out through an awesome company. There we go. You can see it on the spine there, folks. Look, surf books. And I happen to know the director of surf books. So he's incredibly handsome. X Royal Marine. Massive, massive, massive hit with the chicks. Like you wouldn't believe where he's settled down a bit now. And no, he's got a pop, does a lot of podcasting and stuff. But no, I'd highly recommend to anyone start your own publishing company because my publishing experience, let's just say Craig, it didn't come without a few... Yeah. When you get to the point in your publishing experience where you're actually wondering if you can hire an assassin to take your publisher out, then you... But no, seriously, I can chat with you about that later, mate, because I made a decision. Now, I'm not letting other people have their mits on my work again. They just literally don't... To their mits, they don't care about you as an all... Well, I can't speak for every publisher. And I've had three now. So I've got six books. I've had three publishers. Four, including surf books, which as you probably gathered, is my company. And I just made a decision that every penny I see coming in my bank, I've earned that, right? Yeah. Now, it might not be on the international scene, but I've done that. I guess your book was in the best-selling charts, was it? Yeah, it was, yeah. Number one of the top 10 best-selling books. Yeah. I walked through Heathrow Airport, and my book was number two best-seller. It's a good feeling. Yeah. Well, because you've been through the trauma, and so have I, mate. And as you probably experienced, lots of people doubt you, don't they? Yeah. And I, people say, or ping as you man, you script Chris Otto if it's all right. I thought, I'm not going to write a book if it's shit. I'm only going to write a good one. And to walk through Heathrow and see it, I think I was one below Gary Neville, one above James Corden. And I'd done that. I'd recovered from chronic addiction and mental health to do that. It was nice. But to the same end, when people start, like, you know, one of my books, the publisher edited it. And their proofreader chose, every time I said got, they chose it to gotten. And I just said to them, what, that's American. I'm English. And the proofreader wasn't, they weren't even American. They were English. And the publisher, they don't get that this, that's your baby. You've worked thousands of hours on that book, or certainly hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And so, yeah, so we'll, we'll talk about that and we'll, we'll get you on the road to getting your mental health book published because that's where the value is, you know, war books are interesting to read, but there's a bigger battle going on, isn't there? And it's, it's in all our minds. Oh yeah, cool. So I want my wife to do a chapter as well. Do you know what I mean? Just to have to point of view what a wife goes through with a soldier with PTSD and mental health. Have you got some crayons? Got got. Yes. So I'll tell you what, for our friends at home, and let's just go through your story linear style or diary style, because I think they're, they're probably quite keen that we don't keep going off at tangents about things like books. But yeah. So you rocked up at the recruitment office. What, what, how is it you ended in blues and royals? Because I think in linear terms of kind of like marines, parrots, parrots, RAF, Navy, it's quite a seemingly obscure choice. And that, and that's, of course, you, you know, you. Yeah, I wanted to, I've been, I've been riding horses since I was little. So I loved horses. You know, I used to complete in show jumping to Prince Philip games like Jim Carr and stuff. I've been to the horse of the year show when I was younger. And I thought my granddad always said to me, you need to get a trade, you know, think of a trade, like, and I thought, what do you mean gas engineer, electric? And he goes, no, think, think of the army because he was in the army F and I thought to myself, well, how about I've become a farrier, you know, and then that's why I joined the household cavalry to become a farrier because there was no. Farriers around my local area that were taken on apprenticeships. So I went to the recruiting office and I said, I want to join the household cavalry. And I want to, you know, I want to go mounted to where the horses want to become a farrier. You know, I did the tests and then I managed to get the household cavalry on the test, tipped up at Burbank and then it all started from there. You know, I remember being lied against the wall and he said, blues rules of lifeguards, blues rules of lifeguards. And I thought, blues rules. Yep. Next, blues rules of lifeguards. You didn't get a choice. You know, you didn't get told to your blue ball. I just said it. I could have been a lifeguard, or I know, you know, but that's how it all stemmed from for me to become a farrier really. It can be a bit like that, can't it? Oh, yeah, without a doubt. On our first day in induction, they used to call it, they shoved a paper in front of it and said, right, sign for your term. I didn't know what I wanted to serve. It was a 12-year career engagement. I think it was. You got paid more money if you went for that. But then there was a, like a 36-month short-term engagement that you could leave after 18 months. So I looked at the bloke next to me, what were you going for? I'll go for the short one so I can get out if I don't like it. Yeah, go for that. But some blokes really knew what they wanted. They were straight down. Yeah, clear-minded. And did you get to become a farrier then? No, I think the forge was full of handed-bar tasks, big, big beefy cakes, old-school Victorian clay pipe smoking farriers, you know? And I was a bit dyslexic. So when they set us homework, I did more illustration than did writing. And then they didn't like it. So when I went to do my apprenticeship, they said I couldn't go down to Melbourne to become a farrier because my face didn't fit. So I didn't become a farrier. It was quite heartbreaking. So what did you do? I stayed on the mounted side for about another, I don't know, another two years. And then I went to the armored side in Windsor. And that's where I flourished. We call it the green side. If you've got a cell mowny or you've got the green side. So I never looked back from there and never went back to Knightsbridge again. So I just flourished. And then I think I started off as a driver and a CVRT, Symmeter. And then I started as a, then went to an operator to be a gunner and then a commander. And then I went off to do my snipers course. Wow. Craig, I've got a couple of questions that are probably never going to get to ask anybody else on the planet in my lifetime. So when you said the mounted side, did you actually get to ride? Yeah, yeah. The troop and the colour, state openings, you know, captain's escorts, did Queen's lifeguard down in Whitehall and things like that. It's quite hard to go. We had the highest AWOL weight in the British Army at some one point because you think you're a 16-year-old lad and you want to join the Army and you want to join the household cavalry. So when the riding school was in Windsor, they said, right, you're going to Windsor. They go, oh, thank God, I'm not going mounted. And they ended up going to the riding school instead. So it was like a double-edged sword. But yeah, I quite enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed the horses, but I thought I was growing out of it at the time, so I needed to move on. I've just written another thing down. I'm going to get to ask you. So I'm just wondering, mate, if I was to say the name Sefton to you. Yeah, yeah. It didn't mean anything. Yeah. It was the horse that survived the IRA bombing outside our camp. And he was the one that made it back to camp. And he became quite famous, really. And there was a big portrait in our Sergeant's mess of Sefton next to a trough. Yeah. Yeah. So for our younger friends listening, the IRA let off a nail bomb. Yeah. Was it in one of the parks crate? It was High Park. Yeah. Just literally 400 meters up from camp, a car bomb went off, killed nearly all the horses by Sefton, killed some of the troopers. And I do believe the police have a museum called the Black Museum. And it's invitation only, but they've got one of our state helmets in there with nails in it, you know. And yeah, it was quite horrific. And there's a memorial there now. So if anyone goes to High Park, go on the London side where the streets are, and you'll see a memorial there. And we always lower our flag, and we always salute it as we go past, you know, just with respect to the fallen convweights, you know. Crazy. Just thinking about all my generation. That was our childhood bloody IRA bombs going off everywhere. I'll say IRA, but don't believe any of it now. Could have been anyone letting those bloody bombs off. Yeah, these days. But friends at home, in case you wonder what a nail bomb is, I know it sounds pretty self-explanatory, but it literally is that. It's where you get your plastic explosive or, well not plastic explosive, but you pack it with nails and nuts and bolts and any shard metal you can get to act as shrapnel, and you can imagine the evil thing. I mean, bombs are bad enough at the best of times, but when you put those stuff in them, it takes it to another level. They say there's trees there with nails still in it. You know, so it's quite an eerie sight if you go down there. Yeah, on the other side of the fence, mate, I went to that petrol station in Gibraltar where the SAS shot the Gibraltar 3. Okay. And back when I went, which was back in the very early 90s, there was still a whole bullet hole in one of the petrol pumps. And when you're doing that kind of work, Craig, is there any of, say, the Queen's security that are asked to blend in with you guys, maybe put a uniform on or something? No, no, we've never had none of that. But I remember every time we had a state, like escort coming up, the Hereford lads used to come down, the SAS used to come down in their grey vans and grey Range Rovers and practice on the tubes, anti-terrorist stuff and all that, but that's the amount of protection the Queen had on her. But no one sort of mingled in with us at all, unless they could ride horses and carry swords. Yeah, I saw a photo in some picture book one time and it was, or it was magazine or something. And it was, you know, when the guys dress up like they're still in the 16th century or something, the wigs and all of that sort of stuff. And there was an arrow pointing at one of them who sat behind the Queen in the carriage. And it said, this is actually, you know, Detective Sergeant so-and-so of the Met Police or something like that. They might have it because she has her own protection. She has a royal muse that's actually in Buckingham Palace. So she might have close protection and that close to her. You know, because there has been people that run out onto the mound and try and touch her and things like that and do crazy things. Yeah, another thing when we were young, someone ran out and fired, I think it was like three rounds from a blank gun. Yeah, I remember that. And it even shocked the circuit for a few seconds. No one did it for a split second. No one did anything. It all jumped on him. Yeah. And we should acknowledge here, shouldn't we, the terribly tragic role horses have played in war. All those ones taken over to France, guessing First World War and Second World War, but the warhorse story, hundreds were just either left behind or executed because they couldn't be brought back. Now, they got a memorial there by Marble Arch and it's a horse's head. And that symbolises horses at war, animals full stop really with dogs and stuff like that. Yeah. Awful. Because our regiment now, they still do it. If you look on the hooves of the horses, they're branded on there with the number. So you'll have, for instance, the one I used to ride all the time was Kelso. His number was 17 and they have RHGD for the blues and rules on his print printed on his hooves. And the reason why they've done that is because when over to France, Ladjusu sell the horses for money to get food and then go back to the quartermaster and go, look, I've lost my horse. It's died, you know, and get issued another horse. But they had to bring the hoof back with the number on it and say, look, my horse is definitely dead. There's its hoof. There's its number. And then that's how they can prove that the horse has actually died. Come back to the quartermaster munching on a burger. Yeah, me also run away. Got a new suit on. Yes. So there you are. Had you had had experience in conflict before you put in your chip to become a sniper? Yeah, I went to, I did Bosnia and did Kosovo as well. And then from there, when I came back from Kosovo, I started training to be a sniper. And then I did Raptors and Afghanistan as well. Mate, am I crediting you here with being much younger than me when you're actually not? I'm 52 now. I'm 47. Oh, there we go. There we go, yeah. Mate, you got a boyish face. Don't knock it. I've got the lines of, I would say, too many late nights, but many of them weren't the sort of nights you slept on anyway. Yeah. So yeah, great stuff. And what I can remember from the book is when you put your chip in to become a sniper, it surprised everybody. Yeah, it did. Because our regiments not affiliated with snipers, but they had a high guy in the RLC regiments, you know, with the armored side. And they decided that snipers would work well with an armored reconnaissance role. So they gave us the permission that we could actually have snipers at the regiment. So straight away, I put mine in. I wanted to be one, you know, and I excelled from there really. Did you go to Limstone to learn that? No, well, I went to the probe right one. And then Warminster as well. Because I did my section commanders, platoon commanders in Barry Budden in Scotland. And then which was a fucking freezing. And then I did advanced sniper shooting as well. And I think one thing that I remember from the book, it's quite powerful is that the physics involved in firing off this round, this infamous sniper shot, the physics and the mechanics and the engineering of the rifle and all this kind of stuff. Was it interesting learning that stuff? Is it hard? It's not too hard because you have a calculator. So it's not like you sit there and go, yeah, that's times that I've got to divide that by that, you know, just get a little calculator watch or a little dilly calculator and just work it out. It's your, the number two because you're working a pair. Number one, we were the better shots. And the number two would be the better sniper working out all the windage, elevation, biometric pressure, altitude and stuff like that. And it would just transform that onto your scope. And then you take the shot, you know, that's how it works. And what was your class made up of with all different regiments and stuff? Yeah, my class, we had two pathfinders. We had some, a lot of powers and some cold stream guards as well. Yeah. And I was the only household cavalry there, which they seemed shocked because I didn't even have a rifle. I had no gear or anything. I didn't have a pre-course to build up. I just went there totally, totally fucking blind. And everyone else had like four weeks, nine weeks pre-course. And especially the powers were going through as well. And I just tipped over nothing. So the first weekend I had off, I spent the majority in the tailor shop making my ghillie suit, making my sticks, making my beanie, you know. We should point out here, shouldn't we, that the Marines do their own, they do their own course? Yeah, it's one of the best in the world, the Marine one. Yeah, it's highly recommended too. And if I did, somebody asked me the other day, if I did my Army career again, what would I do? And I said, I'll probably join the Marines. Yeah, if I did it all again. Just because your E-Force is better. You know, you're after care in the way you get treated. So yeah, all good. Yeah. Like I was saying earlier, it tends to attract a more sort of handsome-ish soldier, I'd say. Yeah, yeah. No, it's very, very, very good you say, mate. Yeah, the Robin Horsefell SAS from who took part in the Iranian embassy siege, he did his sniper training at Limpston. And everything in the Marines in that sort of training field, it's, they always pride themselves, not just getting it the best craig, but getting it the most functional, the most practical. The leaving would be a way that you hold your rifle and not firing it in case it or something like this. Yeah. So, yeah, interesting as well that, of course, the Marines are part of the Navy and I guess perb right is run by the Army. Yeah. Yeah. And then you've got obviously war minster as well. So I remember coming back from my last Afghan tour, I went down to teach down in perb right for two years. So I ended up doing my course there and ended up being an instructor. So, yeah, both worlds. So out of how many people rock up for these courses and how many pass them? You're talking, you can have about 30 tip up on the course and then you go through different fitness phases and then they weed you out and so you end up with just either 10 on the course or 12 on the course. They hit you hard, you know, as a sniper you've got to be a one soldier. You know, you feel class got me there as well as your discipline, as well as being mature, as well as your shooting. Everything's got to be there. You've got to be the whole package really. It's funny, my chief instructor was a Marine down there, yeah. And what, Craig, what did you picture in your mind when you wanted to become a sniper? What were you picturing the job was? The first primary role of a sniper, everyone's got this sort of idea you to go out with a rifle, look for a scope and shoot people. It's nice to gather lifetime information of the battlefield. So you go out there and you're just getting intel all the time. You're gathering intel, intel, intel, you know, and you give that information back to your HQ or your platoon commander. And then the decision gets made whether to take that target out or not, you know, and I knew at some point in my army career I would have had to kill someone, you know, and it's always in the back of your mind, but you never know when it's going to happen because obviously going on tour, some tours are quite just peacekeeping and some tours are quite, quite kinetic. And, you know, you full on all the time. You're getting ticks all the time, troops in contact all the time. So all depends on where you are, how you get treated. And I find being a sniper as well, you get treated more maturely. You get better options of doing better ops as well, especially helping Herodford as well before the FSG came along. You know, me and my mate, my number two, Eddie, we used to work all the time with Herodford, especially in the early Afghan days for FSG, you know, one power who was sort of like affiliated with him. Do you get any SAS guys that are really Biff shots? Yeah. Yeah. Don't say, don't say nearly all of them. No, no, I don't fit. You know, surprising. I've done some, you know, going down to Junior Brecken and things like that. And because they're in Herodford, they haven't got their timetables like massive and they haven't got time for FSG. So when you end up doing an entry test, like a CFT or BFT or something like that, they end up faking it because they just can't, they haven't got the fitness because their timetables packed. Gosh. I'd say for myself, Craig, when I think of the sniper row on, probably back in the day, I would have thought I'll be thinking like Carlos Hafcock, something. Yes. Yeah. In particular, the crawling into position, the dedication to crawl for, you know, sometimes days on end, just to get that one shot. Yeah. The endurance, the, you know, the bushes scraping at your skin, the mosquitoes biting you, the loneliness of being out behind, you know, likely behind enemy lines. In Carlos Hafcock's case, I think he was on his own. Yeah, a bit of a lone wolf, you know, and he was a legend in his own right, you know, and the way, what he'd done in Vietnam and things like that was just outstanding. But I think through the generations, sniper has changed so much, you know, you can either be covert or over to, you know, stamp your premises on the ground. In his day and age, it was sneaky, you know, you know, you know, you know, I think because of Afghan and Iraq, I think the green sniper in was sort of left on a back burner for a while. You're talking more urban roles and more desert roles than the, you know, the green side. Craig, let's just quickly list off the factors that a sniper's taking into consideration when making the shots like wind adjustments. Yeah, so you've got to think of the wind. You've got to think of the biometric pressure. So if, you know, the pressure around you. So if you think of a fish tank full of water and you get a, and you get like a coat hang and you scrape your coat hang through it, the water's going to part. You imagine that water's air. That's what you've got to fight against with that bullet as well. So biometric pressure, the altitude, how you go thin, the air is going to be heat as well. Because you've got heat shimmer. You've got four types of heat shimmer. The cold as well because the density of the air is more thicker. Over a thousand yards, wherever you place in the world, you've got to think of the cariolous effects of the world going around that would affect your bullet over a thousand yards. You know, there's loads you've got to think of before taking that shot, you know. Elevation. Elevation, yeah, to where you are. To where you are, obviously the air is going to be thinner. How high you go. So yeah. Good, good, good, good, good. And let's talk equipment now because obviously everyone pitches a sniper rifle, don't they? But we can take that one further. You've got your spotter with his scope. Yeah, to have the equipment that one sniper carries would be sidearm pistol, would be an SE-80 rifle, would be his AW sniper rifle with his scope, as well as a spare scope as well, well as a night scope, nicoptics, and you'll carry a spare spotting scope as well. Ammunition for your sidearm, probably a hundred rounds. You carry a hundred rounds of SE-80 rounds, magazine full, and you'll probably carry about 50 rounds of AW sniper rifle rounds. You've got to carry your water, as well as radio, spare batteries, spare optics, binoculars, you know, food. You've got to contain your rations as well, as well as your shit. You've got to take your shit and piss with you, wherever you go. The idea is to leave no sign on that ground. A guinea suit, take your guinea with you, and roughly you're asked about it as oh yeah, and a GPS laser binos, and that's about it, as you carry equipment-wise for a sniper on the ground, yeah. And that's just one person, so you're number two, we'll carry the amount as well. That's a lot, isn't it? And my limited understanding is that the spotting scope is obviously way more powerful than the sniper scope. Yeah, it will be, yeah. It'll be like 40 times more powerful and it'll have the same graphical in there as your sniper rifle. So wherever the spotting scope will do, and it'll go, yeah, it's three mil dots left. You put three mil dots left on your scope and you can spot, you know, where that target is. Yeah, got you, got you. And can you tell us about what currently, what rifle does the British Army issue? Yeah, they carry the L11A3 sniper rifle, which is an AW which stands for Arctic Warfare, because it was mainly done for the Marines to start off with, and then the British Army took over that rifle from the L95, which is the very first sniper rifle that came into service, you know, made by Dave Rawls from Macrissie International. So, yeah. Yeah, I think I fired that, I think I fired that one. They used to call this... The L96. Yeah. Fantastic rifle in the green zone. That's what I did my first tour with that. You know, really good rifle in the green zone. It was light, you know, and when you shot the bullet, it laid quite flat over 300 yards, so you can engage targets standing up, you know, if you didn't have time to get your sidearm out or your rifle out. When you say green zone, is that your sort of urban area? In Afghan itself, you have a green belt going through it, especially the northern Helmand province, and we call it the green zone. Basically, it's like... I don't think it's a mile either side, and it's just like tropical, and it's all water and stuff like that. And we call that the green zone, you know, and then more you spread out, it becomes more desert. And... Yeah, got you, got you. Yeah, we... Our training team had got... We were down at the Rangers and they booked out of the armory a sniper rifle. They used to do this sneaky... It's really awful. But you didn't really think twice about it back then. They used to... They didn't tell people to keep the scope away from your eye. Oh, I believe, yeah. Yeah, and of course the SE-80 that we were trained, or what I was initially trained on, has a rubber, you know, rubber eye pad around it, so it doesn't really matter if it knocks back in. And it's only 5.56, so it'll sort of kick back of substance. But of course, somebody trained on that will then pick up the sniper rifle, put it right into their eye. And the kickback is, it's like a horse kicking back and it puts a semi-circular cut right down to the bone. Yeah, I saw that happen. We call it a sniper rush. Okay. Yeah. Yes, gosh. And what are you doing to set yourself up for the shot then? Is it similar to when you're in a firefight in the military that you don't oil your you don't oil your barrel, so you don't get a puff of smoke come out of it? What I used to do is carry my rifle with a pull through on it and as soon as I'm back to fire I'll pull the pull through through, so I'll clean the barrel anyway, so it's dry anyway, but because of the desert and the sand and God knows what, I'll just pull it through quickly and I've got enough time to get on the ground anyway because the tick's happening, so it's not going anywhere. And then you need to be PID the target. And that's why a sniper is more deadly on the ground because you can PID that target better than anyone because they've got like a Susat site or an ACOG and they know where the firing's coming from but they're covering fire down because you've got that times 5 times 25 times 56 scope you could look at it like I'm looking at you now so you can PID that target properly and then you can take that target out. And which was your first theatre award that you operated as a sniper in? It was a lack, yeah. Yeah. That would have been quite a while ago now then. Yeah, it was quite quite yeah, my first kill was that we were in a mug in the desert, in the Mesa desert and we just kept getting hammered all the time by mortars and artillery and we found out that we were getting scouted by a guy on a motorbike and he kept calling the artillery on the mortars in so my job was to take that guy out and which I did was at 675 yards away if I had to take the heat shiver if you ever see in the movies when you see somebody walking towards you they always look taller and shoot quite high on that one and I hit him about there in the throat. Had you killed anyone before that in your other active service? No, not at all. How does that affect you? Like I always say to people you feel in trouble, you know you feel like you're going to get tapped on the shoulder and somebody's going to take you away and go just kill someone I was getting, saying well done you know, thanks you save lives because it was only a matter of time before the mortars were on target and we'd started taking casualties so that guy needed taken out and that's what I'd done and he had love intel on him as well I remember going up to the body he had maps on him and he had a radio that was tuned into the icon chatter you know and he was clearly insurgent Yes, wow it's kill or be killed isn't it? Exactly, you play the game you're going to get burned Yeah, yeah gosh How did the longest shot come around? We were on I was in position a day before the op and it was my job to give overwatch for a patrol going in a mixture of British soldiers and the Afghan army now the British soldiers were in the Afghan army patrol because they were teaching them how to patrol you know and to search and to soldier better and I think it was York's were the Yorkshire regiments were in the patrol of the Afghan army and they were approaching this village and the village I could see the Taliban were queuing up an attack but I couldn't engage the targets then because I had to make sure that it wasn't they were going to engage that patrol I had to make sure that so and it was about 11 o'clock in the morning it was a perfect day winter tour and I had an interpreter with me and he was tuned into the icon chatter and somebody was working these Taliban so he was telling me what to do where to go and I couldn't work out where it was and I saw a glint in the far distance and it was an antenna and it was a guy on the radio so I stood against a wall that's what made people understand I stood up when I'd done my shot I let against a compound wall and I bracketed and what bracketing is I took my first shot and where I saw it strike I just added more elevation all the time until I hit the compound wall and when I hit the compound wall and then the icon chatter went quiet and then the only voice we heard was the guy saying I can't direct you anymore I'm getting shot at from somewhere and that person was from me so my intentions were to keep his head down or anyway the patrol went in and they got engaged by the Taliban and I was engaging targets that day and it went on until about 2 o'clock in the afternoon it was horrendous so I made it I was in charge of the snipers on the ground and I made a command decision to move three vehicles that I had behind me into the kill zone to block the attack and to block the patrol trying to make the extraction trying to get all the wounded out so I made that decision and my guys were engaging targets and then suddenly all the lads went and hit the ground they were getting engaged by somewhere by an automatic weapon so I checked the work out where it was coming from so I checked all my firing points everywhere I engaged the target I checked where it was coming from I couldn't find anything so I looked up the only place I didn't check is where I shot 11 o'clock in the morning was at that compound wall so I checked and there were two guys there and they were on a PKM a belt fed machine gun and they were spraying down onto my lads so I fired the first shot I missed I fired my second shot and as the guy stood up I hit him in the chest he fell down and then I fired a third shot and as I fired my third shot I moved across and fired a fourth shot so I had two bullets in the air at the same time the third one missed and the fourth one I hit the guy in the side and the only reason why we knew why I hit him is because you try and get that weapon you try and get that weapon so it doesn't recycle back into the insertion's hands but the weapon were already gone but the dead were there and that's what I knew I shot him it took six seconds flight for that bullet to hit the target and we worked it slowed down from three flights to a bullet there's supersonic so as soon as it leaves the barrel it's breaking the sound barrier supersonic and then it goes transonic when it starts wobbling and then it goes subsonic where the bullet slows down so much until it hits the target and we worked it out then it slowed down to about 40 miles an hour so if you were driving a car you would see the bullet flying through the air and that's how the shot I never knew I broke the world record then an Apache helicopter came up because we were in a contact for a head of a long time and they came up and obviously they work in pairs so one popped up and another popped up over the ridge line and they GPS'd it at 2,475 yards or something like that I would imagine it becomes quite addictive you know you take one guy out and then another one appear almost video game-ish yeah you become you become numb you become numb to it because you you have to just box it in your head you know so you do it you do one kill was it deep pump to compromise or something like compartmentalize it yeah you sort of just have to store it in your head all the time because you're doing the job and what you're doing is saving lives you know that's important but you just try and ignore it and just get on with the job acts like they're targets not human beings that's a good one because it's when you make stories up so you get into a location and you have to observe them you're there for a week and you sort of get to know that person and you get to know his routine you get to know his family you get to know he's got kids you get to know he's got chickens, cows, goats and stuff like that and then you get the green light to take that target out because he turns out to be an insurgent that's hard did it put you in a situation where you were getting a lot more kills than the rest of your troop yeah yeah I was there was only two snipers in my troop so the rest were just lads on the ground and we had jackal open top vehicles so we just screw around the location and if there was a long distance shot or we give overwatch and they needed more protection that's when I used to get my sniper rifle out and give pop protection like I said before I can PR the targets better than anyone else so it does help and what was the response from your lads to your successes I'm guessing it probably wasn't always positive my lads worked really hard and we became quite a close close group of people we were in high demand in afghan you know we were just getting it's called factorize the flat so factorize the forward line of enemy troops so basically they draw a circle on a map and we have to break that circle to find out where the Taliban are so you go north until you get engaged you go east you go west and then they put a dot and they draw a bigger circle so this is how far the Taliban are and they take and that's when they hand over to the next tour they say this is how far we push the Taliban back you know and it's called factorizing the flex you're factorizing that circle so yeah it's quite hard especially getting hit and being in contact all the time and we were in such a demand we didn't have downtime either so it was quite hard to be the lads we were the same caliber there was no animosity because I was getting kills and the lads weren't there was no animosity at all we were there to do a job and the lads knew it as well can be a lot of sort of testosterone, fuel, rivalry in the yeah it was the first tour and there were 16 of us it was all first tour so they were apprehensive as well especially I knew the Marines did it as well the Marines were taking casualties because they were too scared to fire back because of the repercussions of killing someone why did you kill that person so I've ran down the line before shouting why aren't we fucking returning fire because people were scared of the repercussions of being engaged by the enemy and shooting back but as a sniper I had confidence in myself that I could get the job done you know and the long shot Craig was this in Iraq or Afghanistan? Afghanistan yeah like I said I didn't even know I didn't even know until I got back to England and it all got leaked out and what was the response like from the the public side of things and also the military? The military let me down massively you know they never censored the story that went out when my men was preyed and then we started getting death threats and my wife was getting death threats, my daughter and myself and the regiment didn't do anything at all and I felt very let down by them as well you know and I broke the world record for the longest night because my rifle only goes 1500 yards you know it's been broke now by 50 cal but I still hold it for that small caliber but the regiment didn't I didn't do it I did it because I needed to do it because I was saving lives I didn't do it because it was I broke the world record but the regiment gave me no credit for it at all they let me down massively Did you take a lot of shit from I think I mentioned this earlier you've only got to start talking about sniping isn't it everyone's done it everyone's done it you meet somebody in the army you go to your arms and sniper you start talking to them you go and you just say what with me you know you haven't experienced it you know but I've I went there I've done it and I've done a job of a sniper of observation in the battlefield and I've also taken targets as well so I've lived the sniper role you know but yeah I know you get a lot of animosity because you are a sniper you know I've had not as much now but when it all got leaked out that I was a murderer I was a killer I was a trained assassin you know you think you're fucking out mate I was just doing my job how can you shoot someone I tell you what you be in my fucking situation where you're getting shot at where you see your mate lying there being shot and you not shoot back I'll give you a gun and you telling me you won't shoot back you know couch potatoes that just want to speak keyboard warriors yeah let's call a duty generation isn't it friends at home I don't mean everybody that plays call a duty but I'm saying it does bring out this kind of phenomenon yeah interesting interesting and what made you leave the art because you PTSD yeah PTSD I would have stayed on Chris I would have stayed on mate but my wife noticed it first you know the telltale signs I thought I was fine you know especially going on exercise after tour I didn't I didn't feel right but every time like you know when the other squadrons play enemy I was taking it too far I was in my head I'm still in fucking Afghan here I'm still in Iraq you know when I got blown up in Afghan on my last tour all my emotions like an ice wall got shattered so everything that I was putting in boxes just got blown apart and it just flooded and I just couldn't control it but I thought I was in control but obviously I wasn't because my wife noticed it first and then the army noticed it and after doing 23 years it took me half an hour to get kicked out you know not even a thank you can you give us an idea so we can kind of build up the mental health picture how how did it start manifesting like being on my own before everyone was against me before I was getting followed arguing with my wife for no reason at all even though she's the best support in the world and I just picked an argument with her for a simple thing you know she eats and silly things sex life going off it and suicidal thoughts what the fuck's going on here you feel out of control you feel totally out of control and you can't control it whatever goes into your head you just think I just can't control this and you want it to stop and I can see why people do commit suicide because sometimes I fall in my head it's the only way out it's the only way I can stop this in my head you know were you drinking at all do you know what my therapist that I see he says it surprises me Craig he goes because you don't take drugs does she medication he goes we don't take drugs you don't drink because I'm stronger I'm a strong person and I know I've got complex PTSD and I've got depression but I refuse to be in that line where I'm going to let a drug or alcohol control my life you know so I go to the gym at 4 in the morning I try and control it in other ways and my dog helps me you know she's 18 this year you know and she's still going on she keeps me going and the most person that keeps me on this planet is my wife the one that keeps me on the street and now my wife the one that stops me taking drugs and going alcohol my wife and she's an incredible person big shout out to your wife yeah have you got to the bottom of what's behind PTSD because it's called complex PTSD for a reason as in there's a multitude of factors that combine not at all not at all I don't think like we discussed before I am a slave to medication slave to it and I'm too scared to come off it because I have come off it before and I've I've crashed massively and Tanya's going why are you like this I thought it's fine and I tell her and she goes go back on as soon as I'm on her I'm a different person again you know we can discuss this later mate it's worth getting to the bottom of it although because we only get one life don't we yeah for sure can't stay on that toxic meds for too well you've got to stay on meds as long as they do the job that they're for very often these sort of meds they have to get people over a challenging period in their life then we've got to start lots of things changing our life changing our thinking and and adopting a less damaging way of dealing with trauma but you'll get there mate you certainly won't be the first definitely won't be the last and yeah for sure clearly from what the story you've told us you've you've definitely got it in your character to get on top of this one it can just seem hard at the time I know what it's like I remember after I left the mob I was having a particularly bad time at one time and I and I found up the sick bay and in the naval base near us and I just said look please I'm an ex marine can I just come see come and see the dock you know you just want to be back in that environment where you can talk straight with people when they get you and and I can remember that the Ren that I spoke to who answered the call or whatever rank she was or role she was and she thought she was covering up the phone but she couldn't I could still hear her and she was just like sniggering at the dock you know we've got this guy he's not even in the mob anymore but he was and it it's hard you know it's hard you've given so many years of your life to something that is all consuming and it becomes your identity and then at the click of a thing you said no actually I was just a number on a bit of paper at Whitemore exactly what you are but the beauty of it is it works both ways is once you learn to embrace that that's all you were then you you can move on into actually really fulfilling your potential and yes how's and how's the old public speaking going what sort of stuff do people want to hear and basically about my life really about how I'm coping with mental health and how I cope and how I overcome things you know and they like to know about the shot as well how does the shot come around things like that they're interested but more more of like I can get through this and I'm experiencing it and I'm still going through it and I'm still here and it's like my Instagram you know and me and my wife answer all the questions all the time every single one everyone replies to us we always reply back to them you know to give them encouragement and then a lot of people turn back to me and said fucking hell I just thought you wouldn't speak to me I just thought I'd send you a message just hoping no mate if you want us to talk we'll talk people have spoke to me at 2 o'clock in the morning 3 o'clock in the morning and I've just been there for them and that's where it all ends just giving people hope and strength mate you got a whole lifetime of that ahead of you because you've got one hell of a story and you've certainly got the skill set and you've got the passion for helping people massively I've opened a survival school Maverick Survival and I aim to well the people I get on here civilians with mental health issues or just normal civilians it doesn't have to be anyone with issues they can come along but you know and with Cloud Orca company that sponsored me three spaces each month for military veterans with mental health issues to come down to the school so they can experience just a bit of survival skills you know just to get out and about into the wilderness once more find that connection find a bit of purpose in their life is this survival as in sort of bushcraft type stuff yeah but all bushcraft stuff making fires wiggling eating out sausages on the old campfire stuff you know and I provide everything for them so if you haven't got any gear you just tip up and warm clothing medication if you're taking it a wash kit I provide the tents for you the sleeping bags if you need it you know so people aren't under that stress they have to buy everything it has come along brilliant you'll have to send us all the links for all of this great we'll put them below the video and the great thing about bushcraft is this the ultimate in mindfulness no we're out of doubt and the amount of people that tip up and we sit there because I only take threes and twos because I feel that they're getting my full attention then I'm not taking 10 people where I'm talking to John here and there's Bob over there doing sort of mental with an axe you know I'm just I'm you know they've got my full attention and that's what they like and they say the time just goes like that you know it's one minute nine o'clock and next minute they look at them watch it's three o'clock in the afternoon brilliant Craig listen it's been absolutely legendary talking to you I could go on and on but I'm trying to keep my podcast shorter these days I'd rather have loads of people go oh look this is an hour I can listen to an hour then we go on for three hours and they go I can't I ain't got time for that and I want everybody to hear your your story so massive massive thank you anyway I can help you just you know we'll support you whatever to do anything we're always welcome back on the show then you just say the word mate yeah thank you for having me on the show I could talk on I could talk as well we'll do another show mate that's fine friends at home if you've got a load of questions put them below and say Chris can you get Craig back on and then oh and Luke and I will get it get it sorted so give my best wishes to your your good woman I will do tell her keep doing what she's doing and to everybody at home massive thank you for tuning into another episode big love to you all please look after yourself and we'll see you next time